army cost

[Bearhugger]

could it be that troops cost much more than - for example - 100 for militia?
because i have only one full stack (with some mercs) and a full stack of cogs, and the rest is garrisoned for free and my army upkeep is 10000. is this a bug?

i use lusteds CAI and real battles 1.3.

[warlord_anubis]

no..that is a fact.and btw the upkeep kost for mercs varry and they are expencive.i recommend only to use them when u got no other choise.they are money eating...

[delra]

Maybe upkeep has the cost of free upkeep units included despite you not paying it?

[Bearhugger]

i found out what is eating my money up.
bodyguards. 15 of these guys cost 300. my king has 40 of them.
i always thought these go under "wages" but apparently they dont.
wages is for the generals (1 man). bodyguards are army cost.
its all clear now.
already thought i encountered a bug.

mercs. i have lots of them. with mercs, its easy to decide who dies first :-)

[delra]

Oh, that too. Forgot about them.

As for mercenaries. There are countries which just can't fight without aid of mercenaries in their stacks. If there wasn't Armenian Cavalry, what would we use for our Byzantine armies as a hammer? Charging enemy troops with Skythikons would cause them die of laughter not their swords...

[warlord_anubis]

we'll get some bad generals board a ship and let it fight aiggains rebel ships...bye bye generals and upkeep.i'm alway's sending my spare bad generals to death (who needs the bad one anyway?)
and mercs..we'll somethimes u have 2 but don't push it.and guard youre border city's more heavely and youre core city's the minimum.that saves cash 2

[Gorrrrrn]

Just a word on the additional cost of units.

Often one is told that unit x costs so much but that doesn't take into account walls and barracks etc buildings. Not to mention the cost of building up a settlement to huge walls or castle to citadel for elite troops.

mercs - use them if you have to, disband them as soon as you don't unless they fill a gap in your unit roster - like some factions don't get good pike units, so hiring a couple of them in critical settlements makes sense.