| [Day 11/72] Assassin's Creed II - Sequence 07 - 'The Merchant of Venice' Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:00 AM PDT AC Marathon 2019 - Day 11 Assassin's Creed II - Sequence 07 - 'The Merchant of Venice' Insieme per la vittoria, Assassins! Today we finally reach Venice. Steal a gondola and drift along the canals if you want. Today's Target: Emilio Barbarigo
DAILY OVERVIEW 1 - Benvenuto
Take a quick tour of Venice with Alvise.*
2 - That's Gonna Leave a Mark
Help Rosa get to the river.
3 - Breakout
Free the captive thieves from Emilio.
4 - Clothes Make the Man
Rob the chests carrying the armor of Emilio's guards and then steal a boat and bring it to Ugo.
5 - Cleaning House
Identify and kill the traitorous thieves.
6 - Monkey See, Monkey Do
Learn Rosa's climb leap technique.
7 - By Leaps and Bounds
Ascend the tower as fast as possible using the climb leap.
8 - Everything Must Go
Work with Antonio and his thieves to defeat Emilio. * If you miss the hug, you have to restart the game. Marathon rules.
DISCUSSION Share your feelings about today's sequence in the comments below. What did you think? Talk about what you liked, what you disliked, and your general thoughts. Feel free to engage with others and ask questions of your own! Being active in discussions will make you eligible for an official Marathon giveaway. More info in the 'Giveaway' section below.
LIVE STREAMS AND VIDEOS Here's the list of streamers that will be broadcasting today's sequence. All times in EDT. 05:15 PM - /u/Lady-Lamplight on Twitch RECORDED PLAYTHROUGHS Here are the playthroughs that Marathon streamers have pre-recorded and uploaded: No HUD Playthrough by /u/MegaBoschi - 3:06:31
WALLPAPERS Make sure to download the official Marathon wallpapers for Assassin's Creed II! Desktop 1920x1080 || Desktop 1920x1200 || Mobile
FAN CREATIONS Here is today's Fan Art of the Day for Assassin's Creed II.
Artist: Sing-Sei
October 10th - Assassin's Creed
October 15th - Assassin's Creed II
October 27th - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
November 5th - Assassin's Creed: Revelations
November 13th - Assassin's Creed III
November 23rd - Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington
November 26th - Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
December 2nd - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
December 13th - Assassin's Creed IV: Freedom Cry
December 15th - Assassin's Creed Rogue
December 21st - Assassin's Creed Day
GIVEAWAY This year we are giving away a set of prizes. These include a copy of the new Essential Guide, a digital copy of Assassin's Creed Odyssey Gold for the platform of your choice and an Art Commission done by NightFell.
To be eligible for this year's giveaway, you must comment on at least 42 total threads across all games, including at least one thread from each game (DLCs don't count as a separate game, Liberation does). Replies to other comments count as well. Engaging in discussion with other users is strongly encouraged! You must confirm your participation by commenting on the final thread on Dec 21st.
For additional details refer to the FAQ here.
TOMORROW Tomorrow, on Day 12 of the Assassin's Creed Marathon, we will be spending some quality time with Leonardo, as part of Assassin's Creed II - Sequence 08! There are no special upgrades required, but as usual, don't forget the Codex pages.
submitted by /u/ACMarathon [link] [comments] |
| Edward Kenway is a far more compelling character than Ezio ever was. Hear me out. Posted: 20 Oct 2019 03:47 PM PDT So, before moving forward I want to say I've played EVERY single AC and their DLC, so it's not coming from a shitposter or blind fan. Edward...is a fucking asshole. He's a jerk. Everything he does to get a step over his enemies or for his own gain, he does so at the consequence of screwing his friends, innocent people or distancing himself from the man he set out to be for his wife in Wales. Ezio, on the other hand, is "cool protagonist." What I mean by that is when we find him as a brash young man in AC2, he's no different than he is at any point of his trilogy. Especially in AC Revelations, the guy straight murdered an entire town and walks it off. No consequences, no care. Parting from his family's death that set him on the track to join the brotherhood and the slaughter at the beginning of AC Brotherhood, Ezio remains the same character throughout the stories. He's the: Charming, cool protagonist who while may be impatient with enemies and evil is generally a very loving guy who's heart goes out to the weak and poor. So, Zoro. Or Robin Hood. Or any hero that fits this type of mold. He's no different than a lot of the heroes told in other stories. That's not shitting on Ezio, but Edward is different. He's almost unlikeable. Almost We understand why Edward is the ways he is. Why he does what he does. That's what makes it so much more heartbreaking to see him continue down the road of selfishness while occasionally turning down the small side streets of heroism. Edward is a good man who's scared of breaking out of his shell. So, when all his friends betray him or die, it hits. Hard. Every, single, friend dies. His wife? Sucks asshole, she's dead. Your best mate? Fuck you asshole, he's joining the Creed. The friend you rescue? Sick BITCH and she's now dead. Edward is COMPELLING while Ezio is COOL. And I much prefer a complex and troubled protagonist to a charming hero for a game about Secret Murder. Ezio, would have never surprised us by marrying or having a kid. Arguably, the guy is capable and deserving in our eyes. Edward, had to EARN that to us, and even then it wasn't that simple. Ezio was almost ALWAYS motivated by revenge. Revenge for his family, his new family in the Creed, and whatever Revelations was about. Edward was motivated by love, adventure, Pride, greed, redemption and eventually peace in chaos and lastly his daughter and fatherhood. And it's a damn shame they killed him in the book, cause Edward could have had such an amazing second game. submitted by /u/meme_abstinent [link] [comments] |
| I've played Assassin's Creed Odyssey for nearly 100 hours and I've never had to grind levels. Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:35 AM PDT I've finished the family quest line, but not the cultist or pieces of Eden quest lines so don't spoil them please, and I have nearly 100 hours logged in the game. During that time I've played only on Normal difficulty, and I've never had to grind levels or resources to keep my character and my equipment at, or usually above, the level requirements for the main quest. I've probably only played 3-4 of the generic (gray diamond) side quests. The only quests I play besides the main quests are the unique (gold diamond) side quests. I feel like the people who skip these quests are the same people who skip the homestead quests and AC3 and call Connor a dull character. Assassin's Creed games have always been more enjoyable when you take things slowly and holistically. My advice to people who feel like Odyssey is a grind is to take things slowly, and enjoy the experiences the open world has to offer instead of rushing the main quest. submitted by /u/resurrected_kitten [link] [comments] |
| Templar playable again ? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 11:32 PM PDT So this is a simple post. Would it be cool to play as a Templar again ? Since AC games are changing game mechanics, it could be cool to play as a Templar using this new playstyle. Also I could be wrong, but, since a lot of people want an AC game taking place in the Edo period of Japan, instead of the assassin, how about we play as the Templar or a version of it during this time period. Could be interesting. Doesn't even have to be Edo, any place can be cool. submitted by /u/Overlord1890 [link] [comments] |
| [SPOILERS] The Politics of the Early Medieval Period and What to Expect from an AC Vikings Game Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:44 PM PDT Since news broke about the next Assassin's Creed title setting being within the Viking Era, I've seen hundreds of comments and questions pertaining to the early medieval setting. Today I want to break down a lot of information in regards to the era and how that can pertain to AC in terms of story, gameplay, and lore. To help make things simple, I'll leave a map I made here to help show where everything is. https://i.imgur.com/EfITZcF.jpg DISCLAIMER - If I got anything major wrong, please let me know so I can correct it. I've spent hours searching through various online resources to make this as accurate as I can overall, though there is some speculation based on lack of resources and called out as what I think Ubisoft might do in cases of discrepancies. I did try to keep everything easy to understand even when diving deep into some subjects, so please let me know if you feel something was misrepresented from this. I also do have some inconsistencies with spellings. Many early records did not have standardized spellings, and Old Norse is a pain, so I keep things anglicized for the most part on purpose. For the sake of this, I do group several smaller germanic and slavic kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland in with the Frankish empire due to the Frankish Influence in society, religion, and architecture. This was purely for ease of listing. This post was actually written in a google document and is 40 pages long. I understand reddit can be harsh for reading such a long post, so you can read it here. Second Disclaimer: This was WAY bigger than I thought. So I've split this into 5 distinct sections for ease of access. - FAQ and The World of the Early Medieval Period
- The People of the Early Medieval Period
- The Politics of the Early Medieval Period - Current Section
- The Warfare in the Early Medieval Period
- The History of Vikings and What I expect from an AC Viking Game
POLITICS Despite discussing a lot of lines of Succession and politics in the last section, I wanted to look a little deeper at the political state of each major region and kingdom at a higher level, how it functioned, relationship to other kingdoms, human rights, and religion. British Isles - Let's begin with the politics of Ireland. The Irish lived in larger communities, each house containing 30 people, and there always being 100 houses, causing 3000 people to live in one community. These then connected via trade routes to small clusters of other villages, each of 3000 people, forming what's called a Tuatha, which local leaders would rule. Above them was the kingdom, of which there were several in Ireland, each ruled by a King above those Tuatha's. Above them was a high king, ruling all of Ireland, but had virtually no power until the vikings began colonizing, which led to more struggles for power among the Irish kings. Under Gaelic Irish tradition, the highest members of society were the soernemed which included Kings, Tanists (politicians that decided the kings), clerics, their families, and fili that recited lore, religion and law. Below them were the doernemed, high end professionals such as poets, doctors, and early lawyers tied closely to the soernemed. Below this were freemen that owned land and cattle, freemen without land and cattle, and slaves, in that order. The lowest class were fianna, which were bandit and warrior groups that lived away from the main tribe. Despite these classes, it was made fairly easy to move up or down in stature, most predominantly by earning wealth, aiding the community immensely, becoming a craftsman, becoming a briugu (hospitaller), or a client to another lord. Groups of Brehons would generally be the ones to carry out law and settling civil disputes, but by the viking era it became more common for the church and king to weigh in on issues. Inheritance in Ireland was primarily patrilineal, and though early Gaelic Ireland had women requiring escorts, by the 8th century they were some of the more liberated women in Europe. Generally men could marry at 18 and women at 15, with gaelic forms of dowries being exchanged by families and between the man and woman, where if the marriage ended by divorce, the person at fault would end up with none of money. Divorce could be initiated by either spouse for a variety of acts, including infidelity despite it being legal for men to concubines. Women could own property independently from their husbands, and in some circumstances could retain half to all property she purchased for her husband during the marriage should she end it in divorce. Women also had much say in who inheritance belonged to, and often had political power when they were the wives of a king or lord. Monks were also frequently married until the Norman invasion. St Patrick was born around 372 in Scotland and was sold into slavery for the Irish as a young man. He would eventually free himself from slavery and become a bishop in Tours, but leave the diocese against the will of the church to convert Ireland. He likely died around 432, but had spread Christianity to Ireland, which began building churches and monasteries, all of which they claimed came from St Patrick himself, as per traditional Irish Law. By 1000ad, the High King of Ireland declared that Patrick had "built" more than 365 churches in Ireland. The Irish economy didn't use a money system, but instead trade and barter that was heavily based on pastoral goods such as milk and honey. Trade had largely been established during the first century CE by Rome, building roads across several kingdoms to use as trade routes while using the small Irish ports to establish trade with Franica, Brittany, and England. This appears to have continued after Rome collapsed, despite seeming to have little political influence otherwise. Alba, or Scotland, was relatively new to being a country, and rough terrain greatly impeded ability to effectively rule and tax, creating instead Mormaers (earls) and Toisechs (thanes) to rule swaths of country under the king, and eventually adding early Sheriffs and Bishops in during the Norman Invasion. Alba had many cultural and religious ties to the celtics, brittons, anglo-saxons, Gaelic Irish, and Vikings, seeming to take small parts of their culture and governments as needed. While most of Alba was Christian by the viking era, the viking settlements along the northern and western shores created large areas of norse paganism that would eventually be re-converted. In Scotland, like most celtic European societies, relied on kin groups for social organization, which by the Kingdom of Alba, appears to be largely based as a militaristic aristocracy. While