Maintenance of Mercenaries

[vfb]

Do you have to pay the 15% maintenance fee (upkeep) on any mercenary troops you have hired?

Sorry if it's been asked before, but I couldn't find the answer in the manual or the forums.

[Nick_K]

Maintenance isn't 15%. It's something like 6.5% I think, less for sacreds. It shouldn't be that big a deal for most mercs unless you have them sitting around for ages - that's assuming you have to pay it of course: I don't actually know the answer to your question, I just wanted to post something today.

[vfb]

Thanks for the correction Nick, you are right, for normal units it is cost/15, not cost*0.15.

Still, you'd end up paying more in upkeep to Hannibal's Elephants than you would to rehire them. Another reason to keep them busy, if you do have to pay upkeep on mercs.

Edit:
I tested this in SP, and I saw no change in upkeep after hiring mercenaries. This means you are way better off hiring Hannibal for a measly 80 GP to start and paying 40 every 3 turns, than building 6 elephants for 600 and paying 40 per turn.

In fact, you could bid 600 to start for Hannibal, and renew at 120 every 3 turns (effectively 240 for bid-competing purposes), and still come out at least even.

[MaxWilson]

That is, until some of his elephants die. Then you're still paying 120 per 3 turns for 2 elephants. I wish mercs knew to drop their minimum bid when their men died off.

It's a really interesting datum, though.

-Max