Medieval Kingdoms Total War: The Duchy of Lorraine

[You_Guess_Who]

Oh, its not you - its everybody else that need changes about that

[Teutonic]

Oh, its not you - its everybody else that need changes about that

Absolutely! It's a constant source of frustration for me, as far as this mod is concerned. It is getting better, more and more missile units with shields on their backs use them in melee. New units usually are fine. In the first release pretty much none did.

I can understand if some crossbowmen with particularly large pavises don't use them in melee, but Byzantine Heavy Archers (High era)? Come on!

[Azrien Fox]

Oh, its not you - its everybody else that need changes about that

Lol I meant with the lorraine units.

[Visarion]

Love the fact that you keep updating the roster. You still have some "Calvary" here and there. Also can we see tge tier 3 Mounted Alsatian Nobles from another angle, a more general view how you did with the rest of cav?

[Visarion]

I would go for Edelknechte... I presume "knechte" is from knight!?

[Locus_Devium]

I would go for Edelknechte... I presume "knechte" is from knight!?

Edelknechte sounds pretty cool even to a german speaker.
But nope the term "Knechte" means servants, farmhands or minions.




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[Azrien Fox]

Edelknechte sounds pretty cool even to a german speaker.
But nope the term "Knechte" means servants, farmhands or minions.




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Well Im going off the french cavalry formation known as the Lance fournies, and in that formation, the coutilier's role is pretty much to backup the knight, much like a servant. So Edelknechte essentially means "knight's servant" then?

[Locus_Devium]

Well Im going off the french cavalry formation known as the Lance fournies, and in that formation, the coutilier's role is pretty much to backup the knight, much like a servant. So Edelknechte essentially means "knight's servant" then?

"Noble" is only one of different meanings of the term "edel". "Edel" can be used as an adjective to describe something of high quality. In fact often in germanic old literature like the Nibelungenlied nobles are mentioned as "die Edlen" which could be translated as "the ones of high quality" or "the fine ones" while only the term "Adlige" directly means the noble members of an ancient society.
Sometimes food in germany is advertised as "edel" to praise high quality of the product.
If "edel" would mean "noble" in the word "Edelknechte" it would be a Paradox because it would describe non-noble servants (Knechte) as aristocrats (Edle). So the only translation which makes sense is "Edelknechte" as fine/ high-quality servants.
But despite the fact horses were an indicator for elite or richer warriors in medieval warfare the term "edel" could reflect the better quality of these men in form of their high status as horsemen.



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[Knight2708]

Well Im going off the french cavalry formation known as the Lance fournies, and in that formation, the coutilier's role is pretty much to backup the knight, much like a servant. So Edelknechte essentially means "knight's servant" then?

As I understand it "Knecht" in this case is used to differentiate them from knights, as these were men who despite completing their knightly training could not afford the financial price of knighthood. "Knecht" is one of those words that just had a ton of different meanings throughout the history of the German language, but one of its more general uses in the Middle Ages seems to have been to describe somebody who is not a knight. The "Edel" denotes that they are nonetheless of noble birth, so essentially they are noble men lesser than knights. I this sense they seem to be different from coutiliers, who as I understand it were commoners, but their role on the battlefield may still be comparable as lesser horsemen supporting "proper" knights.

[Azrien Fox]

Something else is I am trying to figure out if I want to have both free company longbowmen and genoese mercenary crossbowmen for tier 3 archer / crossbow unit. Because my plan was to have both for tier 3, and still have a free company longbowmen for tier 2.

That would mean I'd have 2 ranged units in tier 1, 2 units in tier 2, and 4 in tier 3. I was thinking maybe I could do longbowmen for tier 2 only, and the genoese crossbowmen for tier 3 to even it out. What do you guys think?

[Filips Augustus]

Speaking of the Genoese crossbowmen and Free company longbowmen, why not just use those units that are already present in the other factions? I believe the Genoese crossbowmen are in for both tier 2 and 3, and the free company longbowmen are for tier 2.

[Azrien Fox]

Speaking of the Genoese crossbowmen and Free company longbowmen, why not just use those units that are already present in the other factions? I believe the Genoese crossbowmen are in for both tier 2 and 3, and the free company longbowmen are for tier 2.

Yeah, I was planning on using premade genoese crossbowmen as well as free company longbowmen. But, I only saw tier 3 genoese crossbowmen and free company longbowmen.

