Medieval Kingdoms Total War: The County of Toulouse

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

After I re-worked France and Burgundy, I figured I should re-work some of the Toulouse roster as well. I was never happy with how the high and late period units turned out, mostly because of a lack of assets at the time, and a poor understanding of how to use the variant editor.

The biggest thing that I wanted to address was the Cathar heretic units. I thought my first attempt looked horrible. I wanted them to look intimidating, and I think I have achieved that with this new incarnation:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

'Perfect' Knights

High



Old:



Late:

For the regular knights, I color-coordinated them better and gave them lots of shiny-ness (same as I did with France and Burgundy) to clearly distinguish them from the lower-class 'non-noble' units. I also gave their look a tinge of Spanish influence to reflect the close relationship with Aragon:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I gave similar treatment to the low-class units, generally color-coordinating them better and adding new assets. I also took the painted armor that I had used with the noble units on the old roster and applied it to these units, which was more historical as a method of lower-class soldiers to cheaply maintain their armor:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Cathars

The count got a new look as well:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Heisenburrg]

Cool thing!
But some painted helmets (and a few horse bardings) really have a too strong coloration. Everytime I see this it gives me a weird feeling that this is too fantasy or at least overused. Was it really that common? All in all it looks superb!

[Visarion]

Much better. Agree with the above member.

[Sarcasm_pt]

An entire unit of black knights? Was not aware of the Cathars appearing like this, anywhere in sources.

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

An entire unit of black knights? Was not aware of the Cathars appearing like this, anywhere in sources.

They do not! But, then again, visual depictions of them don't really appear anywhere in sources. But that's also not a mystery...they would have looked just like any other knight in Southern France. There were certain very well known Cathar families such as the Trencavels, and those arms are included in the Cathar units (with colors altered to fit the color scheme). In order to make them distinct from the other Toulousians, I chose the black and white coloration to represent the dualist philosophy of the Cathar religion, which held that there were actually two Gods, one good and one evil (thus, black and white). I want the heretic units to be distinct, because using them will involve a choice by the player using that faction whether to embrace the Cathar heresy and suffer the diplomatic penalties or not. There were 'black knights,' or men whose armor was blackened, and this was relatively common in France and elsewhere, here I have just decided to use that as a representation for a particular unit.

[Locus_Devium]

Wow the county of Toulouse is the most beautiful faction in my opinion.
Almost reminds me of the knights of Toussaint which is fantasy but good fantasy.

Nevertheless i hope the high quality standard will be constant in other factions aswell.

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[Sarcasm_pt]

Almost reminds me of the knights of Toussaint which is fantasy but good fantasy.

High praise indeed.

[Sarcasm_pt]

So in other words, and with all due respect, you're making things up. I know all about Cathars, the main families, typical southern frankish equipment or blackened armor and while I do appreciate you explaining your reasoning (which you had exposed before), the point was mainly to illustrate the lack of accuracy in certain units you're producing. It becomes kind of a moot point to scour libraries and archives for obscure Norwegian military laws, courtly families trees, khwarazmian equipment or discuss the finer points of this or that kettle hat for Iberians, when this happens.

Sorry if it seems like I'm attacking your work, and maybe I'm buying a war here, but I do feel the need to point out certain areas at least in which I'm knowledgeable enough.

[zoner16]

So in other words, and with all due respect, you're making things up. I know all about Cathars, the main families, typical southern frankish equipment or blackened armor and while I do appreciate you explaining your reasoning (which you had exposed before), the point was mainly to illustrate the lack of accuracy in certain units you're producing. It becomes kind of a moot point to scour libraries and archives for obscure Norwegian military laws, courtly families trees, khwarazmian equipment or discuss the finer points of this or that kettle hat for Iberians, when this happens.

Sorry if it seems like I'm attacking your work, and maybe I'm buying a war here, but I do feel the need to point out certain areas at least in which I'm knowledgeable enough.

In this case it seems that all the researching turned up nothing of use, so it was either make stuff up or cut the content entirely. So long as it fits the mod, I think making stuff up for the sake of adding more variety where there would otherwise be a colorless void is a worthy sacrifice.

[Sarcasm_pt]

It's just the Catharian units though. The rest is well researched afaik. Don't forget that this is still a game, and certain perks should be available if Toulouse decides to take the Cathar way in the campaign, so I personally find Fawns decision entirely justified.

EDIT: Also a lot of units in the mod are made up, since not all factions survived (i.e. Crusader States) before the 15th century. For these factions there have to be made up a lot of what-if units, which doesn't differ much from the Catharians you see here.

