Mounted units

[Kosez]

Foot knights were some of the most dangerous and effective infantry troops man-for-man in medieval Europe.

I don´t agree with you sir_schwick. Strenght of knights lay in their horses. Those horses were heavy, medium fast and not very manouvarable. Knights were armed with lances, which were quite long. Now imagine a clash of a third of a metric ton against a man. No matter how armed you are or how big is your shield, you won´t be able to stay on your feet after the clash. But if unmounted, knights were too heavy with their armor manouver in infantry-like fashion. They were probably very good in man-on-man combat but as I said they were very slow and not trained to be infantry.

In 1302 Philip IV the Fair was defeated in Flanders at the Battle of the Golden Spurs. He had 2500 knights, Flames had non. In 1320 Philip V the Tall fought and lost a battle agains Flames in which he dismounted his knights hoping he won´t repeat Philip the Fair´s defeat.

I just want to point out that mounted units are good only in certain circumstances, and these don´t include siege.

 

[sir_schwick]

In 1302 Philip IV the Fair was defeated in Flanders at the Battle of the Golden Spurs. He had 2500 knights, Flames had non. In 1320 Philip V the Tall fought and lost a battle agains Flames in which he dismounted his knights hoping he won´t repeat Philip the Fair´s defeat.

The deficiency of French tactics during the hundred years war and that time period was certainly exascerbated by an over reliance on mounted nobles rather than professional soldiers.

Foot knights would not use lances and did have swords or poleaxes for when their horse was killed or if the situation demanded foot action. Also, a man at arms could stop a horse that was charging with its lance. It might be pushed back, but the guy was not automatically on the ground. Lances were okay against armoured opponents but would massacre lightly armoured militia and peasant troops. Certainly foot knights were slower, but that extra armour and training, plus superior quality weapons, also meant they were not as vulnerable. There were plenty of occasions when foot knights were used for discipline or tactical reasons, but mounted combat was much more common. They were trained in both.

 

[smphang]

Perhaps this goes to the heart of the question of: 'should the majority of battles be fought "within" cities-or outside of them?'
After all, it would seem that in many battles-at least until the late industrial age-both sides seemed to avoid city combat except in extreme circumstances. Perhaps a change to the combat system could make it more apropriate to fight out on the open field if at all possible, with retreat to a city being an option only as a last resort. Under such situations, the attacker is left with the option of assaulting the city-at great loss of life to the citizens AND at a significant disadvantage to the AS/DS of certain units (whether there are city walls or not)-or beseiging the city (where a seige would be resolved in almost the exact same way as normal combat-with the objective being to force the surrender of the city or the destruction of all its defending troops).
Of course, the defender faces pretty much the same dilemma.
Also, the possiblity could exist that, if an enemy control ALL of the squares of a city radius of a city, particularly if no defending troops are anywhere nearby, then said enemy can seek the surrender of the city. If they don't, or if the city refuses, then the enemy can seek to enter the city, but may well take a slight pounding as it does so-if that makes sense?

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

i can see the merits of letting the battle to fight outside the cities, but often than not, this is not the case in game.
perhaps one of my "mad" suggestion will be that if your city is completely surrounded by enemy troops for say >2 turns, then it will be fallen automatically? this will force defenders to try attack the attackers outside the city rather than docking out behind the walls. what do you think?

 

[rhialto]

Foot knights would not use lances...

Foot knights did use lances. Except those lances were often called pikes instead. Actually, the pikeman graphic should be changed, as full plate armour wasn't typically worn by non-nobles.

More seriously though, the lance wasn't the major weapon for knights in battle, sword and shield being far more common, with axes and maces being a close second. The reason is that a lance can only be used effectively by cavalry when charging, while other weapons can be used when stopped or slowed, giving them more tactical flexibility. One common approach was to charge with a cheaply made lance, then drop it and swicth to sword for the rest of the battle.

 

[sir_schwick]

Foot knights did use lances. Except those lances were often called pikes instead. Actually, the pikeman graphic should be changed, as full plate armour wasn't typically worn by non-nobles.

Foot knights probably used halbeards much more than pikes. Halbeards are better for single-warriors to wield than a long pike which works well in formation. Agreed that plate armour was very expensive until the 15th century when a lot of the techniques of antiquity were discovered.

 

[rhialto]

Common infantry not using plate armour actually had at least as much to do with sumptuary laws and the medieval equivalent of gun control laws as it did to do with the expense.

Incidentally, no pole arm is really effective unless wielded in formation, with the possible exception of *short* (4-5 foot long or less) spears.

 

[sir_schwick]

Common infantry not using plate armour actually had at least as much to do with sumptuary laws and the medieval equivalent of gun control laws as it did to do with the expense.

What laws are you referring to? That sounds very interesting.

 

[rhialto]

sumptuary laws - laws that prevent certain social classes from buying or using certain products. Less commonly, laws that require certain social classes to buy of use certain products. The most widely known laws were:

- In ancient Rome, only patricians (nobles) were allowed to wear clothes with purple dye.
- In medieval Italy, shoes with long pointy toe-ends were popular, and length was heavily regulated by social class.

In modern terms, imagine that there was a law that restricted private car ownership to those with managerial jobs. Incidentally, 'sumptuary' and 'consumption' have the same etymological root.



medieval gun control laws - Obviously there weren't any guns then, but restricting fighting ability among the lower classes was still of paramount importance to the ruling classes. The easiest way to do that was to keep them disarmed. Most medieval nations banned weapons from the peasantry, resulting in the development of martial arts in the East and many adaptions of farming tools into weapons in the West ("No sir, it's not a weapon. I use it to flail my wheat after the harvest"). It is very unlikely that metal armour could have been passed off as being a practical tool for keeping warm, unlike, say, leather armour.

 

[Kosez]

but mounted combat was much more common.

Exactly. I don`t mean to claim knights never fought dismounted, but they were much less efficient. And that goes for all mounted units. I still think they should not be able to attack units behind walls, and I still think we need more types of offensive units.

 

[troytheface]

i agree with the intial contention that horsemen should not be able to pounce on a city with walls- and it woud be nice if some eastern civs had a horsemen with bombard
-think the mongols do but it is defensive bombard- horse navy and airpower could all use a revamping- supply lines and tactical consideration as per unit seems like plausible solutions. Knight and Chariot and Horse UU's might suffer- but then again
they should against cities- in multi player the whole game would change....

 

[sir_schwick]

It does seem Civ military doctrine and units are based upon the Western military tradition of, 'we come to your troops and duke it out'. The horse heavy Steppe and plains armies tended to use the, 'you walk, we pelt you with arrows, you ran after us, other guys pop out and pelt you with arrows' tradition of skirmishing. Would be nice to see acknowledgement of the skrimishing and attrition types of tactical and strategic warfare.