no written evidence remains of non-noble freemen in early scotland, due to heavy relations to Ireland and Wales, it's believed that like them, free Scottish men could own property and bear arms, even representing themselves in court and receiving compensation for slain kin. Slaves did exist, and appear to largely come from the conquests of Alba in warfare. Women enjoyed far less freedom under Alba as they did in Ireland though, only being able to own land in cases of widowing, and being meant to be entirely subservient to her father and husband. Scotland, being largely mountains and coastline, had very little arable land, and combined with a period of cold and rain drastically hurt the ability to farm. Most farms would end up being small, growing mostly oats and barley due to their cold resistance, and heavily relying on cows, sheep, goats, and pigs being secondary resources. What couldn't be farmed was made up for by fishing and hunter/gathering, which may have had a large decrease in local populations due to scandinavian settlements. Trade was kept relatively local if at all, as it was often difficult to navigate to early scottish cities, limiting market size, and terrain and territorial disputes preventing large southward expansion. Alba held a fairly aggressive foreign policy, constantly expanding its own borders through what is now modern scotland and moving south into Anglo-Saxon and Britton territory of Northumbria and Strathclyde. At one point the Scots even allied with the Norse against England, which goes to show that these kingdoms would be fairly hostile towards each other. Wales was markedly different in many fashions from neighboring Kingdoms. It comprised of a handful of kingdoms predicated on a warrior aristocracy. Kings held virtually no power other than militaristic to defend and expand their kingdoms from the other warrior kings. The king would roam the lands with his most trusted and closest family and allies, often fostering each other's children to further this relationship. Hereditary kinship remained the basis of ascension, though. Governance was handled by local landowners, who while sometimes consulting the king, generally were fairly autonomous (though may be forced to answer calls to arms). Most of Wales were hereditary tenant peasantry, neither serfs or slaves, but not free either, working for their land owners. Slavery existed, but was primarily a penal slavery, with richer members being able to buy their way out. Christianity was the main religion of Wales. While monks and clerics did not hold much power, they did have a large number of religious buildings and abbeys, with a fair few near old roman fortifications that were abandoned and scattered through the land. Women held more rights, similar to the Irish in most ways. They held honor-prices based on reproduction ability, though women's value was slightly lower, as they could only inherit movable property. They could still own and buy property, be more sexually free, buy property, and initiate divorces. Wales was by no means urban, with the largest city in 1300 being Cardiff at only 2200 people. Most people were peasant workers and farmers, as the land, despite some eastern mountains, largely is grasslands and rolling hills that worked well for agriculture. From what I could find, one of Wales largest exports was wool, though that became far larger of a trade after the Norman Invasion. Prior to invasion, the welsh were constantly at war with each other and their neighbors to the east, primarily Northumbria and Mercia. The Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy each held their own laws and customs, but were largely similar and as a result will be grouped together. While all 7 sought more power, Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex were the 3 kingdoms that stood out the most, with Mercia having hegemony for a long period of time before the vikings began conquering their land. Much of the Mercian success was due to intense military expansionism and conflicts with neighbors, which as we can see by this map was successful for them. Alfred would eventual retaliate to some extent, seeking to unify England and would eventually lead Wessex to expand into Mercia in the name of protection from the vikings. His daughter would even come to rule Mercia for some time. Despite military expansion throughout the island of Britain, the anglo-saxons were generally on good terms with the Frankish Kingdoms, having several of the smaller kings flee to France and Brittany during the invasions. As mentioned earlier, Edward the Elder would even help retake part of Eastern France and Brittany with a would-be duke (and his cousin) of France. This strong relationship and kinship was only strengthened by the Norman Invasion until the countries began fighting over succession in the late middle ages. Succession to the Throne prior to Alfred could be held by any Aetheling, or noble man. These Aethelings often had large ownership of land, slaves, and rule, and helped designate Thegns (or Thanes). Thegns would come to be an attainable way for the lower class to move up in the world, attainable by meeting certain conditions to be granted territorial nobility and ranked by payment for them by their Aetheling in a tax known as a Heriot. This became so common that Thegns entered 3 distinct classes of their own, Earls, a Kings Thane, and Median Thane. With increasing nobility, Alfred would change the laws so that succession would pass from father to son or brother, limiting the power and influence of the Aethelings, thus introducing a more standard monarchy. The Ealdormans were men of nobel and high birth that had power in land separate from the king, such as Kent and Dumnonia. By the 8th century the Ealdorman attended the king's court to conduct most business, and by the 11th century were renamed to Eorl (Earl). The Reeves were lower than the Ealdorman, controlling shires and a few swaths of land, typically at half the cost of Ealdorman. The Ealdorman and Reeves would traditionally help raise Fyrds for the king for a fast acting militia before Alfred created the Burh system. The Anglo-Saxons were some of the most forward thinking peoples of the times in many ways. They were some of the first Europeans to introduce a money system in the 8th century, which Alfred revitalized. Alfred would also codify a regular law to follow and build a stronger military, tax system, and communications across burhs that all aided in defense against the Vikings. These changes also invigorated market trading and use of the countries natural arable lands and fishing opportunities now due to the prospect of trade and money to be made in buzzing markets and streets. Alfred himself saw the position of Kingship to be a religious duty, that he did for God and his country. The Anglo-Saxons and Bretons were very devout Christians and often only accepted peace with vikings when it meant baptism. Women are often cited as enjoying more freedom in Anglo-Saxon England than any other era before our modern society. They had political freedom in private and public and could have single-sex convents completely managed by them until the viking raids began (thus creating a requirement for men for protection). Women generally worked as well, though often didn't do hard physical labor unless war time demanded it. Prostitution did occur to some extent, and seduction of a woman could lead to a fine (and an even bigger fine or jail time for rape (even of slaves)). Women were capable of owning land, estates, slaves, and farm animals even, and in most societal ways held similar roles to men. The Anglo-Saxons even had rules and suggestions on how to best bathe, eat, and dress while pregnant for the health of the mother and the baby. That said, women could still be forced into concubinage and it was looked down on for any woman to enjoy sex. If we have a female protagonist or the sex is choosable again in Ragnarok, the Viking Era would be a great time to do it if we have a focus on England and Scandinavia. Scandinavia - The Norse societies were largely peaceful groups despite the reputation garnered by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, living mostly as simple farmers, though having some fearsome warriors. The social class was split among the Thralls (slaves), Karls (free men), and Jarls (Earls and Kings) with social movement being able to occur between them, Karls would often become Jarl over a Jarl's son due to personal wealth, fame, and supporters, though sometimes violence was used as a way to become Jarl. Intermediate classes would arise by the 10th century such as Thanes under the Jarls that owned large amounts of land. Women were possibly more free in the viking society than Anglo-Saxons. They had the ability to gain political power, buy and own land, inherit land (if there was no son before them), choose who to live with at the age of 20, divorce, and even cohabitate and have children without marriage. The only thing viking women could not do was always choose their spouse, which was often pre-arranged by the families of both sexes for political purposes. Viking women even were warriors, with several legendary accounts of shield maidens such as Lagertha. Viking women often went on voyages with their husbands, as voyages were meant to help establish colonies and farm lands besides raids, which both sexes would participate in creating. Burial mounds have also shown both men and women with weapons near both. While the sagas of shield maidens are doubted by some, their ferocity will most likely be shown within Kingdom/Ragnarok. Farming was difficult in Scandinavia with much of the land not being arable, causing trade to become a major source of revenue for vikings, and being a main reason for raids to the east and west. Viking trading of silver, gold, books, slaves, furs, livestock, amber, wine, silk, etc from all around Europe is often cited as being an integral part of revitalizing Early Medieval European Economies following the fall of Rome. The search for new land helped lead to the famous viking raids and eventually the Danelaw in England. Rape was relatively uncommon for raids, but the unfortunate few cases that did occur became used by the English to demonize the vikings during the ensuing wars. Even in peacetime, the vikings and English lived in relative harmony with the Norse primarily looking to farm and trade, and assimilation being important to many of them. Up to 50% of English people today have DNA markers from the vikings and the relations between them and local populations which some documents suggest may have been too warm due to English women "flocking" to the more attractive vikings and coming home pregnant. To address several myths about vikings:- Vikings did not wear horned helmets. There is no evidence they ever did. From what I could find, this was pure fantasy created by Scandinavian Opera writers to make the vikings stand out more. We will undoubtedly see at least one helmet like this in Ragnarok/Kingdom, if only as a post-release DLC mtx outfit. Vikings would actually dress rather well normally, combing their hair and beards, wearing silks and fur (especially for the upper classes), and even wearing jewelry. - Skull iconography was not as popular as thought. This spread from a rumor that Vikings drank from skulls, which was not true, but a mistranslation about them "drinking from the skulls of slain" which was really about slain bovine and their drinking horns. - As addressed earlier, the barbarity from vikings was not as bad as believed, with most vikings living peacefully. Vikings did go to war with each other though, forming blood feuds that could wipe out families, civil wars over succession of kingdoms thrones, and willingness to raid other countries for profit. Though this mythicized bloodlust and rape comes from a combination of work of Alfred/ English propaganda and the viking relgions. Norse paganism was practiced throughout the viking world, seemingly being practiced mostly at home, but having a few temples such as the one at Upsala and occasionally sacrificing animals or their thralls. The Norse pantheon was split between two warring factions, the Aesir and Vanir, the latter of which lost and was forced under the Aesir. The Aesir comprised of the primary pantheon and big names such as Odin, Thor, Baldr, Tyr, Freyja, and Freyr. Odin and Thor would often be prayed to for guidance in war and battle. The viking belief is that there are 9 realms, each connected through the tree of Yggdrasil, being: Asgard (home of the Aesir), Vanaheim (home of the Vanir), Alfheimr (home of the Light Elves), Midgard (Earth), Jotunheimer (Land of the Jotunn (Giants (who are regular enemies of the Aesir))), Muspelheim (land of fire), Svartalfheim (land of dark elves), Niflheim (land of the mists), and Myrkheim (land of the dwarves). Asgard and Midgard are connected by the bifrost, and Midgard is often imagined as being surrounded by the land of the elves, dwarves, and ice giants.The connection to Asgard is important, as it's believed that when a person dies in battle the valkyries will bring them to Asgard to either dine with Fryja in her field of Folkvangr or with Odin in Valhalla. The other deaths, however, will likely go to Hel (or Helheim (a lower region of Hel)) ruled by the goddess Hel, daughter of Loki and appointed by Loki to rule from the deepest region known as Nifhel. This becomes important for the prophecy of Ragnarok, or the end times. Loki was the child of the Jotunn Farbauti and consort Laufey that would become the father of Hel, the wolf Fenrir, world serpent Jormungandr, Narfi and Vali (Vali would be punished by the Aesir for Loki's involvement in the death of Baldr by being made a wolf (or maybe werewolf) and killed his brother Narfi as a result, his entrails were used to blind Loki and keep him below Midgard), and Odin's horse Sleipnir. At the onset of Ragnarok the three great golden cocks (roosters) would call out. Heimdall would raise Gjallarhorn, blowing into it to signal the Aesir. With that Loki, Jormungandr, Hel, the giant eagle Hraesvelgr, Fenrir, the fire giants of Muspelheim would destroy the bifrost and the ship Naglfar would bring the undead of hel to fight the Aesir and fighters of Valhalla. On Earth brother would fight brother and the dwarves would hide in their mines. Odin is swallowed whole by Fenrir, who's slain by his son Vidarr. Jormungandr and Thor fight, killing each other. Loki and Heimdall kill one another. Fryr fights the jotun Surtr and loses, causing humans to flee their homes, the sun is blacked