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[smigenboger]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

You would need a lot of peasants with a huge attack bonus to take down a knight

[Soadreqm]

I'll grant that the Khopesh would be better than aluminum weapons, and probably iron as well (since Iron was inferior to Bronze, and was mostly used because copper and tin were harder to come by then iron.) but not steel weapons. Of course Skill is still what counts, so I'd have avoided a fight with a khopesh wielder myself, unless they looked like a bungling farmboy (but not Blacksmiths. Everyone knows not to mess with the blacksmiths. They always seem to survive and come back to kill you later. Farmboys are safe, their pathetic defense is only there to convince the reader how terrible of a person you are.)

I wouldn't call farmboys safe. About one in ten bungling farmboys is actually an exiled prince, hiding from the evil vizier who seized the throne, and they have a nasty chance of suddenly gaining fighting skills out of nowhere when pushed to a corner. I suspect ancestral memories.

Also, a samurai could take on a helicopter. It happened to me once in Civilization IV. The Japanese also get some free upgrades as a cultural bonus, making them generally quite dangerous. Of course, the unit they replace is the swordsman, not the knight, and if you are fighting knights with samurai, you should really research faster. At the rate you're going, you're going to be defending against cruise missiles with muzzle-loading muskets.

And the Egyptian chariot can beat both, of course.

[Jackrabbit]

Wait, did the Egyptians have chariots? I thought that was just something The Mummy cemented in everyone's heads.

I mean, I know you were talking about Civ IV but I seriously don't know.

[DJ]

Yeah, I think they were introduced by the Hyksos. Chariots as archer platforms are actually quite good on flat, barren battlefields that are common in Egypt.

[Pathos]

There were weakspots in a knight's armour.  As in, a peasant armed with what was effectively a blade on the end of a stick could easily kill one once he was pulled off his horse.

Oh, are we on the "knights could barely walk in armour" part of the discussion already? Knights could do handstands and cartwheels in full armour, and they could certainly mount a horse on their own. The problem with armour isn't that it's heavy, but that it messes up your centre of gravity. So yeah, if you were to put on a suit of armour, you'd barely be able to walk. But these people spent a lot of time in armour from childhood so they could develop excellent balance in armour.

So no, peasants weren't very likely to kill knights. I mean, sure, it can happen if he's pulled off in the middle of a mob  of peasants and the sheer mass of them stops him from getting up, but it's about as likely as the knight falling off his horse and breaking his neck.

Ninja'd, again. It'd be impossible to HIT someone with almost any kind of polearm unless they were stuck on the floor, anyway. A blade on the end of a stick is a STABBING weapon, not a cutting one, allowing you to stick it into any holes in the armour. Even then, it's probably just going to jab into the chainmail (and then the, preferably silk, shirt underneath) causing maybe a big bruise or (if it's long enough) a bit of a cut.

Why do people assume that armour is incapable of protecting against anything? If I was a knight, the only thing I'd be reasonably scared of is (cross)bowmen.

[Leafsnail]

Oh, are we on the "knights could barely walk in armour" part of the discussion already? Knights could do handstands and cartwheels in full armour, and they could certainly mount a horse on their own. The problem with armour isn't that it's heavy, but that it messes up your centre of gravity. So yeah, if you were to put on a suit of armour, you'd barely be able to walk. But these people spent a lot of time in armour from childhood so they could develop excellent balance in armour.

So no, peasants weren't very likely to kill knights. I mean, sure, it can happen if he's pulled off in the middle of a mob  of peasants and the sheer mass of them stops him from getting up, but it's about as likely as the knight falling off his horse and breaking his neck.

The whole point is that the night has already been pulled to the floor off his horse.  No matter how awesome you are, you're gonna need help getting up once you're down.  Once this has happened, you can just work the glaive into the chink in the knight's armour.

Why do people assume that armour is incapable of protecting against anything? If I was a knight, the only thing I'd be reasonably scared of is (cross)bowmen.

You're completely right.  At the battle of Agincourt, the British only had longbowmen, and they all bounced off the armour of the French knights.

[Pathos]

The whole point is that the night has already been pulled to the floor off his horse.  No matter how awesome you are, you're gonna need help getting up once you're down.  Once this has happened, you can just work the glaive into the chink in the knight's armour.

I don't know. Maybe to start off with, but you'll get used to it fairly quickly.

And try and remember you still had chainmail underneath the outer plates, which'd certainly slow someone down. There's a bunch of factors that makes it pretty fifty fifty as to whether or not you're gonna get killed. Well, unless you're stupid enough to directly charge into a massed horde of people. Then you're just going to get trampled to death.

