Is there any reason troops refuse to follow a LD?

[Chazar]

I always wondered why mercenary commanders reject new troops. Why? I can see why one should not be able to separate mercenary troops, but if leadership permits, where is the reason?

I think it is just a technical glitch: mercenaries have their all their toops locked for simplicity of coding, no? If so, why is adding troops bad? Ok, you might not be able to get your troops back again, but that is true for most battles as well. Or is this in turn due to a simplification of the different routing mechanism of troops belonging to a mercenary leader?

Hopefully DomIII is better there, having a "mercenary" tag for all troops governing their behaviour (which could also be useful for troops recruitable by magic sites, summons or the gladiators). One effect means routing equals vanishing, another could be cost, a reduced priority if food is scarce and locking to a commander if assigned once.

[Cainehill]

Hmm. That'd give a new way to poison mercenary troops though - add something to the merc troop with a disease / cold / poison aura, so that it kills the merc troop _and_ potentially the new paymaster's troops.

[Wish]

i hope in dom 3 you can mercenary out your own troops, as a way to gain extra funds

you can already give the merc that amulet that plagues the land on the last turn you have them, or something that makes them diseased or the such, and when others buy them, they get the plagues... so thats already not impossible.

[Chazar]

Cainehill said:
Hmm. That'd give a new way to poison mercenary troops though - add something to the merc troop with a disease / cold / poison aura, so that it kills the merc troop _and_ potentially the new paymaster's troops.

No, for your own troops do not carry the mercenary tag and thus return to the current province's garrision if the mercenary commander returns (like for any other vanishing commander (personal teleport, wind ride, assassinations,...)!

So there is nothing new that you could not already do in terms of nastiness. Of course, you can already use another commander and place disease spreading creatures next to them on the battlefield, as Wish_For_Blood_Slaves already pointed out.