out, sea levels rise, and flames touch the sky. The Great Dragon Nidhoggr destroys the roots of Yggdrasil and sinks the realms. In the end, all that will be left on earth is 2 humans, Lif and Lifprasir that survive the Fimbulwinter and repopulate the earth (though their names imply this is metaphorical being "life and life itself". The few Aesir that survive or are brought back during Ragnarok (Baldr, Hod, Hoenir, Magni, Modi, Njord, and Daughters of Sol) all convene at Idavollr, To me, this sounds a lot like the potential end of the world hinting from Origins and Odyssey, which follows in suit with the previous solar flare of 2012. I have a basic overview of Ragnarok and how it may tie into Origins and Odyssey here.Viking mythology does have a lot of potential for different beasts and creatures like kraken, but rather than being like Odyssey, I'd hope it's more grounded. The kraken is just a giant squid. Fenrir is a large wolf. The snake is a metaphor for the order. The dragon is a drug trip. The Giants and trolls might be some cult hiding in an Icelandic volcano or large Sami people covered in snow. I do want to take a brief moment to just say a few more things about Viking Mythology. For starters, much of the mythology was written in the Edda in the 13th century by a Scandinavian Christian Snorri Sturluson, and it's suggested that he added many parts of Christianity to the Norse myths to help finish converting the heathens. This includes the first two humans being Ask and Embla (Same first letters as Adam and Eve) and the Ragnarok Story. Time is also largely considered to be cyclical, so something like Ragnarok more resets the clock. Though this does match the AC lore decently. Moving North we have the Sami people which were largely nomadic fishers and trappers that followed reindeer. They seem to have been driven farther north by the vikings, but no signs of warfare between the groups existed, and some rune stones may indicate some trade of furs and meat. Frankish Kingdoms - The Frankish kingdoms and Holy Roman Empire were largely elective kingdoms chosen by dukes and nobles. I've had an admittedly hard time find much about the old Frankish and Germanic political structures, but what I did find seems to largely come from Salic Law from the 7th century and heavily influenced the political structures of the early franks and germanic kingdoms. Salic law primarily concerned itself with laws between citizens, focusing on punishments for crimes such as theft and succession. Under this, women could only gain property if the male landowner had no surviving sons, so it would go to his daughter. This would eventually change though, with the institution of Quasi-Salic and later Cognatic Male Primogeniture where the inheritance could be passed to uncles, nephews, cousins, or distant male relatives before it would become a woman's property. Around the time of the viking age is when we'd see the beginning of that more traditionally medieval patriarchal structure take a formal root in central Europe. This is also the beginning of a more traditional feudal system, where lords and dukes controlled large areas of land as the only nobles with serfs and slaves below them and very limited ways to move up, if it was available. Local lords and dukes would amass wealth and power through military strength, taxation, and granting of farm lands to peasants which would then be taxed and traded in local markets. Becoming a knight became one of the only options for upward mobility for serfs. The Frankish kingdoms were assaulted from all sides, Umayyad Caliphate from the west, Magyars, Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, etc from the east, while trying to expand over each other. The armies were at this point still largely infantry, those from richer backgrounds could ride horses and use spears, which became the mainstay of knighthood in the 8th century. Knighthood became very ingrained in French and German societies by the 10th century. Some serfs could swear loyalty to a noble for a fief and the ability to enter knighthood, while most knights had to be born as a petty noble, already owning some land under their lord. At the age of 7, eligible boys would become a page to learn about swordsmanship and equestrianism. At 15 he would become a squire for a knight to continue their training, and by 21 they could become knighted during accolades. This was, though, still in its primitive form in the HRE and surrounding kingdoms, being a glorified cavalryman until the Crusades with the spread of Knighthood to England and the establishment of a chivalrous code. Despite the beginnings of early castles and knighthood in France and Germany, bear in mind that this is not the type of classical knight you'd think of with huge sprawling castles and plate armor. That wouldn't come for a few hundred years, despite being popularized in romanticization of the early medieval period such as in King Arthur stories. Kievan Rus - The Varangians set up a hearty dynasty for themselves in the 'Rus, and used it as a trade empire. Despite conflict with the Magyars and some eastern tribes, the expansionism of the Rus led to great trading opportunities with the Byzantines and they soon became the only real way to easily trade from Northern Europe to South Eastern Europe and the middle east. Many Varangians patrolled the waterways, became pirates, sold slaves, furs, or had illustrious mercenary careers for the Varangian Byzantine Guard that made a lot of money for both sides. Because of this, Kievan Rus lacked the traditional feudal society characteristics, giving all free people equal rights, regardless of class. While inheritance of the throne was a patriarchal princedom, individual towns held quite a lot of autonomy, organizing veche or town assemblies for their own governance. While slaves were the lowest, many non-artisanal peasants would start to form a low class called the smerdy that gave free labour to the elite verv'. I've had a difficult time finding information on women's rights, but they appear to have been similar to men's rights, just without the legal ability to rule. submitted by /u/nstav13 [link] [comments] |
| How to get black flag to stop crashing on windows 10 Posted: 21 Oct 2019 12:18 AM PDT I've tried running it in comparability mode and as an administrator but it still keeps crashing every time I play it. I haven't been able to get past the first 20 minutes of the game. submitted by /u/elementaltheboi [link] [comments] |
| Which Assassin do you feel had the best performance? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 06:05 AM PDT Say what you will about the quality of their games but I think it's safe to say no AC protagonist has ever had a bad actor. Each of the actors has managed to carry their Assassin through their life, conveying the conflicts they present with the gravitas each deserves. But on a personal level, which Assassin do you feel had the best performance? I personally feel Altair's first voice, Edward and Bayek were the best actors but I'm eager to see what you thought. submitted by /u/GoneRampant1 [link] [comments] |
| [SPOILERS] The History of Vikings and what to Expect from an AC Viking Game Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:54 PM PDT Since news broke about the next Assassin's Creed title setting being within the Viking Era, I've seen hundreds of comments and questions pertaining to the early medieval setting. Today I want to break down a lot of information in regards to the era and how that can pertain to AC in terms of story, gameplay, and lore. To help make things simple, I'll leave a map I made here to help show where everything is. https://i.imgur.com/EfITZcF.jpg DISCLAIMER - If I got anything major wrong, please let me know so I can correct it. I've spent hours searching through various online resources to make this as accurate as I can overall, though there is some speculation based on lack of resources and called out as what I think Ubisoft might do in cases of discrepancies. I did try to keep everything easy to understand even when diving deep into some subjects, so please let me know if you feel something was misrepresented from this. I also do have some inconsistencies with spellings. Many early records did not have standardized spellings, and Old Norse is a pain, so I keep things anglicized for the most part on purpose. For the sake of this, I do group several smaller germanic and slavic kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland in with the Frankish empire due to the Frankish Influence in society, religion, and architecture. This was purely for ease of listing. This post was actually written in a google document and is 40 pages long. I understand reddit can be harsh for reading such a long post, so you can read it here. Second Disclaimer: This was WAY bigger than I thought. So I've split this into 5 distinct sections for ease of access. - FAQ and The World of the Early Medieval Period
- The People of the Early Medieval Period
- The Politics of the Early Medieval Period
- The Warfare in the Early Medieval Period
- The History of Vikings and What I expect from an AC Viking Game - Current Section
History The Set-Up for the Viking Raids There were of course many factors that lead to the Viking Era and raids that it's most known for. The biggest, in my opinion, was the "Dark Ages". I'll be discussing the quotes in a minute. Around 400-500ce, Rome completely abandoned most of Europe, fleeing to defend the capital; this of course leaving the early kingdoms left in the dust, unable to fully thrive without Roman assistance and leaving them vulnerable to the germanic invasions. England was hit the hardest, losing architecture, writing, more advanced masonry and smithing, etc. The Gauls and Franks quickly created the Frankish Empires in the image of Rome while the Slavs to the East remained slow to start up. Around 620ce, the Arab-Byzantine Wars began where Arab states under the newly formed Islamic Caliphates began seizing land that was Eastern Roman (Byzantine) throughout Levant and North Africa, even spreading into Anatolia and Italy. Arabs began interfering in trade routes and naval skirmishes between the Byzantines and Arabs became common as both sought to take more land. Many consider the Viking Era to be the end of the Dark Ages though, as their raiding helped force feudal societies and the importance of governance while revitalizing trade through the varangians and viking expeditions to the Mediteranean that were difficult for many other kingdoms to make. The trading and military expansions refueled European Economics and help prepare and create the stage for the late middle ages. Many more records began being kept during this time too, the best known of which is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to detail the history of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great. I would be remiss in not discussing some opinions saying that the Dark Ages ended in the 13th to 14th century after the Plague and during the dawn of the Renaissance. The term "Dark Ages" is in quotes due to the debatable authenticity of the phrase and how accurately it reflects reality. It largely began in the Renaissance as a way to describe the lack of records and loss of Information throughout the era, but eventually began to expand in definition. By the 18th century it was used as a negative view of the middle ages by Enlightenment Rationalists who saw the widespread religiosity and wars throughout the era as barbarism, which created a zeitgeist of negativity around the era and term. While a few historians still use the term due to the definition of lack of records, it remains a contentious topic due to overall inaccuracy and negative cultural interpretation around it. While I do use it a few times in this piece, it is meant in the earlier definition rather than a postmodern view of history, but as a result may stir a few comments and may not be used by Ubisoft in the marketing (though perhaps not based on a poll from a few years ago). Another important part to remember about the beginning of the viking era was the potential of provocation from the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. Many vikings were acting as traders throughout the region, and had non-violent contacts with people for such purposes. One major writer for Charlemagne, Alcuin, mentions that there had been contact with the Danes at least by 789. Though this had been written due to EXTREME aggression from the part of the Franks. In 771 Charlemagne became King of the Franks and in 772 began seriously aggressing the Norse. In 772 he entered Saxony and destroyed a Sacred Norse Totem while killing untold numbers. In 779 He finished conquering Saxony, forcing it into a vassal state and beginning missionaries to convert people by force. In 782 Charlemagne captured and forcibly baptised 4,500 people while forcing the relocation of thousands of others who would not submit. The aforementioned letter in 789 was contacting a missionary friend of Alcuin's, living in the Danemark among the Saxon Refugees to ask about converting the Danes and possible military movement. While Danes and Saxons did fight back, it seems likely that at least part of the reason for the viking raids and invasions was due to the aggression of Charlemagne and small monasteries like Lindisfarne were the only thing the vikings could hit successfully due to the might of the Franks. These raids then began to be used as propaganda by writers like Alcuin and Alfred who were the main writers, describing the worst possible versions of events such as saying that these men are demons and rape the women, even if not entirely true. A common story about Ragnar is that the local King had asked him to not Raid Paris in 845, in fear of upsetting the Franks, which caused Ragnar to be exiled and his crew was largely killed, yet the Franks responded with a military attack in Danemark anyway as retaliation. It should also be mentioned that the raiders, while not justified, were also in part trying to create a profit for trade and to find new, more arable lands, to settle down in. As a result, even if our character in Kingdom/Ragnarok is a regular Viking just as Edward is a regular pirate, we may see a toned down version of the vikings, stating that the horror stories were exaggerations for propaganda. Ragnar Lothbrok There is a lot of debate around the historicity of Ragnar. According to the Sagas, Ragnar was Born to Asa, the daughter of King Harald of Norway, and Sigurd Ring, the king of Sweden following Harald Wartooth. Ragnar would become King