It is stated that members of the free companies are always paid to join battle. But by who are they paid? If a group of players join the game forming a free company, it is to be expected that they want to join a battle on Saturday or Sunday, but also that they should be paid… To who must they go to obtain the appropriate contract and payment? A Prince that seeks to further his influence? The Senate? The Generals at the war council? And in case all of those players had Military Units as their resources, those too should be considered contracted to support a specific army in the downtime? Thank you for any answer
Specifically, as a new group you will need to fight with (or at least on the same day as) the League National Block unless you can get yourself bonded to an existing mercenary banner. I don’t think there is any restriction on who can recruit/pay for a mercenary unit but for the main battles it will usually be someone from another nation.
A contract related to military units supporting an army during downtime is also possible but separate.
The restriction, for uptime combat, is usually how much a Nation’s General/s can afford to pay the company…and how the terms of the contract sit
So, as a past play example:
For most of the IC year 384, Urizen held the contract for the Sea Wolves, which is one of the more established League banners.
They went into big battle (major Conjunction) with Urizen and fought within the rough Urizen “block” for the entire period of the contract.
Some of them went through the Gate on smaller conjunctions (skirmishes) when a big chunk of Urizen’s fighters did, but it wasn’t guaranteed.
Urizen could not afford to pay the Sea Wolves for a new contract when the term was done, so they (sadly) went onto supporting another Nation.
(Loved fighting with them in a block as an Urizeni… rarely did because of how Urizen organises their force and I’m on the faster side of it, but I’d run into them when we’d got stuck into the mess, rather than heading behind lines)
Downtime stuff is a different ballgame, for a whole host of reasons.
I’d genuinely say, if you’re looking at a Free Company concept, see how it plays out in field and if y’all like the flavour of it.
There were a couple of mercenary companies also hired by Dawn last year. Sworn to the banner of specific generals, fighting alongside them on the field, and also with their armies in downtime.
I’m assuming they were paid well for the uptime bits at least.
The Guerdon covers some of the downtime work, as well.