You: When should you start using/create a merc company?

Answer: A good time to consider creating a mercenary company is when you are a duke (or super duke) and have around 3k MAXIMUM personal levies in your demesne. A rough idea of when, is when you control 6 counties/baronies and they have 1 for each rank of barracks, militia, and stable. This will be approximately 3k ish. (this is the LATEST but optimal time to create them)

You: Why then, and not immediately when I start the game or later?

Answer: Because you are attempting to start with approximately 700-800 troops, or a rental cost of around 80 gold upfront for your merc company to be purchased by the AI! When a merc company is generated it takes 25% of your maximum troops for the company and then applies a -30% troop levy modifier to your held demesne counties, affecting all holdings within them (and also all future conquests that you personally hold)


There is nothing stopping you from creating it earlier, and long term you can end up with a rather stacked merc company of 800 cav which will smash everything early game (horse lord OP). the downside however is that it will cost you considerably more initial gold to get it our target size

Note: 3000 troops / 25 = 750 troops start in the merc band
Note: 3000 troops * 0.30 = 900 troops debuff, NEW MAX LEVIES = 2100


You: But that sounds terrible!? why would I want to lose an additional 5% of my troops for nothing!?

Answer: Because raising your personal levies loses relevance rather quickly as the game progresses, compared to cash, lots and lots of cash! stupid amounts of cash! that can be used to invest in RETAINERS! or simply better demesne infrastructure thus negating the debuff by earlier infrastructure acquisitions... Also, this debuff DOES NOT AFFECT VASSAL LEVIES! which will be the VAST MAJORITY of your fighting forces at a king level and beyond!

You: Fine... whatever. Okay, so how do I use them!?

Answer: Find a suitable courtier (anyone except your son or heir) that has any (rank does not matter) military training (misguided warrior, tough soldier, skilled tactician, brilliant strategist). Right click on their portrait and you should see an option to "form a mercenary company" (or something of the like). This will send the courtier in question off and out into the world as the new leader of a mercenary band!

You: So the guy leaves and does everything himself?

Answer: Mostly. They are autonomous, however they cannot recruit or upgrade their troops alone, that is up to you! (and this is honestly where people fail horribly and miss the point of them)

You: So I send the guy troops? Does this screw over my levies at home again? cause I'm already 5% in the hole here!

Answer: NO. MANUALLY sending troops to the company does not apply any additional debuffs, so 30% is the flat ongoing cost. HOWEVER! There is an event where the Merc Band Leader will ask for troops, if you agree to this (the top option) you will increase the bands size by 20% and you will also be hit with an increase to your debuff, taking it to 40-50% of your levies (HORRIBLE!). NEVER AGREE TO SEND TROOPS TO THE GUY... EVER!

You: Okay, so whats the point sending him anything?

Answer: The goal is to have the merc band have a hiring cost of between 80-90 gold (anything under 99). if you create it a little earlier or if your personal military trait wasn't up to scratch and the merc band is a little lacking at around 700 troops, you can send the guy an additional 100 troops to help get it into the sweet spot

note: the hiring cost is total merc troops / 10, so 950 troops = $95.



You: Got it, so how do I do that?

Answer: To send troops (OR equipment) the mercenary band in question needs to be currently unemployed (not hired by anyone in the world; this will be depicted by a small shield icon visible to the right of the merc band in the hire mercenary window). With them sitting idle (game paused), you right click on the leaders portrait and you will notice some new options. The one we want here is "Send troops to merc company". This will lead to a new screen giving you the option to send light troops or light cav... Send cavalry. there is basically no reason to not send the better troop as they both cost you 50 gold to send 100, so go quality over quantity.



You: Alright I got the merc company to 850 troops... what about equipment? and why bother?

