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Mordhau, Kingdom Come, Bannerlord and "Realistic" Medieval Combat

Draymorath

Destroyer of Destruction
Joined
Sep 28, 2011
Location
Probably in my room.
So there's a few games slated to come out later this year that boast "realistic" medieval combat. Now, my point is not to argue about whether or not these games are realistic depictions of medieval combat, but to get some discussion going on them (though as it happens I think they do a pretty good job with realism, given the limitations that video games have (also if you disagree then feel free to say so)).

The games I am referring to are Mordhau...


Kingdom Come: Deliverance...


and Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord.


I've played roughly 200 hours of Mount and Blade: Warband and jankiness aside, I think it's a very enjoyable game that I am able to get extremely invested in. I am very excited for the (long-awaited) sequel and all of the improvements that it promises to bring.

So what are your opinions on these kind of "realistic" combat games? Do you find them fun, or do you adamantly prefer the fantasy approach? Are there any similar games that you know of that I've missed?
 
I prefer the fantasy approach, so give me a Zelda or Warriors game if we're going for sword and armour warfare.

Ive seen Mount and Blade and others like it around (For Honor too) and when i see them its just like looking at a blacked out image. I dont hate them, i dont like them, they just appear so dull to me that they dont get any sort of reaction out of me.

I cant have my mind jump the loop of logic to see why or how people find them interesting or get excited about them, but i hope they have fun. (Though no one playing For Honor seems to be having fun).

So, the content, subject matter, i cant think of a more boring topic to make a game about than realiatic medieval combat. Clunky armour and lances and horseback combat done in a realistic way just bores me to tears.
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2013
Location
Australia
History shows that medieval combat was not a fun affair.

You had the knight, who was slow, being weighed down by 20 plus KG of armour and under garments. Then you have his weapons, also very heavy. This makes what you can do in battle very tough as this limits your movement (and sight too) if you have a decent helmet on. Also due to this you would get tired out very quickly so you need to push through the lactic acid pain barrier in combat to survive. Past this you have the fear factor. Standing in line waiting to be told to charge would be a super scary thought. Furstly you have to furvive the arrow onslaught, then you have to fight the other side. Also seeing your friends cut down and die or laying half chopped up and screaming in agony would terrify anyone. Finally if you did survive the battle, you have two more things to deal with. Putting the gravely wounded out of their misery with a swift death by your sword and preformnig bafflefield brutal surgery which most never survived and the blood. The blood gets on everything and it stinks horribly. The knight does not have to wash it off the armour as that's the knight squire's job after each day in battle. The squire waits till the knight gets back and then gets to work.

Also forget taking a piss on a toilet while in battle. If you need to piss while you spend the many hours on the battlefield, you just pissed. Yet another thing the squire has to wash out after the days fighting for the knight.

Jousting is no picnic either. Having a huge steel or wooden lance smashed into yoyr face or chest would hurt. But not as much as the falling off the horse would. All that armour and undergarments the knight was wearing would make that thud after being knocked off the horse even more painful. That's aside from the sword comnat with the other combatant if required.

Replicating all of this in a video game? I think if done accurately, would not be that fun for most. As most people want to feel the more honourable and fun parts of medieval combat. The grim side of it all is not a very popular thing to recreate. That's why people like the more fantasised medival combat in games. Are your examples you shown very realistic? In many ways yes, not not in every way. They get the combat done well, but everything else I mentioned is not there. The fear of being there on the front lines is not there. Also neither is the smell, but that can't be replicated in a video game. However this is as close to real as we can currently get. I think it'll have its fans, but will stay niche as not everyone likes ultra realistic voilent combat games.
 
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Feb 19, 2019
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Let's not forget that, around the same time full plate armor existed, you would not be dealing with just arrows and crossbow bolts while waiting to charge; you would also be subjected to gunfire and cannon fire. Most depictions of medieval combat, even ones that claim to be realistic, that feature full metal armor on knights are anachronistic in that they don't include gunpowder weapons, which actually predate full plate in regular military usage by a full century.

You can actually see this in museums; numerous museums have pieces of medieval armor, from that actual period, that have dings from having been shot by firearms or holes where cannonballs penetrated the armor (usually, this killed the wearer).

And then there's the other siege weapons, like ballistae and catapults.