That's kinda comparing apples with oranges. It's an absolute necessity to extrapolate late units for starting factions which disappear during the mod's timeframe, and even then similar influences are taken into account, and they're generally pretty conservative in nature - basically upgrades of past units. Done properly there's barely any reason for contestation. What you have here on the other hand, is a unit which we know existed, essentially knights of no particular distinction except they were of a heretic sect. All of the sudden they have a uniform appearance, black and white, supposedly for their Gnostic nature and not out of a purely coolness factor...

In this case it seems that all the researching turned up nothing of use, so it was either make stuff up or cut the content entirely. So long as it fits the mod, I think making stuff up for the sake of adding more variety where there would otherwise be a colorless void is a worthy sacrifice.

No, the research tells us that there's no reason to believe they dressed any differently from other Languedoc knights. We're just choosing to ignore that fact and transfer the *supposed* Cathar or Catholic dilemma, from what is clearly a campaign map feature to units' physical appearance.

And of course all this ignores the fact that certain factions are not held up to the same accuracy standards as others. Certain, more controversial, Eastern factions come to mind.

[zoner16]

No, the research tells us that there's no reason to believe they dressed any differently from other Languedoc knights. We're just choosing to ignore that fact and transfer the *supposed* Cathar or Catholic dilemma, from what is clearly a campaign map feature to units' physical appearance.

And of course all this ignores the fact that certain factions are not held up to the same accuracy standards as others. Certain, more controversial, Eastern factions come to mind.

Ignoring other factions for now, I see your point. However, for both gameplay and variety purposes, I believe taking some liberties to make the Cathar units visually distinct from their Catholic counterparts isn't something dealbreaking if the alternative is just making them them clones of each other with different names. The black and white color scheme could be toned down a bit if necessary, but I think that so long as it's valid within the time period and place involved, it's not too egregious.

That being said, if there is a better, more accurate way to distinguish them from the other units in the roster, I feel it should probably be explored first, as being as historically accurate as possible is one of the goals of this mod.

[Kjertesvein]

No, the research tells us that there's no reason to believe they dressed any differently from other Languedoc knights. We're just choosing to ignore that fact and transfer the *supposed* Cathar or Catholic dilemma, from what is clearly a campaign map feature to units' physical appearance.

Firstly, I wish to underscore that this is an opinion on some of the errors inherent in your interpretation, and that your historical input in general is still a good thing in itself, which I thoroughly enjoy reading btw.

As far as I've understood what you're saying: we don't have primary sources which describe their knightly armour design. If that is not the case, I've wasted considerable amount of time writing nonsense , however. If that is the case, that we don't know, then we're given the option to a.) experiment or b.) use a generic copy. If the units are given a generic armour, we're also giving them a *supposed* armour. This means, either way, it's still frog DNA to fill the gaps. It's an unknown.

To give a generic armour to the soldiers which lack description, following your suggestion, we're assuming it was nothing special about our unit. As I said earlier, that could be the case OR not, we'll never really know. To give them a generic armour may seem like the most probably choice, it's certainly a popular choice in the scene. Let's look at the cost of choosing generic armour.

This is an argument made by Tobias Capwell. We have 13 complete Italian armours, and these overshadow our picture of how we today look at armour. Whenever you see research or reenactment, they copy these because that is part of what is available to us. The result is a very generic scene with little variance, and where the 13 Italians lead the scene. These are hand made objects in their day, jet if we walk around in a medieval reenactment show, it's as if they rolled out of a Chinese factory looking all the same. This is clearly not anything like how it was with the 100,000s that once existed. The knightly armour was custom made, unique to the wearers demands, context and so forth. The result is that our interpretation is skewed by the surviving remains. The same logic applies to our Knights, because perhaps our french fries liked to be uniform in black armour, we don't know.

Dr. Tobias Capwell once mentioned that he found textual sources which mention silver or silver gilt (not gold). I've found evidence which suggest throwing axes close to Bremen. These are examples of elements which are anything but plain and generic. If such examples, and other similar ones, had not seen the light of day, the result would be a more plain and boring mod over all. Our ability to find sources is what dictates these things, but to follow that rule to the extreme leads us with a lot of holes which can be problematic for the developer. The medieval period was anything but plain and boring, nor does anyone really want the mod to harken back to the dull and gray Rebel faction. This is a cost of assuming--in those cases where we lack sources--everything should be generic.

