enjoy! ~:)
http://www.totalwar.com/community/graal.htm
Printable View
enjoy! ~:)
http://www.totalwar.com/community/graal.htm
Definatly the best unit yet, imo. ~:cheers:
I especially like the helmet face mask. :bow:
Is BI a fantasy game>? ~:confused:
I think I'm going to faint....
Yeah....this unit stinks too...Especially the mask...looks like a pussycat face LOL
Don't like the unit? Simple answer..Don't buy the game.
......Orda
I am scared and confused. ~:confused:
I have never heard of them before.
Where they real?
I wonder if the makers of the King Arthur film will do them for plagurism ~D
Oh btw if you haven't seen it, then watch it, its a right rollicking fantasy romp based on a supposed Sarmatian knight around the 4th centry B.C who supposedly sparked the King Arthur legend, supposedly.
You will probably find that 'Lego' (tm) castles has more basis in fact than this unit. Have I mentoned supposedly. :knight:
Hehe, I feel like posting my 2nd fave monty python sketch in honour of the GRAAAL knight ... Ni .. Ni ... (see my city gates post for my Fave monty python sketch)
Knights of Ni: Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni!
Arthur: Who are you?
Knight of Ni: We are the Knights who say..... "Ni"!
Arthur: (horrified) No! Not the Knights who say "Ni"!
Knight of Ni: The same.
Other Knight of Ni: Who are we?
Knight of Ni: We are the keepers of the sacred words: Ni, Ping, and Nee-womm!
Other Knight of Ni: Nee-womm!
Arthur: (to Bedevere) Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale!
Knight of Ni: The knights who say "Ni" demand..... a sacrifice!
Arthur: Knights of Ni, we are but simple travelers who seek the enchanter who
lives beyond these woods.
Knights of Ni: Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni! Ni!
Bedevere: No! Noooo! Aaaugh! No!
Knight of Ni: We shall say "Ni" to you... if you do not appease us.
Arthur: Well what is it you want?
Knight of Ni: We want.....
(pregnant pause)
A SHRUBBERY!!!!
(minor music)
Arthur: A WHAT?
Knights of Ni: Ni! Ni!! Ni! Ni!
Arthur; No! No! Please, please, no more! We will find you a shrubbery.
Knight of Ni: You must return here with a shrubbery... or else you will never
pass through this wood... alive.
Arthur: O Knights of Ni, you are just and fair, and we will return with a
shrubbery.
Knight of Ni: One that looks nice.
Arthur: Of course!
Knight of Ni: And not too expensive.
Arthur; Yes!
Knight of Ni: Noowwwww.... GO!
(music)
Arthur: O Knights of Ni. We have brought you your shrubbery. May we go now?
Knight of Ni: Yes, it is a good shrubbery. I like the laurels particularly.
But there is one small problem....
Arthur: What is that?
Knight of Ni: We are now no longer the Knights Who Say "Ni"!
Other Knights of Ni: Ni! Shh! Shh!
Knight of Ni: We are now the Knights who say "Ekky-ekky-ekky-ekky-z'Bang, zoom-Boing, z'nourrrwringmm".
Other Knight of Ni: Ni!
Knight of Ni: Therefore, we must give you a test.
Arthur: What is this test, O Knights of.....
Knights who 'til recently said "Ni"?
Knight of Ni: Firstly, you must find....
ANOTHER SHRUBBERY!!!
(minor music)
Arthur: Oh not another shrubbery!!
Knight of Ni: (excitedly) THEN... Then, when you have found the shrubbery,
you must place it here, beside this shrubbery, only slightly
higher, so we get the two-level effect with a little path
running down the middle.
Other Knights of Ni: A path! A path! A path! Shh, shhh. Ni! Ni!
Knight of Ni: Then, when you have found the shrubbery, you must cut down the
mightiest tree in the forest...
Wiiiiiithh.... A HERRING!
They look awesome, can't wait to see them in action.
It's better than the battle priest.Quote:
Originally Posted by scorillo
Err... what exactly is wrong with this unit?
