Aquiring Mercenaries

**SinerAthin** · May 18, 2013, 09:55 AM

How practical will it be?

Let's say if I am planning a campaign, and I want mercenary unit X.

Mercenary unit X is local to country Y.

Y is also far away from my own country R.

In order to get these mercs, do I have to then send a general unit across the world to get to Y to reqruit X and then bring them back, which in Rome would take _YEARS_?
Or can I just tell my agents that I wanna hire them, and they will then appear in the region/unit I want them in?

Hiring Mercs in previous Total War games was a paaaaaain, and it's going to be an even bigger pain in RTW if turns are years.

I wanna be able to browse a catalogue of all available mercenaries, and then just throw some gold at my agents/administration and have them fix the details, such as contacting the mercs & providing whatever transport they might need.

**Sun Jetzu** · May 18, 2013, 10:50 AM

mercenaries will probably work like in rome 1, they are indigenous to a certain area, thats where they will be.

**Le_Swede** · May 18, 2013, 11:30 AM

IMO what OP is suggesting would be a great way to diminsh the replayability aswell as the "wonder" of invading territories in a Total War game. Alot of my personal excitement when I attack a region I've previously haven't been in is to find out what kind of mercenaries I can hire over there. It also contributes greatly to roleplaying and immersion to only be able to recruit regional mercenaries seeing as you can use them as "stand ins" for rebellious groups who take up your cause in the war for the purpose to rid themself/get revenge on their overlords. For instance when I play EB as Carthago or any other "anti-roman" faction I always tend to recruit an army of samnite mercenaries who exterminate every roman province they capture.

In terms of your general taking a long way to travel to a new destination: From what I've gathered about R2:TW generals will have a big increase in movemement-points so that you can quickly move them to your border-territories etc.

**icenii** · May 18, 2013, 11:49 AM

Maybe building a mercenary recruitment building in a provincial capital would be a good idea and then after so many turns you might receive a message saying that unit of mercs is available to hire and asking if you want too hire them maybe there availability will be determined by how much unrest there is in the province or how newly conquered the province is. If you have a newly conquered province there might be a lot of former enemy soldiers available to form merc companys and if you have a lot of unrest you might have a lot of people forming mobs then becoming bandits and then possibly becoming merc companies and then possibly rebelling, so recruiting these units might be a way to reduce unrest prevent rebellion and give these people something useful to do like killing your enemies.

**legate** · May 18, 2013, 12:03 PM

Wouldn't mercenaries roam around looking for employment, not just sit in the one area?

**Needs New Name** · May 18, 2013, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by legate

Wouldn't mercenaries roam around looking for employment, not just sit in the one area?

Yes, for example, the Ptolemaic Empire used many Galatian or other barbarian mercenaries, yet their homelands were quite far from Egypt

**CDR Hurricane** · May 18, 2013, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by legate

Wouldn't mercenaries roam around looking for employment, not just sit in the one area?

You are right, I want to hire Samurai, Aztecs, and camel cataphracts in Ireland.

**SinerAthin** · May 18, 2013, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by legate

Wouldn't mercenaries roam around looking for employment, not just sit in the one area?

A lot of them would indeed.

It's one of the reasons why I'd like to have an office that could deal with the aquisition of Mercs in Rome II, maybe like a Mercenary tab or something.

Very often, Mercenaries would be told about available work, and then travel across the map as long as the pay was good enough.

**Yayattasa** · May 18, 2013, 01:09 PM

In Paeninsulla Italica, as Syrakuse, you get mercenaries (Etruscans, Gallic and Greek, mostly) by building docks. It's assumed they arrive by sea to your cities, which makes great sense afterall.

I think any agent should be able to recruit mercenaries.

**SinerAthin** · May 18, 2013, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by Yayattasa

In Paeninsulla Italica, as Syrakuse, you get mercenaries (Etruscans, Gallic and Greek, mostly) by building docks. It's assumed they arrive by sea to your cities, which makes great sense afterall.

I think any agent should be able to recruit mercenaries.

Haven't they done away with diplomat agents in favor of diplomacy tabs? Imo, Mercs would better fit into tabs.

And when they are reqruited, you should be able to choose where they'll appear on the map, so that you didn't have to wait 4-6 years for them just to arrive if far away.

**Sun Jetzu** · May 18, 2013, 01:48 PM

Originally Posted by SinerAthin

Haven't they done away with diplomat agents in favor of diplomacy tabs? Imo, Mercs would better fit into tabs.

And when they are reqruited, you should be able to choose where they'll appear on the map, so that you didn't have to wait 4-6 years for them just to arrive if far away.

i hated the diplomat in rome and medieval so annoying having to track and build them

**Maklodes** · May 18, 2013, 01:49 PM

I'm wondering if there could be some sort of "mercenary exchange" type thing, where if you have a land (good roads) or sea (ports) rout between two regions, and you have a "mercenary exchange" in both regions, you could recruit both types of mercenaries in both regions. That way, you couldn't just recruit Numidian cavalry as the Iceni straight off of the bat, but if you did get the Numidian region, and developed both it and other regions enough to do the exchange thing, then you could recruit Numidian cavalry in all well-developed regions, not just Numidia. (Although if you lost control of Numidia, you'd only be able to recruit them by actually having a general in the region or something.)