Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

The official thread will be used to add more information about the faction.


For now you can post anything you find useful including ideas for faction specific buildings, events, advisors etc MILITARY UNITS EXCLUDED - that is well researched and only later we will possibly need more details.

AFAIK in XVIIth century the commonwealth didn't have a solid army and the state army was relatively small, compared to the armies fielded by the landlords. So to model it I came with an idea.

First of all, let's have some units avaible as mercenaries - for example the nobles (szlachta) units should be recruited while outside towns, so that a general would have to make a run through a few provinces to gather an army (to simulate the habit of calling comrades under arms, that usually took some time). In cities you should be able to train more specialised infantary, like piechota wybraniecka etc, though the soldier pool would be way lower than in other factions.

Also, as many armies were fielded by landlords, we can try to show it this way - place some rebel armies in a few forts scattered around the country. They would be passive, so you wouldn't have to fight them. Then, in case of war, or war expedition, you could bribe them, so that they'd join you. They would be quite unloyal -so you would have to keep an eye on them - (maybe, if it's possible, their loyality would go down as the time passes on) and maybe they'd also cost a bit, so that after the war you'd have to disband them and they'd show as rebels back in their fort, ready for next bribing :p With this system, The Commonwealth wouldn't have a huge, constant army, thus its power would be fairly limited - and if we take into account that the Polish/Lithuanian army of this time was one of the best, it would prevent Poland from becoming the superpower too fast.

I disagree.

I am Polish and have very good knowledge about the period in our history.

The state was decentralised, but not this way, rather like the USA before the Civil War.

The way is to limit the recruitment pool, I believe or the way it was doen in the first edition of the PMTW for MTW VI.

Thank you.

Here is the list of Polish national units in the mod - based on the list from PMTW1 can be changed a little, we will see


some of those will appear slightly later



Piechota Wybraniecka



Piechota Polska



Muszkieterzy

Pikinierzy


Husarze - early unit, avalable for short time;



Tatarzy



Lisowczycy

Husaria




Petyhorcy



Kozacy



Rajtarzy



Dragoni



Wagon Infantry ( Tabory)

--later-> after some sort of event - large military reform - Husaria (reformed)





--later-> Litewska Husaria - as above

--later-> Gwardia Piesza - musketeers - on the right



--later-> Gwardia Piesza - pikemen

--later-> Pancerni



--later-> Wolosi




--later-> Rajtarzy - different than in earlier campaigns


or in a hat


--later-> Muszkieterzy




--later-> Pikinierzy

--later-> Fuisilliers

--later-> Grenadiers

+ possibly by a sort of crusade or by rebellions

Szlachta,



Powiatowe pospolite ruszenie,



Czeladz Obozowa - more than the usual camp servants





+ officers, regional and mercenary types ( Cossacks, Hungarians, Romanians, Germans, Scots etc)



27 units - it is much larger than avarage, but the army was very varied so is justified.

Hehe, I'm also Polish, though I'm not a history expert, so I'll belive you

What I've always heard (or read) is that Polish magnaci were quite independent from state and in case of war the king had to ask them for support. Also the landlords armies (especially the eastern Kniaz's armies, like Jarema Wiśniowiecki's) were quite big, even bigger than the state ones. Of course my vision of XVII th century Poland may be blurred, as most refferences I've read were from either student books or Sienkiewicz's literature :p

Though I still think that my idea would add some "spice" to the mod

Perhaps, but it add some strange possibilities ( bribing by enemy ), besides the strenght of the private armies was greatly exaggerated - noone could afford more than 2000 men in most cases and not for long, actually.

The forces usually in time of war were given to the Hetmans to lead and were payed by the state, so in reality only in very extremem cases someone had more than the king (his guard was not limited to the 1200 men in times of war - reached even 5000 or more).

http://www.circassianworld.com/kruszynski.html -
"Circassian Princes in Poland: The Five Princes" By Marcin Kruszynski.

Good link, didn't know the entire story, only parts of it.

Boys, my Polish Brothers. I beg you. No double hussar wings! It's a myth that hussars used such wings like your "winged hussar late". The hussars armors that can be in Museum of Polish Army have false wings added in XVIII/XIX century...

Guys, of course some kind of wing appeared from time to time, but they weren't added to armors, rather to saddle, but as you've noticed such wings appeared also at Tatars' saddles. And there should be some feathers on hussar helmets. This would be realistic, but it's your mod

There are some many myths in our history like cavalry charging German tanks (invented by German and communist propaganda), huge hussar wings etc.

I hope everybody knows there was no practical use of any sort of wings. Such things hand only psychological influence, cause it meant that the best units are coming, so let's run away or they'll crush us

O! Hussar wings could be present at the elite units like King's or other richer lord's hussar company (chorągiew ).

Is there any Polish forum where you can be found, Dear Modders?

