macsen rufus and I are like duelling banjos in this thread. Next push is in so here we go.

Its 1133 and a whole heck of alot has happened. For starters, the French reemerged. Caught me off guard at first so lots of down and dirty battles. They reappeared in Champagne, the French Porvence that rebelled earlier in the game. During that time the Spanish have decided to attack as well, the traitorous dogs. They are really putting the screws to me, but I think I'll be able to ford through that as well. The Italians have decided to take a whack at my shipping lanes as well, but some lucky sea battles for me have the Italians licking their wounds.

I have a Crusade marker all ready to go and am hoovering up my still meager Merc supply. Maybe I shouldn't say that, there was alot of fighting going on during this push so it wasn't like they weren't being used. Anyways, I'm staged to Crusade to Palestine, my Crusading Objectives being my next goal.

Moneywise I am the richest. I have a good amount coming in, and a large amount going out to keep the Mercs well paid.

I have been getting the same variety of Mercs as macsen so nothing different there. Mercs almost always proc on my border states. An occassional Port city away from the front may have 1 every once in awhile but not often. It also seems that my Provences that border a faction I am at war with produce a good deal more Mercs then ones that just border another faction. When the French attacked me, Flanders started to have large amounts of Mercs, about double what they usually did. When Spain back doored me, Aquitaine's Merc supply doubled as well.

Another thing that I noticed that was interesting was when HRE moved a Crusade through my lands. The year after the Crusade passed through the Provence, I had 8-9 units of troops available in that Provence but the units had very few men in the unit, (like a unit of Archers with 3men). I also noticed when I disbanded a unit of Longbowmen (they only had 3 men left in the unit) the next year that unit was available (with the same 3 men, also the same general) as a unit of Mercs. The year after that they disappeared.

Complaint time. What a pain in the hoop Mercs are. You cant do anything with them. I can't merge 2 units together to get a full unit or anything. I have a ton of units at 1/2 to 1/3 full. I'm not sure if I should disband them or what. Right now they are border guards. I was goin to try and replace them when full Merc units became available, but everyone started English hatin so they were sent on the defense.

Well thats it for now, I'm sure this weekend I'm gonna have alot more to tell so see you guys then.