Quote Originally Posted by Mykingdomforanos
How much is their upkeep? If they have say 50 men. For that matter what is the upkeep on a family member?
In Massila my Carthaginians have a client ruler whose bodyguard is the "Celtic Lesser King" unit. He has 62 men costing 432 mnai/turn. I'm on large units.

I'm pretty happy with this guy, because it's a long term front line town -- I nabbed it early by naval landing and I've no plans to expand in Gaul until I get a level 4-5 MIC + blacksmith + temple built in Massila. So a tough heavy infantry unit that can fight defensive sieges on the stone walls is OK with me. I'm assuming they'll regenerate casualties like other bodyguards, which means I don't need a MIC in place to retrain them between battles.

These days I've got so much money that I don't know what to do with it, but I'd be a lot less pleased at getting a pricey cavalry unit during an early expansion phase where they'd be off the front line in a couple of years. I've read a few posts from people who've built level 4 governments in early Pontic expansion and greatly regretted it.

So in most places I would just build a level 3 government instead. Level 4 government is good for those special cases where you need the heavy unit for immediate defensive duty, or you eventually want a level 5 regional MIC and you're prepared to suck up the cost. In Massila I have both...