I dont think i was debating weather or not England was a professional army. I was actually sort of agreeing with @Ambaryerno that medieval armies were like national guard. I was simply stating that England required peasants to train with long bows so they could quickly gather a large number of archers during wartime.
In fact for the English it dated back BEFORE the Normans to the Saxon era, and itâs one reason why they were able to dominate the Britons, who had relied heavily on the Romans as their army (in fact the Angles and Saxons learned a LOT from their encounters with the RomansâŠ).
You also had the Condottieri and their free companies â who were VERY much professional soldiers â providing the bulk of the fighting forces in the Italian Peninsula during this time. Iâve also done a small bit of research into the history of the German fencing schools for my writing, and as my understanding has it, such training was NOT restricted to the nobility (or necessarily even the wealthy).
@DrFusselpulli The emperor not having a centralized powerbase like the English monarchs does NOT preclude their ability to establish a professional (or semi-pro) army. All that means is that the army wasnât a national one. It certainly doesnât mean that the nobility wouldnât have a semi-pro ânational guardâ sort of military presence.
Yes, but only 13% of hardcore gamers are female. How about you actually do some research.
EDIT: And though casual gamers make up 56% of gamers, and hardcore gamers are only 20%, hardcore gamers spend twice as much (per capita I believe) on vidya games than the filthy casuls.
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English army was actually long time very bad cause that Fyrd system, when Fyrd was called only a handfull would be real fighters with proper stuff and training and those were usually lords own troops. So if we have a fyrd of 4000 here about 1,500 would be profesionals.
Thats one of reason why Vikings were so victorious in england all those years. Second is that while they were farmers, hunters etc, they were trained arts of war as soon as they could hold axe/swords in their hands.
I suggest you check out the research at Regia Anglorum. The traditional understanding of the fyrd system is a horrible misunderstanding of how the Saxon army was raised.
Thereâs even a saying from the Saxon period to the effect: Let the warrior fight, the ploughman plough, and the priest work his beads.
The problem that the Saxons faced was for much of the history of Saxon England there was no central monarchy; you had multiple kingdoms (Wessex, Mercian, Northumbria, etc.) all squabbling amongst each other. Once England came to be unified later in the period the situation changed radically.
Well, it would sure be nice to have a female character option. But one of the (if not THE) biggest sale points of this game was, and is, that it is set in a realistic snippet from real history.
Unfortunately for women back then, vast stretches of history were pretty much all-male dominated.
I have long hoped for a realistic and well made RPG set in the 1700s (realistically and respectfully, not cheap helloween polyester wig, white makeup gay snob things etc.)
It would be interesting to have female playable characters there, as well.
BUT to stay anyhow historically plausible, that would mean that the gameplay of female characters would be immensely diffrent, a diffrent game alltogether.
And becoming the local hero would be all but impossible for females in a plausibly made historical setting. Youâd be possibly arrested by the guards and put under lock and key at your fathers or husbands house.
Try to find a Tailor to sew you nice and practical breeches. Esp. when of any status at all, most would likely outright refuse to do so, because theyâd endanger their own good name.
For a number of things male clothing is infinitely more practical than female clothing, and in historical times, crossdressing was not exactly frowned upon, but actually forbidden by law and sometimes heavily penalized.
Whats more is: The antics of a rebellious young woman might be cause for city talk or amusement for the first 5 times, but a female trying to go rogoue all alone against a truely completely sexist and male dominated society would end a heroines adventures rather quickly.
Sexist societies are not exactly very patient with women who do not conform.
Try to imagine a saudi woman deciding to go driving a carâŠgood luck.
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I have another thought about thisâŠ
Let us assume the game were to have a female main character option, and an actually realistic gameplay.
We would be talking about people spitting on her in public, insulting her, men trying to slap, beat or do-worse to her, each and every little tiny mini-quest Henry could easily do (running an errand, for example) could devolve into a major hassle for Henryetta to get the job in the first place, get it done, and in the end, even get the promise 2 groschen reward!
Although possibly diffrent, it might have parrallels to playing an african american in 1960is souther US.
In the Latter, for the game-world the Character would not be a man walking down the street, but instead a dirty nigger on the whites-only sidewalk, whoâd need a good beating.
In the former, for the game-world the character would not be a reliable man doing his lordships errands, but a filthy whore that doesnât know her place and definately her husband spared the rod faaar to often!
IF the game was made realistically, it would be a constant barrage of sexism, assaults and insults on the character for being a female.
Can anyone here contemplate the public outcry over War Horse Studiosâ sexism without terror?
On KC:D, Mrs. Sarkeesian could film 30 Videos, for Act I alone!
And though surely interesting, I donât have high hopes for the enjoyability of "Sexism Simulator 2015"s gameplay.
Letâs hope they will move the game 20 years forward, and then we can really talk about having a real playable female character going a path not that much different from a maleâs one. If we stay in the Czech kingdom, that is.
Iâd be cautious though.
We have voting rights for women for roughly 100 years now, and still a bit of sexism. so go figure how deeply a society can change in 20 yearsâŠ
And if, say, the czech kingdom was rather progressive for itâs day, it is comparatively only.
