What's in thy name?

[Brandy Blue]

We are mostly in agreement. The term "Men-at-arms" as used in the game is inappropriate. If the game has to have probably unhistorical sword infantry, they might as well be called swordsmen instead of men-at-arms. I just don't see any point in renaming feudal knights men-at-arms for the sake of historical accuracy if you are going to still call chivalric and gothic knight units "knights" and "Gothic knights." After all, the same case you make for changing feudal knights to men-at-arms applies to them too. You could then have, maybe, early, high and late men-at-arms, or some other means of differentiation. Its not a perfect solution, but I think its the best you are going to get if historically accurate naming is your goal.

[edyzmedieval]

Just noticed this, quite an informative post. Congratulations.

[Cyprian2]

Gendarmes – A gendarme was a heavy cavalryman of noble birth, primarily serving in the French army from the Late Medieval to the Early Modern periods of European History. Their heyday was in the late fifteenth to mid sixteenth centuries, when they provided the kings of France with a potent regular force of heavily armoured, lance-armed cavalry which, when properly employed, could dominate the battlefield.

As I'm sure you know, "gendarme" means "men-at-arms" in French. These are the guys you've been discussing! Imo, they should be kept in the game and extended to a few other factions, including England and Germany. This would solve the problem of late-era heavy cavalry who were sometimes, but not exclusively, knights. You could drop the appellation "knights," as Brandy Blue suggests, in all except a few cases (notably, "Knights Templar," and "Teutonic Knights").

As for the swordsmen vs. men-at-arms debate, I am all for dropping the "uni-weaponic" reference altogether and going to "Feudal/Chivalric Light Infantry" and Feudal/Chivalric Heavy Infantry." This solves the problem of inaccurate names entirely. The division between light/heavy was implemented to good effect in Axalon's MTW Redux mod.

Sergeants (or "serviens") can be kept in the game as a mounted unit to represent the men who accompanied lords and kings into battle, and who formed an elite unit in the English army during the crusades.

[Gilrandir]

We are mostly in agreement. The term "Men-at-arms" as used in the game is inappropriate. If the game has to have probably unhistorical sword infantry, they might as well be called swordsmen instead of men-at-arms. I just don't see any point in renaming feudal knights men-at-arms for the sake of historical accuracy if you are going to still call chivalric and gothic knight units "knights" and "Gothic knights." After all, the same case you make for changing feudal knights to men-at-arms applies to them too. You could then have, maybe, early, high and late men-at-arms, or some other means of differentiation. Its not a perfect solution, but I think its the best you are going to get if historically accurate naming is your goal.

The reason for keeping men-at-arms as a name of the MTW unit is a sheer pity to lose an authentic medieval name. And we can't lose Knights and Gothic knights either because you can't imagine a western medieval army without knights!!! But I don't like Chivalric Knights. It is like azure blue (as azure is blue).
But the funniest thing about this discussion is that we won't see any results of it in the game: no one is going to listen to/disregard our remarks and decide whether to improve the game units' names or leave them as they are.

[Brandy Blue]

well, yes, we are just messing around really. There won't be any results except to briefly amuse ourselves.

I always assumed the the high period units were called "Chivalric" because the code of chivalry as we know it developed approximately at the start of the high period (I think), influenced by the crusades and literary developments in the stories about Charlemagne, King Arthur, etc. The idea of what it was to be a knight changed from just a loyal high class warrior to a soldier of God and a really classy heroic character. Still, its a bit silly, I suppose.