Mercenaries & Baronies

[xXAJBoomXx]

I understand that the Byzantine Empire starts with the Varangian Guard and various other states have "home" mercenaries with low maintenance and such. Do you achieve this by granting them baronies? And if so, what allowed Venice to defend the Holy lands by mass-producing these mercenary barons and won't allow me?

Also, general tactics thread.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Landing mercenaries (that aren't your vassals) is impossible without cheating or gamey tactics... and you need to be their culture as well. Landing an already vassal mercenary (only the Mamluks and Varangian Guard exist, as far as I know) can get you an extra general, but that's about it. The game, since it considers the Mercenary title a ducal title, grants the mercenaries, once landed, a full council - including marshal. That said, you can land and vassalize holy orders if you're the same culture, but I'm not sure if this prevents other kingdoms from hiring them like vassalizing mercenaries does.

 

[Me_]

Landing mercenaries (that aren't your vassals) is impossible without cheating or gamey tactics... and you need to be their culture as well. Landing an already vassal mercenary (only the Mamluks and Varangian Guard exist, as far as I know) can get you an extra general, but that's about it. The game, since it considers the Mercenary title a ducal title, grants the mercenaries, once landed, a full council - including marshal. That said, you can land and vassalize holy orders if you're the same culture, but I'm not sure if this prevents other kingdoms from hiring them like vassalizing mercenaries does.

Holy orders can be vassalised by anyone once they get some land by pushing a claim on their title (there are claimants in their court, I'm not sure where they get the claim). The Hashassins may be an exception. There don't seem to be any claimants to mercenary companies, so vassalising them is much more difficult. Vassalised Holy Orders will always fight for you (except against people of the same faith - that is their troops will not participate in battle) and don't seem to join any other rulers' wars.
Seljuks, Byzantines and Fatimids start with a vassal mercenary company.

 

[Bob_the_Insane]

So having never played that side of the may yet... These vassal mercenaries, is there a monthly cost or are they more like a retinue? And what happens if they get wiped out?

 

[Blitzzer]

They are like all the other mercenary bands, though hiring them and their monthly costs are considerably less than for other merc bands. Oh, and since the merc captain is already your vassal, landed or not, you can assign him to lead any armies you have: retinue, levies or just have him lead his own merc band.
Then again, the captain is just some random dude with equally random stats, so having him lead anything might be counter-productive...
Oh, and you can add the merc captain title into your own by granting them a kingdom in your realm, then killing the captain before he spawns any children, and be able to raise them for 0g with a 0,00g monthly cost.