Kingdom Come Deliverance - Or how I stopped worrying about SJW and love Bohemia | Now with betrayal and a lot more niggers. "Historically accurate." BlackRock ruined the series.

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This game just keeps getting better, even the bugs and scripting oddities add to its charm.

Was going to start the bandit camp mission where I think is the Runt fight but decided to explore, make money and deck myself out in badass armor for the more than likely "remember me?" moment.

Checked on a noble, partied with him and did some fetch missions, when it was time to check on him in his castle marked by a mission waypoint. On my way there I spotted him on the road walking AWAY from his city, barefoot and in nothing but his undergarments yet the marker was in is castle.

Talked to him on the road and he just kept walking away BUT the conversation continued on as well as if next to eachother and ended up giving me money as a reward, when I regained control of the camera I saw as he crossed the river, onto the fields and straight into the fucking woods.
 
Ginger Piglet said:
I think you are right though, and "Zulu Normie: The Game" would be excellent. Although it would probably draw massive screeching because... well, just because.
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For one thing it would be very difficult and these crybabies hate difficulty.
 
Holy Christ this auto save feature is fucking autistic with this amount of bugs
I have been trapped in the NW corner of the map for 5 hours just trying to get back to the monastery and the "combat mode never end" bugs keep forcing a reload
just now I finally got free and the game crashed for the first time
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Edit: Is it just me or are the sidequest's in this game extremely unrewarding
 
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RadicalCentrist said:
Holy Christ this auto save feature is fucking autistic with this amount of bugs
I have been trapped in the NW corner of the map for 5 hours just trying to get back to the monastery and the "combat mode never end" bugs keep forcing a reload
just now I finally got free and the game crashed for the first time
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Edit: Is it just me or are the sidequest's in this game extremely unrewarding
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In terms of money? Sort of. Though, I'll admit that getting that Leipa Horse tabbard thingy after the Waldensians quest is very neat, even if it has no effect on the game.

The monetary rewards you get for the sidequests are sometimes a bit lackluster, but I really like them, since there are so many different types of quests and they are really fun to play through.
 
Okay, I've beaten the game. There's clearly a sequel hook there, which I was a little nonplussed by but then again I was sort of expecting it. I was kinda hoping for a big fuck-off boss battle against Sir Markvart von Aulitz (the bald guy with the moustache that led the attack on Skalitz at the beginning) but it was not to be. Clearly that's saved for the sequel or expansion.

I did some reading around and apparently there were planned to be three "acts" with the game covering the first two. Given the third act is due to take place somewhere totally different I suppose that's that. It's mentioned that the region where Henry and co. are headed to contains Trosky Castle, which looks like this:

2880px-Hrad_Trosky%2C_leteck%C3%BD_sn%C3%ADmek.jpg


Right. My thoughts on the game as a whole. Good bits:

- Dancing with the Devil. And tripping balls. I tried smearing the witches' brew on my arrows to see if I could make enemies trip balls but that didn't really work.
- Getting drunk with Father Godwin. In fact, anything with Father Godwin. He is the only person who actually gets to the bottom of Drahomira's haunted house problem.
- Hans Capon. Goes from being a horrible bratty snob to being actually an effective character. I am annoyed I fucked up the quest where he invites you to the baths with him though; I couldn't for the life of me get into the Rathaus basement.
- Konrad Kyeser, a real life historical siege engineer, polymath, and writer of Bellifortis, a book on siege engineering. Played by BRIAN BLESSED, no less.
- Escaping from Vranik. It could have been extremely annoying being a stealth mission but ended up being an intense and interesting quest.
- The Pestilence quest.
- Alchemy was strangely satisfying. Rather than simply bunging components into slots you have to grind them up and follow a recipe and the number of potions you get out of it (if any) is due to how well you followed it. Making a Bane potion and the "ploik" noise as you drop a whole shroom into the cauldron is satisfying indeed.
- The Monastery section. Although I kind of broke it by, when I'd discovered the identity of Pious, strangling the Prior into unconsciousness, stealing his keys, and unlocking all the doors so I could dip in and out to find the things I needed from within.
- Archery feels good when you manage to shoot something; the difficulty of it makes successes all the more rewarding.
- The Waldensians sidequest was EXCELLENT. For a minor character, and a balding old man in a brown robe, the Vicar was genuinely frightening. The bit in his notes where he mentions docking the torturer's pay by three groschen for answering back speaks volumes. I fucked that quest up hardcore by the way.
- Fuck me are the landscapes good looking. It's the best advert for the Czech tourist board imaginable. I just looked up Rattay on Wikipedia and noticed that the layout of the town in game and in reality are spot on.
- Liked the combat. Nice and deadly. Even low level bad guys, if they surround you and even if you are kitted out with top level gear, will trash you. Although I went mainly with the longsword for maximum reach I'm thinking that if I were to do another run (which I'm feeling like I want to but know I'll not be as into it and abandon it halfway through) I might concentrate on hammers and maces. Partly because I want to test out the Raven's Beak that I found in Vranik.

