East and Ottonian Frankish milites

[Andreas Johansson]

The East and Ottonian Frankish lists both have minima for both "milites" as Knights and "Swabian or Bavarian milites" as Jav Cav. Presumably, the idea is that the hard charging ones are Franconians, Lotharingians or Saxons.

Now what's historically dubious is that every army would contain milites from both the North and the South. The wars on the Wendish frontier in the northeast, frex, were often carried out by regional nobles with minimal imperial oversight, and presumably very largely involved Saxon troops. Similarly, during civil wars a fraction wouldn't necessarily draw support from both north and south.

[David Kuijt]

The East and Ottonian Frankish lists both have minima for both "milites" as Knights and "Swabian or Bavarian milites" as Jav Cav. Presumably, the idea is that the hard charging ones are Franconians, Lotharingians or Saxons.

Now what's historically dubious is that every army would contain milites from both the North and the South. The wars on the Wendish frontier in the northeast, frex, were often carried out by regional nobles with minimal imperial oversight, and presumably very largely involved Saxon troops. Similarly, during civil wars a fraction wouldn't necessarily draw support from both north and south.

Hm. I see your point, but do you have any suggestions for how to set the army up differently? The easiest way is to differentiate Northern Ottonian Frankish (and Northern East Frankish) from Southern Ottonian Frankish (and S. Ot. Frankish), with the Northern armies getting a 0 minimum of Swabian/Bavarians and the Southern armies getting a 0 minimum of Franconians/Lotharingians/Saxons. Or maybe the minima on Northerners should remain, if they represent the majority type by population overall. But that's adding two new army lists -- is the hypothetical increased accuracy (not being forced to take 3 stands of Swabians for northern armies, or not being forced to take 3 stands of other Frankish Dark Ages Milites in southern armies) worth the additional fuss?

We can't go down to minima of 0 in both, because that has the side effect of allowing an army with (in theory) no milites, which shouldn't be able to happen (unless someone comes up with evidence of a battle where the Ottonians had no mounted at all).

Having a rule that says "you can have 0 of either of those types, but a minima of 6 of them in the whole army" is a nightmare special case to set up in the database -- and would be the first such situation identified (although others might exist if we look carefully). We won't want to do that unless there is no way to avoid it, AND the cost-benefit analysis (advantage vs. fuss) is clearly in the positive side.

[Andreas Johansson]

I'd simply combine the lines, so the Ottonians get 6-12 Milites as "Knights or Javelin Cavalry", leaving the player free to choose what proportion of northerns and southerners they want. Then you have a note saying that the Knights represent hard-charging northerners and the Jav Cav more sedate southerners.

(I gather the DB is happy with this sort of option because they turn up in some lists, e.g. Melukhkhan.)

ETA: Presumably you'd also allow generals to be Jav Cav to allow Swabian and Bavarian generals to be classed the same as their men.

[David Kuijt]

I'd simply combine the lines, so the Ottonians get 6-12 Milites as "Knights or Javelin Cavalry", leaving the player free to choose what proportion of northerns and southerners they want. Then you have a note saying that the Knights represent hard-charging northerners and the Jav Cav more sedate southerners.

(I gather the DB is happy with this sort of option because they turn up in some lists, e.g. Melukhkhan.)

ETA: Presumably you'd also allow generals to be Jav Cav to allow Swabian and Bavarian generals to be classed the same as their men.

Yes, that works. It's slightly more complicated than that because of the database column for battle cards (Swabian/Bavarians can dismount in deployment) but otherwise good, and it's an improvement on the way it works for Ottonians as an ally (two columns with small numbers sometimes causes oddities).