Kingdom of France/Duchy of Burgundy (REVAMP)

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

Hoist the Oriflamme!

I did a major overhaul of France and Burgundy that will come out with the next update, adding in a bunch of the new assets and changing the look to be a bit more historical in places. I also changed the dynamic of these factions a bit. Historically, France was known for their excellent heavy cavalry and their reliance on it, so the new France has a LOT of heavy shock cavalry. The main weakness of this roster is a lack of quick, light units, and a limited selection of missile units until Tier 3. Burgundy has a very similar roster because their armies were based on the French model, including the reforms of Charles the Bold, who based his ordonnance reforms on earlier models created by Charles VII of France during the Hundred Year's War. For many of the units, I only made cosmetic changes, because warman did an excellent job on these rosters, therefore, I'm pretty much only going to post the new stuff.


Sorry for the formatting issues, the site won't let me correct them. When I try to correct it it just defaults back to the way it was so whatever.

Chevaliers (Early)
These are mounted and dismounted.

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Militia units have been re-named "Levies" to reflect the arriere-ban used by French Kings until the later middle ages.

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Heavy cavalry and heavy infantry are now divided between two categories roughly equivalent to knights banneret and simple knights, which is to say the richer knights or men-at-arms and the poorer ones. This gives the player different options depending on how much they are willing to spend. The 'gentlemen' units are made up of richer noble soldiers with better armor and weapons than the poorer professional soldiers, but are also more expensive.

Hommes de armes

Professional soldiers, these men are usually supported and equipped by a rich lord and serve in his contingent. Their equipment is more standardized, and many of them bear the white cross of the Valois, which was a common motif used in French armies in the later middle ages, at times it was a uniform requirement, though this was sporadic.

Tier 3 Burgundian units will reflect the uniforms mandated in Charles the Bold's armies, a red St. Andrew's cross on a half blue, half-white field.

French

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Tier 2


Tier 3

Burgundian

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Tier 2

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Tier 3

Gens de Cheval (Tier 2) and Gens d'arme (Tier 3)

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France
Tier 2

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Tier 3



Burgundy
Tier 2




Tier 3

Now, some unique units

France

Franc-archers (Tier 3)
A sort of archer-militia begun by Charles VII during the Hundred Years' war as an answer to the English Longbowmen. They were a sort of general-purpose soldier with a bow and a pike. These are sort of a cheaper version of the Scot's Guard.

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King (with Oriflamme)

The King of France now comes with the famed banner of St. Denis!

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Gascon Horsemen (Tier 2)

"The great number of Gascons who had terrifying horses used to turning on the gallop which the French and Brabancons were not used to seeing" Description of the light cavalry of the Duke of Orleans by Monstrelet in 1410.

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Pikemen (Tier 3)

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Burgundy

Redesigned shields, uniforms, and banners (based on actual burgundian ordonnance company banners) for Tier 3

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Savoyard Crossbowmen (Tier 3)

Savoyard soldiers were an important part of Charles the Bold's armies

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English Archers (Tier 3)

Charles the Bold employed a large number of English archers in his armies.

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Flemish Pikemen (Tier 3)

Charles the Bold hired large numbers of Flemish pikemen due to their success against French armies over the last century. They did not perform as well against the disciplined Swiss Pike formations, however.

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Lombard Estradiots (Tier 2)

Light cavalry employed by the dukes of Burgundy.

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[Slytacular]

I think the Y eye shaped barbutes is a little too Mediterranean. The helmets I made for tier 3 Latin Empire comes from the drawings made in France.

[You_Guess_Who]

There are some things I would like to be adressed:

1. Some Colored Helmets
Some of the colored helmets have too much saturation, especially the blue ones. Tone it down a little, into something closer to their tabards

2. Floating shield bosses
The units using late-era shields have floating bosses with it. Remove them.

3.Breastplate
Some of the Churburg-type breastplate are made for mail coif over the shoulders, hence looks weirdly floating when the men doesn't wear coif - at least on the ones not wearing coif, give the breastplate shoulder straps

4. Fleur-de-lis Caparison
The Horses' Caparisons of the French King Bodyguards are too bright - make the color closer to the knights' tabards who rode them.

[Slytacular]

Plus I think tier 2 is a little too breastplate happy considering that stuff comes out right before the turn of the 15th century (breastplates as in the kind that is one piece and exposed metal).

[Dom1no]

Got one question, what's that white eagle doing on the burgundian hommes des armes. It looks pretty much like the polish eagle, does burgundy was using these coat of arms or what?

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

First of all, thanks everyone for your feedback!

Got one question, what's that white eagle doing on the burgundian hommes des armes. It looks pretty much like the polish eagle, does burgundy was using these coat of arms or what?

That is the arms of the house of Ivrea, which were a prominent Burgundian family and the counts palatine of the County of Burgundy in the 12th and 13th centuries. I don't know why it is so similar to the Polish emblem (I noticed that too) other than the fact that the eagle was a very popular motif on banners and arms in the middle ages, especially in the territories composing the former East Frankia, of which Burgundy was part.

As for some positive feedback , I now really look forward to playing the campaign with France. Great job Fawn!

Thanks! Yeah sheesh there's a lot of negativity right off the bat.

Plus I think tier 2 is a little too breastplate happy considering that stuff comes out right before the turn of the 15th century (breastplates as in the kind that is one piece and exposed metal).