Dodgy bits:

- Romance with Theresa was massively undeveloped. There was a real opportunity there to have some tremendous character development, and they short-changed it. I can appreciate that having in game romances tends to attract Bioware autists and waifu wars (if you don't believe me, almost every Witcher fan community I've been in has banned Triss vs. Yen threads because of their sheer volume and sperginess.)
- Ditto the seduction of Lady Stephanie. That provided an opportunity to dovetail into the main plot at a later stage but... it didn't. While there was an opportunity for this to explore her status as a woman trapped in a loveless arranged marriage to an older man, once Henry had slipped it to her in the guest bedroom at Talmberg it... didn't go anywhere.
- There were fewer side quests than I'd hoped for. As such I effectively put the main plot on hold while I went off and cleaned out the journal for ages, then did everything after Pribyslavitz and Runt in a tearing hurry, for the most part.
- With the exception of "Aquarius" and "Beggars' Feast," there was insufficient content exploring the tension between the locals of Rattay and the Skalitz refugees.
- Not enough boss battles. Granted, the main villain of the week after Runt is more of a scheming behind the scenes villain, but still. I hope we get a proper throwdown against Sir Markvart for Aulitz in the expansion / sequel.
- Despite there being slots for horse armour, I didn't find ANY. Googling tells me that horse barding can be found in an easter egg. But then again, there isn't any real mounted combat.
- Thieving goes from annoyingly difficult to trivial almost overnight. If your speech skill is high enough you can just clonk someone, nick all their stuff, then talk your way out of it. This is hardly heroic - although if you have a low enough reputation in an area nobody will speak to you unless you bribe them first. In fact, I was kinda hoping that you could have to do a spell in the pillory in controllable helpnessness while the townsfolk pelt you with decaying vegetables if you were particularly naughty.
- I got rather annoyed towards the end with having the same handful of random encounters. Once you've beaten the Faint Hearted Knight and taken his Magdeburg longsword (sell it, it's way overvalued; the fact it almost never needs repair does not make up for its lackluster damage potential), been told endless riddles, been jumped by a band of Cumans or bandits, and given alms to beggars beyond measure, there's no point stopping for anyone in fast travel unless you're a total completionist and want to get all the treasure maps. To be fair the treasure is often excellent though. I believe that the best armour pieces (Nurembergian cuirass, Milanese chausses, Augsburg gauntlets, Magdeburg pauldrons) are only found from the treasure maps. (Ironically the best helm in the game, the Hounskull - think a proper "beaky" knight's helm - can be found on most mooks once you get past Vranik.)
- The ending was only just on the right side of "blatant sequel hook." Granted, it did provide some closure but not entirely. Could be worse though; it could have been a "A Winner is You," pick a colour of explosion a la Mass Effect 3, or the suddenly you're in a coma horror that was the ending to Dreamfall.

In all, I give it 85%. Better than ELEX (which I recommend if you liked KCD, both are big, hardcore, open-world, high-concept role-players) by a nose, and much better than Andromeda, but not up to Witcher 3 (though something like W3 comes along about once a decade, frankly; it is to the 2010s what Baldur's Gate was to the 2000s and Ultima VII was to the 1990s.)
 
Vidya just can't do romance or any subtle character interaction. The writers suck too much and don't know how to make it work in an interactive medium.

Nice indepth review. I'll probably get this when the price comes down.

