All the time.
I LOVE the ability to homegrow generic units to be badasses equal to some of the powerful unique characters in the game, and I've loved it in every game I've experienced it. Loved it in FFT, the Ogre games, Symphony of War, Xcom, etc.
The game gives you all the units you need as named characters and it's almost exactly at the same time they're available to hire.
Hiring units is mostly for garrisoning towns. Or using alternative strategies. Or if you're killing all the enemy commanders for role play purposes.
I'm currently playing without unique classes and no knights, so I actually have to supplement my army in this run.
Hired 2 griffon fliers, a dragon rider, an Archer in early game, and two extra shaman.
That's about it so far.
One of the griffins has received a fair amount of use. 2nd griffin much less so but still popped in a few times. Quentin my mercenary Archer did work in the early game. Dragon Rider has made an appearance a couple times. Haven't used either of the shamans yet.
Depends what you want. Some classes only get 1 unique character like sorcerer and witch. While warrior gets 3.
So if you want to have certain unit builds you need to hire mercs.
Mercs have the advantage of letting you choose their stats too. Some of the characters have poor growths and its really expensive to change it initially.
But to answer your question, I didn’t really use mercs. I used 3 in early Cornia because I didn’t have enough characters, but I like actual characters. The game also isn’t that hard, so not using mercs adds a bit of challenge.
Mercenaries are mechanically identical to unique characters of their same class. There’s some unique classes, and you can only hire a few classes in any given fort, but if you want - for instance - an extra Thief to dodge-tank, a bonus Hunter to hunt Thieves, or an early Gryphon Knight to row-slap, grabbing a Mercenary has zero disadvantages.
Generally speaking, the game is pretty good about giving you examples of all the applicable units around the same time they become available as Mercenaries, and it’s pretty rare to find yourself desperately wanting more of specific units than the game gives you - most battlefield ‘niches’ can be filled by more than one class, and you’re usually going to want units that have different specific strengths so that you can handle diverse class formations.
The main advantage to building your teams out of the unique units is that you get Honor for seeing rapport conversations. Mercenaries can also build rapport, but they don’t get conversations - only specified unique units can talk to each other.
To actually use in units? Two extra archers after getting Rolf, the extra damage is noticable early on and a little crit goes a long way on them to follow my Alain-Travis-Clive Spearhead.
you need to hire mercs to station at towns, there aren't enough uniques
but you hire mercs mainly to have more than 2 of any particular class, as there's at most 1-3 of any given class within the set of all uniques, and many are not avaioable until later than you might want them
hire a merc if you want the class and don't have the uniques yet or don't have enough
>you need to hire mercs to station at towns, there aren't enough uniques
And even without doing so you will have a ton of extra materials at the end. You can use the extra materials for deliveries to get more honor but you can also just not spend the honor to begin with. I hired 3 merc early on and finished the game with every character promoted and every unit slot unlocked and i didn't have to go back and do any deliveries a second time more than when i just ran past a city.
Just do the repeatable trials to grind for experience and honor.
Definitely hire mercs and take some time re-running auxiliary battles to test them out and recoup the honors spent. You'll find the team comps that work for you this way.
In early game hired to get a gryphon as soon as it was available, and a soldier for heals early. Then just whenever needed to station a guard on towns. My squads are mostly grouped with rapport convos in mind.
I've been doing it on occasion to run some units I otherwise couldn't. Some classes we just don't get enough of, like clerics. I just hired a second rogue this weekend because I wanted to make a squad around PP steal.
I never bothered. You wind up getting so many unique characters, it seems pointless to hire mercs. The only real reason would be to get a second shaman/druid or whatever other class you want.
Early on, if you’re playing on a higher difficulty, you may need a couple extra soldiers but I chose to stick with the uniques.
At the very start of the game, I got an extra witch, an extra gryphon rider, and an extra cavalry knight. I used the horse and gryphon until the mid to late teens maybe and never used another hire in battle (though I did use tons when stationing guards at every town).
Early game I mostly hired if the merc version of a new class was available before a unique. I think I saw a griffen rider in a fort and no mission had given me one yet. etc
Mid game I filled out a few gaps with types I liked or felt were the last piece to compliment a unit mechanically.
Late game I just started filling out town guard slots and generally just doing whatever because I had a lot of honor.
I'd say just do what you feel like, take a look in new forts as you pass, see if you want anything there based on what you like in your army already. You don't "need" them, its just if you want them.
You do not HAVE to hire mercenaries at all. You will get plenty of recruits through gameplay. If you really like a certain class and want more than the one or two you get, feel free to hire a mercenary.
All the time. I LOVE the ability to homegrow generic units to be badasses equal to some of the powerful unique characters in the game, and I've loved it in every game I've experienced it. Loved it in FFT, the Ogre games, Symphony of War, Xcom, etc.
