Have you ever hired a mercenary company other than the free company?

[RichardOlcese]

I just found myself using the free company, sort of militia, a couple of times at the start of the game. The other units were too expensive! And hiring mercenaries decreses army professionalism. That's why I never use them. What about you?

 

[Sidolowka]

Mercenaries are almost strictly early game. Even mid-game the stacks, besides being hilariously overpriced, become way too large. You would never need 66 infantry and 12 cavalry in one stack, ever.

The free company is nice though, it's especially great for some of the weaker starts where you have a few crucial wars in the early game where you need to go over force limit. (Kandy, Oman, Mzab and Wallachia come to mind)

The other companies are kind of eh. Early game when you need them they're too expensive, late game when you can afford them you don't need them. I guess they have a niche for wars between mid to large sized powers in the early-mid game, but then again if you're playing a major you should focus on the small fry before you fight any wars where you'd need mercenaries.

 

[Xetfield]

Free Swiss Guard, unique for Pope, is very neat and never becomes too large.

 

[Styria]

Sweden has a wonderful selection of Mercenary groups, a couple with good combat bonuses, so I use those when I can.

 

[magni_]

As timmurids i normaly hire 3 groops at the start, 2 of those i never dispand normaly

 

[JaxElite]

I often hire mercs when playing as a smaller but rich country and dont plan to blob out of control. Getting a hold of india as the dutch is not fun without manpower

 

[atwix]

Mercs are good early game. I use them if i find a company with 2 or more siege pip leader. Once had a frisian 4 or 5 siege merc leader that won me all wars without a fight. Mid game mercs are useless.. late game when you roll in dosh i use them situationally.

 

[BadOrc]

I really tried when patch 1.30 came out, but the frustration during a carpet was just to much.

 

[swagmeister]

With how they work now I just take quantity every game now. The only time I take mercenaries is early game if I'm playing a tag where I have to punch above my weight to survive. They are far too costly even with admin ideas mid to late game. I've got too many courthouses and forts to upgrade to sit around with thousands of gold.

 

[TheSpider]

I use mercs early game in a pinch, but I really like having high professionalism plus I nearly always take Quantity as a 2nd Mil idea so manpower mid-late game is no issue but they are occasionally useful if you don't want to ship a 50K stack half way across the world. Mercs simply don't suit my play style, tbh I miss being able to recruit just one or two mercs to un-siege some far-off province.

 

[cetvrtak]

I vaguely remember using them in my first Emperor run, utilising their leader's high siege stat. After that, never - I do love the idea, but too big professionalism hit.

 

[Methuen of Melnibone]

I find the war system quite tedious, especially against larger nations with a bottomless well of manpower - a nice shot of merc spam generally gets me by. Nothing more irritating than looking at the 'are you sure you want a war screen', accounting for 200k soldiers, and then finding that the AI dumps all of their professionalism and wrecks their economy to double / triple their force size within a year. No wonder the late game stagnates - the AI treats every conflict like Operation Barbarossa.

Mercenaries are also useful for the endless 'hunt the overequipped rebels' jobs. You might have zero manpower in reserve, and be running a deficit as you beat on Austria-Hungary for the tenth time in some boring HRE fight, but those Catholic Zealots in your heartland will absolutely find 20,000 good infantry, 6,000 cavalary, 8,000 cannon, and a two-star leader to screw around with.

 

[klingonadmiral]

Usually, if I have a big early war coming up (Bohemia PU, reconquest of Ajam as Timmies, kicking the English out of France), I hire a company for the sole pupose of providing a good leader.

Also, I still never take Quantity. Y'all need to learn how to nurse your manpower.

 

[Meglok]

Early game I may buy a different company for the leader. Always buy the Free Company, it is too cheap not to.

I may wait until after the Free Company has grown a little when I am playing wide. Company size and cost doesn't change as long as you don't disband them. A nice little 12 stack bought in 1480 with a cannon makes a good siege stack that doesn't burn my own manpower. I can always add cannons to it if needed. Usable until the end of the game.

 

[Blust]

Used quite a lot the Temple Company as Jérusalem but that's very niche

 

[Laurent1944]

First game in 1.30 I played Spain and with a lot of wars goind overseas, and the new attrition aboard ship, I couldn't afford to ship armies across oceans, so I reverted to mercenaries, especially as I had tons of gold. I stopped played in the early 1700s, at this stage I had about 50% of my army being mercenaries (6-7 60k armies and 1-2 smaller stacks). Of course I had 0% professionalism almost the whole game.

Second game, I have a 24k and a 48k merc army that I never disband. The first (20k inf, 2 cav, 2 art) is useful for crushing rebels without using manpower and is most of the times sitting in the middle of my empire. The second (Abomey's Amazons) has 12k art, 4 cav et 32 inf, so is useful both as a battle force and as a siege stack if needed.

 

[Big Bad France]

First game in 1.30 I played Spain and with a lot of wars goind overseas, and the new attrition aboard ship, I couldn't afford to ship armies across oceans, so I reverted to mercenaries, especially as I had tons of gold. I stopped played in the early 1700s, at this stage I had about 50% of my army being mercenaries (6-7 60k armies and 1-2 smaller stacks). Of course I had 0% professionalism almost the whole game.

Second game, I have a 24k and a 48k merc army that I never disband. The first (20k inf, 2 cav, 2 art) is useful for crushing rebels without using manpower and is most of the times sitting in the middle of my empire. The second (Abomey's Amazons) has 12k art, 4 cav et 32 inf, so is useful both as a battle force and as a siege stack if needed.

I did this in one campaign. It makes sense to me if you are going to briefly go over force limit to fight a quick war overseas. Otherwise, it's a better idea to just recruit the army overseas. You can recruit from colonial nations and you can charter companies in India. You never need more than a token force in the New World. Your CNs will do a lot of the heavy lifting there.

 

[Battlex]

They're useful for long term so you can break even on hiring cost, sell them as condo between wars, or be more hyper aggressive with your wars to make full use of them

As timmurids i normaly hire 3 groops at the start, 2 of those i never dispand normaly

Why do you use mercs as timmies when you have vassals? To avoid peasant war in case of quick succession of death?

I vaguely remember using them in my first Emperor run, utilising their leader's high siege stat. After that, never - I do love the idea, but too big professionalism hit.

Yeh early game siege pips is one reason I hire, especially so if I'm playing a nation with full manpower + force limit missions

I often hire mercs when playing as a smaller but rich country and dont plan to blob out of control. Getting a hold of india as the dutch is not fun without manpower

Where do you recruit your mercs from. Playing Portugal and I'm only taking centres of trade so if the AI declares on me, I can't recruit a merc stack safely as they spawn with 0 morale unless in a nearby theatre and then you've gotta ship them over

 

[Mortmal]

I am not using mercs at all , unless there's really no other way and manpower drop to 0 for small rich countries . Their army composition is awful , unoptimized and its a pain to bring them oversea too. Like most of the new mechanism introduced by emperor dlc , i dont see the point...

 

[vicbus]

I'm late game as Netherlands, swimming in cash and fighting most of my wars with Mercenaries, with only a core of native troops for sieging, support and rebel squashing.. In Europe I often hire the Frisian company, in Africa the Dahomey Amazons. In Asia I usually hire that Brunei company when I need bodies to throw against India's or Ming's large reserve of manpower. Even France (with Spain absorbed by PU) can't handle the masses of mercenaries I throw at them while they struggle at my Low Countries fort line. So yes, mercenaries can be useful if you're rich and want to conserve manpower, especially if you have a global Empire and don't want to keep ferrying troops all over the globe.