actuall it would be the opposite, longswords were more of an upperclass weapon, and swords and shields would be used by poorer men at arms (non heavily armored ie plate) or levies
if roleplaying as a warrior youd want a swords and shield
or better yet a club/axe and shield
maybe a bow, but that would be more uncommon
Well firstly there’s no such thing as a “standard sword” in the middle ages. The middle ages is a period of time that spans a long period of time (traditionally from the fall of the Western Roman Empire till the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire), resulting in a period of time that’s about 5 centuries long. Swords went through a lot of changes in this period of time, and even if we’re just talking Europe there’s significant cultural differences between the Greco-Romans of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Frankish peoples of western Europe.
But to give a general crash course on sword design in Europe in the middle ages, as time goes on swords generally speaking get longer, thinner, and denser. So while arming swords and things like them are common around the turn of the millennium, by the early 15th century the typical sidearm will be a longsword, hand and a half sword, etc. Something long enough to have great reach, can still be wielded with one hand, and is primarily focused on being used as a sturdy crowbar to jam into armor gaps with a fiendish taper. Also the use of a shield depends on your level of armor, shields see less and less use as armor becomes more encompassing, only retaining use as means to tank a lance strike until falling out altogether. If you’re humbugging about the game in full plate, realistically it’s perfectly fine to roleplay as just carrying a longsword with no shield.
Also seeing as how that KCD takes place in a “civilian” context, just carrying a longsword with no shield also makes sense as it would be very odd for somebody to go wandering around towns with a shield. That’s more something you’d see in KCD’s pitched battles or on guards, not a random arse blacksmith’s heir.
If you really want a realistic hard mode roleplaying bit, realistically speaking wandering around in full plate itself would be inadvisable simply due to how hot plate is. It’s something you only want on for a couple hours, and takes around a couple minutes to don with help. Thus if you want some difficulty, fast travelling and getting into random encounters while just wearing a gambeson would in fact be max realism.
As has been pointed out, short sword is one handed sword only. However, it is not short in the sense of a gladius or Xiphos. Google Oakeschott sword typology.
We are late in the game at 1400, so you would expect to see a mix of type XII, and later (XIII, XIV and XV). Type XII is fairly early medieval. It has a relatively straight blade and is mostly a cutting weapon. As time went on the blades became more tapered, making the swords more thrust oriented while still retaining good cutting ability. The idea being to thrust the sword between the joints of plate while still being able to cut down the lesser armored man at arms.
Then there are the Oakeschott hand and a half swords, which equate to long swords. Oakeschott type XVa seems to me fairly typical late medieval. These swords can be used with one hand or two. If you look at the length and weight of the long swords they are really not that much longer or heavier than short swords. They certainly are not “great swords”, which could only be used with two hands.
