I was lucky enough to recently find this splendid mod and it made me install 1.011 once more ... Thank you for the great work and effort put into it!
While I was browsing the troop-trees, I was naturally most interested in the Bulgarian one.
Can someone make out the meaning of the two bulgarian units 'Oklopnik' and 'Maglavit'. I am bulgarian myself and have never heard of them, though they may be old-Bulgarian names, I don't know. I searched them on google and all I found was a town named Maglavit in modern-day Rumania. I would very much appreciate any piece of information. Thank you.
That's not very likely, but than again I can't be too sure. To my knowledge, a member of the nobility is nowadays commonly referred to as 'Boliar/Bolyar' - that would be the landowning ones. I must say for example that the choice of bulgarian settlements and names could not have been better, obviously a thorough research has been done. So that's why I'm even more puzzeled with the Mglavit and Oklopnik unit names.
According to google images Oklopnik is some sort of insect, interesting. I couldn't find anything on google on both of them, even google translator didn't work.
Interesting. In what language does 'oklop' mean armour? Oklop and Maglavit both are not used in modern-day Bulgarian, but perhaps another (old)-slavic language?
Edit:
They must be based on something as all other names (towns, villages, characters) are very accurate and correctly spelled.
It is in macedonian. I think in serbian too, but I`ll wait for a native speaker to confirm it...
I thought it was the same in bulgarian... That's why I didn't post it before.
Edit: I think it comes as the slavic version of the greek word Kataphraktos literally meaning "armored" or "completely enclosed"(word not unit). Although oklopnik can only relate to the first translation (armored). What is the bulgarian term for this?
The modern Bulgarian word for 'armoured' as adjective is 'broniran'. 'Armour' as a noun would be 'bronia/bronya'. The word 'bronia'(=armour) could be a derivative from 'bran'(=to defend, defense), but I'm not a linguist.
These names are 100% inaccurate for Bulgaria but everything is possible with a simple research. I don't have the time to do that but I can advise my compatriot here to check this out: http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Средновековна_българска_армия or something related in google if he has the time and will to do a bit of research.
If the mod cares about banners and coat of arms I can provide this source as well:
http://heraldika-bg.org/gallery_armorial.htm
Also I find it funny that the troops bear foreign origin and have nothing genuinely bulgarian - for example you have Cuman cavalry? and Vlach spearman? Sounds more like these should be mercenaries than regular army to me.
Anyway just couldn't help dropping by to mention this
Good luck and I'm very glad this mod is still in development!
I'm sure that will be resolved (not that it's a big problem but we balkan people like to have our history accurately represented - which is an impossible task )
There are quite a few forums and websites about medieval Bulgaria as well as a few of some groups that do battle recreations and such - there can be found a lot of info even on armour, weapons and so on. For example http://chigot.blogspot.com/
I'm posting these for the other bulgarians here, I really haven't got the time to do that research and actually haven;t played the game for many months now. Just find it hard to stay away from something Bulgaria-related hehe
The modern Bulgarian word for 'armoured' as adjective is 'broniran'. 'Armour' as a noun would be 'bronia/bronya'. The word 'bronia'(=armour) could be a derivative from 'bran'(=to defend, defense), but I'm not a linguist.
The word armoured as an adjective would be oklopen in modern day macedonian. As a noun it would be oklop. Oklopnik is a noun, meaning the person that is armoured, armoured one. About the last verb, to defend - da brani. We have it too. Also, bran as a noun means wave in modern macedonian...
These names are 100% inaccurate for Bulgaria but everything is possible with a simple research. I don't have the time to do that but I can advise my compatriot here to check this out: http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Средновековна_българска_армия or something related in google if he has the time and will to do a bit of research.
I am refering to charcater names and village and town names, and the great majority of them are very accurate and historical. Research has been done as I was 14 years old Could you point out where you disagree and not just speak in general? Places like Karvuna, Krun, Cherven, Ovech, Prosek, Bdin are all correctly transcribed from Bulgarian, historically important and accurate for the time period. Strez, Boril, Dobromir Hriz, Ivanko (the murderer of Asen, who was Kaloyan's ally later), Duk Vrana (a Byzantine noble, later allied with Kaloyan), Manaster(a Cuman leader of Kaloyan's mercenaries that assasinated Kaloyan and fled with his Cuman cavalry while the latter was sieging modern-day Saloniki).
Riddermark 说:
If the mod cares about banners and coat of arms I can provide this source as well:
http://heraldika-bg.org/gallery_armorial.htm
I guess they have thaken the site into consideration, as for example the last available flag in the mod depicts the '3 lions on a shield' motive also shown on the site. It is also used by all bulgarian lords.
Riddermark 说:
Also I find it funny that the troops bear foreign origin and have nothing genuinely bulgarian - for example you have Cuman cavalry? and Vlach spearman? Sounds more like these should be mercenaries than regular army to me.