Ginger Piglet said:
, but not up to Witcher 3 (though something like W3 comes along about once a decade, frankly; it is to the 2010s what Baldur's Gate was to the 2000s and Ultima VII was to the 1990s.)
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I liked Witcher 2 more than Witcher 3 and Planescape: Torment more than Baldur's Gate. Come at me.
 
Oh goody, after being lucky in terms of bugs, I have now encountered one that makes it impossible to proceed with the main quest.

After taking care of the plague in Merhojed and interrogating the bandit, I went to check back with Sir Radzig, who's camping between Merhojed and Talmberg. When I speak to him, everything's normal, the guy tells me to look for Menhart but he wants to show me something first, then the dialogue ends and Radzig just walks away down the road.

There should be a cutscene, but it never triggers for me.

Checked online, but everything I tried achieved nothing.
 
Just completed the "tough love" quest... I think I made the right choice in the end. Gave me a fuzzy feeling.
 
Foltest said:
Just completed the "tough love" quest... I think I made the right choice in the end. Gave me a fuzzy feeling.
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Is that the one with the executioner? I never managed to get that one because I pissed him off while trying to nick his ring for Peshek to unlock thieving and he'd always scream and hit me whenever I wanted to talk to him.

EDIT: Incidentally, there was a quite hilarious (if like me you're a sperg and know Latin) easter egg in the Monastery. Normally that locale is silent soundtrack-wise apart from occasional outbreaks of Latin liturgy; "Credo in unum Deum," "Gloria in excelsis Deo," "Benedictus es, Domine" and so forth. Apart from one, which is "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" sang by the same choir. Lorem ipsum is the munged Latin text used in desktop publishing as placeholder text.
 
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Wanted to post this in the Salt Mines, but it didn't really fit, so I post it here instead.

carltondanks said:
View attachment 390733 View attachment 390734 View attachment 390735
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I wonder if these people will ever learn that Portugal isn't anywhere close to Bohemia. They say "it's just 1000 miles", as if that wasn't a fuckhuge distance, even in the era of the aeroplane. Also, it's all nice and dandy that there were always ambassadors in important cities (which I find a dubious claim at best), but that means jack fucking shit for a backwater bumfuck place like Rattay.

But since the Reddit Thingy has been brought up, I wanted to shed some light on it:
carltondanks said:
okay, so i've seen some people mention this reddit thread on twitter. here's the link for your own discretion
https://www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/7yvidc/picking_apart_the_armour_of_kingdom_come/
http://archive.is/Ttq1W

Hello ladies and gents.

So Kingdom Come: Deliverance came out, and with it came out screenshots that allow me to pick apart some of the plate armour present in the game. I don't own the game myself, because I'm poor filth, but I have friends who have it and I've seen one of them play a bit. And I was not amused. Alas, I was concerned when I saw what I saw.

I think it's best for me to pick apart the armours one-by-one. What's interesting is that, fairly often, Kingdom Come gets the general shape right. On the surface everything looks great. But the problems really start when any significant level of scrutiny is given to the armour. I have a feeling that they based a lot of the armours off full-contact reenactors, for a couple of reasons.

So this image comes first. Right off the bat, the breastplate is based on a real survival example from Churburg. This breastplate is most likely from the late 14th century, and had the plackart added to it in the early 15th century to update it. Interestingly, because of this, the real example is much thicker and heavier than even some reproductions of it. The breastplate appears to be Italian, so quite a distance from Bohemia, which would be far more influenced by Germanic armour traditions, anyway, but the time period more or less fits (the plackart is estimated to have been added around 1410, so a bit later than the game), and it's a very interesting breastplate, so I'll allow it. Besides, exports happened. The bigger problem is the lack of shape on the breastplate. You'll note that the extant bulges out sideways a lot more. This is a very common problem with reproductions in general. The globose shape of late 14th and early 15th century breastplates was very pronounced. It'd smooth out slightly later on, though that too depended on the style and region.

It would appear that around this time period the arm harness in Germany would be different to this. Firstly, in this period the gauntlets, for the most part, continued to be of the hourglass sort. This means a very short, very flared-out wrists that weren't articulated. I think there might have been a few experimental period examples for this elsewhere in Europe, and indeed there's an effigy from 1407 showing articulated gauntlets. I have a feeling, however, that the artist either completed the effigy decades after the death of the person depicted, or had no idea what armour looks like. Or both. Anyway these gauntlets might actually be accurate, though not common at the time.

