Re-Naming some of the Knights

[hylander25k]

far be it from me to break tradition, but, IMO some of the vanilla knightly names are kind of silly. Take for example the "Chivalric Knights" that France has. Aren't all knights Supposed to be Chivalric (regardless of if they actually are or not). My proposition is to change this to something a little more faction specific, like England and HRE. Imperial Knights, English Knights, Portugues Knights, etc.

Even if there was a complete rename for some factions. Take for example France. There are usually three tiers of Knights (sorry for being so simplistic - I am just diagramming my point)
Mailed Knights -----> Early French Knights
Feudal Knights ----->Feudal French Knights
Chivalric Knights ----> Late French Knights

Another solution to this would be give every factions Knights a specific name for "Knight". For instance, If I'm not mistaken the French word for that would be Chevalier, and in German it would be something to the effect of "Ritter" (I'd have to do a little research - wouldn't mind that if KK was considering this seriously). It would be one of those nice distinctions from faction to faction - because every factions Knight's really are different. Doing this method would also aid in showing dismounted versus mounted knights. In solution 1 - adding the "dismounted" prefix or the "Foot Knight" suffix would make it kind of long and wordy. This way:
Mailed Knight ----> Early Chevalier
Feudal Knight ----> (Dismounted) Feudal Chevalier
Chivalric Knight --->(Dismounted) Late Chevalier

This however is just going off the assumption that the actual "Feudal" era corresponds with the "Feudal" Knights. I'm sure a more creative name could be brainstormed but I find it kind of silly to call knights "Chivalric" or "Noble" when by default thats what Knights were supposed to be. Certain titles could be kept, for example the Imperial Knights.

Just an idea - didn't know if anyone felt the same way. I'm not saying this would be need to be done with every faction. I've been kind of quiet on the forum for some time, and after watching everyone add their input I figured it would only be fair to share mine. Please if anyone feels the same or different, help me out. If this becomes a well liked idea I would be more than willing to do a diagram of possible renames for all the knights in the game.

Regards
Hylander

[hellfire15]

this is awesome!

[DrunkNIrishMan]

If I understand the way units work, then doing this would mean an additional 3 units per faction because of the faction-specific names, and push us waaay over the limit.

[Severloh]

Altough I agree completely, and this idea is, without question, excellent, we (ok, not "we", king kong") would have to create a number of unirs that are unbearable for the engine

[hylander25k]

there are no ways to simply re-name units instead of creating totally new ones?

[Severloh]

Don't think so

But once again, I'm better at cooking than at modding, and I've never made a sucessful scrambled egg on my entire life

[hylander25k]

thats interesting. If this is true, then I wonder if KK could just remove the current knights from the program, rename them and re-insert them. After all, he removed the town militias (thank you). Meanwhile, maybe I'll do a little research on foreign names for knights, as well as Medieval 2 modding.

[Wolfcp11]

Not enough unit slots mate.

[hylander25k]

well wait - someone elaborate on how the engine works to me. I don't quite comprehend how it would take more slots just to rename units that already exist. I'm not proposing to create new units, just rename old ones to better suit the faction they reside in.

[Echad]

You see, you can use deifferent textures for different factions, but not the names... For example, if you name French Feudal Knight - Frog-eating Chevalier, he will be called Frog-eating Chevalier for German and England too... This will be ahistorical, since Brits don't eat frogs!

[Oberhut]

he will be called Frog-eating Chevalier for German and England too... This will be ahistorical, since Brits don't eat frogs!

.. only red herring for those world renowned gourmets

These models would be renamed over every faction, and maybe have an officer unit put in who was the lord in question;

Well actually I don't think that differantiation by that means is anywhere near historic.
Example:
- in 1100 even the Kings guard would wear mail only - because nothing better was availiable at that time.
- by 1500 no one riding an expensive war horse would wear mail only ..

