Using Mercenaries

[gunslinger]

In my campaigns as the danes and the english, I have made good use of merc mounted crossbows. I basically only use them to kill the byz katanks. If the byz attack with katanks on their flank, one unit of mounted crossbows can severely diminish one or two units of katanks before they get to my lines.

Of course, now my English billmen with valor upgrades from Mercia and weapon and armor upgrades from the Iberian are WAY more than a match for any cavalry that they can latch onto, making the mounted crossbows much less important in my armies.

[Foreign Devil]

I don't think that anyone has mentioned that merc artillery is generally very cheap, upkeep-wise, which is another good reason to keep some around. I almost always use merc artillery instead of teching up, at least in the first 50 or so years of my campaigns, and often much longer.

[ajaxfetish]

I'd reply, but everything I can think of to say about mercs has already been covered. They have their uses. They have their limitations. Good synopsis, folks.

Ajax

[gaijinalways]

I also use some merc troops for defense. Sometimes you can't bring regular troops fast enough to a province far away and the mercs might give pause to an attack or help in repelling enemy troops. And since more often than not they might get killed enough to disband them after the battle, their upkeep is not high once your regular troops arrive.

[_Aetius_]

I probably hire to many mercenaries than is healthy, as the Byzantines I have sometimes half stacks of mercenaries, of course only if I can afford them, I use them similar to the Romans used other nationalities as auxillaries.

I hire Billmen, Longbowmen, Templars, sometimes Vikings, CMAA, Halberdiers, Italian infantry, Lancers, anything that will supplement my army. Mainly anti-cav units, but special units like nearly full Templar units are to rare to miss.

I use mercenaries also as fodder for far flung garrison duty, i'd rather a load of mercenaries perish than Byzantines like Varangians who can only be trained in a few places.

On loyalty they can be very disloyal, during a Byzantine civil war many mercenaries sided with the rebels and I lost Italy because of it. But another time I had a civil war with Byzantium mercenaries who had served for a long time with the Emperor rallied to his cause and I doubt i'd of won the war if it had not been for them.

The rules are, hire only what is useful, affordable and make sure you keep them in check, don't allow to high a percentage of the army to be mercenaries and disband what is no longer useful.

[Cowhead418]

Mercenaries just helped me keep Prussia. I hadn't been checking my provinces when suddenly Prussia revolted with an army of 1300 rebels (I'm the Portuguese so Prussia is far off from the rest of my empire). My troops held off that rebellion but with significant casualties. My army consisted of Russian troops that had rebelled in a Russian civil war so I cannot replace any casualties. The turn after I fought off the rebellion the Lithuanians reappeared with 4000 troops.

As I had only 212, it did not look good. I considered just retreating and ransoming them but I checked what mercenaries were available and decided instead to have a major last stand. I trained some Slav Warriors and hired all the mercenaries available. It was my 592 troops versus 4000 Lithuanian savages. My troops were just a bit better in quality but vastly superior in valour. My men fought valiantly and crushed wave after wave. I defeated the last wave just in time because I don't think I would have survived another. My troops were exhausted and depleted but I won with just over 300 casualties. My general of this battle received some very nice traits and also went up from four stars to six. The mercenaries helped to kill nearly all the enemy troops. The only downside is that I didn't get the Butcher trait. I ended up with about 970 prisoners and just missed the mark.

[ajaxfetish]

I probably hire to many mercenaries than is healthy, as the Byzantines I have sometimes half stacks of mercenaries.

Well, at least you're being historically accurate .

Ajax

[RemusAvenged]

Mercs can be enough to change the whole game from the start.

One way to use them, works well in VI, is to buy a bunch early in the game before any neighbors have big armies, and to keep them from getting them. Since they are cheap you can buy enough to make a big difference in stomping the surrondings. Make sure that in any attrition they are up first to save your real armies for down the stretch.

If you conquer enough quickly you can keep them, but if things go poorly you may have to ditch some. At the very least they will have hopefully been successful in taking your enemies down several notches.

Not to say this is really an ethical approach..

[_Aetius_]

Well, at least you're being historically accurate .

Ajax

hell yes!