of both upon his father's death, though some sources say that this was contested, and that in 804 the killer of Sigurd Ring, Fro, would take the throne and declare all women to be prostitutes. According to Saxo Grammaticus, Ragnar was not a fan of this, taking up arms and having the women dress as men to fight alongside him. Among the women was Lagertha, who was instrumental to his success. He would attempt to court her, and she seemingly agreed before tricking him into a trap where she set a dog and a bear on him, which he killed. She was so impressed, she married him, and gave birth to a Son, Fridleif, and two daughters. Ragnar grew bored with her, or perhaps was still mad about the bear, and divorced her, attempting to court Thora, daughter of Herraudr, Jarl of Gotaland. Herraudr promised her hand to any man who would slay a dragon (or lindworm) that encircled a bower he kept her in. Ragnar would kill the lindworm and earn himself epithet "Lodbrok" for the breeches he wore to defend against tar and poison, and thus became married to Thora. She would give birth to Eirikr and Agnar before dying of an illness. Brunhild was a legendary shield maiden who was tricked into marrying Burgundian king Gunther (or Gunnar) by Siegbert I (or Sigurd is another name too). In her anger, she got Siegbert's wife, Kriemhild (or Gudrun) - a possible descendant of Atilla the Hun - to kill her husband, though became pregnant with his child herself, and then killed herself after giving birth. This daughter, Aslaug, would be raised by Brunhild's foster father Heimer. Heimer would later be killed Ake and Grima, who would take in Aslaug and raise her, keeping her and her beauty secret. One day while bathing, she was found by Ragnar's men in Norway, and he commanded she be brought to him "neither dressed nor undressed, neither fasting nor eating, and neither alone nor in company". She responded by arriving in a fishnet, eating an onion, with a dog. Ragnar, impressed, asked for her hand. After some courting, she would marry him, though his instance for a bedding was said to cause their first son to be born weak, or "boneless". They would have several sons together, Ivar being the oldest, along with Ubba, Halfdan (likely nicknamed Hvitserk), Bjorn Ironside, and Sigured "Snake in Eye" due to his one eye looking to have ouroboros in it. After some time, Ragnar's sons Eirikr (Eric) and Agnar became very successful, taking Gotland, Oland, and Zealand. Due to this, Ragnar became jealous and made his friend Eysteinn Beli (Son of King Harald Wartooth) Jarl of Sweden and sailed east across the Baltic to the Slavic States for raiding. In this time, Eric and Agnar sailed to Sweden to demand the land. Eysteinn, angry the deal with Ragnar was not upheld confronted them with 1/3rd of his army, killing Agnar, and capturing Eric, who refused peace, and was executed. Asluag heard this and "cried blood", asking Halfdan, Sigurd, Bjorn, and Ivar to kill Eysteinn. They each mustered ships, and Aslaug changed her name to Randalin to join a group of calvary that took some land routes to Sweden from Denmark to aid in the battle. Eysteinn would fall in battle to which Ivar and Bjorn declared the debt had been repaid and to not pillage Sweden. Ragnar would return to Denmark and find himself in a civil war, during which Sigurd is badly injured. He called upon Lagertha, now the wife of a King of Norway, who brought 120 ships and ended the war for Ragnar. Upon her return to Norway, she killed her husband and took the throne and Norway for herself. This Civil War may have been part of the Conflicts with Harald Klak that marked his early years as King of Denmark, and was the uncle of Rorik of Dorestad, the conqueror of Utrecht and Dorestad (and possibly Novgorad). By 836-841 Ragnar would be regularly raiding Frisia and along the Seine, taking advantage of political unrest in the Frankish Kingdoms. Charles the Bald would grant him land in Flanders and Torhout as a result, but then lost favor from the king and lost right to land. Horik, king of Denmark looked for no further troubles at the time, had asked Ragnar to not raid Paris, but Ragnar would take 120 ships and 5,000 men down the Seine anyway. Arriving on March 29th, Ragnar quickly sacked the city, holing up inside the walls of Ile De La Cite, taking prisoners and demanding ransom from Charles the Bald. During the wait, a plague broke out, killing thousands of the Norse, which only subsided when many of them began a fast and praying to the christian god on the advice of their prisoners. In this time, 111 prisoners were hanged as sacrifices for the Aesir. Charles the Bald would pay 7,000 livre to Ragnar to leave, releasing most prisoners and taking some Franks with him, raiding the Abbey of Saint Berlin and Hamburg on his way back to Denmark. On his return, he showed Horik his take, and immediately collapsed in tears due to the ease of the raid and no resistance due to the dead and plague. In fear of retaliation, Horik freed the captured men, executed Ragnar's remaining men, and exiled Ragnar from Denmark for a time. Horik would then receive Archbishop Ansgar, sent to christianize Denmark by Louis the Pious due to the raid in Hamburg. Fearing invasion by Olof of Sweden, Horik made peace with Ansgar, sending offerings to Louis in an attempt to secure the southern border. Horik would die in 854 following a 3 day battle with several other kings including Guttorm and possibly Ragnar. With most kings dead, Horik II would take the throne of Denmark. Many of the stories we have about Ragnar come from the sagas, and seem unsupported due to multiple contradictions about land ownership and ranks of Kings and Jarls. There is evidence from the Franks of Ragnar invading Paris, and Louis sending Ansgar in response to Hamburg. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the "Sons of Ragnar" largely leaving England and becoming Jarls and Kings of Scandinavia just 5 years after the end of the Great Heathen Army Invasion. This is the most contemporary source of Ragnar, and leads many scholars to believe that there was a historical Ragnar, who just didn't do everything the sagas said. Due to his presence in pop culture and media, if we do see a game set around 865, it seems likely Ragnar will be present in some capacity due to the likelihood of him existing to some extent, and Ubisoft's fondness of romanticized history. The Great Heathen Army Ragnar's story ends about 10 years after his skirmish with Horik, landing in Northumbria to the chagrin of King Aella. Ragnar would be captured by the King, and thrown into a snake pit where he would die, thus sparking the retribution of his sons.That does bring us to the events of the actual invasion of England though! His sons Halfdan, Ivar, Bjorn (recently returning from raids in the mediteranean), and Ubba would form a great army to avenge the legendary Ragnar, likely numbered in the low thousands. The Army landed in late 865 in Kent on the Isle of Thanet. They were asked by the people of Kent to leave in exchange for money, which caused the Vikings to plunder Kent before crossing into East Anglia, where they wintered at Thetford. They would then move North and by November of 866 capture York and Northumbrian Kings Aella and Osberht. Both would be executed by March 867, where Ecgberht would be installed as a puppet king for them. They would march South west next, capturing the Mercian city of Nottingham, but would then be besieged by forces from Wessex and Mercia. The Norse would eventually be paid to leave by the Mercians in autumn of 868, where they'd return to York until fall of 869, where they'd march south again, meeting at Thetford, where they would winter. On November 20th, Ivar and Ubba would end up killing King Edmund of East Anglia by "filling him with arrows" following a battle. In early 871 viking leader Bagsecg would bring reinforcements to the Great Heathen Army, but instead moved south, into Wessex. King Aethelred of Wessex had his brother Alfred lead an army against them, destroying the vikings at The Battle of Ashdown on January 8th. Aethelred died 3 months later, leaving the throne for his brother Alfred rather than son Aethelwold. The Vikings would move west, wintering at London from 871-872 before moving North again to York to put down a potential rebellion. They would then winter at Torksey from 872-873 and Repton 873-874. During 873, Ivar was king of Dublin, before being killed by Eysteinn Olaffson, who took the throne. In 874, the vikings would re-enter central Mercia, forcing the king Burgred to flee, and be replaced by vassal Ceolwulf. Following this, the army split in half, with Halfdan taking half to the River Tyne from 874-875. Halfdan would briefly take the army west, taking Dublin back and killing Eysteinn Olaffson before entering Scotland in 876. They would return to Northumbria, taking the Throne of Jorvik (York) by the end of the year. Unrest in Ireland had Halfdan return to Ireland in 877, dying in the battle of Strangford Lough, forcing his men to retreat to Northumbria through Scotland, where conflicts had them kill King Constantin I of Scotland. Ubba and Guthrum would take the other half of the army in 875 south to East Anglia, wintering in Cambridge. In 876, Guthrum would lead the army into Wessex Territory, eventually moving to the Southern Coast and taking the fort of Wareham in Dorset. Alfred attempted a blockade, but failed to take back the fort, forcing him to negotiate a peace with Guthrum, trading hostages in exchange for the vikings leaving and they could all live. Guthrum agreed, before killing the hostages in the cover of night and escaped to Exeter. Alfred sent further blockades to stop ships from reinforcing Guthrum in Devon in 877, forcing him to withdraw to Mercia. In January of 878, Guthrum made a surprise attack at the city of Chippenham where Alfred had been staying for Christmas. While most people were killed in the raid, Alfred managed to escape to the marshes of Somerset, where he built the fort of Athelney. From here, Alfred would send messengers to rally the Fyrds of Somerset, Wiltshire, and Hampshire to a strategic place of Alfred's Choosing, Egbert's Stone, where around May 6th it's said that every available man joined the ranks. Within a few days, Alfred led them into the Battle of Edington, winning a decisive victory and killing Ubba, forcing Guthrum to retreat to Chippenham. Alfred surrounded them, starving them out and forcing Guthrum to surrender. Guthrum signed the Treaty of Wedmore later that year, being baptised and thus ending the Great Heathen Army's invasion while formally establishing the Danelaw. While this was the end of the main army, the decades following would lead to more political strife and violence that would make for a great late game story or post launch DLC. A new viking army amassed in Fulham on the Thames shortly after the defeat of Guthrum, discouraged by his loss, they would decide to leave England, raiding Frankia and Frisia due to political instability. Among them was likely Bjorn Ironside who raided far into Lombardy before returning and becoming King of Sweden or dying in Frisia. Rollo would continue to raid though, bringing another major Siege to Paris from 885-886, and due to repeated raids eventually becoming Duke of Normandy in 911. Guthrum remained King of Danelaw until his death in 890, during which time Alfred had helped establish Aethelred of Mercia as king of Mercia, who, following the disastrous invasion of Wales in 881, married Alfred's daughter Aethlflaed. By 885, vikings had launched a small raid in Kent. Alfred dispatched naval forces around East Anglia, and managed to catch the 13-16 viking ships, engaging in combat on "the open sea" and English emerging victorious. In 886 Alfred would occupy London which had belonged to the Danes, trying to build it up more and add to the fortifications, before entrusting it to Aethelred. The large continental fleet of vikings had grown to two fleets, one of 250 ships and one of 80. The group of 250 landed at Appledore in Kent, with the other in Milton. In 893, Alfred would attempt to sue for peace with the leader Hastein at Milton, during which the vikings at Appledore tried to lead a sneak attack, being overtaken by Alfred's son Edward. Those at Appledore would retreat to the Island of Thorney while Hastein would lead them to Benfleet, where further losses forced a retreat to Shoebury. Alfred would then move to assist his son at Thorney before being called by Aethelred to raise the Siege of Exeter against the vikings that had taken up residence there. Hastein would then try to move his troops through the Thames Valley being blocked eventually by the Ealdorman of Mercia, Wiltshire, and Somerset, blockading the Vikings at Buttington. Vikings were unable to break the blockade entirely, but some did get through, escaping to East Anglia and calling for reinforcements, which came and allowed a retreat to Chester before winter. Alfred nor Aethelred would besiege them, but destroy their food sources instead, starving them through winter. By early 895, they would surrender and retreat up the Thames, which Alfred further blockaded. This, in 896, caused the army to dissipate and most would return to the continent or retire to the Danelaw. Around this time, Aethelred's health declined, allowing Aethelflaed to become the 'Lady of Mercia' and acting ruler. Alfred would die in 899, with his son Edward succeeding him. His cousin Aethelwold would challenge his claim though. Unable to gather enough support from the Aethelings, Aethelworld fled to Northumbria where he raised a Danish Army against Edward around 901-902. He would die at the Battle of Holme in 903 cementing Edward's rule, who then would use his sister's position to help retake parts of the Danelaw for Wessex and Mercia. Aethelflaed's power was further consolidated when her husband died in 911, and she remained sole leader as Lady of Mercia until she died in 918. Her daughter Aelfwynn became the second Lady of Mercia, but then allowed Edward to take full control of Mercia. Edward would die in 924 after putting down a revolt in Chester. Jomsvikings Harald Bluetooth became king of Denmark in 958 and after being baptised in 965 tried to introduce Christianity to Denmark. To the northeast of him ruled King Olof and brother/ co-ruler Erik the Victorious of Sweden. Olof was poisoned around 975 leaving behind his son Bjorn, who felt he should be king of Sweden, but due to being 12 years old, Erik and the Swedish Thing (council to help decide succession) believed he should wait until he was 16. Due to his