Answer: a merc company that has 800 light troops and 100 cav is basically a liability and will be routed and crushed repeatedly. This will generally lead to your Merc commander getting their face and limbs cut off regularly... if they are geared with crap they are more likely to be on the losing side of fights. Ideally you want to send them equipment to replace the light infantry with pikeman. Just like how you want pikes and heavies in your own armies, if your merc company is rocking some OP pikes, then they will bring more to the battle (on average).

You: whats the point? arent they going to be fighting in a stack of 20k+? who cares about 300 pikeman...

Answer: because you're merc company doesn't cost some stupid amount, they will be hired almost constantly by basically everyone, from counts to rebelions. if a count with 500 units hires a 850 merc unit. you are now the majority and likely up against his duke liege with a similiar sized army (1.5k). the idea is to win, and win decisively, so that your merc's patron wins the war quickly(ish) and then frees your company up for the next moneybag count sap.

You: Alright my merc company has 400heavy troops, 280 pikes and 200 light cav. looks decent. Now what?

Answer: you wait! the ongoing income you receive from them being hired is honestly negligible and near unnoticable. This is your 15% share of the running cost (about 10gold a month) so yay 1.5 gold... woo... *cough*.

The goal is to get the pooling stack of hiring costs from the merc captain. To check on your potential winfall amount, click on the merc company captain portrait, and look at his current wealth. It wont take long for it to be in the thousands, and you should expect it to be anywhere from 2k -> 20k depending on the state of the game... yes I said 20k... just look at mine!


You: What!? surely that's not legit?

Answer: The above was done over about 90 years of ingame play as I had a few sudden deaths in a row so didn't replace the captain in a timely manner. A more realistic amount would be 3k-5k every 30ish years depending on how healthy your leaders tend to be.


You: Cool, so how do I go about getting my cash from the merc captain?

Answer: You need to ensure your heir is trained in military. there is a benefit to this, you're heir (and eventually you) will have a +0.5 health increase from the trait school. This means you are less likely to die to dumb sicknesses, and also more likely to live to 60+ (you just may want to marry into stewardship initially, however later on diplomacy is valuable for megablob empires and your laws make up demense sizes anyways).


You: That didn't really tell me how to get my payday...

Answer: That was simply the first (and only) pre-requisite for scooping that bank. Now what you want to do is wait until your current leader is basically on his death bed. This is either when they have cancer and your physician botched the job horribly. Alternatively, when you are depressed and have the option to suicide, you can see if the current pool is large enough to warrant a trip to the bathtub with your favourite toaster.

When you are on deaths door, open up the merc window and look at your green merc company located at the top. Right click on the captain and you should see an option to "replace mercanary leader" (or something like it). this will then bring up a list of suitable candidates from your court, simply scroll down to your heir (crown icon on head) and select him. (oh this can also be done at any time, unlike sending troops!)


Now that Jnr is leading the band you need to die. Either commit suicide or do something retarded like lead a fight as its only commander while inflicted with cancer and small pox. The quicker you die the better! after all... we wouldn't want your heir to come back without a face! it may scare the wife and kids.

You: yes... having a face is certainly important...

Answer: sure is, so with you now dead in a timely manner from your own suicide or stupid... I mean HEROIC DEEDS, your heir will be forced to return to court to take over for the realms affairs. He will return with any currently assigned commanders in his band (usually good ones) as well as the entire pool of the merc bands money... leaving the AI generated idiot that took over with nothing... guess he will need to replenish the pool through constant fighting.

The end. There you go. you are rich as hell.

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WARNING: Keep an eye out for any popup events saying that the merc company captain is trying to go rogue; breaking rank and go out on his own. When this occurs the game will automatically pause as it is a significant event!

When it happens (and it will) you can interact with the merc captain 1 final time via their portrait (conveniently placed in the centre of your screen!) replace the traitor immediately!


You can use any other unlanded existing courtier if available (preferably not your target heir however a kid you hate could be useful as a long term deathsentence), however if you are lacking you are able to spawn a new martial character via the "promote a commander" intrigue option (the costs scales based on your empire size, starts from ~15 gold up to ~200 gold).


