The Kypchaks aren't too different from the countless other steppe peoples or still nomadic/semi-nomadic Turks. It's full of horse archers, horse archers, and more horse archers. However, we may have the context to make the Kypchaks into something other than just a generic steppe people, if we are willing to fib their identity a little and incorporate some Volga-Bulgarian unit types.
Strengths
Horse Archers & Horse Javelineers
Heavy Horse Archers
Strong Melee Cavalry Roster
Aggressive Slavic Warbands
Very wide AOR to 'Nomadic' Units
Weaknesses
Very small AOR to 'settled' units (Slavs, possibly the Nobles [if changed to Druzhina])
Pitiful defensive-infantry
Poor Siege Abilities
Foreign religion [Almost nobody they conquer in the civilized world will be pagan. It's a long way to conversion.]
Code:
Barracks
Barracks level 1 - *Not sure*
Barracks level 2 - Kipchak nomad spearmen
Barracks level 2 - Slavic Swordsmen
Barracks Level 3 - Slavic Spear Warband
Barracks level 4 - Kipchak noble viking dudes
Archery Range
Range level 1 - Turkish auxillary javelinmen
Range level 1 - Turkish auxillary archers
Range level 2 - Kipchak nomad archers
Range level 3 - Kipchak noble archers
Stables
Stables level 1 - Turkish auxillary javecav
Stables level 1 - Turkish auxillary archers
Stables level 2 - Kipchak nomad horse archers
Stables level 2 - Kipchak Nomad Lancers
Stables level 3 - Kipchak noble archers
Stables level 4 - Kipchak noble lancers
Stables level 5 - Kypchak Elite Horse Archers
Kypchak Elite Lancers
UNIT IDEAS
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Kypchak/Cuman Information
"The Light Horse are the bulk of the warriors, probably including some Pechenegs and Turkomen as well as Cumans."
My suggestion is that the Cumans form the 'spine' of their cavalry roster, Turkomans and Pechenegs being the 'ribs'. By that I mean the Lightest Horse Archer, the Medium Horse archer, and the Heaviest Horse Archer be Cuman, and then the Turkomans would be a Javelin Light cavalry,
"The bulk of Cuman armies would have worn a calf-length topcoat, sometimes with short sleeves, over a knee length tunic and trousers. Either boots or shoes could be worn. A wide range of materials were used, with fur, wool and sheepskin perhaps being commoner in the early part of the period, and linen and brocade replacing them as time went on. Colours varied, yellow, white, brown, blue, red, gold and grey are all recorded. Clothes could be highly patterned and embroidered. Richer or noble Cumans would naturally wear more decorative clothing"
"Those fighting as Cv, should probably be armoured, in a mix of Russian, Turkish, and Mongol styles. Pointed helmets with mail aventails and a metal mask moulded to look like a face are recorded as popular."
We can use a mixture of Russian, Turkish, and Mongolian sources. We can also re-use Russian meshes (The boyar sons for instance) or alterations of Turkish ones.
"The most distinctive item of Cuman clothing was a pointed cap. Unfortunately, contemporary sources show a wide range of these, possibly reflecting various ethnic sub-groups. Most have an upturned brim, often in a contrasting colour. Some versions resemble a "Robin Hood" style, others are more like old-fashioned nightcaps with upturned brims."
Kipchak Hat:
"The Cumans themselves were fair-skinned, blue-eyed and often described as handsome. They wore their hair long, and often had long moustaches, although beards were rare."
Ethnicity is always a touchy issue, but it's not implausible that the Cumans weren't like this, given that the Scythians and other previous steppe people were sometimes blonde and fair skinned. However the Cumans are a Turkish people, so I dunno. I'd just intermix Turkish-looking faces with fair skinned Slavic looking faces.
Kypchak/Cuman Unit Concepts
These are not set in stone. They are merely concept ideas.
There are four basic meshes used. Turkish Auxilia, Kypchak Nomad, Kypchak Noble, Kypchak Khan's Guard.
Unit Meshes
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
Turkish Auxilia
Mesh: West or East Turk mesh. You can add in the Hungarian Noble hats if you'd like.
Clothing: I forget what we settled on, but I think it was plain colors, not very colorful. Check with Mirage, I'm fine with anything.
Headwear: I think you know what they will have. In case you need any other ideas though:
Option 1 - Turkish Hat
Option 2 - Turkish Hat
Option 3 - Mongolian Hat
Option 4 - Hungarian Pointed Cap
Weapons/Shield:
For the Javelin guys, you told me that they could use the "round javcav shield I made for the eastern turkomans"
For the archer version, they can have the same thing. Or none. Whichever you prefer.