I can't understand why they intentionally make so weird units... after seeing what amateur skinners can do it's not really impressive.
the mask reminds me of Morrowwind... the guards in that city with a lot of channels
~D You really don't like people not 100% satisfied with the units now do you? :hide:Quote:
Originally Posted by Orda Khan
People want to believe they can "Play with units from the feature film King Arthur" because that's recognizable to the masses.
It's the gameplay that's the most important, but if history could be displayed truthfully people might be surprised at how interesting it is. I wish some company would actually realize that people will enjoy history which isn't dressed up like a whore.
As someone once said, history is written by the victor. Nobody won nothing with that unit . If they sell games under the cloak of historical accuracy are they allowed to do this? Why not just release it under the title 'fantasy total war' and get it over with. Look at the guys at total realism and what they have done with the game. :deal:
Yeah and makes me sick at how much of a piece of crap they turned RTW into with their travesty of a mod.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
Graal knights, nice made up unit. But we are talking about the Romano-Britsh here. Any unit that you give them you could debate until the end of time and still not have a clear idea of how they fought or what they looked like. Wait that makes no sense, that's the codine talking (bad headache). I mean the opinion on the military that the Romano-Britons used vary wildly.
Man, that unit is beautiful. To bad its not historical, but hey its moddable..
True it's not that historical but it does fit into the design ethic that CA seems to have made for the Romano-Britons. That is that all there units are either the same as the western empires (archers, Sarmation auxilia, commentines) or inspired by (Monks for priests coastal levies for limetines). Graal knights seem to fit into the inspired by category. They appear to be the super heavy elite cavalry like the scholrae palantina.
I think it looks cool. ~Given~ I don't know about the historical part of this. War masks don't seem that much of a stretch. I know the japanese samurai had masks, they add some face protection and aided in the psychological aspect of fighting.
rebelscum: Ah good old Lego...
The monty python quote is unexpected but welcome ~:cheers:
Excellent graphics. I like it. ~:cheers:
I started to ignore how historical BI is. If it's moddable, then little do I care.
It is fictional, but it's good.
Yeah. Just so weird that they choose to be wrong. But since they're choosing it, I think it's a commercial aspect into it, which I can't really debate. If it was 100% historical correct and everything was great, our mods wouldn't be of much use either.Quote:
Originally Posted by edyzmedieval
I noticed Tyr was removed from the credits in the intro movie at 6.1 ~DQuote:
Look at the guys at total realism and what they have done with the game.
It's a great mod, but I find the unit models a little too vanilla, thinking about what they could achieve with their resources
Yeah. True. Maybe that's why they are doing fictional stuff. Anyways, it's a good addition to the game. ~:cheers:Quote:
Originally Posted by ScionTheWorm
Seriously, what exactly is wrong with this unit?
For me it looks like some people is just trying to bitch about CA, no mater what the subject is.
And how the hell do you know what is 100% accurate?
We will never know what is 100% accurate.
No one knows how the ancient soldiers looked like except from some writing, some abstract sculptures, and some archaeological research.
Very true I'm afraid.Quote:
Originally Posted by KSEG
This unit could very well have existed when you read the description.
Gotta remember that written sources from this era are few and pretty weak as well(of course it is better then the dark age where there are almost no written sources) ~:handball:
I respect CA, they're doing a hell of a job. But it's just so typical and ca-cliche ~D. Don't take it personal though, this is a long awaited expantion pack, and everything in it is just not everybodys cup of tea.
CA is indeed doing an excellent job. I admire every member of the team that contributes to the expansion pack.
And I'm buying it(BI), no matter what. ~:) ~:cheers:
You guys might as well be optimistic... It's not exactly productive to yell and scream, CA's not likely to change it. Might as well treat it as a strategic assest that keeps the Romano Brits from sucking from lack of heavy cavalry.