Even the most modern thinking, educated and progressive folks and forerunners of modern society from 100 or a 150 years ago, would today still actually be recognised as rassist, sexist pricks.
I think it would still be huuuugely diffrent gameplay, and still filled with many of the problems mentioned already.
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@lutzderlurch Just a little bit of devilâs advocacy:
Assuming the guards caught up with her, of course. And it might depend on how well known she is in the area, as this IS, after all, a period long before wanted posters and bulletins can be sent to half way around the globe in just a few seconds (see notes below for maintaining a low profile).
Whoâs to say the woman couldnât have made her own clothes? This is actually a skill that a woman of the period would reasonably be expected to have.
The Church outright recognized exceptions to this law, actually, and acknowledged there were circumstances in which it was acceptable for a woman to dress in menâs clothing (IE, Joan of Arc being excused during her captivity to protect herself from rape). And it tends to disregard the thought that the woman might alter her dress accordingly. IE, dressing in womenâs fashion when appropriate to keep a low profile.
There IS a reason why Refuge in Audacity works in real life (while Julie dâAubigny was much later â and French â itâs still absolutely hilarious the things she was able to get away with). Of course, a woman would probably need to be more of the âwandering heroâ type precisely to avoid exhausting the patience of the locals with her antics. They canât arrest you if you donât stick around.
Like I said, thatâs just a bit of point-of-order devilâs advocacy.
Yes another thing people fail to mention about those stats is that people who play mobile games like angry birds are considered gamers. So about half the people on that list wouldnât even play on console or pc but a damn iphone.
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Hi there,
Just wanted to speak my mind too. As everyone knows, women didnât come into existence until the 20th century, so its pretty obvious that a historical game set in the european middle ages wouldnât include them.
Ok, leaving irony aside. Did men always outnumber women in any army in that age? Yes, still do. Thatâs not enough to leave women out. Did most armies have absolutely zero women? Yes. Still not enough reason. Why not? Good question! Well, it was my understanding this was not a medieval army game. And anyone watching the first video on the website would get the feeling you can do much more than fight in battles. It does seem like the only reason to leave women out of the game is because there were no women at that time and place. So maybe it is fantasy after all.
As a final note I want to add there are historically rigorous medieval sandbox rpg games that let you play as female and include (and warn about) that being born a peasant or a woman brought a lot of discrimination in that age. If youâve played it, itâs immediately obvious which I mean. Then again, what reason could the developers have not to include women in their game, being as it is that their main argument is meaningless? And why does a sandbox RPG type of game have such a static main character? It doesnât fit with the genre. I wonât assume nor judge, so I end it here.
No one is saying women should be left out. There will be women in the game but you wont play as her in the main story, but a side story.
. Women did not fight back then buddy. This is going to be a story driven game like the devs have stated multiple times. Youâre going to be doing things women DID NOT do back then. This game is about historical accuracy.
Deal with it.
Hahha. Iâm on the floor laughing. Please tell us about all these historically rigorous medieval rpgs.
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What makes you think there wonât be women in the game?
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@Eldan youâve missed the point. The main reason is not about women fighting, but how the games storyline is tailored to a spesific male character. Not a skirim like generic one! The classification Sandbox can be used to demand any feature, but it simply wonât be a sandbox in the sence of Mount and Blad. They actually plan to have a story in there game. You canât have NPC react aproperly to a person if they canât take anything about the person for granted. Geting generic linines that bearly fit does not work when there is suposed to be a focus on the maincharacters personal storyline. Iâve read some where that Hellboy compared it with somthing like this: either you tell the story of Bryien of Tarth or that of Jamie Lanister, but there two different stories. Which would mean two different games.
If you were talking about non playable femal characters. Nobody is disputing that they should be included.
iâm sure there will be a mod which allows, go back to Millerâs daughter
talk to her and switch main character with a dialouge.
(sure, many adjustment work in source files)
Now you can fight, sleep, cook, drink, eat, ride horse, alchemy.
It is possible to give her some dialouges
but i think only the regular ones from day routines or similiar.
This obsession over women in video games is political correctness run amok. Developers shouldnât feel obligated to add anything in their game based on gender, race, sexuality, etc.
Theyâre making video games; theyâre not hiring people to fill out a wait staff.
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I wish i could like this 100 times, well said.
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Please donât take this the wrong way but your sense of entitlement does not make you correct.
The KCD team played open cards from the outset. We all bought what they sold. If you donât like what theyâre selling, youâre free to simply not purchase it.
If you feel sufficiently aggrieved to gripe about it in public, you may need to assess your investment in your ego. It would appear to be somewhat swollen.
/could the OP have contained more me/I references?
@SirWarriant "Youâre going to be doing things women DID NOT do back then. This game is about historical accuracy."
Thatâs my point. Iâm not going to be doing these things.
@SirWarriant "Hahha. Iâm on the floor laughing. Please tell us about all these historically rigorous medieval rpgs."
Already did. Read again.
Anyway. I was just complaining out of frustration because I game i was looking forward to decided to combine sandbox rpg with fixed character and obviously non-flexible storyline