[The Sundance Kid]

Well actually I don't think that differantiation by that means is anywhere near historic.
Example:
- in 1100 even the Kings guard would wear mail only - because nothing better was availiable at that time.
- by 1500 no one riding an expensive war horse would wear mail only ..

And in 1100 you'll be recruiting mainly mailed knights, but by 1400/1500 you'll have maxed out most barracks, therefore gaining the upper levels of cavalry and the upper levels of armour. I believe this is the best way to categorise each knight without reverting to the silly names like 'Chivalric Knights', which is what the thread was trying to avoid. Otherwise, we could just give each faction one unit of horsemen and make their armoury upgrades more expensive, but that takles a certain level of fun out that we're trying to keep.

[King Kong]

Hi hylander,

Well, it's actually very easy to rename a unit's name:
Just open the export_units.txt file (in text folder), look for i.e "{Mailed_Knights} Mailed Knights" and change the name behind the brackets to whatever name you want.
Delete the export_units.txt.strings.bin after that.

However, if you would like to have different names for i.e mailed knights you would have to create a "clone unit" with a different name in the exprt_descr_units.txt file and this is not possible at the moment because of the unit limit that is laready reached.

[The Sundance Kid]

So would a simple option just be to name them something maybe universal (yes, I know the irony, ok, European-universal) but still making it sound more correct than 'Chivalric Knights'. Like specifying them by what type of feudal lord they came from, e.g. Baron, Duke, Earl, like the stables. Say, an Earl's Retinue, and a Baron's retinue. We could also put a Baron and an Earl officer unit in?

[hylander25k]

So would a simple option just be to name them something maybe universal (yes, I know the irony, ok, European-universal) but still making it sound more correct than 'Chivalric Knights'. Like specifying them by what type of feudal lord they came from, e.g. Baron, Duke, Earl, like the stables. Say, an Earl's Retinue, and a Baron's retinue. We could also put a Baron and an Earl officer unit in?

well historically that would actually make more sense... in fact that lends itself nicely to my original Idea, as well as explaining why certain knights remain in the roster. For example, I always wondered exactly why I was still able to build mailed knights, even though they were fantastically overpowered by feudal knights. Perhaps I can find some sort of heirarchial order and we could work on assigning new titles. The Mailed Knights being the lowest tier noble, feudal knights being the middle tiered nobles, and chivalric/english/imperial/whatever knights being the highest tiered. However - If it is true that the models couldnt be shared, all the knights would be very generic looking, wielding the same weapons and whatnot. That would kind of take the fun out of all of it, quite a bit. KK - thoughts?

second wind Idea - for specialty units (such as english knights and Imperial knights) we could find specific noble titles. Imperial Knights, addmittedly sound cool enough, but knowing the HRE, they would probablly be derived from higher up nobles, or even minor electors (ok - so maybe that could be a capped unit at one, considering there weren't THAT many electors, even in the numerous german states of the HRE). England - I am not so sure on. Perhaps, if people are interested we could get a small research team together? That is, if the idea becomes popular enough?

[DrunkNIrishMan]

Now that's an idea I'm intrigued by...

[The Sundance Kid]

Yes, yes, all support my idea! Jump foolishly onto my bandwagon, guys!

[delra]

I think it's pointless. The names are generic already...

[Wolfcp11]

The thing is that, technically, all the knights would be barons, earls, and other lesser nobles...

[The Sundance Kid]

Well, I was thinking mainly:

Mailed Knights: -------> Earl's Retinue
Feudal Knights --------> Duke's Retinue
Chivalric Knights ------> Baron's Retinue

These models would be renamed over every faction, and maybe have an officer unit put in who was the lord in question; just a simple noble model. Then, for the unique units of every faction (instead of adding loads of units in)

English Knights -------> Knights of the Garter
Polish Nobles ---------->
Gothic Knights -------->
Imperial Knights ------> Herzogsritter (or Knights of the Eagle -- link)
Gendarmes ------------> Gendarmes (I think thats correct enough as it is)

Need suggestions for any others...