More importantly, however, the breastplate isn't covered by any cloth. While 'white armour' (which at the time meant armour not covered by any cloth) was popular elsewhere in Europe, it seemed that Germanic family of armours at the time often put cloth over their plate armours. Examples here, here, and here. While you might consider it slightly pedantic, I believe that regional variations in armour and style are very important, and we shouldn't allow ourselves to mix and match armours from all over Europe just because we feel like it.

Also this breastplate seems very ubiquitous in this game. That's a very big problem, because the real example is an old breastplate that has been repurposed, and so is more than likely to be a one-of-a-kind. That's not to say similar breastplates didn't exist, though they certainly seem rare.

Also just a note about use of effigies: they're generally a decently reliable source of information. Tobias Capwell quite famously loves effigies, and if one of the de-facto experts on European plate armour finds them fairly reliable, I don't see why we shouldn't.

The leg harness is a little bulky, but since I'm not very well-versed in how leg armour was formed (there were tonnes of small variations here and there with leg armour that I can't begin to comprehend), I won't say much more.

Now we get onto the helmet. And oh boy the helmets in this game annoy me. You might think that there are too many breadths in the visor, but there are historical examples, such as this beauty housed in the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, so this isn't necessarily badhistory. They were fairly uncommon, but existed. What IS wrong is more or less everything else.

The bascinet (aka the helmet bit) itself is very round. Late bascinets had a ridge running along the top of them, and often it even ended at a fairly sharp point. The possible exception, and one that an earlier effigy I showed presented, is when the bascinet was used as the secondary helmet for a great helm, which despite being a way of wearing armour dating back all the way to early 14th century, seems to have persisted even at Agincourt, and even moreso in Germany and Eastern Europe.

(NOTE: At a different angle, the shape doesn't seem to be too bad, though still doesn't seem great for the time period. The bascinet also has a klappvisor hinges, which would have been removed if the helmet had been converted to side pivoting. However, that seems to imply that this is an old bascinet which was repurposed, so the shape argument doesn't work. So the closeup fixes a problem, while creating another. I'm keeping my argument because I think it might be of interest to people).

The eyeslits are just terrible. My God they're wide. You could fit the Titanic through those bloody things, let alone a sword. Refer to the visor I showed earlier to see what real eyeslits would look like. Thin, difficult to fit a dagger through. The visor was there primarily to protect the wearer, that's why it pivoted so easily - the wearer was protected when he needed to, and when he needed to see he could raise his visor. That's why a lot of deaths occurred from wounds to the face in that time period.

What this also doesn't show is that, from what I've seen, the (chain)mail aventail is problematic. There are two different kinds of mail armour we'll discuss: the mail coif and the mail aventail. A coif is a hood made out of mail. An aventail only goes up to attach to the bascinet, and doesn't cover the top of the head that's protected by the helmet anyway. The whole point of the bascinet is that the mail is attached to it, instead of forcing the wearer to wear a coif underneath. From what I've seen very often the mail is not integrated into a bascinet. Furthermore the mail doesn't protect the chin. Look here. The mail in the time period ALWAYS covered the chin, then tapered down over the neck. This is very important in armour.

Lastly, we have this monstrosity. I have absolutely never seen a helmet with oculars like this. And why on good God's earth would I? The oculars in this instance provide a flat surface with many holes. The point of a pollaxe would have a lot of flat space to bite in and penetrate, and at that point it's game over sunshine.

