Hector Stark the Captain frustration

[LintMan]

Originally posted by splooger:
Understood, but is there a way to tell how many units he comes with before you buy it? I know that the game normally tells you how many units are in the mercenary group but does it tell you if the unit is depleted/reduced? I can't remember if it said there were no units left or not.

No, there's no way to know if the merc *normally* is supposed to come with a batch of units, or is a loner, except by experience, or maybe some deduction based on the merc's name. It's the Hector Stark merc's name something like "Hector Stark's Riders" or something? From that you can guess that it's supposed to be a group, so if you see "commands no men", it's probably depleted.

[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.

[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?

[HotNifeThruButr]

Don't take second-hand mercs.

[Molog]

He could also come with a bane venom charm.

[Saxon]

If I know that I will not be re-hiring a mercenary band, I will send them on a suicide run on their Last turn with me. I am going to lose them anyway, so why not hurt someone else in the process? Also, I do not want to leave a useful tool lying around for another player. No offense, but if someone else buys them assuming they are getting a strong force and I have just depleted the force, I am dancing for joy! I just suckered that person out of a stack of cash. Cavet emptor as the Romans said.

Dominions is pretty deep and if I wanted to win, I wouldn’t jump into PBEM without running through a few games in single player. You can learn a lot of tricks in single player. On the other hand, my buddies and I all bought Space Empires IV at the same time and went straight to multiplayer so that none of us would have an advantage. The lawyer ended up winning and the PhD chemistry student was Last, going to show that a liberal arts degree does have some use…

[Anglachel]

Originally posted by Molog:
He could also come with a bane venom charm.

Lol, that would be a good one.