Slitherine

Trying Rhodus. Am about 15 turns in. I've managed to nab both sections of Crete and now have the famed Cretan Archers (well, a whopping 3 of them)! I had disbanded my regular infantry a few turns earlier because my manpower was crashing. And got rid of original skirmishers as well. My army consists of 8 mercenaries plus the Cretans. (Such a world dominating force!)

So I was wondering, if I plan to spend a chunk of turns building my newly-formed province, do I sack the mercenaries who are sucking out 20 gold each a turn? Or do I keep them and bite the proverbial coinage bullet so that I have a force (and one that is 'experiencing up') in case of trouble?

Wondered what others have done in similar situations.

I regard mercenaries as for war only, so I sack them once I don't need them. If by some chance they got to 3/4 experience levels I might reprieve them, but any that are just standard units let them go.

The exception here is Carthage, but even then i'll cull the ranks if I am in a period of peace, but there I keep permanent mercenary units in my armies.

Depends on what your weakest income stream is. If you are swimming in gold, but your manpower is poor, then keep your mercenaries in the field, and disband your normal units. If the reverse is true, then definitely don't keep the expensive mercs around.

The third thing to look at is equipment. If you have trouble gathering a lot of equipment, you might better off not disbanding anyone, regardless of manpower and gold. The equipment income in your regions can be quite the bottleneck for raising new armies in a short space of time.

All of this will change over time, so no one approach fits every situation.

Also check the siege ability - the mercenary infantry have siege ability but heavy infantry (other than Romans and some provincial types) don't have the siege ability. I had to buy some mercs when I laid siege to Rhodes and suddenly discovered how many siege troops (ie medium infantry mainly) were needed. My mercs went to 3/4 stars and I kept them for ages but finally got rid of them all as they cost more money than is necessary.

Playing as Rhodos I kept them because:

- They were experienced, and my other troops are not
- Money becomes a strength, and the limits are set by manpower and metal. Rhodes ends up being very rich (if you get the trading right).

A disbanded mercenary will give birth (through a process best not described, but think of Orcs in Isengard) to new baby mercenaries in the future!

i.e disband, amass, recruit en masse (and even more than before)