violent tendencies, the Thing decided he was not King material, but Erik taking pity on him granted him the epithet Styr(Bjorn) the strong, and 60 longships. Styrbjorn being angry about this began raiding throughout Scandinavia in an attempt to gather an army against his uncle Erik. During his raids, he focused at least partially on Denmark, where Harald Bluetooth paid him off with a daughter and 200 ships, which Styrbjorn turned into 1000. Harald would then help him found the Jomsvikings and grant him the fortress of Jomsborg. Strybjorn would lead this army into battle against Erik and die at the Battle of Fyriesvellir in 985. The forces would return to Jomsborg and become under the control of Harald's friend and ally, Palnatoke who formally created the Jomsvikings and their rules as mercenaries, including that all of them would be fighting age men between 18 and 50. The Alternate story is the Palnatoke who was a friend and ally of Harald Bluetooth was granted the island fort of Jomsborg by Wendish ruler Burislav. Styrbjorn would briefly take control of the fortress and Jomsvikings for his failed battle before control would fall back to Palnatoke. Regardless of which story is used, Palnatoke created the rules of Jomsvikings that they would not flee from battle, age range, blood feud settlement, and other military doctrines. Palnatoke also allegedly raised Harald Bluetooth's son, Sweyn Forkbeard, and may have helped him ascend to the throne around 985 by ousting his father. This struggle was actually encapsulated in only lore of Viking Assassins we have, coming from Last Descendants book 3, Fate of the Gods. From this we learn that assassins poisoned King Olof due to his harsh rule and alliance with Erik, then manipulating the Thing so Erik alone would keep the throne. The assassin mentor Torgny the Lawspeaker would be an advisor to Erik. When Styrbjorn left Sweden to begin raiding and raise an army against Erik, he took his sister Gyrid with him who he'd marry to Harald Bluetooth while marrying Harald's daughter Thrya. The book does not state Harald nor Strybjorn were directly Templars, but instead Templar affiliates, possibly due to the ties to Christianity, Christian Kings, or the Jomsvikings, which Styrbjorn forcibly took over from Palnatoke. Protege of Torgny, Thorvald (possessor of 'Odin-Sight" or what vikings called traditional Eagle Vision), would go on to fight on the side of Erik against Styrbjorn and recruit farmer Osten. Styrbjorn would betray Harald in 985, leading the jomsvikings against Harald and taking his "dagger" which was actually the faith prong of the trident of eden, one of the PoE held by Alexander the Great. Styrbjorn next marched on Sweden with his new wife Thyra. The night before the battle of Fyriesvellir, Thorvald snuck into Styrbjorn's encampment to witness him hiding the faith prong in a boulder. Thorvald would place poisoned silver around the camp, weakening and scaring off many men. During the battle of Fyriesvellir, the outnumbered Styrbjorn demands to fight Erik one on one, with Osten chosen as his champion. Syrbjorn would succumb to the poison during the fight though, dying while Thorvald reclaimed the prong and gifted it to Osten for safe keeping, who buried it beneath his house, which would be found in the 20th century and moved to a museum. This would then be taken by a group of American teenagers that were studying Ascendance Events. Returning to real life, Sigvaldi Strut-Haraldsson would become leader of the Jomsvikings by 986, where he'd attempt to win the hand of Wendish Chieftain Burislav's Daughter, Astrid. To do so, he had to gain independence from Denmark for the Wends. Sigvaldi would approach Sweyn to discuss terms, but feign sickness to lure Sweyn aboard his ship where fellow Jomsvikings captured and held him prisoner. Under duress, Sweyn agreed to granting independence, but later negotiations had Burislav marry Sweyn's sister and a ransom be paid. Later that year, Sweyn would ask Sigvaldi during the funeral of his father Jarl Strut-Harald to help him depose Norway's King Haakon Sigurdson that had broken peace with Denmark during Harald Bluetooth's push for conversion to christianity. By this time, the youngest Jomsviking, Vagn Akesson had defeated Sigvaldi in 1on1 combat and was granted entry to the Jomsvikings at the age of 12. He would join Sigvaldi and the Jomsvikings at the naval battle of Hjorungavagr. Due to the incredible loss by the Jomsvikings, Sigvaldi ordered a retreat that Vagn would ignore and throw a spear at Sigvaldi for. Vagn would survive, being pardoned by the king of Norway and gaining respect by the other jomsvikings while Sigvaldi became an object of ridicule. Despite this, Sigvaldi retained power in the far less respected Jomsvikings. In 995 Olaf Tryggvason became King of Norway, forcibly spreading Christianity, and encountering stiff resistance. He would recruit the jomsvikings for help against Sweyn Forkbeard, Erik Hakonarson (Jarl of Lade). Sigvaldi, despite agreeing to help Olaf, would turn against him in 1000 during the Battle of Svolder, where Olaf would be captured and later executed. It's suggested that he may have then invaded Kent in the hope of killing Archbishop Aelfheah who converted Olaf, as Sigvaldi wanted to stop the spread of Christianity. He likely died in England though. By 1009 Sigvaldi's brother, Throkell the Tall was the leader of the Jomsvikings, and invaded Kent in 1009, and were quickly paid by the people of Canterbury to leave them. The jomsvikings would return in 1011 and besiege Canterbury though, and capture the Archbishop Aelfheah, killing him a few months later. This didn't satisfy Thorkell or the Jomsvikings though, and they entered into work for Edmund Ironside, the son of King Athelred the Unready by his first marriage to Aelfgifu of York. Aethelred's second wife Emma of Normandy would give birth to Edward (the Confessor). Sweyn would invade England in 1013 with his son Cnut, quickly ousting Aethelred and Emma who fled to Normandy. Sweyn named himself King of England while ravaging the lands of Lindsey, angering the Danes of the Danelaw into supporting Edmund Ironside. Sweyn would die on February 3rd 1014, allowing Aethelred to quickly reclaim the throne with the help of Edmund and the Jomsvikings. Cnut's brother Harald II took the throne of Denmark, so Cnut invaded England in 1015, with Edmund and Aethelred holing up in London to defend themselves. Cnut moved through most of the country taking as he could while Edmund declared himself Earl of East Midlands, marrying a woman named Edith from a powerful midlands family and starting a revolt against his father. Aethelred died on April 23rd, 1016, and Edmund declared himself King. With this, he began sending forces to attack Cnut who was currently entering Northumbria to deal with Uhtred the Bold, Earl of Northumbria until Uhtred's assassination on his way to discuss terms with Cnut. With that, Cnut moved south to attack Edmund and the Jomsvikings at London. Before Cnut could lay Siege, Edmund snuck out of the city and escaped to Wessex to draw a larger army, now able to engage Cnut at Penselwood, Sherston, and Brentford. Suffering heavy losses, Edmund withdrew west to Wessex, losing again at the Battle of Assandun, he retreated to the Welsh border where he lost a 5th battle and became wounded. Edmund sat down for negotiations with Cnut around October 18th, and Cnut agreed to take everything north of the Thames, with Edmund taking south. Edmund would die a month later on November 30th though, and Cnut became the undisputed King of England and made Thorkell the Tall the Earl of East Anglia. In July 1017, Cnut married Queen Emma (Aethelred's Wife and daughter of Richard I, Duke of Normandy) to help consolidate power, who gave birth to Harthacnut, who Cnut proclaimed to be his Heir. Thorkell would serve as his foster-father. In 1018 Cnut's brother Harald would die, and he would take the throne of Denmark as well. By 1027, he'd add all of Norway (by expelling King Olaf II of Norway) and most of Sweden under his rule, forming the North Sea Empire. Thorkell died in 1023, with scarce records left about the Jomsvikings. Olaf would attempt to retake his throne in 1030 at the Battle of Stiklestad with his brother Harald Hadrada. They would lose to Cnut's forces and Harald Hadrada was exiled to Kievan Rus as a Varangian Guard/ Mercenary. Cnut died in 1035, with his empire being split into many parts. His son Harold Harefoot became king of England while Harthacnut was king of Denmark. Norway was taken by the 11 year old Magnus the Good, son of Olaf. Harold would die in 1040, with his brother Harthacnut taking the throne until his death in 1042. Edward the Confessor, son of Emma, would take the throne of England in 1042 while Magnus took Denmark, though this was contested by Sweyn II, Jarl of Denmark under Harthacnut. With Emma favoring Magnus over her son Edward, Magnus wrote to England to declare he had plans to reform the North Sea Empire. This was derailed by his war with Sweyn II, which caused the destruction of Jomsborg in 1043 by Magnus who feared them, and only ended when Harald Hadrada returned from exile in 1045 to become co-ruler with Magnus. When Magnus died in 1047, Harald Hadrada was left as king of Norway with Sweyn II the king of Denmark. The End of the Viking Era Edward the Confessor had strategically allied himself with Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex and his brother was married to the sister of Cnut (and thus daughter of Sweyn I). Edward would marry Harold's daughter in 1045 and make Harold the Earl of East Anglia. Most of Edward's reign was just defending England's borders with Scotland and Wales. In 1040, Macbeth killed King Duncan I of Scotland, leaving his son Malcolm III to flee to Edward's court. Come 1053, Welsh Prince Rhys ap Rhydderch had raided Mercia, and in retaliation Edward ordered an assassination on him, which allowed Grufydd ap Llyweyln to become King of all of Wales in 1055 with the son of the Mercian Earl, Aelfgar, as an ally. Aelfgar would succeed his father in 1057 and both would submit to Edward by the forces of Harold and his brother Tostig who was the Earl of Northumbria. During this time in 1054 Edward would send his Ally Siward north with Maclolm to retake the throne, killing Macbeth in 1058. Despite Malcolm visiting the King in good faith in 1059, he would start an aggressive policy of taking over Northumbria by 1061. Edwin of Mercia would succeed Aelfgar's role of Earl of Mercia following the latter's death in 1062. In October of 1065 Tostig would be hunting in Northumbria with Harold and Edward when the Thegns of Northumbria would decide to rebel against Northumbria, claiming it was oppressive. They would nominate Mocar, the brother of the Earl of Mercia as the new Earl of Northumbria after capturing York and Yorkshire. Harold, Tostig, and Edward would meet with them at Northampton where the Northumbrian Thegns demanded Mocar be Earl of Northumbria and Tostig exiled, likely due to weakness battling the Scots. South of English Channel a new threat was Emerging for Edward. Emma's brother, Richard II had long been trying to improve relations with England, and married her to Aethelred for such purposes. His son was Robert, who remained unmarried and had no legitimate issue, leading to his bastard William to take the title of Duke for himself in 1035, though this led to civil war lasting until 1060. As Edward's health declined, William had made it apparent he desired the throne of England and would try to claim it. Edward was well aware of William's claim, and sought to keep England unified against the coming threat. When The Northumbrians made their demands, Edward felt he was forced to comply, leading Tostig to declare Harold as a conspirator of the Thegns and demanded to fight them in open battle. No one would aid Tostig though, forcing him to flee across the North Sea to Norway. The embarrassment of Tostig severely impacted Edward, leading to a few strokes later in 1065, and around Christmas, falling into a coma. Edward awoke on January 5th of 1066, declaring Harold Godwinson the king, and died shortly after. Harald Hadrada has been at war with Sweyn II of Denmark for about 18 years, attempting to recapture Denmark and reform Cnut's North Sea Empire. With Harold Godwinson now king of England and William on the move, Tostig used this opportunity to convince Harald Hadrada to invade England. Harald needing little coaxing left for England in September of 1066 with 300 longships and 10,000 troops, landing a few days later in Northumbria. He quickly defeated the local armies at the Battle of Fulford. Harald Godwinson marched his and the Mercian armies North, meeting Harald Hadrada at Stamford Bridge on September 25th. Harald and Tostig would both die during the battle, and the viking age is officially over. William was just getting started though, invading England 2 days later and arriving on the morning of the 28th of September with 3,000 Ships. Scouts reported to William that Harold was moving south, and William met them from a strategic point of his choosing, starting the Battle of Hastings on October 14th. Harold Godwinson, his housecarls, and brothers were all slain during the battle. Following this William marched east, having some forces split off and capture Winchester while the rest would capture Dover, and most of Kent including Canterbury before marching on London. The Aethelings would submit shortly thereafter in early December. William ordered a castle to be built in London (Tower of London) and was crowned King on December 1066. For the next 19 years until his death, William would constantly be putting down rebellions, revolts, uprisings, and surprise raids, expelling the Danes from Danelaw, but did securely establish his dynasty. The Game We'll Likely Get I believe the most likely game we'll see will show the end of Ragnar's life and the Great Heathen Army's invasion of England with us playing in all of Britain and Southern Scandinavia. Ideally, though we would also be able to travel to France, Frisia, Germany, and Kievan Rus to see early medieval versions of cities like Paris, Cologne, Prague, and Kiev, which as discussed were unique in their own ways, but similar to each other too. While I would be disappointed if we didn't get to see Paris, perhaps we could see it and Normandy in a DLC that shows the famous Siege in 885. I do believe that should we not see Continental Europe in Kingdom/ Ragnarok, we will see it in 2021 in a game about the Black Plague and 100 years war which is when we'd have actual castles, knights in plate armor (Plate armor was really developed about 50 years later, but it's far less egregious in 1350 than 850), chivalry, and the effects of driving the Templars and Assassins underground. Until then, it seems that Kingdom/ Ragnarok will be another RPG with fantasy elements such as mythical beasts, elemental weapons, and mildly anachronistic architecture to help build up cities more to be more conducive to parkour both in England and Scandinavia, a common AC recurrence. I do believe Montreal will create a beautiful and rich world as they always have, and will hopefully weave the narrative and history I've compiled here well. While this is a very abridged version of the viking age, I hope this series of posts has clarified why certain things happened the way they did in history and helps temper expectations for Ragnarok being the medieval game some people seem to hope it will be. submitted by /u/nstav13 [link] [comments] |