Ok just wait until you are faced by a stack of them, mixed in with vanilla barbarians and then we will hear the screams of 'no way'. Its a bit like having a World War II setting and suddenly you get faced by an F-15. Your spitfire doesn't seem so great then. The so called 'dark ages' were not really that dark. There is a lot of literature detailing what military units exsted at the time. I'm not putting CA down for the game,but they sure can afford to research this properly. I just wish they would look to things like total realism for inspiration rather than make things up.Quote:
Originally Posted by KSEG
:knight:
Yes the Romano-Brits did suck, that's why the Anglo-Saxons, the Irish, the Picts all the other warlike tribes invaded and made our islands what they are. If they had units like this, Britain would be very different. Even in the King Arthur film there were 6 of these guys, not stacks of 1000+.Quote:
Originally Posted by antisocialmunky
Those were Sarmatians, not Romano-british.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
And I think you'll find that CA's historical research puts EB's (or any well meaning TW players for that matter) to great shame. See CA has never said what kind of historical texts/knowledgable persons they draw upon to make there units for the TW games.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
Wannabe King Arthorius Sarmatian Knights!!! AAAAAAAH RUN FOR THE HILLS
Actually King Arthur isn't as bad as you might think, while the detail, setting and politics sucked the thrust of the story is basically sound. There was a Romano-British commander called Arturius who beat the Saxons at Badon Hill. In the film Arturius is a Roman Equestrian, so that fits.
Anyway, about the unit, there certainly were no "Knights" since the word is Norman but Arturius held back the Saxons for fifty years, he must have had something to do it with and my bet would be heavy Cav. He probably didn't have many though as all that chainmail would have cost a bomb in the four hundreds.
i never said the movie was bad...i liked it. but the GRAAL KNIGHTS!!! C'MON O_o
An ok unit. Reminds me very much about the cataphracts from RTW, but looks alright. If has only the slightest amount of historically accuracy it`s good enough for me.
No, the word is English. It is from the Old English word Cniht, meaning boy or servant.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Ok what do we know?
We know that a number of Sarmatians (5000?) were settled in Brittannia.
We know that a warlord named Artorius held the Saxons back not that long afterwards (generations later).
The later myths and also the tales of a Welsh monk (the first real Arthur-tale, from around 1000) include what seems to be rather heavy cavalry.
We don't know the equipment.
We don't know how many it would have been, though we can expect it to be few.
We don't know what they were called.
Is it so hard to believe that some of the initial Sarmatian men taught their sons the way of the heavy cavalry?
So in essence I would say that the unit itself is nothing we should complain about. The equipment though, is perhaps a good deal too heavy compared with what the Romano-British could afford.
A semi-armoured horse and a mailed rider with a lance would be my vision. But that is just one, others have different views.
History is not a specific fact most often.
Which is what I was trying to say. Saying OMFG knights can't exist in the 5th century! Is a bit short sighted. At the end of the Roman empire we get into a period when good first hand (or even second) accounts out side of the eastern empire are sketchy at best. This is most acute in Britain where for what ever reason written history died out when the Romans left. So really CA could give the Romano-Britions chariots and not be totally wrong.
well, then we can make whatever units we want in that game period and say it's historical accurate ~D
Graal Knight - Elven warriors
Sceary Knights - Mighty Horseriders with their underpants over their head
Bard Clubmen - Inspiring nearby troops with guitarplaying
Romano-Briton Cows - Was used in battle when nothing else was avaliable
and so on...
Come on... Be reasonable. Why do you deep complainers often retort to this kind of sillyness? ~:confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by ScionTheWorm
The Sarmatians would not have been equipped in this manner. Most Sarmatians did not use facemasks, preffering spangenhelms. None would use a spear, since you need two hands to use a kontus, which they used. Only the richest Sarmatians used horse armor, and I'm thinking that the richest would not be in Brittannia, nor would they be members of the Romono British elite like they say.
And while I could see a Sarmatian based heavy horse (more along the lines that Kraxis mentioned - kontus, half bard or un armored horse with spangenhelm and scale armor), this does not mention Sarmatians much at all. The description says it's the elite of the Romano British, who "keep alive the Roman and Christian traditions of militarism and piety in equal measure". That's just foolish. Heavy horse had nothing to do with Romans, all of their horse was poorer copies of Sarmatians or Parthians (though the copies got better as time went on with the Byzantines).
