Medieval Kingdoms Total War: The Holy Roman Empire (REVAMP)

[Pinarius]

I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I was referring to young Gandalfs like here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

I was referring to young Gandalfs like here:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So mad that the 13th century king's galfonier ended up on that unit (guy on the left). Saw it in the recent Pixellated apollo video. I must have misplaced a number in land_units_officers. Little mistakes like that are super frustrating!

Kinda silly, how there's such a big deal about beards, but nobody has caught that glaring mistake. (Or at least, they haven't taken the time to yell at me on the internet about it)

As to the beards, see previous post. Additionally, we currently only have 1 head-only model (necessary to use gauntlets), so if there were no beards, all the men would be clones. And, as we know clone armies only exist in a galaxy far, far away, that wouldn't be very historical! (also, I don't think I could give them Australian accents)

contrary to what you say, you do ignore historically-based criticism to your work.

Nope! But sometimes I disagree with you, so I don't make the changes you want. Sorry.

Can't please everybody!

[marmalade]

*beard examples*

This seems like a bit of a useless endeavor seeing as how anyone else can dig up just as many if not more examples of clean-shaven knights in medieval art.

And, I know it's the wrong period, but my specialty is the early crusades, and a particular passage I remember from when Anna Komnene describes the Norman crusader Bohemond, she recalls it strange that he didn't have a big beard, like the rest of the 'Gauls' (as she often calls them), and that he cut his hair short, which also made him stand out from the rest of the Franks.

How useful is this information seeing as how it's from the time of the First Crusade?

I'd like to jump back for a second to the two-handed tier one knights. Alright, so two-handed swords and sword-techniques existed in the 13th century, sure, but was it wide-spread enough for all German knightly units to be using it? Did authors of the time make note that German knights would use two-handed swords?

If you wish to make German knightly units unique in a way that I would say is more "historically friendly," why not make them have slightly better stats as unhorsed knights or something? Or make their foot unit version more numerous while the mounted version is less numerous? I recall German knights were known to prefer to fight on foot. William of Tyre noted in regards to the Second Crusade (wrong period I know, ironic huh) that the German knights would dismount to fight as it was "the custom of the Teutons when they are faced with a crisis in battle."

[Heisenburrg]

There are quite a few examples for german knights fighting dismounted;

I recall German knights were known to prefer to fight on foot. William of Tyre noted in regards to the Second Crusade that the German knights would dismount to fight as it was "the custom of the Teutons when they are faced with a crisis in battle."

Other examples would be the Battle of Crecy 1346 and the Battle of Sempach 1386 in which most of the knights fought dismounted, as well as the Battle of Döffingen 1388 in which Count Ullrich dismounted from is horse following traditional "knightly practice", so he could confront his opponent with "the same weapons".

"Ullrich stieg nach Rittersitte mit seinen Soldaten vom Pferd, um dem Feind mit gleichen Waffen zu begegnen. Sodann führte er mit seinen Rittern den ersten Angriff aus und stürmte auf das gegnerische Heer zu."

All in all the dismounted fight seems to be a characteristic especially of the late knighthood´s period. Likely because of the reason, that the old values of honor and bravery, which were particulary evident in the knightly duel and became slowly obsolete in battle due to the increased use of "unchivalrous", long ranged weapons, were maintained with all power before they completely vanished from the battlefield.
The Battle of Sempach is also one of many examples for the use of peasant-militias in the army by the way; The Counts´ Ligue had around 2000 Peasants in their army. This was an important factor in medieval warfare, in England and France, as well as in HRE and other regions.

@Knight2708

Good info! Where did you find these nice Landsknecht pictures?

[Heisenburrg]

Deleted Post

[Ltd.]

I'd have to step in a bit, as I feel that there are some rather harsh words being thrown into this whole debate.
Horns and moustaches aside, I feel the need to put in a word for Fawn, as he has done a great job with his rosters.
Yes there are some things I would have done slightly different but that is the case with any other roster that I haven't made. And on the other hand, obviously, I am sure that the other team members would have done things differently in the rosters I have created. But that is in the nature of things. Each and every one of us has their own design and is of course not immune to at least slightly subjectively seeing history.

My design is rather more plain and simplistic at times, while other rosters may favour a more flashy and more luxurious approach and that is perfectly fine if it is within our historical confines.

Those long moustaches might just as well get replaced with beards or shorter moustaches, I guess.

On the issue with the horns: as long as not entire units have horned helmets but officers and some of the elite cavalry only, that is absolutely reasonable, even more so since there are depictions on german effigies.

