Mercenaries...

[LintMan]

Yesterday, I was using Rexor's Barbarians, who had faced some pretty steep attrition and were down to Rexor and 7 barabarians, when it can came time for me to re-hire them.

They didn't seem worth rehiring, but I thought: "Why not get one final usage out of them?", and throw them (alone) in a suicide attack at the Indep-7 province I was gearing up (but not yet ready) to take.

Does anyone else do that, or is it considered "dirty pool" to casually toss departing mercenaries into a blender? (Better than facing them in your enemy's army next turn, and get some final use out of them to boot...)

Another time, I had a cyclops mercenary (just one big guy), who stacked up a few afflictions (sadly including a lost eye) in my service. I laughed when I saw he was then hired by one of my AI opponents.

But, it's happened to me, too: I hired some guy (red's something?) (it was just him, no army) for some not so small $$$ and then discovered he was barely more powerful than a standard independent commander (if that), and probably initially came with a batch of other units which were just a memory by the time I hired him.

I guess it would help to know more about the original mercenary force to know if it's worth bidding on them. I wonder if the AI is able to figure out that Rexor and just 7 Barbarians just isn't worth the money he was asking (which was based on 50 Barbarians)?