Well, I’m happy to discuss mechanics questions again, especially whether they are historical or not.
About Byzantines mercenaries: I remember that some concepts included them quite a bit, the one most committed to its existence was that of “vanlijie” (NEW DIY II The Byzantine Empire 拜占庭帝国).
Congratulations vanlijie!, your concept of mercenaries became Canon. Of course, when the DLC is released, perhaps we can do a complete topic to compare which concept ideas were helpful and which were discarded.
Anyway, getting to the point of the mercenaries:
Confirmed:
- Keshik.- heavy cavalry, merc. of the Mongols
- Ghulam.- Heavy infantry, merc. of the Islamic countries (Abbasid Caliphate, Persian, Delhi, etc)
- Nest of Bees.- replaces mangonel, Chinese siege weapon? optional of IV age by Landmark.
Theorical:
- Rank infantry, Archers. → No idea, Normand-English Longbowman?
- Rank infantry, Crossbowmen.-> Genoese Crossbowmen?
- melee light infantry → Catalan Almogavars?
- Melee light cavalry → Venetian Stradiot?
- Another siege weapons → Ayyubid two UU siege w.???
Catalan Company.- Considering that Civ Aragón does not yet exist, and now that there is no longer a problem with them sharing architecture with Castilla (Civ Variante), if they put them in it is likely that they will exist in the future.
Italians, Genoese, Venetians.- Considering that the Venetians, Genoese, or Italians do not yet exist, except for “Hints” that they will exist in the future and therefore also include their mercenaries, for the moment their existence It’s not safe at all.
Mongols.- Uhm… I think I forgot the point of the topic… AH, historicity of the Neest of Bees. Well I will answer that in the next message, so as not to divert the topic.