Why does TW hate Vlandians?

[lcmiracle]

I have never understood the real reason why (especially in fantasy) armour must look most times clumsy, albeit '''magnificently decorated'' (sometimes). Perhaps had first something to do with sportsfellows like american footballer or (ice) hockey players, both looking more like Hulks. Similar to weapons, a sword or axe looking like 50 pounds in weight is not really combat-ready. Perhaps i was even in past to old as those fantasy started but for M&B it is something 'new'. (shall fit to console?)^^

I think the bulky bit is just to impress the male body type -- for the longest time, fantasy warrioress were bikini-clad amazons, they are lucky to get pauldrons, let's the cultural imprints are still there -- inverse triangle upper torso simply looks more impressive. Part of that might have also been the pop-culture fantasy of the American cartoons in the 80s. So the thought process was likely muscle-bound Heman/Conan/what-have-yous gonna wear armour? Bigger torso! Giant pauldrons!

Take Warhammer, for example, their normie humans wore mostly normal armour, though yes, the higher-ups are quite decorated. But the northern barbarian baddies wore armours with pauldrons, when modelled-as-depicted and used in the Warsword Conquest mod, blocks the vision in first person view -- though this also has to do with how games render first person views is different from how we'd see from two eyes.

The one on the left is a normal dude with rich parents and maybe trained alot. The one on the right does 1,000 push-ups every day since birth, in the winter, outside in the snow, and has supernatural strength granted to them by otherworldly dieties.

 

[lcmiracle]

Ok, wtf are these TW?

Spoiler: Yuck

No seriously, did you just lose all sense of art direction? These do not fit in Bannerlord.

Those certainly looks like they were meant to be lorica segmentata pauldrons, but waayyyy oversized.

Think that's Trajan's Column. I think the fact their attachment point is way above the model's shoulders shows they'd otherwise clip into the Empire armours. Some of the art choices were made to accommodate for animations, I'm sure. Impossible to make every tight-fitting pieces work with every armour piece, so just make it larger than it's harder to notice clipping.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Those certainly looks like they were meant to be lorica segmentata pauldrons, but waayyyy oversized.

Think that's Trajan's Column. I think the fact their attachment point is way above the model's shoulders shows they'd otherwise clip into the Empire armours. Some of the art choices were made to accommodate for animations, I'm sure. Impossible to make every tight-fitting pieces work with every armour piece, so just make it larger than it's harder to notice clipping.

The Vlandians aren't Romans though, and segmentata are Ancient things. Still doesn't fit.

 

[Bratok]

New Vlandian shoulder armors look like **** (2:46)
Apart from the scale gorget, which is a lazy copypasted recolor from already existing Aserai/Strugia armors, others look like cheap WoW fantasy bull****.
Funny thing is that other armor additions for other factions look good. Who still thinks that TW doesn't hate Vlandians??

 

[Ningauble]

Anyone, like the community here, who knows and cares anything about Franks, Normans, the 11th Century, etc, looks at things like these latest Vlandian pauldrons and is perplexed.

Did some " professional " at TW put this together and their supervisor said " Cool ! " ?

At even this simple level TW, what is going on ?

 

[Duchess Skye]

The art direction in this game is confusing to say the least. Vlandia didn't have great helms because they were mainly based on 11th and 12th century stuff (with coats of plates from the 13th century and a halberd from the 14th/early 15th, but still mostly stylistically coherent). However then they go and add these pauldrons which, besides looking completely ridiculous and like nothing which ever existed, are loosely inspired by late 14th or 15th century plate. I feel like it'd have been way more fitting for them to add great helms at this point.

The new aserai stuff is from the 15th and 16th centuries. I don't particularly mind because I like how they look, and the aserai didn't really have a consistent period in the first place (stuff like adargas were also from around the same period) and it isn't as visually jarring as large World of Warcraft pauldrons for the vlandians. Still, I wonder why they went with an 11th century inspired setting if they're going to end up adding stuff which is way more advanced than warbands items. Feels like they just should've gone for a 14th or 15th century setting instead.

Then there's the khuzait battle crown which looks cool as hell but is a copy of a 17-19th century Joseon helmet... (on the other hand if this leads to the khuzaits getting 14-16th century Timurid, Joseon or Ming brigandines I'm fine with that tbh).

At this point I don't think Native will ever look reasonable in any capacity and there's probably going to be mods which try to bring native back into a more coherent direction.

 

[five bucks]

I am very glad that we got Reinforced Mail Shoulders (that didn't exist before 1.8, right? I'm not crazy?) and Heavy Cloak, they are great! They give the Vlandian aesthetic what it crucially needed.

Scale Shoulderguards is pretty good. Pauldrons with Cape is okay, it's not period accurate but it doesn't stand out too much.

The only ones I actively dislike are the Ornate Pauldrons and Ornate Pauldrons with Cape, because they obviously don't fit the early medieval aesthetic, but if they are just something optional for the player to buy, rather than used in the troop trees, then I don't mind their presence at all.