So this is why I think that, perhaps, there are some errors in copying a generic standard. Perhaps it's ok to use the Mark Twainian license: As long as the 1212 developer understand the relevant sources, it's their product, as the developer to do as they see fit. If you one day choose to be a developer, all the same off course.

Cheers and have a nice day.

~Wille

[zsimmortal]

Firstly, I wish to underscore that this is an opinion on some of the errors inherent in your interpretation, and that your historical input in general is still a good thing in itself, which I thoroughly enjoy reading btw.

As far as I've understood what you're saying: we don't have primary sources which describe their knightly armour design. If that is not the case, I've wasted considerable amount of time writing nonsense , however. If that is the case, that we don't know, then we're given the option to a.) experiment or b.) use a generic copy. If the units are given a generic armour, we're also giving them a *supposed* armour. This means, either way, it's still frog DNA to fill the gaps. It's an unknown.

To give a generic armour to the soldiers which lack description, following your suggestion, we're assuming it was nothing special about our unit. As I said earlier, that could be the case OR not, we'll never really know. To give them a generic armour may seem like the most probably choice, it's certainly a popular choice in the scene. Let's look at the cost of choosing generic armour.

This is an argument made by Tobias Capwell. We have 13 complete Italian armours, and these overshadow our picture of how we today look at armour. Whenever you see research or reenactment, they copy these because that is part of what is available to us. The result is a very generic scene with little variance, and where the 13 Italians lead the scene. These are hand made objects in their day, jet if we walk around in a medieval reenactment show, it's as if they rolled out of a Chinese factory looking all the same. This is clearly not anything like how it was with the 100,000s that once existed. The knightly armour was custom made, unique to the wearers demands, context and so forth. The result is that our interpretation is skewed by the surviving remains. The same logic applies to our Knights, because perhaps our french fries liked to be uniform in black armour, we don't know.

Dr. Tobias Capwell once mentioned that he found textual sources which mention silver or silver gilt (not gold). I've found evidence which suggest throwing axes close to Bremen. These are examples of elements which are anything but plain and generic. If such examples, and other similar ones, had not seen the light of day, the result would be a more plain and boring mod over all. Our ability to find sources is what dictates these things, but to follow that rule to the extreme leads us with a lot of holes which can be problematic for the developer. The medieval period was anything but plain and boring, nor does anyone really want the mod to harken back to the dull and gray Rebel faction. This is a cost of assuming--in those cases where we lack sources--everything should be generic.

So this is why I think that, perhaps, there are some errors in copying a generic standard. Perhaps it's ok to use the Mark Twainian license: As long as the 1212 developer understand the relevant sources, it's their product, as the developer to do as they see fit. If you one day choose to be a developer, all the same off course.

Cheers and have a nice day.

~Wille

No offense, but we do have examples of what the opponents to the Albigensian crusade looked like. They did not have black and white clothing. The lords that fought in the name of Cathars were not actually Cathars, it was just a cause where people took the mantle to push their political agenda, like the Protestant cause for a fair number of belligerents during the Thirty Years' War, such as the French.

I hate the idea that there should be a plainly fictional faction based on a highly improbable scenario. How can a noble even conciliate his life as military aristocrat and Catharism?

Regardless, no other faction has completely fictitious elements. Factions that did not live on are all completely based on their regional or cultural successors. Not a single one lies in a purely speculative world.

[Sarcasm_pt]

Firstly, I wish to underscore that this is an opinion on some of the errors inherent in your interpretation, and that your historical input in general is still a good thing in itself, which I thoroughly enjoy reading btw.

As far as I've understood what you're saying: we don't have primary sources which describe their knightly armour design. If that is not the case, I've wasted considerable amount of time writing nonsense , however. If that is the case, that we don't know, then we're given the option to a.) experiment or b.) use a generic copy. If the units are given a generic armour, we're also giving them a *supposed* armour. This means, either way, it's still frog DNA to fill the gaps. It's an unknown.

To give a generic armour to the soldiers which lack description, following your suggestion, we're assuming it was nothing special about our unit. As I said earlier, that could be the case OR not, we'll never really know. To give them a generic armour may seem like the most probably choice, it's certainly a popular choice in the scene. Let's look at the cost of choosing generic armour.

