Knights Of Honor 2 Mercenaries

[Derrick Drescher]

Sincemercenaries are much expensive (according to BotM, as I coudn't find them anywhere...) than mesnie... why would anyone hire mercenaries for one month instead of upkeeping soldiers for one year, for almost the same price? ?

2) You are honor-bound to keep the household troops (mesnie, including the footsoldiers) in your service: they have sworn their allegiance to you, in return you have sworn that you will see to their upkeep. Dismissing them without a just cause costs Honor. Like the saying goes: a household knight is for life, not just for a summer.

To save money in the off years. Realistically, in some periods, I think lords would be likely to maintain large a mesnie due to the general unrest. In others, they would want to save money for manorial development or whatever. It would depend on the level of unrest and potential for armed conflict.

Personally, I like the levels so that mercenaries are more expensive than household troops in the short-term (i.e. during the campaigning season), but cheaper in the long-term (since you don't pay for them when you don't use them).

Whether GPC's 2 per month per knight is a tad too high can be debated. I keep vacillating between 1 per month per knight (thus about 4 per campaigning season) and 2 (8 per campaigning season). I am also toying with a model of 1 (or 2) hiring fee + 1 per month to make it less cost effective to just hire a merc for a month, as naturally the merc would prefer some job security as well, and is likely losing employment opportunities between short gigs. I generally play it by the ear a bit: if everyone is hiring mercs, costs are high, but if the kingdom is at peace, then mercs are more easily and cheaply available as they have harder time finding work. I would imagine that many might become robber knights after the big wars are over, hence giving Arthur's knights something to do!

No. The entourage/servants are hired per year basis. Of course, you generally wouldn't like a reputation of being a master who is cycling through staff like crazy, though. Even ignoring the issue of low loyalty, you also lose on the experience and know-how that the older retainers would have.

In Our Campaign:Mercenary prices (/month):Knight: 2Mounted Sergeant (or a distinctly poorly equipped knight): 1Sergeant on foot AKA armored infantry (chainmail, shield, sword, shield): 0.5Spearman or Archer (leather armor, shield & spear or bow): 0.25Length of contract (part of the thinking here is that the actual fighting is likely closer to 4 months per year, if even that, and especially on longer contracts, much of the job is actually quite safe garrison/patrol duty):Hire for a full year: monthly fee x 6Hire for 2 - 3 years: monthly fee x 4 / yearHire for 4 - 10 years: monthly fee x 3 / yearHire 'permanently' (i.e. household knight, garrison): monthly fee x 2 / year for upkeepNote that if the mercenaries need to travel, this counts as part of their service. For instance, if you hire a group of mercenaries in London in May to go to war in Ganis come July, they expect to have their transport and time taken paid as well, not just the raiding/fighting in Ganis from July onwards.The supply and demand can affect the prices as well. If someone is hiring lots of mercenaries for what looks to be a long war and is paying good money for every man (say, the King is planning a war), then hiring up with the King on year to year bases sounds more attractive than a 4 year contract doing the same for less money. Household positions, however, are generally very desirable, as they are, in effect, permanent. Whereas if there is a long peace, mercenaries might be struggling to make money, and might be willing to be hired for less.Also, the perceived risk-benefit ratio affects the willingness of the mercenaries to accept the job. For instance, a prospective employer is planning on going to fight the loincloth wearing Picts on the Highlands, famous for their horse-killing tactics, and the mounted mercenaries are certainly less eager. Whereas if the employer is planning on launching raids on a 'soft & rich' target, the mercenaries would certainly be more interested.

That was the old one. I think 12 per year is too much for mercs. I'd probably drop a single year and have just '1-3 years = x4'. This would make a yearly hire 8, same as for the whole campaigning season, which kinda makes sense. I might drop the 'whole campaigning season' to x3 = 6, too. So you'd have options:

But like said, I am bouncing a bit between different ideas. The PKs are not using mercs all that often, so it is not a huge issue so far. The last time they hired mercs, I said the mercs were 2 per month and they got the mercs initially for 2 months, hoping to be done by then, and then extending the contract for another two months when it was clear that the war wouldn't be over in a hurry.

EDIT: Now I recall why I wanted it to be 2 per month. This is so that the typical vassal requirement of 40 days (upped to 60 days = 2 months in our campaign) costs about the same as a household knight's yearly upkeep. Thus, if you are relying on mercenaries, you can afford one every other year vs. a household knight every year (due to 2:1 render vs. treasure conversion; most short term mercs, especially when fighting farther away, demand coin, not cows).

In the Downfall period mercenaries abound (in parallel to not only Mordred's use of them, but also the 15th century and 'bastard feudalism'). Now the Wasteland might have been one reason for this, and the rise of a cash economy, but are there sound mechanical reasons for it in KAP?

Well, you have the big wars ending in 530 or so, followed by almost two decades of Pax Arthuriana. So there is really no pressing need to keep your household knights up to full strength. When the Yellow Pestilence happens, it wipes out a good chunk of the remaining HHKs and also the economy, further impacted by the spreading Wasteland. So suddenly, the lords can't even afford to fill the gaping holes in the roster with more knights, even if they wanted to and such knights would be available. Once the Wasteland is restored, you still have those Lords who are probably feeling very skittish about hiring full rosters of household knights, and instead rely on "retained knights", who are basically long-term mercs, like contracts ranging from 3 to 10 years, and then hiring regular short-term mercs when they really have to bring all X knights to the muster.

Mechanistically, you can encourage the PKs to do exactly that by allowing their SD to start lapsing during the Romance and Tournament periods. Big wars are over, so Arthur seldom asks for the whole army to muster, and scutage might become very common, too. If you have to pay 4 scutage every 3-4 years rather than upkeep a 4 render knight for all those years, it becomes wiser financially to pay scutage. This would also allow the PKs to save more of their income in order to keep up with the Joneses as far as better and more expensive armor and horses become available. And you can basically have the household knight system die during the triple blows of Long Peace, Yellow Pestilence and Wasteland: it is simply so much more advantageous for the lords to shift to the retained knights & mercenaries-on-demand. So you mechanistically switch the terms: no longer will the PKs trade oaths with household knights for life, but instead have lawyers draw up set-term contracts for the retained knights to sign.

Basically you care about your loyal vassals in a way you don't care about mercenaries. You can throw away the lives of mercenaries, but you pay for the privilege, plus they will serve over the winter if you keep paying them. This is useful during a siege. Obviously mercenaries are clued in to the fact they will be misused and abused by their employers, hence the low loyalty. They will know a suicide mission when they see one, but if the odds are decent, and the prospect of looting awaits, they will try their luck. Also, provided you don't owe them back-pay, mercenaries will leave when you are finished with them, and hopefully not take to banditry in your lands for want of fresh work.

I found that the rates for mercenaries shown in the Savage Mountains for the Cambrian campaigns to be very reasonable. The cost for a knight is going to be much more, but those are solid, I think, for non-noble. I personally make knights more or less u purchasable as mercenaries, but they have sergeants who are listed at similar cost. I also give my players a small discount (5-10) for paying for the three month (whole summer campaign season) costs.

I also intend to introduce a scaling up of knight and soldier numbers in our campaign beginning in the conquest period until late in the period of the Wasteland. That way the lands produce more of the numbers we see in the battle size estimates. Then during the Wasteland, we'll drop the number back down to Uther's period. The remainder will become the mercenaries and the disenfranchised that join Mordred. Probably even some former PC knights. Which will be good for the story.

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