Telepathy is fake. Dragons communicate using sign language.
What do YOU think? Serious question.
I dont think they would welcome me as their new lord if i killed their old lord and his family before neatly piling their corpses and shaping it into a throne…
I sort of doubt they’d take an upstart blacksmith for a king, either. 
Ya there are many other nobles to take his place…
Well it depends on your status.
Why there shouldnt be the possibility to rise to a Lord or an Earl and then get the crown.
Then it could be happen.
it could happen, but it didn’t happen.
I would rather not be king as that would give me a sense of duty to make the country better. I’d much preferr to roam the country and cause constant strife, chaos, death, and general mayhem.
Sounds like what king Sigismund was doing.
that would bee cool, we still dont know too much about the game but, it sound very promising especially if something like this is allowed. However, thatd mean the story would have to be prepared for such a decision?
I think that it was mentioned in some of the Warhorse’s texts on the matter of Václav (Wenceslaus) and Sigismund and the game (or maybe even Dan Vávra himself mentioned it) how the whole thing about a dethroned king and a warmongering tyrant is somewhat relative. It’s a common conception (or misconception) among people here in Czech that, simply put, Václav was “our king” and the good guy while Sigismund who became the Roman Emperor was that traitorous enemy that sided with the Germans and didn’t care about our people… etc.
The historical fact that Václav was pretty much incompetent as a ruler while Sigismund was very active, capable and respectable man is quite often omitted. The major problem with Sigismund (from the local perspective) was that he didn’t make too much effort to keep up good “PR” (in today’s lingo) in his father’s homeland specifically and cared more to manage the whole Empire.
At the time of the KCD he let his armies running rampant around the place and making a lot of mess (like pillaging and burning villages, which was a common field practice of just about every average military campaign back then) and then he backed down to the Catholic Church in the later Hus issue in hopes to keep order in the Church (instead of stroking further unrest from Hus’s teachings which the Church wasn’t fond of).
Which unfortunately only threw the already angered Czech folk over board, started the Hussite wars and made him “the enemy” for good…
But back to the beginning - I think it has been already mentioned somewhere that there might be an option to decide whether to keep supporting Václav or to side with Sigismund (after you learn some more about both of them in the game).
It probably won’t have a major history-changing outcome, but may have a notable impact on the game’s (Henry’s) own story.
1 Like
That might have been a commonplace during invasions of enemy territory, but not so during internal strifes for power. Inherently, you expect a different behavior during a pub brawl with a stranger and during a family quarrel with relatives.
Causing general mayhem by basically allowing the soldiers to rape, torture and kill is something that deserves contempt and hatred. Trying to cover that up with stories of “activity and capability” vs. “incompetency” is just horrific. In the same way one can praise the active and capable Hitler and Third Reich over the incompetency of the Weimar Republic!
Moreover, since the 1318 battle of Žatec, no major warfare took place in the Czech lands (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on this one). So, there you had some 4 generations of people for whom the horrors brought by Zigismund’s forces were completely unimaginable - far cry from “common field practice”.
Sorry, but that’s a bit naive. Soldiers going for a bit of pillaging was pretty common if an army was anywhere else than in its home territory (which the Kingdom of Bohemia wasn’t for the forces from other parts of the Empire). And sometimes even there, depending on what sort of a hypocrite was in the field command.
It always started with confiscating some food and other goods from the locals “for the war effort” to ease off the regular military supply lines and every now and then the commanders in the field let their soldiers to go ahead and do as they please if they encountered any kind of resistance. Especially if there was not much of fighting or loot recently so that the boys could at least let off some steam. And if there was a lot of fighting and resistance, then double time.
If you don’t trust modern movies or even other, more serious contemporary sources, as making this up, I recommend checking some more historic sources directly. Like the satirical works of Johann Grimmelshausen from 17th Century that show a pretty raw (even if slightly fictionalized) insight into the life in the field during the Thirty Years’ War. Even though it was some two centuries later, in some things the war doesn’t really change much. In some places not even today (Africa).
And btw. Hitler wasn’t really very capable himself, he was nuts. But he had a lot of capable people around him that effectively used him as a popular mascot. (End offtopic…)
1 Like
I am sorry, but I have to side with PhanTom on this issue. Such hostilities were quite common in these days, even in internal conflicts. Nowadays we are used to human rights, but in those days they were unheard of.
I can even give an example from the 15th century to proof my claim. During the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War (1407-1435) in France the two opposing parties took any measures available to win including excessive plundering. The Armagnacs even employed troops known as “Écorcheurs” (slaughterers).
I recommend reading about it yourself, if you still don’t believe it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armagnac–Burgundian_Civil_War
Interestingly enough, sources from 15th century Bohemia describe behavior of Sigismund armies as unprecedented in the area. That does not mean that your sources covering 30 years war or Burgundian civil war are any less relevant for their period and place.
However, to use your own argument - it is like saying that nobody could really take offense of what is happening in Ukraine today, simply because it has been happening in Africa for decades. Sorry, but this reasoning doesn’t work.
And compering confiscation of livestock to large scale pilliging is outright nonsense. That is like comparing taxes to armed robbery.
I think there is a big difference between nowadays (modern codified human rights) and Middle Ages, when as I stated brutality was pretty much regularly used as political means by nobles.