This is true. But I guess they represent the various auxiliary troops that were commonly used by the first of the 'Asen'-dynasty. The Cumans were traditional allies and massively used in the bulgarian army of the time. Same with Vlach spearmen, they were probably also commonly employed in the army, recruited from the lands beyond the Danube. They both are also represented as a 'side-branch' of the Bulgarian troop tree, wich perfectly makes sense for me.
This is true. But I guess they represent the various auxiliary troops that were commonly used by the first of the 'Asen'-dynasty. The Cumans were traditional allies and massively used in the bulgarian army of the time. Same with Vlach spearmen, they were probably also commonly employed in the army, recruited from the lands beyond the Danube. They both are also represented as a 'side-branch' of the Bulgarian troop tree, wich perfectly makes sense for me.
I am refering to charcater names and village and town names, and the great majority of them are very accurate and historical. Research has been done as I was 14 years old Could you point out where you disagree and not just speak in general? Places like Karvuna, Krun, Cherven, Ovech, Prosek, Bdin are all correctly transcribed from Bulgarian, historically important and accurate for the time period. Strez, Boril, Dobromir Hriz, Ivanko (the murderer of Asen, who was Kaloyan's ally later), Duk Vrana (a Byzantine noble, later allied with Kaloyan), Manaster(a Cuman leader of Kaloyan's mercenaries that assasinated Kaloyan and fled with his Cuman cavalry while the latter was sieging modern-day Saloniki).
No no I think you got me wrong here - I meant that the troop names that you mentioned are inaccurate ('Oklopnik' and 'Maglavit'). I'm sure everything else as places and people is correct And the article in wikipedia had some troop names although not going into much detail.
I was trying to say that it is quite possible to find core-Bulgarian troop names and ranks if one puts a bit of effort in researching. As for the cumans and vlachs I can't agree more, it's that I was always of the belief that they were used more like regular mercenaries than authentic regular part of the armies. And I was thinking that troop trees represent the core national armies of each country. But then again I might be wrong here.
Hi guys and sorry for the late reply. I haven't logged in since a couple of weeks now, so I couldn't post earlier.
Anyway, to the point:
1. "Oklopnik" is an old-Bulgarian (or rather middle-Bulgarian) word which, according to my dictionary of the old and dialectic Bulgarian words, means "soldier wearing an armour (войник, облечен в ризница)" and which is roughly translated as cuirassier (though obviously not the same as the later Western equestrian unit of the same name). The word is preserved in modern Serbian (I think they even have such a football team) and apparently in Macedonian, as boki points out (which is not so surprising, considering how much modern Bulgarian has changed - the meaning of gora is a prime example). Note, however, that oklopnitsa seems to be "a sabre that bends (сабя, която се огъва)", so they shouldn't be confused.
2. "Maglavit" is a Byzantine term for a medium-heavy horseman, which was also acquired in the Bulgarian structure, like many other things. Though I admit this is the one that is least researched and I don't have any actual sources to back it up (I think one other member of the BGTW team had found it mentioned in some folk song when he was making BGTW 1.0, but I couldn't find the respective thread in Boina Slava where he had mentioned it).
3. For the non-Bulgarian troops, my reasons were several:
- The Vlachs, as the Bulgarian members probably now, are a rather controversial issue (Bulgarian historiography supports Niketas Choniates' claim that Vlachs simply meant Bulgarians at that time), but I decided to branch them as the commonly accepted form of "Proto-Romanian shepherds". In that case, they had to be represented, since the Vlachs (whoever they were) carried a great part of the liberational movement and are mentioned as a substantial part of the army even in later times. Not to mention that Kaloyan styles himself as "Imperator Bulgarorum et Blachorum" etc. in his correspondences with the Pope. And while I don't disagree with the Bulgarian historians, I don't want to cause a Romanian-Bulgarian flame-war for not including them.
- The Cumans, most of them were indeed living in Cumania to the north of the Danube and took part in the Bulgarian wars as allied semi-mercs - Kaloyan was reportedly married to a Cuman princess and the Russian chronicles report that when the Cumans are bonded through marriage with another clan or kingdom, they're bound to protect it and vice versa. Of course, plundering the common enemy was still their probable main reason, which is why I've added the Cuman marauders as a unit. Another main reason is that otherwise we'd simply have no Cumans units, considering the lack of a Cuman faction. Adding them as mercenaries would not suffice, IMO, because, from one side, they didn't travel and serve across most of the lands and kingdoms in the mod (only Hungary and Bulgaria for now, later Russia), and from the other side, because they didn't exactly act as a mercenaries in the Bulgarian case - I can't remember any report that they were paid in advance by Kaloyan (except the spoils of war after the campaign, of course, which is normal for non-mercs as well). Also, keep in mind that many Cumans had already settled down in Moesia since Byzantine times, when the influx of Pechenegs, Uzes, Cumans etc. led to its population being called "mixobarbarians" by the Byzantines.