And it unfortunately goes on. Most armours have very unfortunate, and seemingly easily fixed problems. There seems to be an obsession for keeping BOTH the klappvisor hinges and the side-pivoting hinges on bascinets, which was very rare. Repurposed bascinets would have the klappvisor hinges removed and have the holes riveted over. I have a sneaking suspicion that there was relatively little research on the arms and armour of the Bohemian region from the early 15th century, and instead a lot of the armour was based on reenactors. This is confirmed by a LOT of things that reenactors often get wrong. The mail not covering the chin, for example, is very common in reenactment. 'Sporterizing' gear and thereby making it more dangerous to the wearer through methods like making the oculars wider than they need to be is another. Breastplates being poorly shaped is another. There are a few reasons that reenactors do this. Firstly, and obviously I shall never hold this against anyone, the budget. Plate armour is expensive, and if you want to get into a hobby, you should have every right to. Secondly, many reenactors, especially the full-contact guys such as Battle of the Nations, seem to believe that they know better than people that did this for a living, and as a result often get the wrong impression of how an armour should really work on the wearer. Lastly, there is the rule of cool, which is the bane of many a historian.

This isn't to say that ALL reenactors are bad. Hell, pretty much all reenactors I've met are really nice people who are genuinely fascinated in the time period as I am. The problems really start when their word is taken as gospel, and no further research is done, and that unfortunately is how the vast majority of people will get their history. So the myth that all Medieval swords were blunt clubs persists and is reinforced by BoN and others, without the given caveat that these sports have very little actual historical basis. This seems to be what happened here: relatively little research into real period examples has been done, and as a result the historical accuracy of armour in this game suffers. This is an even greater shame because museums LOVE to jump on every opportunity they can to help out people who want to present history. I recently went to the Polish Army Museum, and the curators there were fascinating to talk to and said that they very often get budding armourers (as I wish to be once I can actually afford the startup costs) asking questions and getting to handle the extant examples. I know that Tobias Capwell at the Wallace Collection also loves a good chat, and any museum, really, will be happy to share their findings with people who want to learn.

I'll get the game eventually, and I'll look past these problems, because it still looks beautiful and is set in a very interesting time period. But the problems are there, and they're very unfortunate.
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People use this as the foundation to claim that KCD is historically absolutely inaccurate when in fact, pretty much all points boil down to: "I think this is slightly inaccurate, based on screenshots from the game that I've seen, even though I haven't yet played it myself."

The early 14th century saw many examples of the fully articulated gauntlet, where every finger was protected individually. The Hourglass gauntlet was a simplification, somewhat a mass product of later times, but when you can find ledgers depicting fully articulated gauntlets from almost 100 years prior to the setting of KCD, I would call their approach fair game.
The eyeslit for a helmet, similarly, should not be too big, that's right, but 8mm seems to be the average (which is wide enough to allow a blade to enter). Those were not meant to protect from sword-stabs or daggers, they were supposed to protect you against lances and arrows.
As the article itself notes, the wider eyeslits are usually something reenactors do, cause they need better view and the protection is less of an issue.
Overall, the reddit-article makes a few good points, especially about how asking reenactors can be a bit of an issue, but people blow it way out of proportion.
One criticism is that you can wear tabbards over the armor, which is only anachronistic, when it covers white armor. It's important to note that compared to, say, french or english knights, german and bohemian knights wore much less intricate suits of armor. When the French and English already had fully closed arm and leg plate armor, us Germans were still relying on mail chausses (The English and French were waging war against each other while Central and Eastern Europe was mostly just feuds and small, local conflicts).
One of his main complaints seems to be that the Houndskull helmets and Bascinets aren't pointy enough and that the eyeslits are too big on some helmets... but the screenshots that he posted must be really old, since I've never seen helmets like those in the game ever. I assume they were early placeholders that got replaced along the lines.

It's still way more accurate than most documentaries that just grab whatever group of local reenactors they can find that halfway fit into the time frame as extras. I would call it even the best and most accurate large-scale reconstruction of a medieval setting, specifically since you can walk around and explore many aspects, such as handscraftmen, mills, castles, houses and so on.
Still, salty haters go "Hurr, suddenly I totally care about accuracy and with these supposed inaccuracies they should have just added black people, since there was nothing to lose anyway."