About Wenceslaus: It seems he was not able to manage the kingdom in a manner he should have because several nobles denied their support and started rebellions even before Sigismund interfered in Bohemia. By that I don’t justify plunderings etc. done by soldiers of Sigismund. After all Wenceslaus was dethroned as emperor because he was “eynen unnüczen, versümelichen, unachtbaren entgleder und unwerdigen hanthaber des heiligen Romischen richs” (~ a futile, idle, unrespectable decomposer and a dishonorable operator of the Holy Roman Empire). Well, that’s what his biased opponents say, but at least it shows what some of his coevals thought of him.
There was the original argument that went along the way that Sigismund is unreasonably portrayed in the Czech history in a negative way, mostly because Wenceslaus was incompetent while Sigismund was active and able.
I counter-argued that Sigismund’s understanding is well established due to the horrors his armies inflicted in the Czech kingdom.
Then the argument was made along the way that horrors inflicted by Sigismund armies were a commonplace in Burgundy and in 16th century during the 30 years war.
I counter-argued that the Czech lands were in relative peace for over four generations, so (1) it was not a commonplace in the area at the time and (2) even if it was, it would not be any less repulsive, thus fully justifying the way Sigismund is generally viewed.
Now you come back to Wenceslaus was not able to manage the kingdom. I think we are talking apples and oranges.
Sorry for a late reply, but I was away for a while. Seems like the argumentation here went just awfully wrong. 
I will try to clarify my standpoint (which initiated all this) a bit more.
Close, but not exactly. I was countering the notion of Václav being a fair and innocent victim and Sigismund being a ruthless powerhungry warmongering tyrant and traitor, though I may not have used the most credible arguments.
Truth is that both of these men were highly regarded on the personal level as very social, educated and respectful. But one major difference between them was in what they were striving for along with their approach and responsibility to their goals and obligations that went with achieving these goals.
In this, Václav was seriously lacking compared to his brother, which was exactly the reason why his whole career ended up the way it did.
The actual argument was that the horrors inflicted by the Sigismund’s armies (by armies sent there on his behalf, but not by himself in person and doubtfully by his explicit orders) were commonplace in any major armed conflict pretty much during the whole recorded and known human history.
You could possibly trace cases similar (or even worse) to these all the way since the Ancient era up till today.
The particular cases like the 30 Years’ War were nothing more than just an example that a thing like that was anything but unprecedented for a war-waging army to do. Anytime, anywhere. Even the Hussites were burning down settlements and commiting mass-murder on their enemies in several occasions.
And they didn’t do it simply out of some revenge. As always, it was about extinguishing the enemies of the “true faith”. Whatever that is and whoever says that at whatever point…
It doesn’t make it any less resentful on either side, it only means that a village getting burned down during a war is not really something special, not even for its time.
And for its place?
Who ever cared about what the locals are or are not used to when any random army came to any random area to enforce its goal? That is a socio-political luxury of the 20th Century. And only for the more developed part of the world. (That’s why I mentioned Africa, with its ongoing bloody ethnic and religious wars in the mainland.)
For a regular average military brain on a march it was only about taking land and resources and preventing the enemy from taking them for themselves. The stuff we call “civilians” today and tend to care about it was viewed mostly as something that only gets in the way if it’s not on “our” side and can’t be conscripted for “our” cause. And it may even cause trouble, so who cares if some of them die?
That’s a part of what “getting medieval on someone’s ass” means.
And I was specifically trying to point out on how questionable it is to blame Sigismund that a bunch of soldiers sent somewhere on an assignment for him burned themselves a village (Henry’s village, if anything…) along the way. It is really the fault of the men that did it and their direct commanders who didn’t prevent it. And by the way…
Ok, so… imagine a unit of armed soldiers showing themselves up in your house all of a sudden, acting like they own everything around there just because they are armed better than you and taking your supplies for themselves no matter how much you yourself have or need. And they also don’t intend to take “no” for an answer. Tough luck, Grumpycat.
What would you call it? Tax collecting, or an armed robbery?
Anyway, once again (finally) returning to the initial point I was trying to make (or TLDR):
Sigismund was no Darth Sigismundus and it’s somewhat unfair and ignorant to picture him like that. The whole situation at that time was almost eyebrow-risingly complicated and would be a matter for another wall of text and maybe even a separate thread (which I’m already considering…).
Still, if it came to a question if to choose working for Václav or for Sigismund… all I’m saying is that the choice would be pretty much anything else than black and white.
We are talking so many shades of gray that E.L. James couldn’t even imagine…
2 Likes
The whole initial argument was based in turning the general understanding of Sigismund as someone who is historically portrayed in negative way for no good reason. I resented that, and I do resent that. He led armies that were, according to period sources, behaving in ways that were way over the top even for its period and time. There was no good reason why this would be mentioned as regards Sigismund’s armies and not when it came to other invading forces (especially later during the crusades against Hussites), unless it was based in reality.
There are enough sources supporting the fact that it happened. Whether it was common or not makes no difference to the fact that it was and is resentful and his reputation is thus well deserved.
I think it’s save to assume there was some resentment for burning villages at the time regardlass of wether it was a common custom of warfare. that should be portraiet in the game. But holding on to this resentment until today without regarding other similar insedents would be proof of a very selectiv memory.