- Actually, there's even another non-Bulgarian group that seems to have been an active part of the army of the early Asens (and which I haven't included, though I was hesitant about it) - the Russian brodniks. I don't know if you've read Plamen Pavlov's interesting monography about "The rebels and adventurers in medieval Bulgaria" (I haven't found it translated, so sorry for the non-Bulgarian readers here), but in his chapter about the foreign "Barbarians, mercenaries, men of blood", he shows several examples of Russian participation in the wars of Asen I and of Kaloyan, including one in 1201 during the siege of Konstantia. And, of course, the most famous example being the siege of Thessaloniki from 1207, where "he led an army more numerous than the sand in the sea: Bulgarians, Cumans, Tatars, Khazars, Greeks, Alans, Russ - descendants of all the kins to which the northern land has given birth". I think we can all agree that the Bulgarian army of the time was not limiting itself on an ethnical basis and while most of the aforementioned peoples were there as mercenaries, I think the case of the Cumans, Vlachs and potentially the Brodniks is not exactly such (considering all three would have probably had groups of various sizes living inside Bulgaria and in the case of the Cumans (Manastros wouldn't have been a single case, obviously), considering they weren't exactly mercs, but "allies on a frequent basis" (at least until Boril divorced the Cuman princess to marry the Latin one, after which the Cumans seem to have turned against him and moved on the side of Ioan Asen II)).
Edit: Btw, here are the unit descriptions I had written for the Bulgarian research, if anyone's interested:
Peasant – A simple peasant, hastily armed for a fight with whatever he could find.
Vlach Shepherd (Cioban, pl. Ciobani) – Leading a life as a shepherd and brigand, living high in the mountains, these irregular soldiers are tougher than a simple peasant, but still nothing more than a light militia, carrying spears and other polearms, like bill hooks, similar to their shepherd’s crooks.
Vlach Spearman – Although still rather undisciplined, these veteran spearmen are recruited to serve in the army and thus receive better equipment.
Town Militia – In times of enemy incursions, every household is obliged to provide equipped men for the town garrison. Undisciplined and lightly armed, they are easily expendable, but can still do the job in large masses.
Warrior (Voiskar, pl. Voiskari) – If need arises and the tsar calls a campaign, both the tsar and the bolyars (nobles) recruit men fit for military duty and equip them with arms and armament from their own armoury. Of course, most of these people receive nothing more than light armour, simple weapon and eventually a shield.
Shield-bearer – If the bolyar or the tsar is wealthy enough, he could create a regiment of better protected veterans, wearing an improved armour, iron helms and large shields.
Oklopnik (pl. Oklopnitsi) – Every notable and wealthy noble, including the great bolyars and the tsar himself, keeps a professional and regular unit of personal warriors. As the name “oklopnik” suggests (meaning “soldier, covered in iron”), these men are heavily armoured and can endure longer than almost anyone else in a pitched battle.
Proniar (pl. Proniari) – Following the Byzantine example, the larger landowners gave parts of their lands to men, which would collect the taxes from their pronoia, but in turn would provide a horseman in times of war.
Maglavit (pl. Maglaviti) – Similar to the Oklopnitsi, the Maglaviti are heavier-armed horsemen, serving in the personal army of the greater bolyars or the tsar.
Archer Militia – Since archers are more effective in fighting from the walls to defend their town and they also don’t necessarily require more expensive equipment, they’re the preferred form of common garrisons.
Archer – Ranged warfare is an essential part of field battles, but since they’re usually more dangerous for the infantry, these archers are better protected than their militia version. Nevertheless, they’re still light troops, compared to the melee ones.
Marksman – Sometimes the last line of defense could make all the difference in a battle and these veterans are not only more skilled, but also better suited to fight in a melee, if need be.
Cuman Marauder – The Cumans, like many other steppe tribes, live off war and plunder, riding like the wind and using their composite bows to great effect. Because of this, they often join the campaigns of their neighbours which promise good enough fruits. The ties specifically with Bulgaria are even stronger, both because of the presence of Cuman aristocrats serving and living in Bulgaria, and also because of the dynastic ties between the tsardom and the leading Cuman dynasties.
Cuman Cavalry – Unlike the undisciplined marauders, these horsemen are skilled not only with the bow and arrow, but also with the spear and saber. But although they’re better protected, they still prefer to hit and run, drawing their enemies into ambushes and only then striking from close distance.
All of these troops consist of commoners, no “noble troops” whatsoever.
Actually, considering it's a long time since the release and no longer a surprise, I think I can upload the whole research, if anyone wants to see it (note that it's not very well organized though).
You're welcome, I hope it's a pleasant reading (at least from my personal experiences, Pavlov's monography is quite a nice and light read).
Also, I had some more time today, so I did some search at Boina Slava and found that the maglavits (or "magglabites") are simply the later Byzantine name for the cataphracts. This archive thread of BS gives a Russian explanation, but, sadly, my Russian is not good enough to understand it fully (I hope there's some Russian user reading this thread who can translate it for us): Манглавит (magglabites; от magglapion, что, в свою очередь, происходит от лат. manuclavium – "дубинка", которой был вооружен манглавит) – то же, что и равдухи (см).
Anyway, while I think it's a good enough name, if a better one is found and proposed, I'm quite open for improvement.
I would very much appreciate any piece of information. Thank you. 