For your average medieval soldier, you're basically a farmer with a slightly altered scythe or club that is being told to wait while arrows, crossbow bolts, rocks, ballista bolts, bullets, and cannonballs fly towards you... and then you're ordered to charge the other side, often while still under fire from guns and cannons, to act as a living shield for some rich guy in armor riding a horse. And if you're very, very lucky you get to live long enough to actually reach enemy soldiers and attempt to slaughter them with this weapon you were probably not even trained to use.

So, yeah. There's a good reason why they typically don't do realistic depictions of medieval warfare, even when they claim the depiction they are using is realistic. It's because it was a horror show.
 

TheGreatCthulhu

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I practice Historical European Martial Arts, and I specialize in longsword and spear, so I feel I can add to this discussion.

Mordhau, on the realism scale is more arcadey. Think more along the lines of Chivalry.

Kingdom Come is a good game, and does include realistic techniques, but on more than one occasion, I ran into naked bandits attempting to punch me to death when I'm armed with a longsword, or mace and shield, and when I'm wearing armor. Completely whacky. I also had a guy without a helmet take a direct cut to the head and instantly recovered. I also had a guy survive a direct shot to the head with a warhammer, and he also didn't have a helmet, amazingly, he recovered. Either these guys have metal plates in their heads, or they're superhuman.

Mount and Blade I can't comment on, because I haven't played that one.

As far as Medieval combat, probably looks more straightforward than maybe you've been led to believe. It can also look pretty fancy and brutal, depending on what you're doing.

Battles would be terribly boring. Not much intensity and drama in holding a spear/pike/halberd formation together with your buddies, or doing a lance charge when you're the mounted cavalry. The horrific things about battles is the loads of serious wounds, and people getting ganged up on, because there's strength in numbers.

One skeleton from the Battle of Visby shows his legs being severed off with a single strike with a longsword. If you observe the skeleton, you'll see that these aren't breaks, but clean cuts.

Regarding techniques, it depends.

If we assume these are knights or men-at-arms, they'd have money and would have access to training, great weapons and armor.

But, the techniques used depends on the situation, and what school you're using. For example, Johannes Liechtenauer's fellowship was not typical for longsword fighting. By that, I mean that it seeks the bind, and winden, as well as false-edge cuts to regain the initiative in the fight.

Also what sets it apart is the Meisterhaus, or Master Strokes, which all but one, are cuts delivered at tricky angles meant to regain the initiative in the fight. One example is the Zwerchhau, or Cross-Wise Strike, which you deflect your opponent's downwards cut while cutting right into their face at the same time. The most natural Meisterhau is the Zornhau, or Wrath Stroke, in which it's meant to be a powerful, fast, vicious version of your bog standard downwards strike. You can even carry the momentum of the Zornhau into a thrust in one motion, in what's called the Zornhau-Ort.

In the Fiore dei Liberi tradition, which is what I'm most familiar with, we still seek the bind, but our objective is to enter into grappling from the bind, rather than using winden techniques in the bind.

For example, one play starts with the swords being crossed at the middle of the blade, and you use your attacker's momentum to spin them, then you get right behind their back, and wrap your sword's blade around his neck. Fiore says that if you fail to cut their throat from that position, you're a pathetic fool.

Another technique from Fiore is the Tor di Spada, or the taking of the sword. What it is is a disarm. You get to your opponent's side, pin their arms with your off-hand, and using the leverage of your body to hold them in place. Next, you use the back end of the sword to wrench the sword out of their hands. If done properly and correctly, it looks fluid and looks pretty damn cool.

And to respond to @the8thark:

History shows that medieval combat was not a fun affair.

You had the knight, who was slow, being weighed down by 20 plus KG of armour and under garments. Then you have his weapons, also very heavy. This makes what you can do in battle very tough as this limits your movement (and sight too) if you have a decent helmet on. Also due to this you would get tired out very quickly so you need to push through the lactic acid pain barrier in combat to survive. Past this you have the fear factor. Standing in line waiting to be told to charge would be a super scary thought. Furstly you have to furvive the arrow onslaught, then you have to fight the other side. Also seeing your friends cut down and die or laying half chopped up and screaming in agony would terrify anyone. Finally if you did survive the battle, you have two more things to deal with. Putting the gravely wounded out of their misery with a swift death by your sword and preformnig bafflefield brutal surgery which most never survived and the blood. The blood gets on everything and it stinks horribly. The knight does not have to wash it off the armour as that's the knight squire's job after each day in battle. The squire waits till the knight gets back and then gets to work.

