Kal-el's Unit Concept Sketches

[Kindred72]

Originally posted by Kinboat

Another thing why couldn't an unmounted guy be called a knight? Not all knights fought on or even owned horses. If I do make him I don't know if I'll mount him or not but I will still be calling him Knight of Anubis regardless.

Hear hear. I ran into this when I wanted to call my dwarf ironbreaker dude a dwarven Knight. For some reason it didn't go over well, and this was a FANTASY unit.

 

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Kindred72


Hear hear. I ran into this when I wanted to call my dwarf ironbreaker dude a dwarven Knight. For some reason it didn't go over well, and this was a FANTASY unit.

... Indeed, I was very surprised to turn to my trusty Oxford English Dictionary, which has nearly two full pages devoted to the word "knight" expecting to find something about a horse -- and, indeed I did (Xen, are you listening? ) The ONLY specific definition reference to a mounted warrior is:

"One of the class of equites, who originally formed the cavalry of the ROman army, and at a later period were a wealthy class of great political importance."

Nada about medieval European knights-in-shining-armor-on-horseback etc. -- Not that that wasn't the military cornerstone of the western European medieval military, but still ...

Best,

Oz

 

[Dom Pedro II]

For other languages, however, this becomes a real problem.


In Portuguese, the word for knight is cavaleiro, which means Horsemen basically. And in Spanish its caballero, which also means Horseman.

 

[thestonesfan]

I though that in Europe, a Knight that did not fight while mounted was called a "Man at Arms".

 

[ripptide]

Seems to me, a knight would fight either mounted or dismounted, depending on which was best suited at the time. And although its not a "proving" point, Firaxis/Atari used a dismounted unit for the Templar Knight in C3C, and it looks perfectly suitable

 

[embryodead]

Man-at-Arms actually refers to any medieval, heavily armed soldier, preferably mounted.
As for knights/chivalry, words often gain new meaining over ages, and this is a perfect example, as chivalry is a wider concept, more connected to duty, morals etc. rather than horses. However, I'd prefer the Anubis to be called warrior, but not because of lack of mount, but just because he's Egyptian.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Or soldier, or infantry, or footman... lots of names to choose from.

 

[embryodead]

Yeah any of those. Knight just stinks with Europe.

 

[Amenhotep7]

So is anyone to pick up these units? I thought Kinboat said that they were on his to-do list...at the bottom, but they're on there anyway.

 

[Xen]

Originally posted by Kinboat
It's getting pretty deep in here... and as I don't claim belief in any religion I feel perfectly fine making the Anubis Knight (May he strike me dead for blasphemy if he can) and have just one more thing to say.... IT"S A BLOODY GAME XEN... The Anubis knight doesn't malign the Egyptian's ancient beliefs any more than the representation of the Nazi swastika promotes Nazism or the Terrorist unit promotes terrorism. It's a game...

If that had ANY effect on me, I would have stooped- so what if it is a game- dosent now, nor ever will make it right to diresepct a religion...

 

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Xen


If that had ANY effect on me, I would have stooped- so what if it is a game- dosent now, nor ever will make it right to diresepct a religion...

... including those which practiced human sacrifice ... ? (Apologies, but "Devil's Advocate" was the only job I ever wanted at the Vatican )

-Oz

 

[Runamok Monkey]

Originally posted by ozymandias


The zebra is not domesticable -- and the quagga is generally thought to be a sub-species of zebra:

http://www.museums.org.za/sam/quagga/quagga.htm

-Oz

HAHAHA

Sometimes, I do not realize that I've crossed the fine line from alternate history to absurdity.

No, you're probably right that few men may have ever domesticated one. One website I went to said that farmers could not domesticate them, but that if they left some with their cattle, the quagga would protect the cattle from the hyenas.

But the point is not whether we're going to have zulu riders mounting zebras; the point is that the characteristic zebra-like stripes on the head and neck is amazing. And if you don't like the idea of men riding these sub-zebras, then it's not a stretch to say that we could have our zulus bodypaint their steeds to make them look like quaggas. Some of the plains indians of North America decorated the face and rump of their horses, so we have some historical basis for bodypaint: it's just that our alternative history zulu units would look very different from other horsemen if they did this, which I thought was the purpose of these alternative unit mods.