It's difficult to lump an entire century together, and we haven't been super specific on what tier constitutes what time-period in the mod. I have taken Tier 2 to be from the early 14th to the early 15th century, and Tier 3 being early 15th century to early 16th. There has to be some flexibility in assets because of that, and there are also limited assets to work with. The breastplate you are talking about makes an appearance both in Tier 2 and Tier 3 units, as its single-piece construction is sort of transitional in nature and bridges the gap between the churburg-style armor and the more complex assets we have for later periods. I also used the KOTG arms and legs for both periods. With Toulouse I used the churburg armor exclusively for tier 2 and kotg for tier 3, but with this faction I used the shiny kotg models for the rich 'gentlemen' units to really show the difference between them and the men at arms. The arms and legs are pretty generic so I think they work well in both periods, especially the model using the full kotg arm (rather than the cut version).

I think the Y eye shaped barbutes is a little too Mediterranean. The helmets I made for tier 3 Latin Empire comes from the drawings made in France.

My source for using the barbutas is "Les compaignies d'ordonnance dans l'armee bourguignonne" by C. Brusten, in P. Contamine's "War in the Middle Ages", it reads:"The man at arms in a lance in the ordonnance company should have a complete suit of armor with a sallet with bevor or a barbute, a gorgerin, long, firm and light sword, a cutting dagger carried on the left-hand side of the saddle and a mace on the right..."

I like using the barbuta here because it's a very protective helmet that also affords a lot of visibility, something I think a man on foot at that time would have liked a lot. Plus it is one piece and would have been easier to handle and maintain as opposed the sallet and bevor combo which was a bit more complex. It protects more of the face than a sallet with the visor up, which would have been pretty essential when dismounted.

[Filips Augustus]

As for some positive feedback , I now really look forward to playing the campaign with France. Great job Fawn!

[warman222]

I saw these and the other revisions and I think they're your best units yet. You've grown from the melting pot tendency of older previews. Also you did the Burgundy pavises SO much better than me. At time I did the original textures I couldn't find a good enough reference pic. So thanks for that. Lastly those french horse caparisons were mine.... one of things I was meaning to fix...


EDIT: Also regarding similar emblems, how about Surrey and Vermandois, same exact design of blue and yellow checkers.

[Teutonic]

I'd like to give a positive feedback as well

I like the idea of splitting more affluent knights/men-at-arms from poorer ones. By coincidence, earlier today (yesterday) in the otherwise lamentable thread "A Dismounted Knight", that warman shut down, Kjertesvein wrote a very interesting post (no. 14) exactly about this. It is worth a read, especially if you read stuff like "Les compaignies d'ordonnance dans l'armee bourguignonne" by C. Brusten

Oh, and of course the units themselves look great!

[Visarion]

Very good units

[anders99]

Wery wery wery nice. Great looking, interesting units with regional variety that you obviously spent some time researching for. Did I mention they were wery nice?

This is probably not the right place to ask, but since you showed us the flemish pikemen: will there be any kind of low countries factions? and if/if not, will there be recruitable regional AOR units in that area?

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

Wery wery wery nice. Great looking, interesting units with regional variety that you obviously spent some time researching for. Did I mention they were wery nice?

This is probably not the right place to ask, but since you showed us the flemish pikemen: will there be any kind of low countries factions? and if/if not, will there be recruitable regional AOR units in that area?

I know there will be a Flanders faction, and someone is working on it right now, though I am not sure who that is. As to AOR recruitment, I know there is some kind of plan for that, but I don't know much about that aspect of the campaign. I would ask Sly or Warman about that.

I saw these and the other revisions and I think they're your best units yet. You've grown from the melting pot tendency of older previews. Also you did the Burgundy pavises SO much better than me. At time I did the original textures I couldn't find a good enough reference pic. So thanks for that.

This is very high praise, thank you.

[warman222]

This is probably not the right place to ask, but since you showed us the flemish pikemen: will there be any kind of low countries factions? and if/if not, will there be recruitable regional AOR units in that area?

We will have a couple, Brabant(which could probably use more distniction in that regard), Flanders which is obvious and the unplayable faction of Friesland.


So in total, Brabant, Flanders and Friesland.

[anders99]

We will have a couple, Brabant(which could probably use more distniction in that regard), Flanders which is obvious and the unplayable faction of Friesland.


So in total, Brabant, Flanders and Friesland.

excellent. looking forward to seeing the flemish militia bash in some noble knightly heads with a goedendag

[Slytacular]

@Fawn, another structure of organization that was probably not made clear to the team and left to self-perspective. Unless I have a majority that disagree with me on the Dev team, the idea is that 13th century is tier 1, 14th century is tier 2, 15th century is tier 3. The revolution of technology for people was timed differently for different groups of people; therefore its easier to just group the tiers by the century. Although it does make total sense in your case that late 14th century and early 15th century share the same progression.

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

Based on suggestions, I put some effort into re-texturing the caparisons, while I was at it, I used a similar texture for the early king's surcoat, because I wasn't a huge fan of how that turned out before.

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Side by side of old and new

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[graziano_bonci]

Black is better. The blue is too bright, for me. Congratulation for the good work!

[You_Guess_Who]

Much better looking! Bit darker than I thought it would be, but still better than before.

[The_Fawn_Rescuer]

I did a similar fix for the French banners as well:

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[graziano_bonci]

Even better this. typically it would be better to keep all those on more tenuous, less heated. I think this especially for those units that were definitely the poorest and therefore could not have new clothes or quality.