If Giants existed in BC times...

[HoneyBadger]

Endoperez: You're talking about a modern repro blade that has been sharpened. Most likely, it's made from a modern type of steel that didn't exist in the middle ages.

It comes from, and exists, in an entirely different world from Medieval Europe, so while it does answer the question of what's possible, it doesn't bear that much on what actually happened.

The best quality blades coming out of Europe at the time most likely came from Toledo, which was for a long time a Moorish colony.

Certainly, good-quality blades existed in medieval Europe, but they weren't, generally, consistent in their quality until the Moors started showing up. Aside from that, a sharp piece of metal can cleave through a deer carcass-and a sharp wedge of copper could probably have done the same exact thing, and certainly an Aztec obsidian sword could have-but that's a much different thing from slicing through a moving, fighting human being, with just clothing on, let alone armour, and doing it again, and again, and again.

The Vikings probably had better than average steel, because they were exposed to so many cultures, and had slaves (with their skills) from all over, not to mention owning Jarnberaland, which I understand has lots of high quality iron deposits, thus the name.

Other good steel probably came out of Byzantium, as well as the satellites of the old Western empire, such as Venice, but, aside from the questionable ability of Europe to mass-produce blades that would take an edge, outside of Toledo, there were broad differences in how those blades were utilized.

Like you touched upon, having a sharp blade does little, if it won't penetrate your opponent's armour. Points of swords were made to do that, and the medieval knight was trained to use their points to pierce armour. Sharp or not, and not was more likely even for the high end blades, a sword in Europe was basically just a big iron club with a dagger on the end of it. It was designed to hold a straight, piercing point, and not to break. The blade was a secondary consideration. Some perfectly good swords were never even sharpened. Weapons and armour evolved side by side, in Europe, as mirrors of each other, until the invention of gunpowder.

I think the main thematic difference between a medieval knight and a feudal samurai was that a samurai was trained to kill instantly, and if necessary to die at a moment's notice, while a knight was trained to beat the enemy by whatever means and level of force necessary, and to survive anything that got thrown at him. Their equipment reflects those differences, at it's most basic, even in the quality of their armour, since it wouldn't have been so very difficult for a fully armoured samurai to commit seppuku right there on the battlefield, while a knight-aside from suicide being a mortal sin-might have found it almost as difficult to kill himself, as a peasant with a pitchfork would have found it to kill a knight.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

Aside from that, a sharp piece of metal can cleave through a deer carcass-and a sharp wedge of copper could probably have done the same exact thing, and certainly an Aztec obsidian sword could have-but that's a much different thing from slicing through a moving, fighting human being, with just clothing on, let alone armour, and doing it again, and again, and again.

Do you have any sources? I don't see why cloth alone would make such a huge difference in the cutting power of an edge. Furthermore, the ability to deliver a good hit to a moving target, while difficult, comes from the skill of the fighter and not from quality of the edge.

I agree with many of your points: many European swords probably sucked, the quality varied wildly, and good swords were rare. I was talking about the good swords, because I was thinking of knights and presumed they'd have the best swords they could buy, along with the best armor and horse and whatever else they needed to stay alive.

When you mention unsharpened clubs, you might be thinking of the estoc, which had (at least sometimes? really out of my comfort zone here) octagonal or hexagonal cross-sections that indeed had no blade whatsoever, and were meant to focus enough power to the (possibly unsharpened) point that it could benetrate armor. They were specialized weapons and not just normal, unsharpened swords.


My understanding (mainly from the ARMA site) is that swords weren't used against knights, but against people who couldn't afford to wear good armor in battle or for self-defense outside of battles. There were other weapons more suited for hurting people in armor, like maces and "hammers" and estocs, and halberds against mounted knights, and lots of other weapons I don't know proper names for. Since there were better weapons for harming other knights, I don't see why a knight would take a poor sword into a mace-fight.

I'm running out of time here, but here's a nice article about how swords were used for different purposes. I didn't have time to see if it goes into detail about western swords' qualities versus Japanese swords, but it looks like it might.
http://www.thehaca.com/essays/nobest.htm



For KO:
Ashdod could be made to only have access to expensive castles, and could perhaps have more expensive labs and/or temples.
Also, Ashdod's random-only mages should NOT be recruitable without a lab! They might not be their best battlemages, but it's still not right. A general "you need a lab before you can recruit this unit" ability would probably have uses in modding as well, if Johan decided to add it.