Greetings!
As stated on the announcement for the Retro Submod of the Game of Thrones Enhanced, the mercenaries are back on the campaign map. This was present until the GoT 3.0 version I believe before changing on the later releases. Now both the player and the AI will be able to hire sellswords in the classic way of Medieval II Total War.
Now, mercenaries are rather expensive though they might be very useful. Early on, pretty much all factions lack the money to hire many of these. But once you build up your settlements and especially conquer new settlements/sacking big settlements grants a lot of money instantly, you can afford to hire more and more sellswords. Since the mod uses the 10 turns per year, the recruitment table has been adapted to this condition, the recruitment pool will take a while to get replenished. Hence sooner or later, you will have to rely on sellswords.
This mod uses various economy scripts to help the AI to stand on its feet but also make the campaign more interesting to the player. Most factions get some sort of donation from time to time, early in the campaign. Later on, the King's Purse for every factions will get much reduced, even going negative for a few of them. This will make the campaign more challenging, so be careful how you use your armies. It won't be easy to replace your men.
I ain't show the sellswords models here, anybody can check them once they download the mod. Just to let you know that I used the early units created by our artist, Vltima Ratio here as well. But also there are many new models, they keep the same style as the rest of the human models. Same faces, same arms, legs, body shape. I will show all the mercenaries in a single glance:
The units on the first two rows are sellswords available on Westeros, below them are the ones available in Essos. There is also a Mercenary Catapult, available in the Free Cities. I used mainly thinking about the Dothraki who has no siege weapons available to them. While the Sellsails (mercenary fleets) are available on many coastal settlements.
So let start with the Westerosi sellswords. The first five units on the first row are the generic sellswords (spearmen, swordsmen, crossbowmen, longbowmen and freeriders), they are available from the North to the Reach and Stormlands. You can hire them as shown on the first picture with Brienne of Tarth or throughout sellswords guilds:
These guilds are rather expensive and they allow the factions to hire sellswords within their settlements alongside giving some bonus and malus. They are available only on some of the larger castles in Westeros. Also only a certain number of settlements in Westeros have a mercenary pool, didn't want to put them on the entire map.
Returning to the guilds, they are very important nonetheless, as only through them some factions get access to the Hedge Knights. These are very powerful units on full plate armor, the models shown on the first row, just after the generic sellswords. There are two types, dismounted and mounted. They are available only for the Arryns, Tullies, Freys, Lannisters, Tyrells and the three branches of House Baratheon. In their shields they display the sigils of the regions, i.e House Arryn's Hedge Knights will use the sigils from the Houses of the Vale. Nonetheless, they are identical between them about the rest, like armor, weapons and stats.
On the second row, there are the sellswords available in Dorne, the Desert Raiders (swordsmen) and Desert Cavalry (mounted javelineers). Remember that Javelins are deadly against elephant-type units, which includes Giants and even dragons. There are a few javelin units on this mod but not too many. Obviosly they have a bonus on deserts.
The next two units are the Vale Hill Tribesmen, axemen and foot javelinmen. They are available around the Mountains of the Moon in the Vale of Arryn. Not very powerful but useful.
The last unit on the second row are the Children of the Forest. Well, there are no sellswords neither on the Wall nor beyond it, only these mythical creatures available on the starting region of the White Walkers(This faction can't get any mercenary). Also the Nights Watch can train a few of them only on the Fist of the First Men. They are amongst the best counters for the powerful White Walker units, bombing them with effective fireballs. Available just for the factions keeping the Old Gods as their religion.
In Essos, sellswords play a much more important role. Besides the Targaryens and the Dothraki, there isn't a recruitment pool for the rest of the factions in Essos. So, hiring these mercenaries is the only option to continue fighting there for any of the Great Houses, besides shipping units from Westeros.
The first two units, on the third row are just simple levies, the cheapest and weakest sellswords in Essos. There is a spearmen version and a bowmen as well, they are available on most regions in the eastern continent. Behind them there are three units, the generic eastern sellswords. The first of them is a two-handed swordsmen, the next an axemen, the last is a mounted spearmen.
The sixth unit on the third row are the Braavosi Swordsmen, light armored but very professional. The Targaryens are able to recruit them inside the city of Braavos if they capture it. Behind it there are the Myrish Crossbowmen, the most powerful crossbow unit in this mod. They have better range, a pavise shield and do a respectable job on hand to hand combat as well. Available on Myr, the Disputed Lands and a few other regions. The Norvoshi Axe Guards is pretty much as powerful as the Ironborn Axemen, a deadly unit, on chainmail armor, wielding big axes. The last one on this row, are the Windblown Cavalry, a company made from Pentoshi and exiled Westerosi cavalrymen. They fight with lances and swords and resemble most to the Westerosi units.
And last but definitively not least is the Golden Company. Of course they are the most powerful mercenary company in the world, all of their units have very good stats. They aren't available to the Targaryens, nor Dothraki of course, as they used to fight against them. But to all the Great Houses from Westeros, to get them the player must capture the biggest rebel settlement, the city of Braavos. So, they are trainable units available only on Braavos, with a large number of them any player won't have much troubles expanding on Essos. Cersei may finally get those elephants but be careful of javelins.
Time to end the article, I hope you will find it useful, and also agree on the way I did setup the mercenaries. I don't know if I will post more articles before the release, but we will have the chance to talk about it on the comments section or discord: Discord.gg
Best regards,
Firestorm