And what is Graal? And why did they use the term knights? I know it has come to represent heavy horse, but they should either use whatever langauge Graal is from for heavy horse, or the Roman Clibanarii, cataphracti, or whatever the Latin term for the Greek kontophoroi (sp). The kontophoroi (sp) would be the most accurate term to describe Sarmatian style heavy horse, especially away from the steppe.
Graal means Dish or platter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
A sign of wealth I guess.
Which brings up another question: why is it in Sweden (I assume), and what's with the dish? ~;)
If you are talking about the game then that issue has been brought to CA's attention and hopefully the store involved will get punished.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
And dish I guess is related to food, a guy that has food which equals a guy that has wealth.
Atleast that's how I look at it.
Damn, I meant why is it in Swedish... :embarassed:
Graal isn't in swedish.
Probably celtic if I would take a guess.
Someone posted the translation on the .com
Nothing to do with Graal (dish) being related to taking communion and therefore Christian piety then?
AmbrosiusAurelianus, Knight is Norman, derived from the Saxon Cnit. Knight means a warrior wealthy enough to outfit himself with horse, armour and weapons for war.
Cnit just means servant, the Saxons called the Norman cavalry Cnit because they were profesional warriors serving William, his servants. William rewarded them with land and they became elite.
In any case the word knight has no place in the fith century.
Makes sense too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
Do not insult us again. CA either A. has no historians, which we do, or B. ignores them, which we do not. I have not decided which is worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
why is everyone starting bout sarmatians...i never said they were sarmatian knights or had anything to do with them...their look and description just reminded me of the movie
I think we started talking about the Sarmatians because in the movie, those "knights" are supposedly Sarmatians.
And there were many Sarmatians in Brittania. Not a huge amount, and most probably would not have stayed in Britan. But there could be some Sarmatian style heavy horse (which any heavy horse would be based after), which is what I was reffering to. However, it would not look like this unit.
surely the "graal" couldn't imply that this unit is King Arthur's Grail Knights could it???
The end of the 6th/start of the 7th century is when the balance finally tipped toward Anglo-Saxon domination of lowland Britain. So, there were roughly two centuries when the Romano British obviously weren't that rubbish.
It's the thing in the beacon at the Castle Anthrax... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
Actually, that's what I'm thinking CA is going for... :(
I was a second too late. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Taffy_is_a_Taff
Hmm. The Sarmatian theory may not work so well either. Most Sarmatians that stayed setteled around Dublin, and they were defectors. The Goidilic kindgom gave them lands and wives as appreciation for their defection.
And I think most heavy horse used by the Romano British were Celtic styled...
edit: PS: I have found out that Graal means Brythonic base word for Grail...
Excellent list of units. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by ScionTheWorm
Steppe, I think that B. is the most appropiate. They consulted Stephen Turnbull when they made STW, but they mainly ignored him.
Oh, let's see some more units. I propose:
Screeching Lady Guinevere ~D
Arthurian Cataphract
Lancelot Lancers
Galahad Noble Cavalry
~D
I hope they go with the early literature and have crazed wildmen of the woods units of "Merlins" rather than a zappy wizard unit.
I do expect them to provide for Merlin though.
I will be severely displeased if they do not.
We were just joking, you know. How can you include Merlin in a historical game?!
OMG... :laugh4:
I was just joking too.
I guess that sarcasm doesn't go over too well when typed.
And there'd better be a rebel faction led by Mordred too. ~D
Ok, I'll admit its an awesome looking being, but i do like my realism, and Romano-British realism especially (seeing as i am working on a 'Dark Age' britain mod)....
for example, the word knight comes fro the SAXON (old english) word cniht meaning Servant, so i doubt the Romano-Brits would be using such a word.
but, again, good looking skin and maybe of great use to modders
Some years ago one of my teachers gave me a lot of books about Prince Valiant and I expected some kind of completely fantasy with magic and stuff, and I was surprised how it displayed Merlin as some kind of modern magician who uses tricks instead of "real" magic, in the end I liked the books, even though they somewhat exaggerated in some parts where the prince and his friends ride hapilly into battle and kill a lot of people on their own just because they´re so 1337. ~;)
I forgot what I originally wanted to say with this, but I generally agree with Kraxis.