Both can use any sort of weapon. I might give the Javelins a mace, the archers a sword. Or both swords.
Concept Art: Not really sure they need anything. These guys kind of have my hands off and I can help, but I think you and Mirage should discuss it. I'm still a little confused on them, so whatever you two like is fine by me.
Kypchak Nomads
Mesh: It's hard to say what should be a basis. It'll depend on the concept art. You told me the Hungarian Nobles would work.
Clothing: Traditional 'baggy' steppe clothing, with leather on the chest and some of the body
Kypchak Art #1 - The leather is currently somewhat on a vanilla unit:
Kypchak Art #2 - The leather is very much like the Laskhar guys. You'd probably just place them on a Kypchak unit, or maybe do a slight bit of editing.
In general: They should have a 'steppe heaviness' with their clothing being thick, and leather being plentiful.
Headwear:
Option 1 - Mongolian Hat (Seen above)
Option 2 - Hungarian Pointed Cap
Option 3 - Turkish Hat
Option 4 - A helmet. Mongolian or Turkish. I'd go with Mongolian.
Weapons/Shield: No Shield. Saber and Composite Bow. We could give them a shield, but maybe the Kypchak Nomads will lack shields and make up for it with speed and archery. The art simply has them lacking it, but it's up to you. I'd be fine with slung on the back shields brought forth for melee.
Concept Art:
Kypchak Art #1
Kypchak Art #2
Kypchak Nobles
Mesh: I'm not really sure what Mesh. I would suggest the Boyar Sons, so long as you can make it look like some aren't wearing 'barrel chested' lamellar, but only mail. If it's a choice of a mesh that pulls off the mail look better, or one which pulls of the lamellar/mail look better, go with the first (The pure mail)
Clothing/Armor: These guys would be Medium/Medium-Heavy fellows. Lots of mail, and some lamellar. It wouldn't be the 'heavy mail and heavy lamellar' that the Khan's guard has.
Nothing Special. The Vanilla Mesh, remove the stupid 'wizard hats'. I'd suggest a round viking-esque shield, not the stupid bucklers. If you want I can ask burrek to use some of his textures in place of Vanilla. He has a good 'fur' one, as well as leather that doesn't look like the Vanilla Trenchcoats.
Presumably their armies were a mixture of steppes horse archers/foot archers with some eastern european units mixed in? Perhaps even some viking influences.
Do we have any one that can produce a list of units this faction needs?
It seems like the logical next step as we probably have every mesh we need to complete this faction (presuming my second paragraph in this thread is true).
Cheers
"I don't want to sit around Windsor because ermm .. I just generally don't like England that much" - Prince Harry, 3rd in Line for the British Thrown
I don't know much about them, but I think I remember hearing that MTR or MA said they used slavs for their melee infantry for the most part. It does seem like they should have a decent slavic presence, keeping a turkish presence too.
I'll start looking up stuff but I can't promise anything, given how little known they are. Odds are they can be a sort of generic 'steppe' look, but whether they are caucasian or asiatic, or their general area of influence (if it was china or mongolia/central asia, or russia/eastern europe/middle east) is important.
I'd highly suggest the Sabadar militia mesh if they take after the former, given it would be a very steppe look with bow and axe.
One solution is to look to the Bulgars, which might be easier to get information on, and try to wrestle out information that would be valid from them for the volga-bulgars.
The Volga Bulgars are just going to be a "filler" faction for the far north. Just someone for the the Khwarezm and Georgians to worry about on their northern frontier. They don't need to represent the exact volga bulgars. And in reality the volga bulgars probably used and controlled many steppe tribes from cumans, alans to other turks. I don't expect to spend too much heavy research on them, they will be the equivalent of the Scythians in RTW.
As far as units are concerned I will give them basically a bunch of light cav (cumans, kazaks, turkomans), some medium cav and the ol russian woodsmen and slavic levies and such. Nothing too fancy. I don't think we'll put the effort of any serious new skins, just faction "coloring" of the above mentioned units.
The Volga Bulgars are just going to be a "filler" faction for the far north. Just someone for the the Khwarezm and Georgians to worry about on their northern frontier. They don't need to represent the exact volga bulgars. And in reality the volga bulgars probably used and controlled many steppe tribes from cumans, alans to other turks. I don't expect to spend too much heavy research on them, they will be the equivalent of the Scythians in RTW.
