Heraldry and Party/Army Livery

[Mooncabbage]

Is there a reason Brytenwalda doesn't make use of a variant of the custom heraldry mod?

Admittedly the included blazons aren't exactly ideal for the period, but I imagine it wouldn't be terribly difficult to adapt them to the mod. It was a nice feature of 1257AD back in the day.

Also, would it be possible to somehow include more of the "heraldic" devices, the kind that take on the player's livery. I hate playing with those floating heraldry halos, but it's the only way I can tell who my guys are. Even if it's not totally historically accurate, I feel that heraldic shields and uniforms would be a more organic, less immersion breaking way of telling one team from another.

Thoughts?

 

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I don't really mind not knowing who''s who... Of course the AI does, but it gives a little more feeling of realism. I'll whack at anyone who dares to walk towards me.
As for custom heraldry: I like the idea, assuming that the blazons would be changed. In any case I don't think banners at all were that common during the period (were they?), but as it's a part of the game there's nothing wrong with making the best out of it, I suppose.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Uniforms, Heraldry, and Livery of all sorts have been part of warfare for a very very long time. Even if it's something as simple as everyone wearing the same colour cloth, it's always existed in some form or other. Otherwise noone would know who to hit. Ofcourse in the medieval period it was much more elaborate than at other times, but I think that was mostly a form of advertising, to avoid being accidentally killed instead of ransomed.

Anyway banners are already in the game, but the current selection is pretty lame. Assuming as you say that the blazons and fields can be adapted (pretty sure they could be), I can't see why that system couldn't be used instead. Your banner could then be much more custom, which is always nice. Maybe you could even add a heraldry expert or something to one of the taverns in game, incase you wanted to change it.

 

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You can already change it by activating the cheat options. Adding an expert to do it would increase atmosphere though. Maybe he'd also charge you a bit for the work?

 

[Mooncabbage]

Could just add it as a camp option. Be nice as an addition if ever a baggage train with ladies of dubious virtue and blacksmiths and cooks and entertainers and the like were ever added.

EDIT: The custom charges exist in a file called custom_banner_charges.dds in the default texture folder. They exist only in the alpha channel. They're not set up in a grid though so it's not entirely clear how you'd edit them. I imagine it's either hardcoded or in a script somewhere, describing the UV coordinates of each charge. Shouldn't be very hard to change it either way, even if you can't change the location of charges, it should be a relatively simple matter to overwrite them with appropriate charges of similar size. Couldn't find a texture file that included the backgrounds though, which is a shame, I thought they could be used for a border of some kind.

 

[Mooncabbage]

BTW, if the mod authors wanted to include this custom heraldry thingo in the mod, I'd be more than happy to do the texturing work for it, I have a legit (student license) copy of photoshop CS4, and I'm quite capable of using it. I'd only need help with finding appropriate charges to use, and the scripting side of things, as I don't know how to mod M&B myself and have no experience with Python.

 

[Bosnacium666]

Some form of Heraldry has been around for a very long time, but at the same time there are time periods and cultures without any.  Northern Europe in the dark ages is a pretty good example.  Some sort of heraldry was introduced to Britain with the Romans, they painted some of their unit's/troop's shields with different symbols, for identification.  But that disappeared with the Romans and the type of heraldry you are talking about wasn't introduced to Britain until the 12th century, under the Normans.

Warfare in this period was on a small "warband type" of scale, meaning it was pretty easy to know who the enemy was.  Also, medieval heraldry evolved originally as a way to distinguish ranks in the army, which later becoming hereditary.  Obviously in small tribal societies, like that of the Saxons, Jutes, Picts etc., of this time army ranks were not very clear cut nor did they really exist in the 12th sense.  Also, obtaining dyes to paint a bunch of uniforms would have been pretty expensive.  Making dyes wasn't that easy back than and they probably would have to been imported from the Mediterranean cities, like Constantinople etc.  One would understand that one of the most important endeavours for a Saxon warlord would not have been getting dyes imported to paint his warriors clothes different colors.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Well speaking purely in terms of heraldry and banners, they're already in the mod in one form, I was merely suggesting it might be fun to have it there in a more custom, individual form. For example, I settled on a white tree on a green field as my banner, but I really would have prefered to choose my own charge and the colours.

Even if liveries and uniform colours are not realistic in this period, I'd prefer to have some subtle form of identification for my own men, rather than the frankly ineffective, and quite annoying flags over their heads. I'm not playing the sims here afterall. It's really a case of asking yourself, which is the lesser of two evils? For myself, I'd rather have identifications on the models themselves, even if it's only on their shields.