I've seen a German called "Joe Köller" (who's Tweets got posted on the Salt Mines thread) claiming that Henry's rise to become a soldier and how he spends time with nobility was completely unrealistic, but that's the most idiotic claim that I've ever heard.
Haven't played through the game yet, but Henry is a regular soldier. History is full of regular people that rose to high positions in the military. Sergeants, for instance, had similar privileges as knights. The only difference was the number of horses they could bring to a tournament (2 instead of 3). Hell, regular citizens were allowed to participate in jousting competitions later in the medieval period.
Even if he later becomes a knight, that's not unheard of, either. It was a popular move to make some people knights before or after a big battle to raise morale or to reward someone.
And, of course, these people would also have a lot of contact with the regular nobility, since said nobility wasn't living in a social vacuum. Especially in places like the ones in KCD, you'd have very tightly knit social connections. It's an artifact of the 18th and 19th century that nobility is "too good" for the regular people and that there's a strict seperation between the higher ups and the regular soldiers in the army. Armies back then were hierarchical, but they weren't the prussian infantry of 1870.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
One of his main complaints seems to be that the Houndskull helmets and Bascinets aren't pointy enough and that the eyeslits are too big on some helmets... but the screenshots that he posted must be really old, since I've never seen helmets like those in the game ever. I assume they were early placeholders that got replaced along the lines.
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Not pointy enough? The hounskull is almost as beaky as a 1990s Space Marine helmet in 40K...
 
Ginger Piglet said:
Not pointy enough? The hounskull is almost as beaky as a 1990s Space Marine helmet in 40K...
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Well, this guy was talking about the helmet itself not the visor:
15385__4211849_lo.jpg

(Also note the hinge in the middle and the wide slits in the visor, it's an interesting specimen)

But here we have 2 examples of Houndskull helmets from Germany, one is pointy on top, the other is not.
1280px-Medieval_armours%2C_Marksburg%2C_Rhine_Valley%2C_Germany.jpg

Edit: Oh god, I just realized, whoever put together this display screwed up. He attached the (mail) aventail incorrectly. Usually, they are attached to a padded coif that is hung from those little hoops that run along the edge of the helmet. Instead, they attached the mail to the tiny hols that is used to attach the padding inside the helmet.
 
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RomanesEuntDomus said:
It's an artifact of the 18th and 19th century that nobility is "too good" for the regular people and that there's a strict seperation between the higher ups and the regular soldiers in the army.
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Even in the U.S. military there are still fairly arcane policies against officers and troops "fraternizing." It isn't currently a "too good" thing so much as a policy preventing favoritism and other forms of unfair treatment.
 
AnOminous said:
Even in the U.S. military there are still fairly arcane policies against officers and troops "fraternizing." It isn't currently a "too good" thing so much as a policy preventing favoritism and other forms of unfair treatment.
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I might have worded that poorly. The idea that higher nobility essentially treats their servants like worthless scum and having contempt for them seems rather unrealistic to me in terms of a medieval setting.

Similarly, having a very strict "You got an order, maggot"" kind of attitude of modern armies isn't something you'd see in a medieval period. There's obviously a hierarchy at play, but it wasn't as steep, since it wasn't huge homogenous armies that would meet on the battlefield. It would be a conglomerate of small personal household troops and the relations between small groups such as these is much more tightly knit within said group.
"Favoritism" was part of the game to a large degree.

In that regard, it's absolutely realistic that the son of a blacksmith becomes a soldier in service of some lord and gets treated with respect for his deeds by other nobility.
Movies like to depict nobility of the middle ages as haughty assholes that have nothing but contempt for their slave-like servants which seems pretty wrong to me. Nobles can claim that they have been born into their position through god's graces - but the thing to keep in mind here: The local Miller can claim the exact same thing. Every regular person deserves respect and to a certain degree, they have rights. It only stands to reason that nobility would be polite, if not respectful to most people - let alone their own soldiers.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
Movies like to depict nobility of the middle ages as haughty assholes that have nothing but contempt for their slave-like servants which seems pretty wrong to me. Nobles can claim that they have been born into their position through god's graces
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Which is (SPOILERS) part of the character development throughout the game. Hans Capon starts out as a horrible, spoilt brat who, when he comes of age, will become Lord of Rattay (Sir Hanush of Leipa is only standing is as a regent until Capon is old enough) and many characters openly dread that idea because he has no idea how to run a city. He basically treats Henry like a skivvy. But then things happen to him and he is forced to have increasing amounts of respect for our protagonist because said protagonist has pulled Hans Capon's arse out of a sling several times and generally got things done.