As far as units are concerned I will give them basically a bunch of light cav (cumans, kazaks, turkomans), some medium cav and the ol russian woodsmen and slavic levies and such. Nothing too fancy. I don't think we'll put the effort of any serious new skins, just faction "coloring" of the above mentioned units.
On the contrary, I'd recommend making them unique and more interesting, because it would add flavour to the the game. Something from a world different than the main part of the mod is, from my point of view, not only welcome but also funny. Imagine conquering India with unique Steppe archers!
Well, SirPaladin, if you can help us come up with some information and ideas for them, then certainly I don't see why we can't do that. But if you and others amongst us cannot find information, we would be best in putting them aside slightly until we can perhaps come back to them. I agree with you, it'd be awesome if we could do them justice, but they seem to be very difficult to find information on. It may be that only the hardcore history mods can find a way for them to come in.
Besides the units mirage mentioned, I'd include the Sabadar Militia reskinned, along with some basic medium or heavy spearmen, perhaps using the Timurid or Mongol models.
Its not that I want to relegate them to obscurity, its just that its all a matter of resources and time. I would love for them to be a unique and alien faction of the north, but unless more skinners get on board to help our master skinner AlphaDelta then we simply will have to do a salvage job from other units. But if things turn out to be better for the Khwarezm, Ghazni, Delhi, Abbassids, and Seljuks (the muslim heavyweights of this mod) then we will definite put more effort into the Volga Bulgars.
@Ahiga
Yeah we can give em many Timurid and Mongol units too. Don't see a problem with that.
Well Paladin, I was worried that I came across offensively. I only meant that we have a lot on our plate and volga-bulgars are difficult to do. If you can help us get the information, then we have something to work with and can make good stuff. As Alpha said, good information = good units. I did not mean to sound snide or offensive. Sorry about that.
No worries Paladin, we aren't trying intentionally neglect any faction. Its just we have to set priorities, hopefully things with the mesh editor go well and the Muslim factions unit limitations are resolves and we can perfect the more minor factions and the vanilla ones too (byz, egypt, turks, volga).
Well, although my knowledge about the Volga Bulgars isn't as much as about the Danubian ones, I'd like to post one picture to arouse your interest:
In this thread you could find also other pictures of Bulgar warriors, although a few are more of an art-work and many are about the Danubian Bulgarians.
But, indeed, the Volga Bulgarians seem to be not very well propagated and mainly the specialized historians have some good knowledge about them. Which is sad, of course...
Thanks for that Nike. Just looking over it gives some really nice concept images. I think if we look at the Bulgarians closer to europe we might get an idea of what the volga-bulgars were like. While the European Bulgarians would be influenced by the slavs...well, I can't say I doubt the volga-bulgars weren't either (They did field a lot of slavs for infantry as far as I know), but perhaps less so than the euro-bulgars, and with the added touch of steppe/mongolian influences. Given the lack of knowledge, I'd be happy with using Euro-Bulgars as an theme and add in steppe/mongol touches.
Just an FYI: The Volga Bulghars are no more. This faction is now "The Kychak Confederacy" also known in Europe as the "Cumans".
Reasons
- Geography: The Volga Bulghars aren't even in range of this map. The Kypchaks on the other hand existed right north of Georgia.
- Relevance: The Volga Bulghars hardly made an impact on the areas of BC's map. The cumans and kypchaks did make a serious impact on places like Georgia and the Caucus and even as far as Egypt.
- Information: The Volga Bulghars don't have much info on them and are bit too "mysterious". There is plenty known about the Kypchaks and Cumans.
- Modability: The Kypchaks can easiliy get salvaged models from the mongola and russian HA roster. Plus I want to give them horde ability.
I like some of those Volga-Bulgar looks, so if we have the time and if Alpha or any other skinner has the inclination, maybe they can be worked into one or two spots for the Kypchaks.
I took a good look at the Russian units in the DLV by Repman (not sure if they are reskinned or from vanilla) and I think with just a little work, the cossak cavalry, woodsmen, dismounted druzhina, archer militia, and peasant archers would look good for Kypchak's. Mostly it would be reskinning their hair darker and removing/replacing their pointy hats with helms.
They may also serve as merc units from the Alans, again with some minor skinning (as if I know how hard it is to skin )
FACTION: The Kypchak Confederacy
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Originally Posted by mirage41
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Lots of info in that link + pics.