Also, team members who do not have the option to make models on their own, have to make do with what they have at their disposal, and mix and match them to achieve something unique and that can be just as hard as creating new assets.

That is why rosters are being revised so often, as new assets make their way into the mod.

Let's keep our work relations as friendly as possible. All of us are still learning both modding and learning something new from our past every day and as such there is room for improvement for everyone involved.

There is no need to have strained relations within our group.

[Filips Augustus]

Aye you're doing a good job, and I'm sure that Fawn, or any teammember for that matter, appreciates the feedback given by others. That's why everyone posts previews here am I right ? I just hope that this issue can be solved peacefully, I might not be a teammember myself but I have seen some forums going a really bad way because of some big fights, and I hope that won't happen to this one as well .

[Heisenburrg]

Exactly. Your work is amazing Finix!
The thing that some cards are not fitting the units anymore is indeed a problem with revamping factions, but as far as I can tell, it´s a relatively small percentage of units where its really noticeable until now, so your hard work is not undone.
Furthermore I think these issues are hardly avoidable. Revamping is sometimes simply necessary, because a few rosters are just completely outdated or new/better assets are available. Maybe some other unit cards already made could be used for the revamped units or the new units could be more oriented to the previous versions in the future in order to minimize the deviations. I don´t know, maybe this could solve the problem.

[Locus_Devium]

I am pretty sure the only big problem about the new units are the furs and the extravagant bearts...
Cards not entirely fitting isn't that much of a problem as long they show a completely different soldier (light armoured horsemen instead of a knight for example)

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[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

So, chatting with Kjvertstein, I realized that maybe some people aren't aware of this, and it might be the source of some of the argument: this isn't the final roster of the factions...I thought I made that clear in the first post. I had like...1 week before release, and I wanted to give HRE some love for the big update, so I made some quick changes and added a couple of units. I'm far from finished making changes, and very open to input (except when people are rude, then I admit I get a little defensive)

[finix]

Yes I'm a terrible person. And I wrong and inappropriate expression of my theses. But this is not my strength. After I calmed down, I apologize to Fawn for my rudeness.

But I intend to lay out all the facts in support of my thesis in a very short time, and then only to my teammates. And if some of my desires are not fulfilled my participation in this project is completed.
I will regret it very much because I gave my heart and time for this mod, but there are things I can not accept.


Stay with health
Finix

[Visarion]

The simplest way of having a majority would be by just posting a preview of the new units...

[Sarcasm_pt]

While I have criticized Fawn's work in the past, and contrary to what you say, you do ignore historically-based criticism to your work. You constantly justify it by bringing the same arguments that are usually the same "artistic license", "homage", "favorite place in the world"...which is fine, but you don't get to say the mod follows historical record afterwards - and so I tend to side with finix's hardline opinion, despite his brash attitude. Maybe I just got used to Balkan passion in my Europa Barbarorum-making days.

Having said *all* that, I think everyone should just take a breather, for the loss of either of you would be major for the future of this mod. While no one's irreplaceable, again I have far too much experience in major mods to know that, the unit cards have become a trademark for the mod, and Fawn's productivity and quality (which was fine and has decreased IMO) can be hard to match and replace. Compromise, establish some basic guidelines for all factions (stuff like intended number of units, naming, amount of armor, how attested and relevant a unit is, etc..) and go from there. Also, this is an internal discussion and not meant for our eyes (aside from the historical sourcing bit, and even that is debatable I guess) so please keep to your dev forum.

As the source of some of the blame from non-mod member contestation (particularly in the Toulouse, Burgundy and Castille threads), I would like to apologize for any snide and sarcastic remarks (hey it's kinda my thing) that might have contributed to inflame the situation, and I do hope you guys work it out.

[Wallachian]

The clones were New Zealanders NOT Australian!

[Visarion]

Well if u respect the previous unit chosen by fenix and redo the res5 of the models i don t understand where the problem is...

[Kjertesvein]

At the demand from the community, I've found the solution to the beards.





~Wille

[Heisenburrg]

WTF!

[Imperator Karl franz IV SIGMA]

HAHAHAHA

[lion8000]

Lol Kjertesvein what is this???

[Knight2708]

Okay so I've been doing a lot of digging lately (which turned out to be quite the pain for the HRE in this period, because historians really seem to have an adverseness to studying the medieval German military, probably because the HRE was such a complicated mess and looking at somewhat unified states and Empires is a lot easier), and I have been able to find some useful information.