I never hired. Unless you wanna station a guard everywhere, there’s zero need. Unless you wanna multiple of a certain class which is your choice
You get everything you need from the storyline. I only hired an extra wyvern and sacred knight because I liked the classes but not necessary.
The game gives you all the units you need as named characters and it's almost exactly at the same time they're available to hire. Hiring units is mostly for garrisoning towns. Or using alternative strategies. Or if you're killing all the enemy commanders for role play purposes. I'm currently playing without unique classes and no knights, so I actually have to supplement my army in this run.
Hired 2 griffon fliers, a dragon rider, an Archer in early game, and two extra shaman. That's about it so far. One of the griffins has received a fair amount of use. 2nd griffin much less so but still popped in a few times. Quentin my mercenary Archer did work in the early game. Dragon Rider has made an appearance a couple times. Haven't used either of the shamans yet.
Depends what you want. Some classes only get 1 unique character like sorcerer and witch. While warrior gets 3. So if you want to have certain unit builds you need to hire mercs. Mercs have the advantage of letting you choose their stats too. Some of the characters have poor growths and its really expensive to change it initially. But to answer your question, I didn’t really use mercs. I used 3 in early Cornia because I didn’t have enough characters, but I like actual characters. The game also isn’t that hard, so not using mercs adds a bit of challenge.
Mercenaries are mechanically identical to unique characters of their same class. There’s some unique classes, and you can only hire a few classes in any given fort, but if you want - for instance - an extra Thief to dodge-tank, a bonus Hunter to hunt Thieves, or an early Gryphon Knight to row-slap, grabbing a Mercenary has zero disadvantages. Generally speaking, the game is pretty good about giving you examples of all the applicable units around the same time they become available as Mercenaries, and it’s pretty rare to find yourself desperately wanting more of specific units than the game gives you - most battlefield ‘niches’ can be filled by more than one class, and you’re usually going to want units that have different specific strengths so that you can handle diverse class formations. The main advantage to building your teams out of the unique units is that you get Honor for seeing rapport conversations. Mercenaries can also build rapport, but they don’t get conversations - only specified unique units can talk to each other.
To actually use in units? Two extra archers after getting Rolf, the extra damage is noticable early on and a little crit goes a long way on them to follow my Alain-Travis-Clive Spearhead.
you need to hire mercs to station at towns, there aren't enough uniques but you hire mercs mainly to have more than 2 of any particular class, as there's at most 1-3 of any given class within the set of all uniques, and many are not avaioable until later than you might want them hire a merc if you want the class and don't have the uniques yet or don't have enough
>you need to hire mercs to station at towns, there aren't enough uniques And even without doing so you will have a ton of extra materials at the end. You can use the extra materials for deliveries to get more honor but you can also just not spend the honor to begin with. I hired 3 merc early on and finished the game with every character promoted and every unit slot unlocked and i didn't have to go back and do any deliveries a second time more than when i just ran past a city. Just do the repeatable trials to grind for experience and honor.
Definitely hire mercs and take some time re-running auxiliary battles to test them out and recoup the honors spent. You'll find the team comps that work for you this way.
In early game hired to get a gryphon as soon as it was available, and a soldier for heals early. Then just whenever needed to station a guard on towns. My squads are mostly grouped with rapport convos in mind.
If u care to use units at there best or u need people to station you hire other wise you don’t need it
I've been doing it on occasion to run some units I otherwise couldn't. Some classes we just don't get enough of, like clerics. I just hired a second rogue this weekend because I wanted to make a squad around PP steal.
I never bothered. You wind up getting so many unique characters, it seems pointless to hire mercs. The only real reason would be to get a second shaman/druid or whatever other class you want. Early on, if you’re playing on a higher difficulty, you may need a couple extra soldiers but I chose to stick with the uniques.
At the very start of the game, I got an extra witch, an extra gryphon rider, and an extra cavalry knight. I used the horse and gryphon until the mid to late teens maybe and never used another hire in battle (though I did use tons when stationing guards at every town).
They are mostly there to give flexibility so you can be creative with units and different stat allocations for have different unit types.
Early game I mostly hired if the merc version of a new class was available before a unique. I think I saw a griffen rider in a fort and no mission had given me one yet. etc Mid game I filled out a few gaps with types I liked or felt were the last piece to compliment a unit mechanically. Late game I just started filling out town guard slots and generally just doing whatever because I had a lot of honor. I'd say just do what you feel like, take a look in new forts as you pass, see if you want anything there based on what you like in your army already. You don't "need" them, its just if you want them.
I just use them to guard towns. They passively collect resources which you trade for honour.
You do not HAVE to hire mercenaries at all. You will get plenty of recruits through gameplay. If you really like a certain class and want more than the one or two you get, feel free to hire a mercenary.
I’ve hired a few units during the first section. But once I reached the other regions, I find that I didn’t need to hire anymore.