Independent Mercenaries

[gornard]

In my current game as Aquitaine, poland got completely taken over by the swiss band right near the start, since then the duke level mercenary captain has remained completely static for 50 years except for some mild rebellions. Most his vassals are german now. I've seen very brief mercenary states before (e.g. bulgarian band in north africa, saxons in the papal states) but i never see them lasting long. Am i right in thinking that since they are open elective and thus have no claims through marriage or inheritance, no de jure territory and no special CB like republics that they are pretty much the most peaceful neighbors possible? Do they even join crusades? I've never seen the captain even create another duke title, he just holds a varying amount of counties.

On another note, whats the most successful mercenary state you've seen?

 

[unmerged(47028)]

I never saw mercenaries having land at all. How it is possible?

 

[brucepm]

If you hire mercenaries and then run out of money, they can invade you to recoup their costs.

 

[Me_]

I never saw mercenaries having land at all. How it is possible?

Their employer goes bancrupt and they turn on him/her with an Invasion CB. If they win they get every occupied holding. I've never seen any large mercenary state. One funny thing I did see was a mercenary dynasty with 5 or so consecutive Captains from one family.

 

[NoobRage]

I never saw mercenaries having land at all. How it is possible?

By simply not paying them. They then declare an invasion of your realm. And better yet: they are playable. So i made a test game with Brittany: hired the Great Company (with cheats) and then removed all my money, which resulted in their invasion of Brittany, and after an instant surrender i switched to the mercenary captain and switched his culture to Breton and declared an invasion of France (with money cheat to hire even more mercenaries). Destroyed France, made Kingdom of Britanny and now its just watching Galia become Celtic again.

 

[Ahaz Flagg]

Not fun at all trying to remove one of those roaming bands when you only haave 600 troops I can tell you!! Only need that lesson once.

 

[gornard]

Yeah most the time they will just leave your service, but there's a chance that they will go to war with you with an invasion CB.

Here's the swiss band:
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559832783103763884/3E9B64CED9E79853AC0126B37BFC40399AB764C5/

 

[unmerged(47028)]

I did not know about that risk. Mercenaries always left my service without causing any trouble even if I had no money to pay.

 

[Alexandre_007]

Not fun at all trying to remove one of those roaming bands when you only haave 600 troops I can tell you!! Only need that lesson once.

lol, couldn't agree more... 2 things were terrifying in my 1st playthrough
1- muslims
2- mercenary bands revolting against me
(btw, was playing as Castille)