| [SPOILERS] The Warfare of the Early Medieval Period and What to Expect from an AC Vikings Game Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:47 PM PDT Since news broke about the next Assassin's Creed title setting being within the Viking Era, I've seen hundreds of comments and questions pertaining to the early medieval setting. Today I want to break down a lot of information in regards to the era and how that can pertain to AC in terms of story, gameplay, and lore. To help make things simple, I'll leave a map I made here to help show where everything is. https://i.imgur.com/EfITZcF.jpg DISCLAIMER - If I got anything major wrong, please let me know so I can correct it. I've spent hours searching through various online resources to make this as accurate as I can overall, though there is some speculation based on lack of resources and called out as what I think Ubisoft might do in cases of discrepancies. I did try to keep everything easy to understand even when diving deep into some subjects, so please let me know if you feel something was misrepresented from this. I also do have some inconsistencies with spellings. Many early records did not have standardized spellings, and Old Norse is a pain, so I keep things anglicized for the most part on purpose. For the sake of this, I do group several smaller germanic and slavic kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland in with the Frankish empire due to the Frankish Influence in society, religion, and architecture. This was purely for ease of listing. This post was actually written in a google document and is 40 pages long. I understand reddit can be harsh for reading such a long post, so you can read it here. Second Disclaimer: This was WAY bigger than I thought. So I've split this into 5 distinct sections for ease of access. - FAQ and The World of the Early Medieval Period
- The People of the Early Medieval Period
- The Politics of the Early Medieval Period
- The Warfare in the Early Medieval Period - Current Section
- The History of Vikings and What I expect from an AC Viking Game
WARFARE Force is the method by which power can be most clearly exerted, and warfare against rival states and invaders is some of the well recorded parts of our history. With Assassin's Creed being largely an action based series, especially in more recent entries, I wanted to discuss the type of arms, armor, naval abilities, and tactics used during this period by each of the 4 major regions that could potentially be shown. Origins and Odyssey were both fairly inaccurate in portrayal of warfare in order to better use the 1 on 1 style of combat developed by Ubisoft, a trend I expect to continue along with adding more magical elements like frost and lightning to our weapons, chain attacks and combos, and maybe add a weapon degradation system for some weapons to make smithing more valuable. The Gaelic Irish tribes put a heavy emphasis on ritual combat and clan wars, often also participating in champion warfare to settle disputes and duels that were only meant to last until first blood. Their armies were composed of Kern (or single infantry men) who went into battle each carrying a claideamh (sword), scian (dagger), bogha (bow), small round bronze and wood shields, and a set of ga (sort of darts) that would be thrown at charging enemies. Some records also indicate axes were used, but not quite as often at this point. If the opposing enemy did not charge, the Gaels would, attempting to intimidate the opposition charge with loud yells, horns, and pipes. Though due to only wearing tunics/ a precursor to a kilt into battle most of the time (though there are some records of gambesons (heavy padded coats), cuir bouilli (boiled leather armor), or for a few kings a bronze chest piece), would often flee if the opposing line did not break. By the 7th century the use of war-chariots had died out in ireland, with calvary or lone horsemen replacing it, but still largely outnumbered by kern that would be raised by the local warbands. It appears that they had next to no real naval power though. The Picts and Scots had a far different approach to everything there. War bands that were loyal to small regions and slept in their great halls made up the majority of the army and were the fastest to mobilize. They generally were each equipped with spears, bows, swords, shields, helmets, and possibly leather armor. Many mounted troops are depicted as being more heavily armored which suggests that there may have been a "mounted elite". The majority of their warfare seems to be based around sieges and defense, with evidence of over 1000 hillforts and lookout towers built along their borders. This shows that open battle was far less important to them as their defense was, and as a result had large number of deaths due to fires in hill forts during sieges. It appears that their naval power was very important though, with major households being required to produce 177 ships and 2478 men when called upon, with the first recorded naval battles being in the early 8th century, and continuously spreading and exploring to the Orkney and Shetland Islands and Ireland, where they showed that they did in fact have some basic siege machines. Their ships may have included many smaller skin boats and canoes, but also included larger oar based vessels. Norse invasions into the Scottish islands and founding of thalassocracies (sea based lordships) seems to have driven Scottish naval power up, as the viking longships were far more maneuverable, forcing the scots to adapt their design to be more competitive on the sea. The Welsh as discussed, had warchiefs and kings leading small war-bands across the countryside constantly. I've had a lot of difficulty finding information on them, but it seems likely they largely wore gambesons and possibly some chainmail (especially for the richer members), basic iron helmets, and had some swords and shields, and famously did use a large knife in combat. Being more nomadic, their fighting style was less focused on big decisive battles as other groups, and more focused on hit and run raids, burning farms, crops, and destroying land to force their enemies to retreat and not do the same, a tactic that was largely successful, even against the Normans. As a result, the small war-band of about 50 would likely want to move quickly and probably mostly rode horses rather than being largely infantry. Prior to Alfred, the Anglo-Saxons appear to do battle with one another quite often, which slowed down considerably when the vikings began invading. They largely used chain mail armor, swords, axes, and some knives and spears that could more easily break the mail. Helmets frequently would not only cover the head, but cheeks, neck, and nose too, often with some mild decoration. More important figures though likely wore more extravagant armor and helmets as we see by the Sutton Hoo helmet from the 7th century. Due to the heavier armor, the Anglo-Saxons were likely considerably slower than others in the British Isles, instead focusing on shield wall formations for most of the infantry that would only be broken for the occasional spear toss, missile throw, or potential archer. There was cavalry, but it was primarily retained for kings and earls while the infantry was the main fighting force. Alfred would eventually rework the military system, creating a more feudal and easier approach to call allies to arms and creating the Burh system to bolster defense along the borders with faster responses than summoning full armies. He also created the first real English Navy to engage with the norse on open water, and actually won one or two battles from this. Despite cultural norms, Vikings actually were not most powerful on sea. The Longship was generally made to be fast and light, able to carry 50 men swiftly and quietly onto land to perform hit and run raids, and quickly escape even through shallow marshes and rivers. Many sieges in Frisia and France were described as lacking formation and "Swarm Like", which did contribute to the confusion on the behalf of the defenders. When naval battles did occur, they were generally quick, with a small shield wall forming around archers on the ship that tried to incapacitate the other ship so the vikings could board. On land, vikings eschewed normal war conventions, often setting traps and ambushes to surprise enemies in fast attacks, and did so to any site and at any time they saw fit, using stealth and deception whenever necessary to win. In open battle, they'd form wedges to come at the enemy from a few sides, with "berserkers" up front who often are cited as using a drug of some sort to enrage them and bring them into battle in a sort of blood lust and fury; a tactic that often confused and scared the enemy while the other fighters mopped up the other infantry. They were very proficient fighters on land, and often came home with armor from their victories, creating a wide variety of viking armor, such as chain mail, iron helmets, tunics, gambesons, lamellar, leather armor, and furs (which were sometimes said to be enchanted). Knives, spears, swords, and axes were all common weaponry, with much variety based on individual fighters, though almost every viking did have a shield. Unlike other people, they primarily made their shields out of softer wood to allow for mildly more bending before breaking and occasionally getting enemy weapons stuck in the shield. The Norse primarily used center grip shields instead of the strap shields used by the Franks and Saxons. Where the strap allowed for a more sturdy grip, the center grip allowed for better maneuverability. Archers are mentioned, but fairly rarely, being mostly used for hunting and occasionally during the aforementioned naval battles. Not all warriors were raiders though, with some becoming housecarls or bodyguards for some locals and jarls. The Frankish Empires relied heavily on calvary and their early knights as Siege Tactics and organization came to dominance as their military strategy under Charlemagne. The invention of stirrups and lances came in the 8th-9th century and provided the principle combat technique. Based on training records, the early knights also seemed to train extensively with hand to hand combat such as with swords, but continued the large emphasis on equestrianism due to travel and transportation speed, especially of siege engines such as siege towers, catapults, and ballistas. I could find very little information on any naval power, which likely led to the norse dominance of Normandy and Frisia. It appears most of the Frankish armies would have worn chain mail with tunics or cuiraises while using iron helmets and a focus on spears, lances, and bows, keeping possibly a large knife a sword available if they lose their horse. Normans are often shown with Kite shields, and it seems likely the other Frankish kingdoms may have adopted this as well. This appears to be true as well for the eastern Kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and the Magyars that were more tribal groups that gave way to knights and calvary. Poland in the early years did seem to use a version of the Druzhina, as did the Slavs of the kievan rus, but would eventually adopt the French and German custom. The Kievan Rus military were composed of two major parts, the Voyi and druzyna. The voyi was an army that was made of quickly drafted local population by a Knyaz (Prince) and lead by a voivode (warlord). The Druzyna was the standing army composed of Varangians and local noble aristocracy that largely were in charge of administration in the region. This was then broken down further between the senior Boyars and junior Otroki. Militias that stood to defend cities were largely administered by the local veches. The Knyaz and his small band of Druzyna that were close to him would fight as both calvary and infantry, but wore heavy armor such as chain mail and lamellar with expensive furs, often using swords, spears, and shields of good quality. This group would rarely be more than a few hundred. The peasant militia that often was the larger part of Druzyna had no armor, wearing only regular tunics and furs and using axes and cheaper hunting spears. The Varangians also used their longships to establish naval supremacy on the rivers and waterways of kievan rus to protect their assets and continue piracy. submitted by /u/nstav13 [link] [comments] |
| Unity is on sale for $9 on the PSN store, decided to pick it up and play it again. Posted: 20 Oct 2019 07:03 AM PDT When this game first came out, I was still partying and binge drinking so I hardly remember any of the story. I am only a few hours into it, but the story managed to grab my attention in ways only Ezio's story has done in the past. I switched the spoken language to French and turned on the subtitles and it makes the game feel so much more authentic. I tried having it in English at first, but I couldn't get over all of the British accents from these French characters. Oh, and it is also absolutely gorgeous, the environments are easy to just meander through slowly while taking it all in. It's a shame the launch was so rough when this was first released, if you haven't played this one yet, I highly suggest doing so. submitted by /u/agentjayd007 [link] [comments] |
| So what's it about Ezio bombing the cave town in revelations? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 10:03 PM PDT Didn't really thought about it seriously first time I played it, but when I saw posts calling Ezio asshole for murdering town and innocent people, I have to wonder what was that sequence about.. like, am I misunderstanding something here? Why did Ezio just straight up bomb the shit out of that town? I get that he did it to escape from that place and fuck templars and told this woman to make people escape but was that necessary? Did ubisoft somehow screw up in there? submitted by /u/Baron012 [link] [comments] |