So would the Cossacks be mercs. or are they going to be a seperate factions?
How about treating the armies as Crusades, that the cross is replaced by a horsetail banner, or Hetman's banner.

The Crusade would start with your base 8 units, then the religious fanatics, and as you march through the territory you would accumulate units. Now, the problem would be...
A)Having the Pope call the crusade and eliminating this
B)Having multiple crusades
It would fulfill the requirements of not being mercs, and 'snowballing' the forces together while the nobles and retainers join the marching forces.

My American

wow, isn't 27 units a bit too much...

Some of them are very very similar too - maybe the unit slots are better spent on more interesting mercenaries or something?

Same with the russians' units, too many IMO, the player would end up not using most of them.


Alternatively, I guess you could make the recruitment pools for these units very small, so that the player HAS to recruit different types of units.

27 is the minimum I coual accept, othrwise me whole knowledge about this army would be not worth anything at all.

Same goes with other factions - if the number is too high overall I will think about cutting, but for now there is no need.

Rosters are meant to be accurate and useful - BOTH not one or another.

Originally Posted by cegorach

Rosters are meant to be accurate and useful - BOTH not one or another.

That is an excellent rule, and with modern computer hard drives, probably not much of a problem. That should find its way into somone's siganture someday.

Al Jabberwock

I love the hussars - one of the coolest units one can do in a pike & musket mod.
The swedish caracolle cavalry didn't stand even a small chance against them; that's why the swedes swiched tactics to cavalry riding with drawn sabres instead...which of course did just a little bit better.

I don`t know whether this mod is dead or not, but I decided to do something. I`ve downloaded necessary photoshop plug-ins, texture-dds utility, and tried to modify some textures.

Here`s first effect, Polish-Lithuanian royal banner, stylized on that of Zygmunt III Waza. I`ve deleted small CoA of his house from the centre of PLC CoA, and here`s result:



Thoughts? I`ll try to work on other banners, as I already made quite big research regarding heraldry of late XVIth century. I`ll also try to modify some unit textures, but I`m complete newbie in such things.

More banners for PLC. They are probably wrong - it`s just my suggestion.

Regular infantry (Spearmen, Pikemen):



Missile infantry/Artillery:



Light/Heavy infantry:



Cavalry:

My crude attempt at making early 'Husarz' (something between Racowie(vanilla M2TW Hussars) and Polish Winged Hussars. It`s my first model, but i`ll try to polish it further (there`s no variations between models at the moment). Tell me whether you like it or not, or whether this mod is dead or not. :)

No comments at all?

Here`s heavily upgraded version of my 'Husarz':

Reworked lance pennants, covered with historical patterns (3 types of them). Also, notice that lance is by 1/3 longer than vanilla equivalent:



Some soldiers could now wear regular, red cape, or fur, to make each of them more individual. (based on historical pictures):



Total number of 10 shield textures - Polish and Lithuanian coats of arms, as well as heraldry of some of Commonwealth`s Voivodeships: (Kievan, Samogitian, Sandomirian, Poznańskie, Ruthenian, Podolian, Kievan, Pomeranian, Kuyavian):



Also, a handful of soldiers would have plain red shield with attached feathers, like here:



While working on those winged shields I`ve noticed that CA screwed them (they were horizontally inverted )

3 different versions of helmets, and 3 versions of heads:




Sabre is now longer and narrower (I`ll still have to work on pommel, to make it historically correct):





Few more screens:

Hajduk Infantry:





















There are still few things to add, like small wood-axe (that was part of their equipment), and more variety to their uniforms.

I hope that this mod isn`t dead, but I`ll try to introduce idea XVIIth century mod to TWC forums. :)

Originally Posted by Camillvs

Boys, my Polish Brothers. I beg you. No double hussar wings! It's a myth that hussars used such wings like your "winged hussar late". The hussars armors that can be in Museum of Polish Army have false wings added in XVIII/XIX century...

Guys, of course some kind of wing appeared from time to time, but they weren't added to armors, rather to saddle, but as you've noticed such wings appeared also at Tatars' saddles. And there should be some feathers on hussar helmets. This would be realistic, but it's your mod

There are some many myths in our history like cavalry charging German tanks (invented by German and communist propaganda), huge hussar wings etc.

While I don't know Polish, from what I've heard I have to disagree with you. It seems from what I've read that there is some controversy of just when the wings were worn, what purposes did they serve, etc.

However, I do know as Sobieski's forces marched on their way to Vienna, a monk noticed the hussars "each with two eagle wings…parading as they marched," and in the Osprey book on Polish Hussar, Brzezinski cites Kitowicz's observation that the Lithuanian hussars still kept to the old saddle-mounts. So I think there's plausible historical grounds that the Sobieski-era hussar of said hetman/king's revival of the unit. That Polish artists of the 19th and 20th centuries retconned it to times before that is another story. :)