Strangest Weapons of the Middle Ages

[Krom]

This video introduces many of the middle-age weapons that were more effective than those we get used to see in KaM:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtjSS5FmQc0

[The Dark Lord]

I always liked this slingy thing with the spikes, don't know what it's called. A flail? You know, that thing that the Witch King in Lord of the Rings has? It's cool.
Knight's Province should have some hero units with unique weapons.

[zombie01]

I always liked this slingy thing with the spikes, don't know what it's called. A flail? You know, that thing that the Witch King in Lord of the Rings has? It's cool.
Knight's Province should have some hero units with unique weapons.

That is a mace yeah.

Simple weapon, just smash as hard as you can.

[Ben]

I believe you're talking about a flail, Dark Lord. A mace hasn't the "sling" on the end A common misconception, even for English speakers.

I haven't watched the video yet, but as far as I know, swords weren't used nearly as much as media (video games, movies) portrays them to have been used. It took a lot of experience to learn how to use a sword. I always find it annoying and ignorant of writers to have a character in a movie pick up a sword and be competent with it right away, even so far as being able to duel with "experts." I think spears and flails were likely used a lot more. They took much less skill and were still quite potent. Crossbows were also much more effective than bows, as they were very powerful and took little experience to operate effectively. Long bowmen were trained from a very young age, and were comparable to crossbowmen, but with the aforementioned disadvantage of taking a long time to learn, crossbows were more useful.

[The Dark Lord]

Yes you're right; I googeled 'Witch King weapon' and I found 'mace', however in the video they're talking about a flail indeed.

[dicsoupcan]

if it is a flail it is more likely a morning star though.

[Krom]

I enjoyed the concept of Godendag in the end xD

[Esthlos]

Interesting!

I haven't watched the video yet, but as far as I know, swords weren't used nearly as much as media (video games, movies) portrays them to have been used. It took a lot of experience to learn how to use a sword. I always find it annoying and ignorant of writers to have a character in a movie pick up a sword and be competent with it right away, even so far as being able to duel with "experts." I think spears and flails were likely used a lot more. They took much less skill and were still quite potent. Crossbows were also much more effective than bows, as they were very powerful and took little experience to operate effectively. Long bowmen were trained from a very young age, and were comparable to crossbowmen, but with the aforementioned disadvantage of taking a long time to learn, crossbows were more useful.

I think it would be cool to see this implemented... maybe in KP?

Units could be able to gain experience from fighting (even just from the time spent in fighting mode, not just the kills): Crossbowmen (etc.) could start out very strong but improve very little with experience, while Sword Fighters (etc) could start out weak and improve a lot with experience.

Maybe even adding the Training Dummy from TZAR: a strawman that you can build and that your own units can attack for experience, up to a cap (makes sense: you can only gain so much skill from attacking a doll).

P.S. And what do you think about making unit recruitment similar to that of Metal Fatigue, where you produce and store the equipment, then select which pieces you want your recruit to have and then deploy the customized soldier?

[Krom]

Adding new types of units (weapons) becomes increasingly difficult and time-consuming with each new unit. They need to be modeled, textured, rigged, animated, justified and most importantly - balanced against each other unit ..

[Esthlos]

Adding new types of units (weapons) becomes increasingly difficult and time-consuming with each new unit. They need to be modeled, textured, rigged, animated, justified and most importantly - balanced against each other unit ..

No no, I meant implementing units' experience, and making different units grow differently with experience.
For example, making Crossbows overall stronger than Bows at 0 experience, but weaker at higher experience levels - if they survive until then.

[LadyPauline]

Generally swords were very rare weapon becouse of high cost, good swords were produced only for royal rich Knights, and often it was a Family weapon. Sure they had some types of swords, every of them with other destiny of use, but quality is other thing to speak of. Bad steel, bad crafting, cheap price... ye know what it all mean. So the most in early midleage common people used weapond easy to craft and hard to destroy, like mix wood and steel, which mean pikes, speares, halberds, bills, axes and the flails.

Range weapons against the knights were used in 100 Years War by Welsh Archers, or the crossbows bit later in all europe. Btw crossbows were used first in Asia by chinese against the Mongols. There they used em because of very nice range and really strong hits. But anyway... to beat the knights we have perfect examples like Battle of Azincourt. Eng vs French (They used longbows as the primary weapon against the French Knights, and they won bcs of the weather and smart tactics (and bad French tactics)

Knights mostly were stupid people which seek the glory in battles so they were unpredictible, often without discipline, they charged without any words, all becouse of fame and songs... So the best weapon to defeat em is the brain, traps etc. (Scots against Eng Knights)

[thibmo]

I actually watch this on TV.
I am lucky enough to have History Channel on TV here.

It's amazing to find out what they used to try and defend themselves.