| [SPOILERS] The People of the Early Medieval Period and What to Expect from an AC Vikings Game Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:40 PM PDT Since news broke about the next Assassin's Creed title setting being within the Viking Era, I've seen hundreds of comments and questions pertaining to the early medieval setting. Today I want to break down a lot of information in regards to the era and how that can pertain to AC in terms of story, gameplay, and lore. To help make things simple, I'll leave a map I made here to help show where everything is. https://i.imgur.com/EfITZcF.jpg DISCLAIMER - If I got anything major wrong, please let me know so I can correct it. I've spent hours searching through various online resources to make this as accurate as I can overall, though there is some speculation based on lack of resources and called out as what I think Ubisoft might do in cases of discrepancies. I did try to keep everything easy to understand even when diving deep into some subjects, so please let me know if you feel something was misrepresented from this. I also do have some inconsistencies with spellings. Many early records did not have standardized spellings, and Old Norse is a pain, so I keep things anglicized for the most part on purpose. For the sake of this, I do group several smaller germanic and slavic kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland in with the Frankish empire due to the Frankish Influence in society, religion, and architecture. This was purely for ease of listing. This post was actually written in a google document and is 40 pages long. I understand reddit can be harsh for reading such a long post, so you can read it here. Second Disclaimer: This was WAY bigger than I thought. So I've split this into 5 distinct sections for ease of access. - FAQ and The World of the Early Medieval Period
- The People of the Early Medieval Period - Current Section
- The Politics of the Early Medieval Period
- The Warfare in the Early Medieval Period
- The History of Vikings and What I expect from an AC Viking Game
PEOPLES In each area the game could take place in there were various groups and ethnicities of people. I want to take a little time to just explain how these people got there, give a little history of countries to set up for the viking history later, talk about their languages (which is often an impact on AC games), and famous individuals. I'll be discussing religion in the next section about politics, as religions did play a major role in politics. Vikings - Vikings were a Germanic people that largely came from Jutland, or the peninsula or Denmark. Starting in the late Roman Republic, the "barbarians" to the east of the Rhine River were seen as a separate entity from the Gauls known as the "Germani", despite both having celtic origins. These Germanic tribes were actually a large number tribes and groups that began populating central Europe in the era known as "Migration Period" likely triggered by the invasion by the Huns during and after the fall of Western Roman Empire that traditionally signals the end of the ancient era and beginning of the early medieval period that is often called the Dark Ages (I will be discussing that term later). Despite the Hunnic Empire falling, many germanic groups such as the Goths, Lombards, and Franks began developing in territory across central Europe. In what is now Germany, several tribes took up the land in Northern Germany. In what is now the Netherlands, the Frisii took control, the Saxons in north Germany, the Angles were above them in the southern Jutland, and the Jutes took the northern end of Peninsula. The group of the Danes seems to originate around the border of the Angles and Jutes, likely being from both, as later Angles would describe early Danish kings. The Frisii also claimed land in the Jutland, so it wouldn't be surprising if they contributed in someway to the early Danish population. Hedeby was one of the first Danish towns created, and the Danes slowly grew their border to take the entire Jutland Peninsula and Southern bits of Norway and Sweden. Eventually the group would take most of the coastline of Sweden and Norway and all of Denmark, often calling themselves Danes. They would have spoken a form of proto-norse (and Old Norse during the game's time), and written in runes. The Old Norse language, despite splitting into east and west old norse, was the parent of Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. If we hear it in game, it will likely be a combination of these languages, similar to how the show Vikings does it. Due to the proximity to water, the Danes would become proficient fishers, traders, and most importantly sea bearers. It seems that by the 8th century they largely began to raid neighbors for expanding trade, including of slaves to help bolster their trading hubs. In 793ce their desire for raiding and trading combined with sea bearers led them to finding and raiding Lindisfarne, starting the Viking Age. The fashion of vikings isn't all too different than expected, wearing cloth (mostly wool) tunics and furs, matched with warm trousers and wool socks with boots above the ankle to help stay warm. Warmth and ease of access was vital, making it common for many Norse to wear leg wrappings and cloaks made out of wool that hung down around most of the body to knee height, covering the left arm, but leaving the right free in case combat was necessary. Leather was largely kept for use in belts and armor. Women largely wore dresses made of wool, with a second layer over it looking similar to a modern apron, often decorated with Jewelry. That said, it seems likely we'll see a number of characters looking more like norse depicted in TV shows like Vikings that primarily wear light colored tunics, fur, and leather. There were of course many famous vikings throughout the 300 year period they were the scourge of North Europe. The most famous viking was Ragnar Lothbrok, who I'll discuss more later, but led a Siege of Paris in 845 and raids in England before dying, which possibly spawned the Great Heathen Army headed by his 4 sons. Bjorn Ironside was one such son famous for his raids in the mediterannean around Spain, Southern France, and Italy. Ivar, Sigurd, Halfdan, and Ubba were the sons that led the Great Army into conquering much of England. Guthrum continued this fight primarily against Alfred the Great and founded the Danelaw. Lagertha was a legendary shield maiden and former wife of Ragnar before he left her for another woman. She would go on to send her next husband's fleet to defend him in a civil war, and then kill her husband, taking the Throne of Norway for herself. Rorik of Dorestad besieged and captured the cities of Utrecht and Dorestad around 850 before dying around 880, but is often associated with Rurik the founder of Kievan Rus who died in 879. Rollo besieged Paris in 885 and by 911 had established the Duchy of Normandy by allying himself with Charles the Simple. His line would eventually produce William the Conqueror and would eventually capture all of England, northern France, and part of Northern Africa, Southern Italy, and part of modern Syria. Hrafna-Floki was the first viking to deliberately sail to Iceland around 868, setting up one of the first settlements there. Ingolfur Arnarson founded Reykjavik in iceland around 874 after fleeing Norway from a Bloodfeud. Erik the Red established the first viking colony in Greenland after discovering it in 982. His son Leif Erikson would then discover Newfoundland (Canada) in 999. Harald Bluetooth was a king of Denmark and attempted King of Norway around 986, who introduced Christianity to both. Some sagas reference him as the founder of the Jomsviking mercenaries in Pomerania, and potential ally of Styrbjorn the Strong who was a potential leader of the Jomsvikings and heir to the throne of Sweden from his father Olof, stolen by his uncle Eric. Cnut the Great is likely the second most famous viking, creating the Great Sea Empire by taking Control of England and Denmark in 1016, and expanding to Norway and Scotland over the years, with only a few cities in Sweden ceding control. Upon his death in 1035, Magnus became the heir to his Empire, which began splitting apart by new co-rulers. In 1046 Magnus allied himself with exiled enemy of Cnut, Harald Hadrada, who'd been serving as a mercenary for the Kievan Rus for a decade before amassing a great wealth in the Varangian Guard for the Byzantines. Upon Magnus' death in 1047, Harald Hadrada took over the Crown of Norway and tried to rebuild the Great Sea Empire, even claiming the English Throne in 1064 from Harold Godwinson. He led the attack on Stamford Bridge, and died there, ending the Viking Age. British Isles Residents - Celts had inhabited the British Isles since about 800bce, and eventually broke into several loose groups. The Britons were the celts in the south, making up most of England and Wales; Picts taking Scotland, and Irish taking Ireland. Over time, the celts would lose most of England and separate into 6 nations; Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Wales, Cornwall (south western England), and Brittany (a peninsula in north-western France). The Romans would come and conquer England around 54bce, and would remain until about 407ce, when the Empire came under heavy attacks from the "barbarian" Germanic tribes. Due to this, the remaining Romano-Briton people more or less lost much of the knowledge of the Romans and trade resources, setting back writing and architecture. In this time, the Angles and Saxons began invading England, largely grouped together as a single name of Saxon. There is much debated historicity of characters from the time due to the lack of contemporary sources and later romanticization, but one such character that stands out is Ambrosius Aurelanius, War Leader and King of Romano-Britons in the 5th Century, and often called the "Last of the Romans". He's often associated as a potential brother of Uther Pendragon, or perhaps King Arthur himself. Uther was (if real) the father of Arthur who died during the Anglo Saxon wars. Arthur (or more likely Artorius) became a general for Ambrosius leading to the victory at the Battle of Badon in 516 ce against the Anglo-Saxons. Some sources point to help from the Picts, which he may have been related to, as his nephew Medraut was the son of King Lot of the Picts. It appears they invaded around 537ce in which Arthur fought against them, and died in battle at Camlann. With the Roman leaders defeated, the Anglo Saxons took control and in 452 began the "War of the Saxon federates". The Britons never really stood a chance, being attacked by the Picts and Saxons. By 560 larger Anglo-Saxon societies and kingdoms began to form and they converted to Christianity around 590. They eventually became the Heptarchy, a group of seven kingdoms in what's no England comprised of East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex. Mercia was the dominant Kingdom for a long period of time, until the Viking Invasions began. From there, Alfred the Great in 865 allowed Wessex to emerge as the strongest kingdom, began the Saxon Chronicles to document the history of England. His son Edward would help bring Alfred's dream of a unified England to life, which had constant battles with viking invaders until the Norman Invasion and conquering of England by William in 1066, ending the Anglo-Saxon rule. During that time, the rest of Britain was developing independently. Ireland had largely converted in the 5th-6th century and created their own government based on Tuatha's and high kings, separated from the other people. The Welsh were in constant turmoil switching between several kingdoms, the largest of which was Gwynedd in the north, with several smaller kingdoms in the south. Scotland was divided between four empires and groups; The Picts, Gael of Dal Riata, Britons of Strathclyde, and Anglo Saxon Northumbria. By the time of the title, the Picts and Britons had largely combined and formed Alba, which began attempting to expand into Dal Riata and Northumbria. As a result of all these changes, Britain was left speaking five languages; Anglo-Saxons speaking old-English, Britons speaking Welsh, Scots and Irish speaking Gaelic, Picts speaking Pictish, and Latin being spoken throughout due to Christianity. There was relatively little art made in the British Isles at this time, but what did come out, like from the Frankish, was dominated by christianity. Anglo-Saxons being Germanic ended up meaning their clothing wasn't far off from the vikings. Women wore ankle length full gowns with a hooded cloak and broach over it, or a scarf instead of a hood. Shoes were often simple and black. Even the lowest classes would afford items like this and jewelry due to the expanding economy under a stable kingdom and faster generation of a variety of textiles. Men would wear a simple square cloth draped over a shoulder connected to the other side by a broach. Below that was a tunic with a leather belt, and an under shirt below that. Matched with trousers and soft leather boots that stretched just above the ankle. It appears the welsh and scots wore similar articles, though perhaps used hooded cloaks more. Irish, on the other hand, primarily had a liene (early version of a kilt) made of linen and dyed colors based on social standing. They did wear some pants though called Trius, made of wool and buttoned up the back of the calf. Over the liene was an Inar which served as a sort of jacket that stretched down to be a skirt as well. The Brat was a large rectangular cloth placed over that, stretching over more of their body and offering a hood. Women wore similar dresses to the British peoples. The most famous of the Anglo-Saxon kings was Alfred the Great. He held off the advancing viking army, reorganized the burhs, reorganized the military, and began the Saxon Chronicles. For a video game and narrative, he has compelling side characters around him too, his Nephew Aethelwold, the King of Mercia Aethelred, husband of Alfred's daughter Aethelfled who became "Lady of the Mercians" in 911 when her husband died. Together with her brother, Edward the Elder who became king in 903 following the civil war with Aethelwold after his father's death in 899, they largely reconquered much of England from