This is an argument made by Tobias Capwell. We have 13 complete Italian armours, and these overshadow our picture of how we today look at armour. Whenever you see research or reenactment, they copy these because that is part of what is available to us. The result is a very generic scene with little variance, and where the 13 Italians lead the scene. These are hand made objects in their day, jet if we walk around in a medieval reenactment show, it's as if they rolled out of a Chinese factory looking all the same. This is clearly not anything like how it was with the 100,000s that once existed. The knightly armour was custom made, unique to the wearers demands, context and so forth. The result is that our interpretation is skewed by the surviving remains. The same logic applies to our Knights, because perhaps our french fries liked to be uniform in black armour, we don't know.

Dr. Tobias Capwell once mentioned that he found textual sources which mention silver or silver gilt (not gold). I've found evidence which suggest throwing axes close to Bremen. These are examples of elements which are anything but plain and generic. If such examples, and other similar ones, had not seen the light of day, the result would be a more plain and boring mod over all. Our ability to find sources is what dictates these things, but to follow that rule to the extreme leads us with a lot of holes which can be problematic for the developer. The medieval period was anything but plain and boring, nor does anyone really want the mod to harken back to the dull and gray Rebel faction. This is a cost of assuming--in those cases where we lack sources--everything should be generic.

So this is why I think that, perhaps, there are some errors in copying a generic standard. Perhaps it's ok to use the Mark Twainian license: As long as the 1212 developer understand the relevant sources, it's their product, as the developer to do as they see fit. If you one day choose to be a developer, all the same off course.

Cheers and have a nice day.

~Wille

I appreciate the vote of confidence and I also enjoy reading some of the really obscure stuff you come up with. I feel like you have the same level of appreciation for all sources, particularly the less well known ones.

Which is why I'm really surprised with the argumentation you're coming up with in this post. What I was arguing essentially was the very relevance of the unit...we know about the Cathar aversion to killing, we know that the main opponents to the crusade and French meddling were not the Cathars themselves and surely not what the war was entirely about, we have no specific descriptions of Cathar forces in the field, we have virtually no mention of uniformed (and take that with a pinch of salt) units in this period aside from religious orders and household troops, etc...etc...etc...plainly speaking this making up a unit out of thin air. There's NO source for these troops, and all arguments are against it existing. Yes, our knowledge is limited, and our perception skewed by the surviving sources (not just "surviving complete armor"), but what other choice do we have? Should we just extrapolate infinitely? A dangerous path for sure.

(I'd also like to add that there's a working to limit to what models a unit can use, and yes, I do agree they should be the most representative ones unless there's a particularly interesting aspect to show).

I agree with you, it would be a dull mod if every European faction looked exactly the same, but what you're bringing here are examples of sourced material that enriches the mod in a historically correct way. The way we stay out of the grey and and dull faction when there's little to go with, is we make educated guesses based on other sourced material we have. If there's so little to go by that we have to conjure an elaborate theory on gnosticism to justify black and white uniforms for a supposed elite unit, then my friend, the point becomes not what it ought to look like, but rather if it ought to exist at all.

And of course if the developers of the mod want to have these units, they'll have them on *their* mod. I've been on their side, but luckily the internal consensus was to stick to strictly historically supported units (in periods where there're much less sources). However this forum exists for some purpose, and it has been the source of important new sources (and members) that have contributed to have a much better mod IMO. So there's space for *some* input - your own Norwegian research comes to mind.

Cheers.

[Filips Augustus]

It's just the Catharian units though. The rest is well researched afaik. Don't forget that this is still a game, and certain perks should be available if Toulouse decides to take the Cathar way in the campaign, so I personally find Fawns decision entirely justified.

EDIT: Also a lot of units in the mod are made up, since not all factions survived (i.e. Crusader States) before the 15th century. For these factions there have to be made up a lot of what-if units, which doesn't differ much from the Catharians you see here.

[Derpy Hooves]

Isn't it a moot point considering killing was absolutely forbidden for Cathars?

[Slytacular]

Depends on the individual and how they interpret it. Some more faithfully than others. Rule breakers aren't an uncommon idea either.

[Filips Augustus]

Depending on the interpretations, killing is forbidden in all major religions really.

[Derpy Hooves]

Well these guys took it so seriously they were vegans, and neither was killing for self-defense permissable

[Sarcasm_pt]

Hence why I was talking about the supposed Cathar dilemma. The question was as much about religion as feudal obligations of the County of Toulouse to either France or Aragon, and probably more than anything else. The point here is that protecting the Cathars was a way to reinforce independence from their feudal overlords, and to resist meddling from the Kingdom of France.

There was never a question of having a Cathar kingdom, much less protected by Cathar holy warriors.