Back to Basics: Recruiting Mercenaries

Recruiting mercenaries in TATW and the TATW MOS can sometimes be confusing. Here I'll explain the mechanics behind them.
This post mainly deals with the MOS mechanics, but the basic "how to" functions are the same. the differences are in some specific territory names and some mercenary names.

First off, to recruit a mercenary, send a general to a territory where mercenaries are available and click the unit button while the general is selected. This is the button on the lower right that, when in a city, shows a preview of what is currently being trained. It is next to the button that when in a city shows a preview of what building is being built, which is coincidentally the same button used to build watchtowers when selecting a general. If a mercenary is available, the "unit" button will be colorful and there will be like a bag of gold coins on it.

Now, how are you going to know where you can recruit certain types of mercenaries, and when will they be available again? There isn't much of a way to predict where mercenaries will spawn. Usually, a unit will be available in the province of your starting capital. Mercenaries regenerate very slowly, and I think that it might also vary. The only way to be sure of whether or not they have respawned is to send out a general to see if any can be recruited. Mercenary pools are NOT province specific. Several provinces can and do share the mercenary pool. examples of this are the Lossarnach Volunteers and Black Root Vale Volunteers in Gondor. Nearly the entire interior of Gondor can recruit these mercenaries, but it is all one pool. Recruiting them in the region between Pelargir and Minas Tirith (where Forlong starts) will expend them for the entire pool, meaning that you will not be able to recruit them up near Erech until the pool regenerates again, even though it is a different province.

To retrain a mercenary, send them into the city of any province in which that type of mercenary can be recruited. Mercenary retraining works just like standard retraining: when the percentage of turns remaining until the next recruitment is within the percentage of troops remaining in the unit (there is of course a certain tolerance, but I don't know what it is), you can retrain them. The recruitment timer will be set back by the same % of turns it takes to fully refill the recruitment as the % of the unit was missing.

In MOS, there are a large number of different mercenaries, and I believe that a few of them are faction specific, like Mordor cannot recruit Lossarnach Volunteers, whereas TATW mainly has Bandits, and I believe any faction can recruit so long as they have a general in the recruitment pool area. In MOS, mercenaries cost no upkeep, but in TATW they cost upkeep.

I made this post because I saw that someone accessed the page through a search for "how do I recruit mercenaries in TATW?"
If you want to know how to do something, post a comment on my blog. I WILL get back to you.

-Sapoman