Combat

The founder of this mod had difficulties on choosing a time period whether to follow many games including dark souls that takes place in the late middle ages (late 13th century - early 14th century) your typical era of true plate melee fighting- armored knights and longbowmen (hundred years war) or the early renaissance (late 14th century - late 15th century). I opted for the latter. Armored knights co existing with gunpowder weapons such as cannons, arquebuses and early muskets, the age of sail and the discovery of the new world, the peak of plate armored warriors in European military history, also the rise of french gendarmes, german reiters, spanish tercios, and the muslim ottoman janissaries, plenty of content of add and to play for.

Plenty of my information comes from Youtube or other video games (especially Medieval 2 : Total War), we are afterall- in the age of information.

## Non Mainstream Combat Concepts

1. **Knight -** First off, the word "knight" is a loose term, there are modern knights knighted by modern royals that do not wear armor, draw, swords, or fight in melee. Modern scientists, doctors, biologists, or any great celebrity such as "Sir David Attenborough" can be knighted. The peak of true medieval knights by definition are during the early and high middle ages (11th century - 14th century) they wear chainmail with waffenrock cloths, and only high nobles have resemblance of plate, at this time chainmail was expensive and rare but would drastically reduce price and increase in numbers as medieval technology advances. Early and original knights are wealthy nobles or landowners who can afford armor, training, and combat horses. During the latter 15th - 16th century although they still exist however but in weaker forms, Plate armored knights on closed helms that people embedded on their minds are no longer part of a fraternity order like the old days, they are more akin to a professional army with wages instead of an impetus feudal fraternity provided with commodities from it's rural peasantry, they start to become professionalize after King Charles VII's influencial military reforms that saved France from the Hundred Years War.
2. **Gendarmes/Lancers -** Men at Arms or "Gendarmes" in French and their cousins the Lancers, are heavily plate cavalry armored units throughout Europe and are often mistaken as Knights. They are the units that saved France from the English during the last years of the hundred years war. They are sometimes titled as albeit debatable "The First standing army in Europe". Only the wealthiest states in France can afford them. They are armed with a lance and as a sidearm swords or maces. After they charge, the lances broke and drop them and grab a sidearm. Their horse can be used to ram players like a motorcycle. Their armor is expensive and have tremendous protection against melee, they are immune from bladed weapons aswell. Lances and gunpowder are the only ones that can penetrate their armor successfully although the former requires more effort/training.
3. **Black** **Reiters** - Are the most sought after cavalry mercenaries in Europe. Called Schwarzed Reiters (Old German for black riders). They have less armor than traditional melee knights. Their armors are lower quality, lighter, less stronger and more susceptible to rusting. To combat the rusting issue, their blacksmiths added acid to their armor giving it a black hue, thus the name Black Riders. They wield pistols that only fires single rounds, each Reiter has 6 loaded pistols. They are advised to shoot their pistols at a distance "when they see the whites of their opponents eyes" before firing, outranging lancers and the pikes pointed at them. Against heavily armored opponents they are advised "stick the pistol even as close as the enemy's armor before firing" for instant penetration. Aside from their modern weapons, reiters use melee weapons like swords or maces. On the latter years, their pistols are used as ranged disorientation before charging with melee weapons. Fights with melee lancers/gendarmes and reiters can go either way. Reiter's advantage over traditional armored melee "knights" are due to their cost effectiveness and flexibility.
4. **Pikemen** - Pikes are long spears (10-15 feet or 3 - 7.5 meters). They are effective against cavalry and one of the main proponents for the so called "Infantry Revolution". They trivialized infantry melee infantry during the renaissance, swords, maces, spears, halberds, and other shorter weapons rendered inadequate against long lines of readied pikemen. Pikes were used for defense of a city or castle initially but the Swiss mastered it's use on assault. If an opponent charges, a pikeman will incapacitate it. If a unit passes forth the first line there will be a second line of pikemen ready to pass the pike on the shoulder or right side of the former, to incapacitate the attacker and protect the first line. The pattern repeats from other subsequent lines. This effective method proves devastating against frontal heavy cavalry lance charges. They are slow like a snapping turtle but devastatingly effective in melee skirmishes.