Mercs have 3 attack, 7 defense, 1 health, no bonuses, pathetic morale, horrible stamina
The General has 15 attack, 15 attack ranged, 18 defense, 2 health, the best morale in game, awesome stamina, if they charge they get a +5 attack bonus. They also receive + to attack, morale and health equal to amount of general stars.
Later on general units will be even better. Armored General unit can get to 30ish defense easily.
This is why i was maneuvering so much against Partha, to get their generals and super heavy cavalry (cataphracts)
These units, as well as elephants (esp the armored ones), scythed chariots, spartan hoplites, urban cohorts.. and many, many more.. slaughter such mercs in one frame
Unit quality differences are insane. On top of that there is a rock-paper-scissor system. With peasants loosing to everything, and elephants, spartans, generals & co steamrolling everything that moves.
Against such units only maneuvering or CRUSHING number advantage is the way to go.
As Armenia we have no numbers.
Of course if you had a unit of spartans on a bridge, and no way around it.. you won't get through without bloting out the sun with arrows, loosing as many people as Persians did under Thermopile, or using siege weaponry..
Here you can see what i'm talking about :
161 spartan hoplites vs 4800 peasantsOur horse archers are very fast, hard to catch, hard to hit, but if they got caught in melee, they would get slaughtered by anything that is not peasants.
Generals die when surrounded, hit by multiple charges from different directions or hitting a total-anti-cavalry unit like Spartans.
Elephants panic when attacked with fire or animals.
The Useless mercs are quite nice against arrows (they have a nice chance of blocking them with shields) and if they hold a cav unit for a while, they will deal some damage.. But arrows to the sides or back and taking cavalry charges takes them apart. et cetera.. et cetera.. RTW has dozens of different units.