Legions

[mrdun]

Usual batch of rabble, haha. Do you have an merry band of town militia following?

[Quintus.JC]

The Romans were really big on artellaries. I remember the starting scene in Gladiator (film). fantastic!

[Spartan198]

Pre-Marian
I garrison cities with town watch while building ships and use mercenary armies for needed offensive operations.

Post-Marian Field Armies
1 Praetorian heavy cavalry captain
7 Legionary Cohorts (6 + 1 First Cohort if I control Rome)
4 Legionary Heavy Cavalry
2 Cavalry Auxilia in place of better light cavalry
4 Archer Auxilia
2 Onagers / Heavy Onagers for toppling city walls as well as to frighten enemies

Post-Marian Garrisons
6 Infantry Auxilia
5 Roman Cavalry (includes one to act as captain)
2 Archer Auxilia

[Quirinus]

Usual batch of rabble, haha. Do you have an merry band of town militia following?

Actually, I do! Not following tightly, but generally, once my main army has left their base city and started campaigning, I start to churn out militias from peripheral troop-training centres-- those that have a respectable population, but do not have the infrastructure to be full-fledged troop factories yet.

I try to avoid that strategy since I consider it a bit of an exploit - it's a house rule I use.

Why would you consider it an exploit? This strategy would be extremely costly, wouldn't it? Paying full recruitment price for one-shot use? I do use a variation of this tactic though-- if I think that I am in no danger of losing a battle on the way, I only hire mercs before a big battle or siege. Money conservation is pretty important for the Julii.

[caravel]

Why would you consider it an exploit? This strategy would be extremely costly, wouldn't it? Paying full recruitment price for one-shot use? I do use a variation of this tactic though-- if I think that I am in no danger of losing a battle on the way, I only hire mercs before a big battle or siege. Money conservation is pretty important for the Julii.

Perhaps because the game is easy enough as it is? I tend to hire only the Mercs that I need and no more, those are usually the Rhodian Slingers and Cretan Archers. When playing as factions that are well out of the recruitment areas of the aforementioned my Merc usage is almost nil. If I do hire any in an emergency then I hold on to them and use them as garisson units at least. Hiring them for a one off to push your siege equipment then disbanding is a bit cheesey.

[Flying Pig]

NEVER EVER EVER keep mercs in a city or you'll end up wondering why yu're on -100000000 To Be Continued income and have only one roman unit

[Punicus]

NEVER EVER EVER keep mercs in a city or you'll end up wondering why yu're on -100000000 To Be Continued income and have only one roman unit

My suggestion to keep them in a city as a garrison and move on was meant as temporary - keep them there to keep order until you have a sufficient amount of your own units to maintain peace, as Omanes said.

[Caius]

I use mercenaries when I need to boost my numbers of soldiers. Or when I need to increase the population, but only if its very need.

[Quirinus]

I never said I disband them afterwards. :) Especially when fighting in barbarian lands, I only disband mercs (who are relatively cheap to maintain and fairly effective, anyway) when their numbers get too low (say, if their numbers fall into the single digits) or when I really need the population to prop up an emptied-out town. I hate it when I enter a barbarian stronghold, only to discover that they have bled the town dry in the process of fighting me. There's really not much you can do with a town with, say 500 people left, except to sit on it for a inordinately long time.

[Good Ship Chuckle]

There are some mercs I hire with out thinking. Like cretan archers, or dare I say...Mercenary War Elephants!! They pose such an advantage in the field, that you never find yourself regreting getting them.

[Quirinus]

Yes, but they are also prohibitively expensive to recruit and maintain, which is a problem if you're strapped for cash.

My mercenary recruitment policy depends on how much money I have, mainly. If I have tons of money and I'm teetering dangerously close to 50000d, I will go on a mercenary recruiting spree. Other than the fact that it's always nice to have an extra unit of super-fast light cavalry or dirt-cheap skirmishers, I sometimes also use them to scour my lands for brigands.

[The Wandering Scholar]

I tend to mass recruit mercs in early gamewith Carthage. Historically that's what they did when war came knocking.

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

Why would you consider it an exploit? This strategy would be extremely costly, wouldn't it? Paying full recruitment price for one-shot use? I do use a variation of this tactic though-- if I think that I am in no danger of losing a battle on the way, I only hire mercs before a big battle or siege. Money conservation is pretty important for the Julii.

Its more the lack of any upkeep charge which I consider an exploit more than anything else. I'm a fairly rare user of mercenaries anyhow, considering their ability to be instantly recruited a little too useful against an already disadvantaged AI.