Cultural retinue/units... how did the dev decide who gets what?

[arothuris]

I'm not familiar with medieval history except for the crusades... So I would like to know whether the cultural units in game was actually related to that particular culture. Like the russians get heavy infantry as their cultural unit, but the first thing that came to my head is the Cossack. The Scandinavian nations also have heavy inf, but was it true that they are culturally good at heavy inf? I thought viking warriors were more like light inf, if it was relevant at all.

France has knights (heavy calvary), hungary and Iberians have light calvary, which I understand after reading a bit of their background history. Dun quite know about germans or their relation with heavy cal. But did the Irish have a tradition of using heavy inf? And I noticed the dutch has a mix of pikes and light inf... is there a relation there?

Like I said in the opening, I'm not familiar with medieval history, so all the above are merely questions, without any emphasis on right or wrong. Would like to ask how did the Normans in England develop a habit of using long bows too. Was it due to geographical reasons? I read somewhere a longtime ago that England produce very fine woods for bows. And I assume u can't get many horses in an island? Or I would think the English should developed heavy cal just as the French since the Normans came from France?

Edit: And Arabs. I thought they were renowned for their expertise in sabers instead of archery?

 

[kardwill]

Well, I'm not an expert, but the choices made in CK2 feel mostly right.
The military organisation was mostly a question of traditions, practicality and politics. For example a wealthy kingdom with a powerful nobility like France relied mostly on those nobles in time of war, with a very strong retinue of knights, but infantry was despised, considered unreliable riffraff, and used as canon fodder. On the other hand, countries with a strong clannic warrior tradition often fielded elite foot troops (the chainmail-clad norse, the irish galloglass, the saxon huscarls are example of what the game means by "heavy infantry"). Republics and other "noble-light" environments like the Swiss confederacy relied on well trained commoners and mercenaries fighting as a well organised unit to defend their homes, and their pikemen became the bane of mounted knights by the end of the timeframe.

Each country had its own military history, its traditions, its reasons to fight, its practical limitations. CK2 often tries to represent one type of emblematic warrior or military unit to customize the cultural troops, to give it a flavour. It's a simplification (for example, the english bowman is represented in the game, but not the english heavy infantry - knights who fought as infantry for defensive purpose - which were instrumental during the hundred years war against the proud french knights who prefered the suicidal mounted charge)

Some of the specifics you ask for :
Russians : In CK2's timeframe, the cossacks were adventurers, raiders and mercenaries. Outsiders. The Rus, clannic culture strongly influenced by the Norse had more of an infantry tradition going on.
Normans : The Normans knights ruled over england (and these knights were a key troop at Hastings), but their british subject were saxon. The two culture merged to become the English, which, like the Welsh, had a very strong bowman tradition. Those bowmen slaughtered the french knights during several important battles of the hundred years war (Crecy and Poitier), and are now strongly associated with the English medieval army in everyone's mind. Note that bowmen often spring from cultures with a strong freeman tradition. Nobody would let a serf train with a bow able to kill a knight...
Scandinavian : The Vikings were not really light inf. Any warrior who could afford it invested in a good chainmail, a shield, and decent weapons. In the game, "light infantry" is used mostly for low quality feudal and city levies and armed peasants, not these professional killers.

 

[A_Dane]

To add to the above:

If you go and look at the building files, you'll see that some of them got a little description above them.

The Irish get "Irish Gallowglasses", which essentially were a bunch of Norse-gaelic heavy infantry mercenaries from the area around the kingdom of the isles, who were used extensively.

I'm not entirely sure about the rationale behind the russian heavy infantry, but my best guess is that it's representing the martial culture that they "inherited" from their Rus forefathers. (The Varangian guard in Constantinople was originally formed from Rus warriors).

Scandinavians & Saxons get the "Housecarl" building, which was essentially the heavily armed guard of a king or chieftain.

and it goes on like that, hope it helps

 

[arothuris]

Thanks for answering, I knew my questions are pretty silly.
Dun know why but I still feel Russians should get some kind of calvary, maybe the image of Cossack sticks too deep in my mind :blush:
About varangian guard, I thought I read in this forum a while back that they were Saxon after Stamford bridge... Or have I mixed things up?
Speaking of Saxon, I have one other question. In theory, just how much authority the emperor of Rome (baselius of byz in this game's timeframe) had over the European lords and kings? If he declared the conqueror's acquisition of England illegitimate, would it have any effect theoretically? I know he's pretty much powerless outside de facto byz, so I'm just asking the weight of his word in this matter, THEORETICALLY.

 

[Enigmax]

Varangian Guard was originally Scandinavian, but later also included all other Germanic 'barbarians', like the Saxons.

 

[unmerged(494787)]

Yeah, the retinue/cultural units are basically all based off of things the relevant cultures used. The Italian cities produced large Pike/Crossbow contingents (only the pikes are represented) because they were cheap and relatively easy to train. If they need more force, they hired mercenaries.

The English adopted the Welsh longbow after seeing it's effectiveness in battle (although they did maintain a strong knightly tradition, but for balance's sake it's 1 culture = 1 building/retinue).

The Germans had a strong knightly tradition like the french, which is why they share a cultural unit. Sadly, Zweihänder units are just outside the game's time frame.

Just type the names of the cultural units into wikipedia and all questions will be answered Well, most of them anyway.

 

[Grubnessul]

Most make sense, not sure about the Dutch & Italian though. Then again, Dutch history education only covers 80 Years War and WWII (and a bit "Indonesia was a colony, but colonies are bad, m'kay? So we don't talk about it.")

 

[A_Dane]

Thanks for answering, I knew my questions are pretty silly.
Dun know why but I still feel Russians should get some kind of calvary, maybe the image of Cossack sticks too deep in my mind :blush:
About varangian guard, I thought I read in this forum a while back that they were Saxon after Stamford bridge... Or have I mixed things up?
Speaking of Saxon, I have one other question. In theory, just how much authority the emperor of Rome (baselius of byz in this game's timeframe) had over the European lords and kings? If he declared the conqueror's acquisition of England illegitimate, would it have any effect theoretically? I know he's pretty much powerless outside de facto byz, so I'm just asking the weight of his word in this matter, THEORETICALLY.

He had absolutely no authority

He might have claimed to have some from time to time, but no one would care, except to come help liberate the holy land..

And conqueror his capital... but other than that, not much to care about

@Grubnessul: Yeah, I found my history lessons to be quite lacking as well, we barely even touched the Roman empire, and what we had about Denmark was pretty much: We set sail, raped plundered, conquerored England and Norway and lost it equally quickly as well.

The End.