Mercenaries and what you can do with them

[Sensei Warrior]

Now that's an interesting possibility - downside woulde be cost of troops and upkeep, but assuming all you needed to train would be peasants for garrison (or anything else that can come from the fort, like slav warriors etc), your teching-up costs would be minimal.

That would be quite a challenge, maybe I'll give it a go, too

Seems, like I threw down the gauntlet somewhere. Whoot! Let us see, as long as I've got an interested party, rules are a good thing.

So the general "rules" for such a challenge would be:
* NO military buildings (spearmaker, bowyer, horsebreeder etc etc etc) just INNS for recruitment of mercs

Agreed. Although retraining Royal Units is gonna be a pain in the hoop. Are we considering ship-building buildings a no no? I cant imagine we are, at least not if we want to trade. And what about the cannon foundry stuff late game? That technically should be added in as well.

* only trainable troops to be those that come from forts

Agreed. Watch and I'll be grabbing Scotland ASAP.

* the only other faction troops would be ROYALS/ex-royals

Agreed, but as stated above, if we cant build the buildings, then no being able to retrain the Royals.

* hmmm, what about crusades/jihads?

I think Crusades/Jihads should be allowed, but go easy on the Jihad spamming.

* is bribery allowed - I would say yes, I think.

Yes, all sorts of vile deviant treachery is allowed. Burn em, stick em, and bribe em are all acceptable.

We may well learn the limits of the "mercenary pool" in a campaign like this

I believe you're right. Now for the Nitty-gritty. Will it be Total Domination or GA mode? It would seem GA mode would put us in a Roleplay type of mood and stop some of the potential steamrollering Ignoramus was refering too. In the end I have no objections to either.

ERA? Early, High or Late? Or doesnt matter?

Are we going to dictate a skill restriction. Easy, Normal, Hard, Expert? If we insist on Expert, it'll take me a bit longer, I really have to concentrate on that setting in order to do well. Although Hard is not a problem in the concentration dept.

I am a firm believer of being able to Pick your own faction, but I think it would suck for our audience if we picked the same one. Which faction were you thinking about using?