I don´t think it´s good for anyone to think he has "THE" insight on history and can judge each and every unit´s historical accuracy.
And btw I still think that the movement speeds of vanilla RTW are ok, while the fighting speeds are indeed somewhat fast, but since I tried a mod with slower unit movement, I never touched any other, especially not Total Realism, because I hate the slower movement, it looks foolish and historically inaccurate for units to move like this. ~;)
Romano-British may well have used "cniht" if:
1. it was a more compact and useful term for a servant/boy who was a heavily armoured horseman than whatever they were using.
or
2. if the word were of non-Germanic origin (loads of Anglo-Saxon words are described by the Oxford English Dictionary as of unknown origin, plenty of these are actually of Celtic derivation).
And I wonder why ~D . They've probably got some 17 year old college student on the case. His idea of research is watchin DVD's. He might watch 'Alexander', 'Troy' and 'Kingdom of Heaven' next to get more unit ideas.Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
I dont think the name really matters. Atleast their trying to be historical with it. The units also seems like it could be somewhar historical, but definatly not that heavy amored. I really like this unit though, I gave up expecting die hard realsim from Ca, and have just learned to like what they give, and then go play realsim mods like RTR..
edit- Im sure CA does have some very knowledgable historians, but they are restriceted by being a game. Im guessing that they go with the units they see will make the most money, just like any other company..
Sorry that's piffle, you have gleaned your history from the film subtext.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wigferth Ironwall
The text of Gildas' De excido et conquestu Britanniae is the best contemporary record of sixth-century Britain. As such, historians searching for a real historical Arthur often use this source to validate their interpretations and theories of his lfe, even though Gildas does not mention Arthur by name.
We also have several dates for the battle of Badon hill from 582 AD to 500 AD.
So the guy who supposed that Sarmatian knights who were left over from the Roman army who packed up and left almost four generations before were still around. (people didn't live as long then either).
This is the main problem. Young people play this game, who haven't had much learning (like me ~;) ) and I'm sure that they may easily become confused between fact and fantasy especially if something is packaged as fact. Please let myths and stories be such and let the truth stand, or else we all all destined to repeat our mistakes for ever and ever.
And if I do?Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
I love you, can I have your babies. I agree word for word with everything you say here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
No I haven't finished yet. CA have turned into modders overnight. I wish they would leave the imagination to people who actually have some, eh!
Lars really there is loads of literature.Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
Gildas' De excido et conquestu Britanniae for one.
This lack of literature idea and the concept of a "Dark Age" was first created by Italian humanists and was originally intended as a pejorative sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to include not only the lack of Latin literature, but a lack of contemporary written history and material cultural achievements in general. (from wikipedia)
*snip*
Do not insult us again. CA either A. has no historians, which we do, or B. ignores them, which we do not. I have not decided which is worse.
*snip*
Anyways, is that 'yes, we have no historians or we do have historians and we don't ignore the historians'. I would say that you should ignore your historians if this is the stuff they come up with.
Who exactly are you refering too, CA, or EB? Because, as edyz pointed out, some historians do help CA, but they just ignore them, at least for STW. As for EB, well there are a whole bunch of historians in our team.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
I don't want babies, they're smelly. ~;)Quote:
I love you, can I have your babies. I agree word for word with everything you say here.
No I haven't finished yet. CA have turned into modders overnight. I wish they would leave the imagination to people who actually have some, eh!
Scion, the masks do look a bit like the Ordinators in Vivec, but without the crest and the earing. And masks were used by some peoples, though I do not believe the Romano British Elite would have.
Oh give over. Your favourite colour must be white with a subtle hint of bullshit. ~;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
We do know the equipment around as many people have detailed it in this thread. As far as hoiw many, we can expect there to be no GRAAL Knights what-so-ever. We don't need to know what they were called as something that doesn't exist is rarely given a name. If you want to stick a Romano-Brit on a horse and tank him up a bit for the purposes of balancing the game then CA should just call it bloody armoured cavalry and stop insulting our intelligence.
