Are they going to add more weapons and armor? The choices seem pretty limited as is
It’s 1403 Bohemia and is based off historical accuracy as I am sure you know. Variation wasn’t big then. I would like to see them add more customization; i.e decals, coat of arms, etc.
Maybe I’m wrong but in medieval age the industry didn’t exist in the ways that does it today so all the clothes and stuff should have been very custom made or I’m wrong ?
You are correct, but they did not have a large quantity of variation. That’s where decals, cost of arms, permanent imperfections in the armor through use and wear versus brand new comes into play. And who made the armor.
With the number of smiths in the region, you can’t possibly have 5+ variations of the same armor. So maybe adding something in the game where certain smiths receive notoriety and make a specific variation of said armor that would have charisma, strength, or whatever bonus for wearing the complete set. The catch is getting the set would be a quest line or expensive price or whatever the developer choses.
in medieval age the industry didn’t exist in the ways that does it today
You are very correct in that. Armour was not as mass produced as it is today, but they did have a way of mass producing. We see it much later that there are large teams of smiths set up; a team to dish the metal, then another team takes the larger sheets and finish them as frontal breastplate, while other teams hammered out gauntlet pieces which another team puts all together, and other teams did leg parts, sabatons, etc. In this way you could armour yourself with relatively cheap armour, but chances are it might be too small or too large for you. as they went by an average size of people in their region. So while plain armour is somewhat on the cheap end of things, gilded, blued, dyed armours are basically unattainable to the common person, especially Henry. And don’t even start on what maille would’ve cost. Today’s cost for a hauberk is horridly expensive ($1500CAD is the cheapest I’ve ever seen for historically accurate maille), and if that’s the case, I’d have hated to know what it cost in 1403.
Clothes are different. Clothes are made by woman of the household, especially by the poorer of people, and were simple tunics and dull hosen. Dagging, dying, vibrant colours, trims. All that is custom and for Higher Nobility. Unless a noble pays out of pocket to clothe his men, you’re basically on your own when it comes to your own clothing and armour, so it’s common for battles to be extremely confusing (Nobles however are easier to spot due to coats-of-arms, surcoats, shields, etc. They WANT to be seen.)
Despite all this, there’s one thing that is missing in the game (and is disputable) and that is painted armour. Even if they don’t add more arms and/or armour, Warhorse could add variations of armour we already have with painted versions as well. Helmets painted yellow with the crests of either Lord Radzig or Lord Capon. Breastplates painted red with the crest of Sir Divish. There should already be clothes and shields that do that, but there are none as far as I’ve found. Maybe I’ve missed them.
Brass edging on armor was pretty popular during this time, and Latin scripture would frequently be engraved into it. Faith in talismans and relics being what they were, the inscriptions were thought to invoke divine protection. That could be one way to implement these kind of stat buffs…different inscriptions could invoke different buffs. You could either pay a smith to decorate and inscribe your armor, or, with a sufficiently high reading level, you could inscribe them yourself.
Yah were are the hand held crossbows that fire multiple bolts! It was in Van Helsing!
I think they did a fairly great job, I mean most people are going to settle on the weapon that does the most damage so after that there is little need for variation. But decoration or some type of engraving would be cool.
Nobody said they didn’t do a good job. Just wondering if there was a plan for more armor/weapons or more variations of the current armor or weapons…
In terms of costs and mass production, there were several areas that pretty much mass manufactured armor, and performed fitting once purchased. Milan was one of the big armor centers, and in 1441 you could pick up a suit of plate for the equivalent 8 pounds, and 6 shillings (166 shillings for simplicity). For reference, unskilled generic laborers, basically those making minimum wage, would earn about 2 pounds (or 40 shillings) per year.
The only pricing I could find for mail was in the 12th century - at about 5 pounds. The price of iron dropped significantly during the 1300s as they developed blast furnaces, and other forms of mass production - particularly in mining and charcoal production. The price of mail, one would imagine, would have dropped quite a bit - even if it is labor intensive. It’s something the smiths would have dropped on their novices, cutting costs.
Fancy armor in game would be nice, but the game is kind of set in the back country. Not a whole lot of capable armorsmiths out there.
I would prefer to have more simple undecorated armor than fancy armor. The amount of diversity of decorated armor is huge compared to undecorated armor.
There was quite a bit of (relativley) cheap second maille by the 15th century. The resale of arms and armour was a common enough practice during the middle ages and these items would have been alot cheaper than new items.
This link: http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medprice.htm has some figures for goods including armour from the late 14th century.
A great deal of armour left ‘rough-from-the-hammer’ seems to have been brightly painted as paint was an inexpensive way of decorating low-grade armour.
So the less fancy armours would most likely at least be painted and may have had elaborate designs like this sallet from 1500 C.E https://www.wallacecollection.org/whatson/treasure/102
I have close to 550k Groschen from resale. That much 2nd hand armor and weaponry? Enjoy the richness and diversity of the goods but wonder/think their abundance in the game is exaggerated