Horses ingame appearence and handling

Gameplay
#1

Ment as a feedback:

To keep it short:
I noticed the horse model in the video looks a bit like a “hatchback”. Perhaps you devs can give it a larger back, so less pointy. Just to keep it close to biology.

About horse handling:
The video told us that horses jump automatically. The reasons given sound pretty good so far.
Nevertheless, I would give the rider the job of telling the horse when to jump (except to jump off any cliffs or similar).
Afaik, horses avoid to jump by nature. A horse would not jump over a fence if it’s avoidable. If the rider keeps the horse running straight towards that fence it would balk if it gets too close. Just by the horse’s trust in the rider’s command to jump it would actually jump - trained horses jump easier than less trained.

Horseback riding style
#2

horses normally jump on there own you can get them to ride towards something but they don’t always jump aka a refusal in horseriding.

Broken horses normally follow the rider of course horses are animals that act in there own way they arn’t as controllable as dogs

#3

I just wanna say, that I want to see the concept of the battle horse: how it acts during combat and stuff. So it would be nice to see all of this in the next video update, since it’s all about combat.

1 Like
#4

I think they want horse, which it has own mind, but in game scale. I hate jumping on one place like Skyrim, this is unreal.

#5

What about horse armor, I’d love to ride around on a armored horse.

#6

Actually the horse makes the decision to jump not the human, although obviously and un-trained horse is more likely to balk. In show jumping or cross country IRL the rider directs the horse towards the jump but does not give it a command to jump. I feel like making the horse auto jump in game is a good thing as it will result in a smoother experience. It would be cool if there was a percentage chance of it balking based on how long you’ve had it or how well it is trained though to give some realism.

1 Like
#7

The devs have said there will be 5 armour slots I’m pretty sure

#8

I have so many questions regarding the horses, like:
Can we ride backward on the horse? might be stupid question, but in Skyrim I was very annoyed that it was impossible to rein back on horse.
Will be various races? With there own specificity?
Stamina for horses will be implemented?
Will be a ride statistic for our character?

I guess this will be not horse simulator and may be the devs wants to focus elsewhere, but I will be very happy to have advanced horse features.

2 Likes
#9

fine with me as long as they don’t include smell.

#10

So medieval horse and riding equipment is my specialist field, I fear I feel in charge to write something. Hopefully it will not start long debates.

In opposite of the first posting, I really like the “hatchback-style” of the horses. :wink: Many of the older horse-races have such a croup. But that is a small detail.

I really love the moderate size of the horses! In many medieval-style games, the horses are much to big. From many sources, excavations for instance, we know, that even the big warhorses around 1400 in western Europe were usually not bigger than ca 1,40 - 1,50m. That is the size we see at the old remaining horse-races like true Spanish or Portuguese horses, barb-horses, Mustangs, etc.
And that are the good-blooded expensive horses. In rural areas the horses were bred from the local horse-races, usually that what we would call “pony” today.
Those really big “cold-blooded” cart-horses or heavy horses, most people would expect to be the “real knight-horses” are more or less “modern period” breedings.

So the horse in this picture is OK from size, but would be one of those more expensive good-blooded races. A cheap horse would be even smaller and would probably look more like a hairy stubborn pony. :wink:

First KDC Horse

But I really don’t like the saddles (they are too big, to far on the horses back and have a little bit strange form… maybe a very east-european style, I can’t see it good enough.
And the stirrups could be longer. It was very popular to ride with a “long leg”. Personally I only woud make the stirrup that short if I want to race and jump a lot, but then they have to be more to the middle of the saddle under the riders weight. Very unconfortable and not good for steering the horse only with your upper legs, especially in battle.

Horse armour is an other point that is even questionable. It exists, it looks cool, but was obviously not very common in western europe in that time-period. By the way, I could give references for all I have said, If somebody wants to start a very long debate and looks for some books for long bedtime reading.

And, last but not least, where the hell is the rider sitting in the first picture??? He is sitting on the lower spine of the horse, very unhealty for both creatures! Not the spine is what carrys the riders weight, but the muscles from the neck and the upper back. Creepy picture for a rider!

This is a good picture to show the “hatchback-Style” of the croup. That is a north-american Mustang, brought to America by the spanisch conquistadores in the 16th cent. and left alone for hundrets of years.

hatchback-style

KDC Horse2

#11

Your images didn’t show up.

#12

Thanx, I just fixed it!

#13

I believe metal plate armor started appearing around 1440 and really became “mainstream” around 1480-1500 (could be off 10 years or so).

But they did have quilted horse armor and mail was used much earlier.

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/68.174

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/68.95

One problem the links above also address is that the horse caparisons usually hide amour in depictions of men-at-arms.

1 Like
#14

Hi Dushin,
you are absolutely right, horse armour exists. But if you give me your email address, then I will send you hundreds of pictures and artworks from my HDD where warhorses did NOT wear any armour in that time period, even if the rider is in full arms. I don’t want to be annoying or so, it’s just like I said: Medieval horse and riding equipment is my specialist field of interest.

Hmmm… I am brave this evening… I will give you 100 pictures without armour for every picture with armour.
Deal? :wink:

But I like horse armour, too, because it looks cool and gives you extrapower in a game. So I don’t mind if it will be in the game or not. And if I got an sudden stroke of authenticism-illness, i am free to use it or not :wink:

#15

Oh no, I changed my mind, I am not that brave, because it would be very time consuming… I will only give you 30 for each :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#16

Well I certainly agree not every yeoman and his farmhand was riding on an armored horse, I believe one of those Osprey books regarding the battle of Fornovo (1495) even states the French did not bother with horse armor while some of the Italian Condottieri had a leather/quilted breast and head piece protecting the front of their horse. However I wouldn’t mind it if the flower of Bohemian nobility was riding on a partly armored horse (1 in a 100-200 or so).

Regarding those pictures, could you upload a few to an imgur album and post the link here? I believe we share some interests though I am more interested in the Italian wars and the role of heavy cavalry in those wars.

#17

OK, glad to meet some interested people here… I will try to find some webspace and put some pictures online, tomorrow evening.

1 Like
#18

Like it was mentioned, an imgur album (http://imgur.com/) is the simplest way to go. You can just select whatever you want and easily upload them there. I don’t know how long they actually last for but there are links I’ve saved that are months old and they still work fine.

1 Like
#19

Here are some original paintings and art-stuff showing medieval warhorses. It looks a little bit muddled, because I try upload a wide variety of different sources, not x pictures of the same source. Most pictures shows rider in full arms, but the horse without any horsearmour. To be fair, I put also every picture with horsearmour in it I could find at the first glance. But I think the overall-pattern will be clear. The time-period is mostly the 15th cent. Because my main Interest is the 2nd half of 15th cent, there are only a few pictures from the late 14th cent. There are also 2 or 3 late (edit: must be “early”) 16th cent pictures to show that the idea from a fully armoured man on a non armoured horse will continue through the following years. I don’t wrote any descriptions, so if you have any questions, please ask me.

Medieval Warhorses

1 Like
Horseback riding style
#20

Yeah by the late sixteenth century they stopped using horse armor altogether.

Have you read philip de commines memoirs? Does he actually mention horse armor?

© 2015 Warhorse Studios www.warhorsestudios.cz