True, there was nothing saying that a lord had to grant that respect to a peasant, but the lords who were effective and useful (i.e. Radzig Kobyla, Sir Hanush, etc.) did, because that's how things get done.
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
Wanted to post this in the Salt Mines, but it didn't really fit, so I post it here instead.


I wonder if these people will ever learn that Portugal isn't anywhere close to Bohemia. They say "it's just 1000 miles", as if that wasn't a fuckhuge distance, even in the era of the aeroplane. Also, it's all nice and dandy that there were always ambassadors in important cities (which I find a dubious claim at best), but that means jack fucking shit for a backwater bumfuck place like Rattay.

But since the Reddit Thingy has been brought up, I wanted to shed some light on it:

People use this as the foundation to claim that KCD is historically absolutely inaccurate when in fact, pretty much all points boil down to: "I think this is slightly inaccurate, based on screenshots from the game that I've seen, even though I haven't yet played it myself."

The early 14th century saw many examples of the fully articulated gauntlet, where every finger was protected individually. The Hourglass gauntlet was a simplification, somewhat a mass product of later times, but when you can find ledgers depicting fully articulated gauntlets from almost 100 years prior to the setting of KCD, I would call their approach fair game.
The eyeslit for a helmet, similarly, should not be too big, that's right, but 8mm seems to be the average (which is wide enough to allow a blade to enter). Those were not meant to protect from sword-stabs or daggers, they were supposed to protect you against lances and arrows.
As the article itself notes, the wider eyeslits are usually something reenactors do, cause they need better view and the protection is less of an issue.
Overall, the reddit-article makes a few good points, especially about how asking reenactors can be a bit of an issue, but people blow it way out of proportion.
One criticism is that you can wear tabbards over the armor, which is only anachronistic, when it covers white armor. It's important to note that compared to, say, french or english knights, german and bohemian knights wore much less intricate suits of armor. When the French and English already had fully closed arm and leg plate armor, us Germans were still relying on mail chausses (The English and French were waging war against each other while Central and Eastern Europe was mostly just feuds and small, local conflicts).
One of his main complaints seems to be that the Houndskull helmets and Bascinets aren't pointy enough and that the eyeslits are too big on some helmets... but the screenshots that he posted must be really old, since I've never seen helmets like those in the game ever. I assume they were early placeholders that got replaced along the lines.

It's still way more accurate than most documentaries that just grab whatever group of local reenactors they can find that halfway fit into the time frame as extras. I would call it even the best and most accurate large-scale reconstruction of a medieval setting, specifically since you can walk around and explore many aspects, such as handscraftmen, mills, castles, houses and so on.
Still, salty haters go "Hurr, suddenly I totally care about accuracy and with these supposed inaccuracies they should have just added black people, since there was nothing to lose anyway."

I've seen a German called "Joe Köller" (who's Tweets got posted on the Salt Mines thread) claiming that Henry's rise to become a soldier and how he spends time with nobility was completely unrealistic, but that's the most idiotic claim that I've ever heard.
Haven't played through the game yet, but Henry is a regular soldier. History is full of regular people that rose to high positions in the military. Sergeants, for instance, had similar privileges as knights. The only difference was the number of horses they could bring to a tournament (2 instead of 3). Hell, regular citizens were allowed to participate in jousting competitions later in the medieval period.
Even if he later becomes a knight, that's not unheard of, either. It was a popular move to make some people knights before or after a big battle to raise morale or to reward someone.
And, of course, these people would also have a lot of contact with the regular nobility, since said nobility wasn't living in a social vacuum. Especially in places like the ones in KCD, you'd have very tightly knit social connections. It's an artifact of the 18th and 19th century that nobility is "too good" for the regular people and that there's a strict seperation between the higher ups and the regular soldiers in the army. Armies back then were hierarchical, but they weren't the prussian infantry of 1870.
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you know a lot about this topic
 
RomanesEuntDomus said:
Every regular person deserves respect and to a certain degree, they have rights. It only stands to reason that nobility would be polite, if not respectful to most people - let alone their own soldiers.
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I suspect even in "primitive" times it was much like it is now. People who were respectful to each other, regardless of their stations, would do well. People who were utter dicks, regardless of their stations, might tend to end up accidentally dead and maybe nobody would care how that happened.
 
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