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[Icee77]

A battle, I sieged a castle
100 Huscarls (Mine)
400 Random guys (Rhodoks)
I actually thought that it was only around 40 guys,
Casualties,
57 dead Huscarls
358 Dead Rhodocks, rest unconscious.
I love Mount And Blade the Original.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Question.

I just got a quest to become a merc company. How do I start, well, being a merc?

[Blaze]

Question.

I just got a quest to become a merc company. How do I start, well, being a merc?

While under a mercenary contract, you'll automatically work as a "lord" for that faction, with the restriction being that you can't own fiefs of any sort. Your faction relations will be set accordingly. You're expected to report when called by the martial and you'll also be attacked by lords of opposing factions.

Mercenary contracts are primarily to earn brownie points for the faction you're joining, which'll help to get you lord-ized. Your salary as a merc is underwhelming, but you can raid villages of the factions you're at war with and have a place to fall back on.

Basically, it's the Calradian version of a letter-of-marque.

[Akura]

I think you can raid villages without being attached to a country. You just have to piss off a nation(by attacking a caravan), which causes every village, town, and castle to become hostile to you, then you can loot and burn villages(and siege castles and towns I think).

[Blaze]

You can raid villages without a contract, but that means you'll have to find another way to get back in their good graces if you do piss them off. When the faction you join makes peace with another, your relation to them gets set to 0, regardless of what it originally was.

As I said, merc contracts are primarily to earn brownie points with the faction.

[Smitehappy]

A battle, I sieged a castle
100 Huscarls (Mine)
400 Random guys (Rhodoks)
I actually thought that it was only around 40 guys,
Casualties,
57 dead Huscarls
358 Dead Rhodocks, rest unconscious.
I love Mount And Blade the Original.

Huscarls are the only reason I play Nords in Vanilla. A band of 50 of them and you can pretty much melt anything that even looks funny at you.

[Lumbajak]

I'd say Huscarls are even stronger in Warband.

When I see Swadian Knights or Sarranid Mamelukes I just bunch them all up and when the charge reaches my line I see 50 guys fall off their horses and axes flying everywhere.

Once beat 340~ Vaegirs with 30 Huscarls on hardest difficulty (I'll admit I spawned at the top of a ridiculously huge mountain though).

[Soulwynd]

Huscarls are the best, indeed.

[umiman]

Huscarls are super OP.

[nenjin]

Life as a merc can be rough.

You'll only ever get ~25% of your monthly upkeep in pay. The rest has to come from ransoms, prisoners and loot. If there's no war, your boys starve.

On the plus side, if your Marshall has a large army, you just follow them around and wait for them to get into fights. It's the quickest way to get involved in 200+ person fights without getting your ass torn apart. You get major brownie points, first dibs on captured lords and all the prisoners and gear you could want.

On the downside, nothing ever really happens while you're serving as a merc. When your side starts to kick serious ass, the two nations almost always declare peace, at least on average setting.

[Rakonas]

On the downside, nothing ever really happens while you're serving as a merc. When your side starts to kick serious ass, the two nations almost always declare peace, at least on average setting.

Playing some F&S as a merc for sweden, I participated in a massive offensive capturing Warsaw, Lublin, Minsk and a couple other towns before I joined the faction as a full time lord. Now nothing is really happening.

[Jackrabbit]

I always seem to side with the shit group. Soon after joining Swadia, we'd been pushed back three towns and lost our capital. I joined Sweden after they captured Moscow - within a month, Russia is breathing down our necks and we're down to four cities and a smattering of fortresses. And nobody ever. Ever. Sieges. ANYTHING.

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR

[Robsoie]

The main problem with selling your sword to a kingdom as a mercenary (at least in Warband, i have no idea about the fire&sword) is that you earn no fiefs, meaning then no revenues from them and no possibility of castle/city of your own (as even if you conquer them by yourself, they will only go to lords of the kingdom you're working for) to garrison your troops to lower (a very lot) their wadges.

In the end, the only good point of being a mercenary is that you can leave a kingdom for another once your contract is finished without having a hit on your reputation and relations.

Basically, in term of finance regarding troop costs, it's more difficult to play as a mercenary than as a vassal.

[Rakonas]

The main problem with selling your sword to a kingdom as a mercenary (at least in Warband, i have no idea about the fire&sword) is that you earn no fiefs, meaning then no revenues from them and no possibility of castle/city of your own (as even if you conquer them by yourself, they will only go to lords of the kingdom you're working for) to garrison your troops to lower (a very lot) their wadges.

In the end, the only good point of being a mercenary is that you can leave a kingdom for another once your contract is finished without having a hit on your reputation and relations.

Basically, in term of finance regarding troop costs, it's more difficult to play as a mercenary than as a vassal.

That's why it's really considered a stepping stone to being a faction lord.
The only reason I could see is if you were doing stuff that pissed off tons of people. For instance, playing Brytenwalda, executing enemy lords is a quick route to having many factions wanting to kill you. If fixing those relations was just a matter of renewing your contract then that's a pretty good deal.

[USEC_OFFICER]

You'll only ever get ~25% of your monthly upkeep in pay. The rest has to come from ransoms, prisoners and loot. If there's no war, your boys starve.

That's more money then I get from my village each week. Seriously. The king gave me a (looted) village when I joined, and now I can't seem to get my hands on another piece of land. (Actually, how do you get another village or castle. Do you have to take it yourself or what?)

Mind you, I can easily pay my weekly upkeep after I win a battle against a sizable army (Around 50-70 enemy soldiers), so I'm not complaining much.