Also forget taking a piss on a toilet while in battle. If you need to piss while you spend the many hours on the battlefield, you just pissed. Yet another thing the squire has to wash out after the days fighting for the knight.

Jousting is no picnic either. Having a huge steel or wooden lance smashed into yoyr face or chest would hurt. But not as much as the falling off the horse would. All that armour and undergarments the knight was wearing would make that thud after being knocked off the horse even more painful. That's aside from the sword comnat with the other combatant if required.

Replicating all of this in a video game? I think if done accurately, would not be that fun for most. As most people want to feel the more honourable and fun parts of medieval combat. The grim side of it all is not a very popular thing to recreate. That's why people like the more fantasised medival combat in games. Are your examples you shown very realistic? In many ways yes, not not in every way. They get the combat done well, but everything else I mentioned is not there. The fear of being there on the front lines is not there. Also neither is the smell, but that can't be replicated in a video game. However this is as close to real as we can currently get. I think it'll have its fans, but will stay niche as not everyone likes ultra realistic voilent combat games.
Regarding armor, 20 kg is really 44 lbs, so good that you estimated the normal weight for a battlefield harness, and if the armor is properly tailored to your body, most of the weight will be centered on your natural waist, or in other words, your center of gravity. Armor does restrict your movement somewhat, but you still can move pretty well. If you can sacrifice a little mobility for not getting your head split, hands cut off, or your belly cut, then I think it's a really fair trade off.

This also assumes we're talking about plate harnesses, which are really a thing unique to the Later Middle Ages. Most of the armor used throughout the Middle Ages was predominantly mail (chainmail) armor. That's without going into the other armors that existed, like brigandine, coat-of-plates, lamellarr, gambeson, and others.

Regarding the weapons being heavy, most likely not. Longswords, which are swords you predominantly use in two hands, weighed on average 3 lbs, which isn't that heavy. Maces weigh around 2 lbs, same with warhammers. Polearms also follow this trend, with the heaviest ones used in battle were around 7 lbs, and even those were considered outliers. Most polearms fall in the 4-5 lb range.

Real weapons aren't that heavy for a very good reason, you can't fight as effectively with a weapon that's way heavier than it needs to be.

Regarding going to the toilet, ideally you did your business before going into battle. That even happens today in warfare, so let's be fair.

Jousting was a tournament thing, so not sure why we're bringing it up. If, however, you mean a cavalry charge with a battlefield lance, ie, a long spear, then yeah, if you're infantry, that would suck. Awesome for you if you're part of the cavalry.

Falling off a horse in general hurts like hell. Ideally, if you were part of the cavalry, you charged when it was the most advantageous moment to do so. But things happen, and I won't pretend otherwise that falling off a horse in full armor would be a good thing.

But, as the saying goes, stuff happens, and even the best plans don't work because of circumstances you can't control. That's one of the reasons Boucicaut lost the Battle of Agincourt. It wasn't just due to the English using longbows, but the fact that Henry V was a better tactician, and the weather worked in Henry's favor. The French cavalry charge to the English flanks was a sound tactical plan, but because of the heavy rain, and the position the English took, prevented the French from being able to do an effective cavalry charge, leading to the English archers felling the horses, with the English infantry and cavalry cleaning up the scraps.

Regarding putting historical techniques into games, I agree that if we did a one-to-one translation, the game would be insurmountable and horrifically unfair. Historical techniques are straightforward and designed to win the fight, not for the entertainment of spectators. That doesn't mean, however, you can't throw in a few techniques to ground the game a little. A mordhau here, a zornhau there, maybe a little half-swording to ground it a bit.

Video games always embellish, and that's what makes them fun. Even though Kingdom Come is the most realistic so far, it's not perfectly spot on, because if it was, it'd be a horribly unfair and unbalanced game that wouldn't be fun to play. It does, however, throw in a few real techniques to ground it even more, which makes sense, considering it takes place in a real place, at a clearly stated point in time.

:D
 

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