You're completely right.  At the battle of Agincourt, the British only had longbowmen, and they all bounced off the armour of the French knights.

I DID mean bowmen of all descriptions. =p

Crossbows especially, though. Dear god, the shame of getting killed by an untrained peasant.

[Kogan Loloklam]

Why do people assume that armour is incapable of protecting against anything? If I was a knight, the only thing I'd be reasonably scared of is (cross)bowmen.

I thought they were afraid of English Longbowmen too...

[DJ]

Knights weren't defeated by longbows at Agincourt, they were defeated by knee-deep mud and overconfidence.

[Pathos]

I thought they were afraid of English Longbowmen too...

I DID mean bowmen of all descriptions. =p

Spoiler: My Face (click to show/hide)

Knights weren't defeated by longbows at Agincourt, they were defeated by knee-deep mud and overconfidence.

The arrows certainly helped, though. =p

[Leafsnail]

The whole point is that the night has already been pulled to the floor off his horse.  No matter how awesome you are, you're gonna need help getting up once you're down.  Once this has happened, you can just work the glaive into the chink in the knight's armour.

I don't know. Maybe to start off with, but you'll get used to it fairly quickly.

And try and remember you still had chainmail underneath the outer plates, which'd certainly slow someone down. There's a bunch of factors that makes it pretty fifty fifty as to whether or not you're gonna get killed. Well, unless you're stupid enough to directly charge into a massed horde of people. Then you're just going to get trampled to death.

I suppose it kinda depends on the kind of knight.  The super heavy horseriders would need help getting up (since they aren't meant to be walking around on the ground anyway).

And... yeah, a guy with a glaive doesn't have a guarenteed chance of taking out a knight, but if you consider the relative costs of their training and equipment...

Knights weren't defeated by longbows at Agincourt, they were defeated by knee-deep mud and overconfidence.

Was certainly a factor, but longbows were important for doing the actual damage, considering the relatively small number of lances the British had.  Anyway, wearing a suit of armour doesn't render you immune to arrows.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

wearing a suit of armour doesn't render you immune to arrows.

it actually does. a longbow firing steel arrows can't pierce steel armors at more than thirty feet away, according to some tests i saw somewhere, and they mentioned that usually armors were made of better materials than arrows.also, if your target is mounted and moving towards you, if they're thirty feet away you probably should be worried...
there are some weapons that are quite effective against armor, tough. next time pick a war hammer or a mace

[DJ]

The French men-at-arms reached the English line and actually pushed it back, with the longbowmen continuing to shoot until they ran out of arrows and then dropping their bows and joining the melée (which lasted about three hours), implying that the French were able to walk through a hail of tens of thousands of arrows while taking comparatively few casualties. But the physical pounding even from non-penetrating arrows, combined with the slog in heavy armour through the mud, the heat and lack of oxygen in plate armour with the visor down, and the crush of their numbers meant they could "scarcely lift their weapons" when they finally engaged the English line.

OK, it's from Wiki, but it's still more credible than any of us.

That's foot knights. With mounted knights the main problem would be arrows hitting the horse, I think, since you can't make barding as heavy as the rider's armour if you want the horse to actually move.

[smigenboger]

Patho's bit on polearms

Spike's show of Pirates vs Knights (pirates won by the way, due to technology (grenades and the blunderbuss)) demonstrated the halberd, which was a badass weapon. It can be used to pierce, but it can also bludgeon and chop. It wasn't really designed to slash though, if I am to believe.

From what you said, I think it depends on the size of the polearm. A three-four feet long one could be bludgeonable, but any longer and it's more like a spear. The shorter it is, like the broadswords, the more hammer-like it could be used.

[Pathos]

Spike's show of Pirates vs Knights (pirates won by the way, due to technology (grenades and the blunderbuss)) demonstrated the halberd, which was a badass weapon. It can be used to pierce, but it can also bludgeon and chop. It wasn't really designed to slash though, if I am to believe.

From what you said, I think it depends on the size of the polearm. A three-four feet long one could be bludgeonable, but any longer and it's more like a spear. The shorter it is, like the broadswords, the more hammer-like it could be used.

All our arguments here are pretty stupid. As an example: What era of knight are we talking about versus what era of samurai or versus what era of crowd of peasants?

Also, Muslims had grenade weapons which were used long before anyone else in the world got their hands on them.

I do find it funny, though, that the Chinese invented a great deal of the major discoveries (which were then reinvented or taken from them) that they never really applied. Gunpowder, anesthetics etc etc.

(I tend to think of halberds more as axes on big sticks, anyhow, since that's what they were plus a spiky bit.)