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[lordcooper]

I have a persistent craving for a game where I can run a mercenary company.  Setting is ultimately unimportant, but I have a slight preference for fantasy or medieval.  Bonus points if I have to worry about paying wages, equipping/training troops, diplomacy and food.  I have already played Mount & Blade, as well as Final Fantasy Tactics.  Something between the two would be ideal.  Any suggestions?

[Bdthemag]

Jagged Alliance 2.

Modern game where you create a unique mercenary, and are given the job of liberating an island from a tyrannical ruler. It's turn based, and you can use funds that you acquire to hire other mercenaries and buy equipment. You can train a mercenary to be good at any task, from the squad medic to the stealthy sniper. You can also capture towns to get a steady income, and you can train local militias to defend the towns too.

[Girlinhat]

Liberal Crime Squad?  It's Toady's previous game, not played myself.

...Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance?

[nenjin]

Suikoden 2. Definitely not a lot of management or paying mercs ect...it's essentially your garden variety medieval JRPG. But you get redonkulous amounts of playable characters, get a castle to call home base, your own personal chef, you can mix and match your party however you want...you're less mercenaries and more "small army."

Shadowrun for the Genesis totally fits the bill too.

Ogre Battles for the SNES or PSX/PS2...although like Suikoden 2, you're less mercs and more of a small army. But if you included FFT in your list, they will both be exactly what you're looking for, albeit in totally different formats.

Shining Force 1 & 2 for the Sega, same story as above. If you liked FFT you should be able to get into SF.

Warsong for the Sega or Der Langrisser for the SNES. Both games kinda mix mercenary leaders commanding squads of faceless mooks. May or may not fit what you're looking for.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Silent Storm series.

Setting is in WW2 and you control a squad of 5-6 soldiers. Each of them has background story and has a class (sniper, grenadier, medic, etc.). You get to create your own character (that must be present in every mission) but you choose the rest of your squaddies. There's RPG-like progression that includes branching skill trees.

I must say that it had an amazing physics for its time. Destructible walls, windows, ragdoll physics and all that.

[Cthulhu]

Etrian Odyssey would probably count.  I've been considering, if I ever learn to program, making a roguelike where you run a mercenary company.

[Zyxl]

Shining Force 1 & 2 for the Sega, same story as above. If you liked FFT you should be able to get into SF.

There was a Shining Force III for the Saturn I highly recommend, as a fan of SFI and II on the genesis. Best of the series in almost every aspect. Runs fine on emulators.

[lordcooper]

There's some pretty cool suggestions here, but I was hoping for something on a bit of a grander scale.  Is there anything a little closer to the M&B side of the scale (large scale battles, different factions, more of a sandbox focus)?

[Nelia Hawk]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bladestorm:_The_Hundred_Years%27_War

sadly its on playstation 3

basically your a mercenary leader with troops and can join any of your troops and lead them (i.e. horses or archers or two handers etc) the rest you command around... and you jump into the fight between france and britain and can help the one side.. or the other .. or both ... or kill all... or help england first then france then england.. capture castles...

[Man of Paper]

Bladestorm is extremely, extremely gamey. Nothing seems more out of place than a dude leading a bunch of Lancers while he's dressed completely in Samurai armor.

It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea. If you're into lower end games, and aren't easily disappointed/are easily entertained (like me), I'd say give it a shot.

Running around in the squads is also iffy. Everyone gets in a straight line or two and until they're in combat, it's very...non-organic looking. There's also a massive, massive Rock/Paper/Scissors in effect. Like, if you see an enemy unit's symbol flashing red, you're going to do about zero damage and get trounced.

But again, very fun to play if you don't mind a flawed game.

[Graknorke]

EvE online, paying Dust Bunnies to fight for your faction.
Once cross-game integration is fully done of course.

[Megaman]

Mount and Blade Warband

Also, Face of Mankind has its own mercenary faction, I suppose it'd take a while and a lot of effort to get your own company, but they're real people. FoM is a good game but the combat system's shit, you basically run around in circles shooting wildly until someone dies.

[PanH]

There's Kenshi too, but it's far from finished.

[Logical2u]

Tactics Advance has a bit better 'company management' stuff in it as compared to Tactics, I'd say.

Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker has a company management side to it as well but it's somewhat secondary as compared to the stealth gameplay.

Maybe Advance Wars, but it's probably a bit less troop oriented than what you're looking for.

Really it sounds like what you're looking for is "Mercenary Company Tycoon" or somesuch - a level higher than games like Tactics, but obviously not as abstract or from as high a perspective as say a traditional RTS game like Command and Conquer. Sorta like Tropico but with only military stuff.

[Ygdrad]

It definitely isn't medieval/fantasy, but MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries has everything else you want.

By the way, that game is now entirely free.