So overall, I consider this a win

When they get round to adding these items to the troop trees, I think Reinforced Mail Shoulders and Scale Shoulderguards would look good on the Banner Knight and Vlandian Pikeman, Heavy Cloak would be good for Vlandian, Imperial and Sturgian nobles/notables/some troops, Pauldrons with Cape would be good for the Vlandian Sergeant and as a variant in the Banner Knight loadouts, and Ornate Pauldrons could be used sparingly on certain mid-level Vlandian nobles. Please don't use them on Derthert though, give him Heavy Cloak.

 

[Veith]

I think the bulky bit is just to impress the male body type -- for the longest time, fantasy warrioress were bikini-clad amazons, they are lucky to get pauldrons, let's the cultural imprints are still there -- inverse triangle upper torso simply looks more impressive. Part of that might have also been the pop-culture fantasy of the American cartoons in the 80s. So the thought process was likely muscle-bound Heman/Conan/what-have-yous gonna wear armour? Bigger torso! Giant pauldrons!

Take Warhammer, for example, their normie humans wore mostly normal armour, though yes, the higher-ups are quite decorated. But the northern barbarian baddies wore armours with pauldrons, when modelled-as-depicted and used in the Warsword Conquest mod, blocks the vision in first person view -- though this also has to do with how games render first person views is different from how we'd see from two eyes.

The one on the left is a normal dude with rich parents and maybe trained alot. The one on the right does 1,000 push-ups every day since birth, in the winter, outside in the snow, and has supernatural strength granted to them by otherworldly dieties.

...and that definitely without steroids! (but sure perhaps even with magic!)

 

[Bratheu]

If you put enough hours in the game and eventually start a dynasty, it'd be very interesting to see new armour/weapon types appear each new generation, and possibly the great helms at some point. Not gonna lie, miss them great helms from Swadia too. The game has a lot of chronological liberties already (so many two-handed weapons!), as stated by many of you, so i doubt it'd be very shocking to see them around.

 

[Totalgarbage]

It doesn't bother me as much that the stuff is anachronistic (except the pavise shields, just delete them from the game pls), it bothers me more that TW hasn't really stayed in theme. Sturgians are probably fine, although tbh I don't really know much about the Kievan Rus. Tell me if there's something really wrong with their design, I genuinely don't know.

Khuzaits are also not that bad, since Turco-Mongol culture was a thing (though it started existing after 13th century but whatever). It's an amalgamation of the Mongols and Several (probably pre-Islamic, because I think they're based on the Gokturks) Turkic empires (& maybe the Huns a bit?).

Empire is also probably alright-ish if you agree that Byzantines are (the continuation of) the Romans although the anachronism is really pushing it.

I don't know much about Normans either but I would expect some Nordic flavour to them rather than just being what I assume is high medieval French?

Battania is just an incredible mess, what even is it? Daco-Thracian, Welsh, Irish & Scots with maybe a twist of Galateans and Gauls? I can't even make sense of what Battania would need to look like if the game attempted historical realism.

Aserai are just ridiculous. They're supposed to be pre-Islamic Arabs (pre-7th century), who are almost exclusively North African (because there's currently no faction in the Calradian version of Mesopotamia except Danustica, which is near fake Mesopotamia, which makes it Antioch/Antakya? Gaziantep? and Husn Fulq which is fake Aleppo?) but somehow also have Mamlukes (Circassian & Turkic warrior slaves that started to be used in 9th century who then went on to rule the lands, so mostly a different empire) and then they added armors that look similar to ones worn by Ottomans (not even remotely related to Arabic Empires and also the armor is probably post medieval anyways).

The factions are mostly a mess and I don't expect them to be particularly historically accurate or realistic due to factions from very different timelines existing at the same time. But some of these are just unbelievable. One crucial turn off is armor sets and shields being monocolor and every unit of the same troop looking mostly the same.

 

[geala]

In fact the armor in use during the 11th AD of our world looked quite similar in different cultures, would maybe a bit boring. By and large TW succeeded in making armor different enough to be iconic for the BL cultures. I always play without markers and have to use helmets and armor to identify friends and foes, it mostly works (except in Empire against Empire, sadly).

I don't like many stylistic decisions (and changed a lot of the armor and partly the weapons) but it is ok for a vanilla experience. Most would not like just mail on all high tier units and gambeson-like stuff on the mid tiers.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

In fact the armor in use during the 11th AD of our world looked quite similar in different cultures, would maybe a bit boring. By and large TW succeeded in making armor different enough to be iconic for the BL cultures. I always play without markers and have to use helmets and armor to identify friends and foes, it mostly works (except in Empire against Empire, sadly).

I don't like many stylistic decisions (and changed a lot of the armor and partly the weapons) but it is ok for a vanilla experience. Most would not like just mail on all high tier units and gambeson-like stuff on the mid tiers.

I think its silly to ask for absolute historical accuracy in this game, considering it is not real life. On the other hand though, its annoying that they decided not to take all that much inspiration from it.

Battania looks really silly, and would have done better if they just took more inspiration from Romano-Briton aesthetics than whatever fantasy/gaul mess we have now for instance.