I'll probably just make the longbowmen tier 2, turn down the range on them, and keep the genoese crossbowmen at tier 3.

[Azrien Fox]

Alright, I added common militia, spear militia, updated some photos, as well as added the merc units.

[Knight2708]

This faction just keeps getting better and better, this is honestly quickly turning into one of my favorite western factions.

One thing that I am a bit skeptical of though is that the tier 2 Lorrainer Swordsmen appear to be better armored than the tier 2 Dismounted Alsatian Chevaliers, as I would assume that the actual nobles would have access to superior equipment.

Also for the tier 2 Dismounted Coutiliers, I would mostly remove the Bascinets with visors, as they would be highly impractical for fighting on foot and instead increase the number of visored bascinets on the mounted coutiliers where they make more sense.

And finally, I think it would be cool if you could add the coats of arms and symbols of some of the major local cities to more of the militia units. Urban troops would usually have a strong sense of patriotism to their town and proudly show of its coat of arms on the battlefield.

[Azrien Fox]

This faction just keeps getting better and better, this is honestly quickly turning into one of my favorite western factions.

One thing that I am a bit skeptical of though is that the tier 2 Lorrainer Swordsmen appear to be better armored than the tier 2 Dismounted Alsatian Chevaliers, as I would assume that the actual nobles would have access to superior equipment.

Also for the tier 2 Dismounted Coutiliers, I would mostly remove the Bascinets with visors, as they would be highly impractical for fighting on foot and instead increase the number of visored bascinets on the mounted coutiliers where they make more sense.

And finally, I think it would be cool if you could add the coats of arms and symbols of some of the major local cities to more of the militia units. Urban troops would usually have a strong sense of patriotism to their town and proudly show of its coat of arms on the battlefield.

Oh yeah, I see what you mean with the swordsmen. I could try and add more padded gambesons, because I actually am a fan of them a bit more than the aketon. Sometimes the game won't balance out the amount of aketons and brigandines I set for them like i want it to, but I could try adding more aketons to make it more balanced, or maybe actually have more aketons and gambesons than brigandines.

Also I'll research some about city coat of arms. I'm sure there's at least two of three big cities in lorraine, Metz Nancy, and so on, that I could represent.

[Minnesinger]

I agree with the post above, great choice of colors and this just keeps getting better concerning the soldiers' equipment. Beside of it have two questions : does the creation of two tier 3 alsatian chivalric units (alsatian chevaliers and alsatian nobles) express a will to differentiate lower and upper class knights? What are the origins, the history, of this Sawell de Mann unit? No hidden criticism here, I am curious.

[Azrien Fox]

I agree with the post above, great choice of colors and this just keeps getting better concerning the soldiers' equipment. Beside of it have two questions : does the creation of two tier 3 alsatian chivalric units (alsatian chevaliers and alsatian nobles) express a will to differentiate lower and upper class knights? What are the origins, the history, of this Sawell de Mann unit? No hidden criticism here, I am curious.

First, yeah I made both nobles and knights in order to show the difference between the different classes. Another reason why was because I had already planned on using mostly tabards for the knights, and I wanted to have a heavily armored unit showing their wealth by having Gothic plate armor in order to protect themselves. So I made the noble unit as sort of a step-up with protection and wealth, being able to afford such armor.

Second, I sort of made the sawell de mann from the events of the Burgundian wars, where Charles the bold took Nancy in 1476 or so. The idea was during that time, Rene had taken on the Cross of Lorraine as his coat of arms in sort of a rally cry to Lorraine, and my idea was that the sawell de mann were experienced fighters of Lorraine so eager to help rene take back Nancy and eventually stop Charles's second Stannis berathean style siege Nancy. So I from that, I wanted them to be this very mobile unit, with some armor to slow them down. And i also want them to give off a passive fear trait or ability because of the shields and the sawell furiousness on the battlefield.

[Visarion]

Yup totally my fav Western faction!

*Genoese (Geonese)

[Azrien Fox]

And regarding the free company longbowmen, I am thinking of using both tiers of archers. As a French / German faction, crossbows were very popular, so I wanted to have more archers in my roster, even though it is a bit uneven with the amount of units in each tier. So I'm going to have the free company longbowmen tier 2 maybe be a bit less range and armor to even it out.

[warman222]

Very impressive man. I really like how you did the horse bardings. Are you going to make some proper Lorraine banner carriers? I could tell the one's in the shots are from the HRE faction.