[Norfleet]

If you are the current employer, your bid is doubled: If you bid $104, it's equivalent to if you were not the owner and bid $208. Therefore, you will beat somebody else's bid of $203.

There is no option to play without the mercs. They're supposed to be considered an integral part of the Dominions experience, and turning them off would be like turning off pretenders. This is also noteworthy in that there are some particularly misunfortunate situations that you can get yourself into, early game, that only mercs can get you out of! If you have a no-magic pretender and your lab explodes, for instance, you're SOL without a merc.

As for how much to bid on mercs, it's really dependent on how much you want the merc. Often you can bid only the asking price, and win by default because no other nation was interested. Merc Groups come in varying degrees of effectiveness and expense: Also, the asking price of a merc drops if nobody hires it, so the longer you wait, the cheaper it gets.....but the odds that somebody else will bite first increases. Some mercs are worthwhile and great bargains at any price....others are less than impressive.