 

[Xen]

Originally posted by ozymandias


... including those which practiced human sacrifice ... ? (Apologies, but "Devil's Advocate" was the only job I ever wanted at the Vatican )

-Oz

but of course- even if they did commit what we consider crimes against thire fellow man, it is NO reason to disrepsect them

 

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by Runamok Monkey

But the point is not whether we're going to have zulu riders mounting zebras; the point is that the characteristic zebra-like stripes on the head and neck is amazing. And if you don't like the idea of men riding these sub-zebras, then it's not a stretch to say that we could have our zulus bodypaint their steeds to make them look like quaggas. Some of the plains indians of North America decorated the face and rump of their horses, so we have some historical basis for bodypaint: it's just that our alternative history zulu units would look very different from other horsemen if they did this, which I thought was the purpose of these alternative unit mods.

Works for me

 

[Dom Pedro II]

close formation cavalry charges would do well to have zebra paint... it is, in fact, why zebras have evolved to have stripes. it fools predators, and it would no doubt trick and distract the human eye as well.


I really like the Zebra paint idea... as long as those are horses they're riding.

And it's not just a matter of being domesticable... a zebra isn't even ridable! You'd probably break its back mounting a warrior on it.


LouLong: Also here... take a look at this...

Can Zebras Be Domesticated?

and the link to the criteria for a domesticable animal:

Fact Sheet



Here's my personal favorite qualification:

A tendency to want to kill your human companion is an instant disqualifier.

 

[Runamok Monkey]

Originally posted by LouLong


Obivously it is not only a size pb since the Indian elephant is still bigger than the African zebra. But strange than as soon as you go south of the Sahara, many species "become" "undomesticable" while their Asian counterparts were "domesticable" especially if you consider man has probably spent more time in Africa than on any other continent

But even with the Asian elephants, it's almost impossible to control a bull in must. That's why today, most domesticated elephants are female. And with habitats shrinking, it don't look good for the males.

 

[Balastulin]

Originally posted by thestonesfan
I though that in Europe, a Knight that did not fight while mounted was called a "Man at Arms".

I thought that was Masters of the Universe

 

[Runamok Monkey]

Originally posted by ozymandias


... Indeed, I was very surprised to turn to my trusty Oxford English Dictionary, which has nearly two full pages devoted to the word "knight" expecting to find something about a horse -- and, indeed I did (Xen, are you listening? ) The ONLY specific definition reference to a mounted warrior is:

"One of the class of equites, who originally formed the cavalry of the ROman army, and at a later period were a wealthy class of great political importance."

Nada about medieval European knights-in-shining-armor-on-horseback etc. -- Not that that wasn't the military cornerstone of the western European medieval military, but still ...

Best,

Oz

Yes! Yes!

 

[mrtn]

@Balatulin

About the whole knight/Man at Arms discussion: Man at Arms is just a fancy word for "Gang Member"

 

[aaminion00]

Gah. A dictionary defenition? What the hell does that have to do with anything? Yes riding a horse isn't exactly what the oxford's defenition of Knight is, but the vast majority of European "knights" in the middle ages were mounted. More importantly, the modern interpetation and the one that Firaxis used for their knight unit is a guy on horseback. That's why the knight has 2 movement points instead of 1. How can you possibly justify giving a foot unit 2 movement points in the medieval era, when all other units (even less heavily armored than knights) have 1, save for the samurai, who as I said, should be a medieval infantry replacement instead of a knight, but was a knight replacement becase MI's didn't exist in civ3 vanilla.

And really, who gives a crap about knights from sub-saharan Africa? In reference to those who say that the mounted knight from Europe is just a local Europan interpetation: bull****. Do other cultures even have a word for knight? Or if they do, does it represent the mounted one that firaxis was obviously trying to represent? The bottom line is that the "knight" is supposed to represent an early medieval cavalry unit with extra movement. Whether other cultures considered "knights" (dictionary defenition) to be mounted doesn't matter. If they instead had them as primarily foot units, fine, make them replace the medieval ifnantry (i.e. samurai). However, if one is trying to make an Egyptian knight "flavor unit", there is no justification to making him a walker.

Now I'll go back to listening to Plavi Orkestar and waiting for a response.