[ioticus]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
When you goto purchase a mercenary it lists how many men are currently with him. There is no way to tell what they are. Also if they are currently employed by another nation by the time the mercenary arrives a battle from the turn before might have decreased the number of units previously listed by quite a bit.

In other words, it's possible to pay full gold for a mercenary and get no men with it if it was in a battle the turn before? And you really have no way of knowing if that will happen in advance?