First I'd like to talk again about unit names:

Heerschild: Now this is a term that honestly makes little sense in its current use. The Heerschild was roughly speaking a legal document that determined the ranking of the feudal social order within the nobility of the HRE and I am not quite sure what the idea of it denoting a personal guard or retinue is based on. If you want to use a German word "Gefolge"(retinue), "Garde"(guard) or "Leibgarde"(body guard) would be more appropriate, otherwise you could just name the general's unit after the ruler it includes, like with many other factions.

Landwehr: This term starts denoting a military unit only in the modern period, coming into common use in the 19th century. In the Middle Ages a Landwehr was a earthen fortification that divided feudal lands and other territories. The proper term for the unit would probably be "Wehrbauer". These were peasants that were encouraged to settle in border regions which they were tasked to defend until reinforcements would arrive in case of invasion, in exchange for freedom from serfdom and certain dues. Equipment would obviously be rather light with a mix of glaives, bills and flails and later halberds as weapons, somewhat similar to the Saxon halberdiers in the Hungarian roster. Due to the constant instability and conflict within and outside the HRE they would probably be decently effective and experienced troops, but definitely on the low-end equipment-wise. The Austrian ones seem to have been particularly effective, apparently being a part of the reason for the successful defense against the Ottomans, so Austria could maybe get a more elite/better equipped version.

Dienstleute: These were privileged serfs that performed administrative and military tasks for their feudal lord in exchange for being provided food, lodging and certain privileges, forming a intermediary class between the peasantry and aristocracy. Militarily, they seem to have fulfilled a comparable role to sergeants as lighter but still well equipped cavalry and infantry supporting their feudal lord in combat. I'd suggest renaming the Aussoldner to something like dismounted/foot Dienstleute similar to the foot sergeants of other factions. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the term "Reisige"(roughly translates to travelers) seems to become increasingly common, denoting paid, usually mounted troops that join their feudal lord on campaign, I would suggest using this name for the tier 3 Diesntleute to reflect its increasingly common use and the decline of the ministerial system to be replaced with paid troops in the late Middle Ages.

Knechte: I'd suggest renaming them "Fußknechte" to identity them more clearly as foot soldiers, as "Knecht" can have a wide range of meanings in German. These would be the common, trained, but not permanently serving foot troops in contrast to the standing force of mounted Dienstleuten/Reisigen. Their main weapons are polearms, initially glaives and biilhooks, later either halberds or pikes.
Depending on whether you give the tier 3 Fußknechte pikes or halberds, you could give the other weapon to a urban unit. Like in many other European countries at the time, these were generally well equipped and organised, but would usually only fight for the defensive interests of their city, making them unreliable campaign troops. I would also suggest creating units specific to a few major cities, like is the case in the Swiss roster, with their own heraldry, colors and symbols, as urban troops took great pride in their urban identity.

So basically this is the changed roster I would suggest:
Wehrbauern: light polearm infantry
Fußknechte: medium polearm infantry (tiers 1 and 2), medium-heavy pike/halberd infantry (tier 3)
Diesnstleute: heavy melee cavalry (tiers 1 and 2)
Foot/Dismounted Diesnstleute: heavy melee infantry (tiers 1 and 2)
Reisige: heavy melee cavalry (tier 3)
Foot/Dismounted Reisige: heavy melee infantry (tier 3)
Miliz/Burgher: medium pike/halberd infantry

Another thing is that I am kinda unsure about the Trabanten. According to wikipedia a Trabant is a personal bodyguard or adjutant and I have found no mention of Bohemian archers fighting as mercenaries in Germany and would therefore like to know what sources the unit is based on.

And finally after doing some more research on them, I am completely convinced that the Landsknechte should be a HRE-specific unit. In the time frame of this mod and even well into the 16th century they were the standing army of the Empire during the somewhat stable rule of Maximilian I. and fiercely loyal to the Emperor.
I have also found that their distinctive look seems to have already emerged in the mod's time frame. Apparently the slashed and puffed style of their clothing developed, because they found the tight clothes of the late 15th century to be impractical in combat and derided to modify them to be more comfortable, and also as an expression of their emerging corporate identity. By 1503 their style of clothing was already causing enough controversy that their right to wear what they wanted was guaranteed by the 1503 Reichstag. I also found two pre-1500 images displaying the typical Landsknecht look.
DISCLAIMER: The second Image is actually not an authentic primary source but an early 20th century illustration, so take it with a lange grain of salt

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Edit: Just to be clear I dont think that the whole unit should have this look, but I think combining this with a more traditional style could create a very cool and unique look. Like giving maybe around half the unit slashed and puffed sleeves and/or trousers and having the rest look like more traditional late era pikemen.


Also what are the "Marscher"? I have never heard that name.