CA of course.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
A very good summary. It is quite possible that this kind of unit existed, though its equipment is probably way too heavy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kraxis
But naming it Graal Knights is a blow in the face of the historically-minded fans.
It does have a very nice skin, though.
And these days anything not first or second hand by the people in question is not taken very seriously. De excido et conquestu Britanniae, heard of that before written by a Roman from Gaul IIRC. In other words it doesn't count. Also dark age refers to the fact that you had many illiterate peoples moving around not writing down events for us to read about. Most written source come from either the church or from the litterate Germans.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
Whether CA is right or not doesn't matter any more.
After the debacle of the Egyptian units, there will be many who will totally reject any and all units put forth by CA.
That blunder means evey new unit will be greeted with shouts of "Rubbish! Inaccurate rubbish!"
I don't know well enough to judge either way. :book:
Rebelscum, your reply to Kraxis's post was rude (the "your favorite colour must be..." line). Let's keep the exchanges polite.
I'm sorry... :lipsrsealed2: :laugh:Quote:
Originally Posted by lars573
I don't mind the units, really... but these priests and this graal knight, it's not researched at all! I could come up with that! really. I don't mind it's a little fiction within the game, but for gods, or whoevers sake, admit it
We do not know it. We can reason that it was somewhere around here or there, but the time saw quite a big deal of different equipment. Even within the Sarmatian ranks. In this case buffing them up to the heaviest possible case within reason (meaning what could be accepted) would be the best. People get he Arthur feeling and it isn't exactly against the possibilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
You know, I was rather hoping for this argument.Quote:
Originally Posted by rebelscum
Oh you wanted to know why? Well, I remember plainly the good old EB guys ranting their tounges out about the bland names the units in RTW had among the barbarian factions. I agreed with them on that point. I mean Chosen Swordsmen simply isn't anything I find impressive (I could have made that up myself). Now CA has actually made an effort to remove such blandness and guess what, they get the axe again. Yes, it isn't particularly great, but certainly better than Armoured Horsemen.
Perhaps they should ship their games with no names for the units so that people could insert their own preferred names. That should save them a whole lot of trouble, seeing that whatever they do they get with the big complainingstick.
No not much at all, but what it does say is important.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
At least I find it important.
"and draw upon the military traditions and skills the Romans brought to their home islands, in particular the heavy cavalry skills of the Sarmatian auxiliaries who were once stationed in Britannia."
Thus it is fair to say that this units is suppoed to be related to Sarmatian heavy cavalry. Perhaps not by lineage but by tradition. Is that really that hard to believe in (not directed at you in particular Merc)?
As I already mentioned, it is too heavy, but it's basics are fair enough. Some heavy cavalry forming the backbone of the R'n'B armies.
I personally liked the names in medieval. They were historic enough, though rather generic for catholics.
But, Grail Knights? That doesnt sound very much like King Arthur.., but then again im sure it would be hard to find a "correct" name for the..
but, hey names are EXTREMELY easy to mod, so I dont really care...
I think what everyone here who disagrees with the unit is trying to get across is that it's not so much the consistency of the unit that's incorrect but rather it's name. The name "Graal Knight" connotates nothing real of late Roman Briton. It would be like if they came out with a new Tom Clancy game and they called the Spec Op's troops "Minutemen".
They're deriving the name from later medieval French and German Arthurian legends of which some of these stories refer to the grail (graal). The grail itself was originally an ancient myth from the British Isles. It has nothing in reality to do with Romano-British cavalrymen to the point where they would formulate themselves around the said legend. Moreso knights didn't even exist during the time depicted in the game.
I doesn't matter if the subtext for the "Graal Knights" states that they were originally Sarmatian cavalry. It doesn't add any validity to the name Graal Knight. Sarmatian cavalry in Briton had nothing to do with Arthurian legends that weren't even invented yet.
Lol, I think the guys at CA are reading too much "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "The Holy Kingdom". ~:)