Please note: The following is not a complaint regarding balance or design, it is a question regarding strategy 
Also note that I haven't played more than 100 years into a given playthrough... I too often find a new religion/culture I want to try out!
Mercenaries are very different than vanilla.
They can be bought quite cheaply and their low upkeep cost means that it's sometimes less costly to hire mercenaries to siege provinces rather than raise personal levies. The AI seems to understand this and use them correctly, as most times it seems all mercs under 100 gold are hired.
So far, each ruler I've played has at least 1 vassalized merc army (SPQR has 2). The army appears to cost about half of the normal price to raise, but cost 5-10x as much upkeep. This means that I only raise them when I have a large threatening army in my territory, and I disband them after the battles. I've also tried assaulting holdings with them but assaults take MUCH longer than in vanilla. So if my position is strong and I have plenty of levies in reserve, I'll just disband and let the war drag on as the levies slowly siege.
Would anybody else like to share their uses of mercenaries?
Is there anything else special about vassal mercs?
Do mercs/vassal mercs gain bonuses from the capital holding/county holding where they are raised? If not, does this mean that levies and especially personal demesne troops become much better than mercs?
EDIT: I think I only have 1 vassal merc army as SPQR now. At one point I think a rebellion hired it and I crushed it with the other one. Did I destroy it forever? How can I avoid doing this in the future?
Do retinues gain bonuses from the capital holding, or just the retinue bonuses? One of the biggest perks of some retinues in vanilla is that they are geared towards using the cultural tactic. When looking through the combat_tactics file, I noticed that many tactics reference cultures like "Dutch," "German," and "Italian." Are these working? Italiano exists in the latin group but there is Deutsch in the central germanic group, as well as the groups west germanic and north germanic.
Does anybody else have any questions regarding mercenaries or retinues? Feel free to post! We can compare notes
Also note that I haven't played more than 100 years into a given playthrough... I too often find a new religion/culture I want to try out! Mercenaries are very different than vanilla.
They can be bought quite cheaply and their low upkeep cost means that it's sometimes less costly to hire mercenaries to siege provinces rather than raise personal levies. The AI seems to understand this and use them correctly, as most times it seems all mercs under 100 gold are hired.
So far, each ruler I've played has at least 1 vassalized merc army (SPQR has 2). The army appears to cost about half of the normal price to raise, but cost 5-10x as much upkeep. This means that I only raise them when I have a large threatening army in my territory, and I disband them after the battles. I've also tried assaulting holdings with them but assaults take MUCH longer than in vanilla. So if my position is strong and I have plenty of levies in reserve, I'll just disband and let the war drag on as the levies slowly siege.
Would anybody else like to share their uses of mercenaries?
Is there anything else special about vassal mercs?
Do mercs/vassal mercs gain bonuses from the capital holding/county holding where they are raised? If not, does this mean that levies and especially personal demesne troops become much better than mercs?
EDIT: I think I only have 1 vassal merc army as SPQR now. At one point I think a rebellion hired it and I crushed it with the other one. Did I destroy it forever? How can I avoid doing this in the future?
Do retinues gain bonuses from the capital holding, or just the retinue bonuses? One of the biggest perks of some retinues in vanilla is that they are geared towards using the cultural tactic. When looking through the combat_tactics file, I noticed that many tactics reference cultures like "Dutch," "German," and "Italian." Are these working? Italiano exists in the latin group but there is Deutsch in the central germanic group, as well as the groups west germanic and north germanic.
Does anybody else have any questions regarding mercenaries or retinues? Feel free to post! We can compare notes
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