You can navigate to the intrigue section, however DO NOT CLOSE THE EVENT WINDOW).

ONLY AFTER YOU HAVE REPLACED THE EXISTING COMMANDER, CAN YOU NOW SAFELY CLOSE THE EVENT WINDOW.

The old captain that you replaced will leave for a random court (that isnt yours), and your new captain will take over the merc company with it running with business as usual. Unfortunately the text will not update on the event window (trust me it will be fine), however you can check the merc window after replacing the captain to see his new portrait (for peace of mind).

THE FIRST AND MOST COMMON:

Exceeding the 100 gold hiring cost threshold, by over populating your merc band (either by sending too many troops or creating them when you are an emperor in late game with 10s of thousands of demense troops).

The AI (your target marketbase) will be far less likely to hire your band when it costs over 100gold. The reason is beecause this places you into competition with all the standard merc bands that start around 150 gold cost.

If you take a step back and sort the merc list by hiring cost you will notice a large hole between 50 gold and 150gold. This is what we are filling with our quality over quantity bang for buck merc company, and the not quite rich AI customer who cant afford a standard 150 band will ran the math on your merc band compared to the pitiful generic horse lord mercs and you will win hands down.

it is simple economics, supply and demand!

THE SECOND MISTAKE:

Making your already overpopulated merc band, stupidily powerful!. If you have already fallen for the first mistake and continued to send troops to your merc band to get it into the realms of 2000-3000 troops, you may have also made the mistake of upgrading all of the troops (thinking that equipment is the reason why they aren't being hired)

If you have a 3000 merc band with 300 heavy troops and 2700 heavy cavalry its running cost will be obscene (like 60 gold a month obscene). However the hiring cost still puts it in range of king level title holders.

The problem is, even if you are hired on the very rare occasion a king level revolt is occuring and the king is looking for a merc band around the $300 mark. the king will be broke in a matter of months due to the running cost. When a merc band can't be paid they will do 1 of 2 things...

Firstly: they will swap sides, joining the opposing faction as their merc band, immediately crushing the kings army with their superior heavy cav, and then ending the war in swift fashion.

Secondly: If the merc band leader has sufficient prestige (500), it can launch an usurpion invasion on the current kingdom title based on their position (much like a decadence usurpion for muslims). If they win that war (with their super army) against the already crippled king, they will gain all currently occupied holdings and the merc band captain will become landed.

This (just like your heir) means the rich captain is no longer a nomadic merc, he is now a landed fuedal lord. he will abandon the merc company for his new title and TAKE ALL OF THE CURRENT GOLD WITH HIM!

Also this can lead to a logic error (it used to anyway but may have been fixed) where the merc company will just straight up vanish (be disbanded) from the list and your debuff will be removed to your demesne. as if it never existed, and you will be forced to remake it (but likely have far too many troops to do so anymore)

The alternative (and possible more likely outcome with recent patching) is that the merc captain will leave just like your heir, and a new AI will be generated to take over however just like your intended successions, this new AI will have zero gold to his name, meaning the old captain just robbed your blind!

Sub 1k troops cant win a war against a king or even a solid duke. Most of the count customer base will be via revokation revolts, and as they are titular titles the merc band cannot launch a usurpion war on them, and if they do they will become a 3rd faction against a likely already stronger main force of the duke/king/emperor and thus lose! (also they will fork over a chunk of gold just like when you lose a war and need to pay damages)

Although this will lower the pot very marginally, the chances of a usurpion war are low with a correctly balanced band, as they will be hired almost constantly meaning the captain is generally leading troops constantly, and because of this they tend to die (alot) in combat. meaning a new guy takes over with next to no prestige again, so it is unlikely a 500 prestige captain will exist...

THE THIRD MISTAKE:

Appointing your dynasty members that you hate as the captain (like uncles or brothers who have claims on your titles). The problem with this is because they are your dynasty they likely have heaps of prestige. and just like problem 2. they will be launching usurpion wars against basically everyone that hires them and cant pay.

Although the chances of them winning that war is low, even if they constantly lose, it is simply a time sink for the merc band to constantly fight 2 wars in 1. The idea is they get hired, the guy either wins or loses or runs out of gold, then your merc band leaves or flips sides.... eitherway war ends quickly.

If wars are fast or prematurely ended often (like emperors vs counts for revokation) then you get your 90 gold lump sum, the war lasts like 3 months, and you are now ready to be hired by the next guy holding a bag of gold looking to fight. these are your clients! your AI customer base! basically any count or duke with the ambitious trait!

I personally find merc companies to be especially good for a Charlemagne 769 start, where infrastructure is horrendous and most counties are lucky to have even an extra barony vassal.

By the year 790-800 you likely should be a duke and capable of fielding (comfortably affording the startup costs) a merc band. when you die around 820, your first cash scoop should be in the ball park of 2k-3k. thats a crap ton of money! With it you can build baronies in each of your primary counties within your dejure dukedom; negating the need for any held counties outside of it, meaning that you can start landing your other dynasty members sooner to get the (Cousins with fleeting claims).

By the year 900 3k-5k gold should be the norm when it comes to merc band scoops on succession, and honestly by that point, you will be hard pressed to not be a very solid and powerful king or emperor, as your infrastructure will be well ahead of the curve.

The early game merc band gold influx means you will have rank 2 or 3 infrastructure upgrades while your neighbour is lucky to have level 1. Also you will be far more likely to be floating cash sooner for hiring larger merc companies in the case of revolts, as well as pushing hospital infrastructure for all the benefits.

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When playing a tribal ruler start, gold is a little less useful compared to prestige for upgrade tribal holdings. But at the same time, your own armies will be light units with maybe 5% being heavy infantry from church vassals.

By creating a merc band early on with your excess gold, you can tailor a stacked merc band along the linds of 150 heavy infantry (upgraded from your initial lights) 300 pikeman and 450 light cavalry (and like 10 archers...). This band configuration will utterly stomp any other tribal rulers who have light units as well, also it will add some much needed melee and pursuit meat to your army when fighting feudal lords.

Not to mention, hiring your own merc band is basically you handing gold to the guy and then stealing it back... the long con. It may as well be free, like a money back rewards scheme.

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As a feudal count start, I've also found it quite useful to borrow 300 gold from jewish merchants on day 1 and then immediately raise a merc band for 50 gold, and send them 2x 100 stacks of cavalry for 100 extra gold. Doing this will effectively double your potential army, as you likely will only get ~300 units from your single holding (based on martial).

they will have a hiring cost of about $40, which isn't too terrible (especially if you invest the remaining 150 gold from the jews into a castle town) and you should be able to save it up again rather easily while forging claims on your single county neighbours.

Once you have a claim in hand, you may be lucky to only have built 1 extra rank of barracks in the mean time, while your merc band has been fighting off and on in muslim areas (they war constantly so are honestly your largest marketbase). Eitherway you can keep an eye on the war in question by seeing who has them hired, and when they are at 80%+ you get ready to pause the second the war ends...

Once your merc band is available (and assuming it hasn't been reduced to 100 units and needing too long to replenish due to losing fights) you can press your claim on your neighbour and hire your own merc band for a gain in troop total, -30% of 300 = 90. however you're hiring almost 400... thats a NET GAIN! (not to mention its a scam and free with your heir)

Once you have 2-3 counties under your belt you will have a few more castle towns to give you cash and thus more funds to invest in adding a few more pikes and cav to your mercs, all while you eyeball your duchy leige or the dejure holdings required to form it.

Mercenaries done right, are a gateway to overpowered game situations.

Good luck :)