the vikings. He died in 924, with his son Aethelstan forcing Wales to submit and defeated a coalition of Scots, Danes, and Vikings in 937 to become the first King of a United England. He died in 939, leading to his son, Edmund's short reign as the King of England. His Son Edgar would name himself Emperor of England in 973 after about 15 years on the throne. Aethelred the Unready became king in 978 but fled to Normandy in 1013 to escape from the Viking King of Denmark, Sweyn Folkbeard. He died in 1015, allowing Aethelred to return with his wife Emma of Normandy, the Duke of Normandy's daughter. He was displaced in 1017 by Cnut the Great and died a few years later, leaving Emma with a son, Edward, who in 1042 would after some challenging, became King of Wessex, Edward the Confessor. He sought to rebuild the throne of Wessex before dying in 1066. He left the throne to Harold Godwinson, his brother-in law and relative of Cnut. However, William of Normandy would contest this claim, believing his relation to Emma granted him the throne, as did Harald Hadrada of Norway. Hadrada would end up dying at Stamford Bridge, whereas Godwinson would die a few weeks later to William at Hastings. The Normans would expel the remaining vikings in England, and William was crowned king in 1066, bringing the Anglo-Saxon dynasties and viking era to a violent end. Kenneth I was the first King of Scotland around 843, then referred to as the King of the Picts. In a few generations this name would change between the King of Scots and the King of Alba. Causantin was the leading king of the Picts during the viking invasions of Scotland during the Great Heathen Army's invasion. He would fall in battle in 877, succeeded by his son Aed who died the following year. Eochaid was Aed's son, becoming king until 889 before being slain by possible rival Giric, who died the following year, likely at the hands of Domnall II. Domnall II (or Donald II), was the son of Causantin and was the last King of the Picts, as Alba had been fully formed at this point. Domnall would leave his kingdom to his cousin Constantine II in 900, who ruled for 43 years and expanded greatly before abdicating to Domnall's son, Malcolm I. Malcolm would later die in battle in 954 (either against Vikings or Anglo-Saxons) allowing Indulf, the son of Constantine to rule. These two families would continue to go back and forth ruling Scotland until 1040. In 1040, grandson of Malcolm II, Macbeth, would lead an attack against King Duncan I, who died in battle. Macbeth took the throne and remained there for about 17 years before Edward the Confessor ordered the invasion of Scotland by Siward, Earl of Northumbria, and aided by Malcolm III. Macbeth died at Lumphanan, allowing his stepson Lulach to become King for several months before being executed by Malcolm III, whose family stayed in power until the late 13th century. I can find relatively little information on the Welsh Kings of the period, as most kings and kingdoms were somewhat more fluid, with Kings moving around the land with a warband. Gwynedd appears to have been the longest lasting king, with Powys, Gwent, and Deheubarth having many references over time. Rhodri Mawr was the first to rule most of Wales, controlling Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth by 942 and largely codifying Welsh Law. Upon his death in 949, the Kingdoms were split up once more. Viking raids became more common after 950 though, and in 987 the Gwynedd King, Maredudd ab Owain paid an unknown but significant price to release 2000 prisoners from Anglesey from being traded into slavery. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn became the first to rule all of Wales and part of modern England 1057. He would be defeated in battle by Harold Godwinson and killed by his own men in 1063, forcing the break up of the kingdoms once again. Bleddyn ap Cynfyn would become Ruler of Gwynedd and Powys in northern wales, consolidating power that made it difficult for Normans to control while they ravaged the south. Bleddyn was killed in 1075, however, causing a civil war to erupt that allowed the Normans to take more land while Gruffudd ap Cynan became victorious in 1081. He was promptly led to meet with the Normans who imprisoned him and seized the land. It would not remain in Norman hands for long, though. Perhaps some Irish History fans can correct me, but while many Irish Kings kings were recorded, it doesn't appear that many of them had the same impact that other kings I've discussed have had, even if just continuing a famous lineage. Though admittedly that may be due to my difficulties with the Early Irish language and names being so similar. It seems the most famous Irish King lived in the late 9th and early 10th century, being Cerball mac Muirecain, King of Leincaster. In 902, he allied with Mael Finnia mac Flannacain of Brega to drive vikings out of Dublin. The Irish Petty Kings and High Kings would continue to try to drive out the vikings, with a massive victory in 1014 and used the viking cities as their large hubs, despite remaining in petty kingdoms. The first normans didn't arrive until 1167, but they conquered the country within a year. I also want to say that there are some Irish documents mentioning the Bla-Maors which were a name for the "Black Vikings" by the Irish. It is commonly believed that this means they had dark hair, as the Irish and Danes traditionally had lighter (Red and Blonde respectively) hair, and the darker hair would be unusual, not that there were African-Danes in Ireland (not that this is entirely 100% impossible, just unlikely). Frankish - The area that currently makes up France, Germany, and the rest of Central Europe was initially controlled by the celtic group of Gauls that were largely conquered by Rome. Following Rome's collapse the Franks moved into the territory, expelling the Visigoths and Burgundians by 534 with Childeric I and his son Clovis I becoming the first kings in the mid-late 5th century thus founding the Merovingian Dynasty (yes, the dynasty that started pre-romanesque architecture to be built). Over time the dynasty became wrought with internal conflicts that divided and reunified the empire, and overexpansion into Iberia and Slavic territories. The Dynasty became so weak that local mayors began to have more power, with became solidified in 687 when an Austrian Mayor, Pepin the Middle, won the Battle of Tetry for the Frankish Kingdoms. He began ruling the kingdoms, though without becoming king officially. His son Charles Martel would take control after him, defeating the Moorish invasion from Iberia at the Battle of Tours and halting the spread of Islam in Europe. Following his death, in 751 Charle's son Pepin the Small was crowned king beginning the Carolingian Dynasty. His son was Charlemagne and in 800 expanded the kingdom and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor. His death in 814 left his son Louis the Pious the rule, and his death in 840 left it to Lothair I, Louis the German, and Charles the Bald who entered into a 3 year long civil war that collapsed the young Carolingian Empire. After they signed the Treaty of Verdun the empire was split into East, Middle, and West Frankia; Louis the German ruled East Frankia, Charles the Bald ruled West Frankia, and Lothair Middle Frankia. Lothair was the first to die in 855, splitting the kingdom between his 3 sons. The two sons controlling the northern provinces would die without heirs in 863 and 869 leading their uncles to split the land in the Treaty of Meerssen. The third son, Louis II would die in 875 with no children. Charles the Bald would take this land against. Carlomann of Bavaria would become king of East Frankia in 876 from his father Louis the German and conquer Italy for himself in 877. In 879, Carlomann of Bavaria suffered from a stroke and due to incapacitation left East Frankia to Louis the Younger and Italy to Louis' cousin Charles the Fat. Following his father's death Carlomann II became king of West Frankia. Louis the Younger would die in 882, leaving East Frankia to Charles the Fat. When Carlomann II died in 884, Charles the Fat was elected to rule West Frankia as well, thus reuniting all Frankish Empires. This would be short lived, however, as Rollo's raid in 885-886 left a lack of confidence in Charles the Fat, causing his nephew Arnulf of Carinthia to claim the Eastern Frankia in November of 887, and Charles died 2 months later. Arnulf would attempt to consolidate power throughout the Frankish Empires, and continued to fight of viking raids. He would die in 900, leaving power to his son Louis the Child, who died in 911 without issue, ending the Carolingian Dynasty in East Frankia. Following the death of Charles the Fat in West Frankia, the Count of Paris, Odo was elected and crowned as King. Odo, attempting to secure the kingdom would pay homage to Arnulf in 888, but only to be betrayed in 894, as Arnulf supported Charles the Simple, who seized land in the northern kingdom. Meanwhile in the west of the kingdom, the small peninsular region known as Brittany was united as a single Kingdom under a new king, Nominoe from 845-851. His son Erispoe would take the crown in 851 and declare independence from France, challenged by Charles the Bald at the Battle of Jengland. Erispoe would win, signing the Treaty of Angers that year to formalize independence. In 857 Erispoe would be assassinate in Church by his cousin Salomon who took the crown. Saloman would lead a rebellion against Charles the Bald and Vikings from 865-867, now winning Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and the Channel Islands. He would be assassinated in 874 by co-conspirators Wrhwant and Pascweten who took each other into a civil war before both dying in 876. Pascweten's brother, Alan I would take the throne until his death in 907. Based on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle by Alfred the Great Brittant stayed independent during this period, while a charter had him pay homage to Charles the Fat in 897 to the Monastery in Redon, meaning he emperor likely allowed him to hold the title King (or Rex) while still being somewhat subservient to the Frankish Empires. Count Gourmaelon would seize the throne from 907 until his death in battle against the vikings in 914 where most of Brittany was lost. Alan II, grandson of Alan I would return from Wessex with Edward the Elder would arrive and expel the vikings from Brittany and Anjou in 937. This in turn created the Duchy of Brittany under Louis IV in 938. Charles the Simple became king fully in 898 upon Odo's death. Rollo would continue raids though, and Charles would eventually grant him the Duchy of Normandy and Brittany for him to be baptised in 911. During this time Duchies began to become commonplace and centralized their own power. Charles' first wife, Frederuna would die in 917 leaving no heirs. Due to worries of succession, he would marry Edward the Elder of England's sister, Eadgifu, who gave birth to Louis IV. The brother of Odo, Robert I, would withdraw support from Charles in 922, taking control as Charles fled to Normandy. He returned a year later with an army, killing Robert at Battle of Soisson. Robert's son Hugh the Great was offered the crown, but refused, allowing Rudolph of Burgundy to take it. Charles would seek help from Herbert II, Count of Vermandois who imprisoned him and attempted to use Charles as a bargaining chip for the crown. Charles would die in 929, and in 936, after years of quarreling with the dukes of France, Rudolph died. Hugh used this time to bring back Louis IV to the country and have him take the crown, choosing instead to keep power within his own Duchy and use influence as Regent to combat rivals like Herbert II. In 911, Louis the Child of East Frankia died without an heir, causing the dukes to vote and choose Conrad of Franconia to rule. Conrad, after many disputes with the dukes, would die in 919, choosing Henry the Fowler to rule in his wake. Henry became king in 919, and after winning the Battle of Riade against Magyars (Hungarians) in 933, secured a dynasty, leaving his son Otto to rule in 936 beginning the Ottonian Dynasty. After a series of fights with the dukes, Otto secured his throne and married Adelaide, widowed Queen of Italy in 951 to secure more power. In 962 Otto was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, entwining German and Papacy politics and officially reforming the Holy Roman Empire. He would depose the pope a year later for a political ally and his son Otto II would marry a Byzantine Princess, Theophanu in 972. Otto I died in 973, leaving the empire to Otto II. Otto would initially struggle with claims of power from family, but would overcome and attempt to expand power in Italy and into Islamic Lands, failing miserably. He died in 983, leaving the throne to his 3 year old son, Otto III. His uncle, Henry of Bavaria immediately claimed Regency, but stepped down in 984 for Otto's moth Theophanu until her death in 991, followed by the regency of his grandmother Adelaide until 994. Otto would attempt imperial hegemony in Italy throughout his life, leading to a Roman Revolt in 1002. Otto would march to meet it, but die of a fever on the way at the age of 21 with no heir. Henry II would be elected to the throne and strengthen the empire's power until his death in 1014 without an Heir. Conrad II, the great great grandson of Otto I would be elected as King, and started the Salian Dynasty. High Capet, Duke of the Franks in East Frankia would begin to gain political power and favor, causing distrust by Otto, and some invasions and fighting between Otto I and Louis IV would occur over Lotharingia. Lothair of France would continue this when he became king in 954, even starting a war. While this would be reconciled, the conflict gave further power to the Robertians, the descendants of Robert I, and family of Hugh Capet. To counter this, Lothair married his son, Louis V to Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou, a woman from a powerful family from Southern France and Italy. Lothair died in 986, leaving power to Louis V, but was contested by Hugh Capet, who was able to be voted in by the duke as King in July of 987, forming the Capetian Dynasty. They would remain in power for the rest of the Viking era, slowly growing the power of France. To the east, Poland was just forming; initially inhabited by Germanic groups and slavs escaping huns and magyars, with larger important cities such as Krakow being built over time. By the 8th century, Duchies began forming with heavily fortified trading cities or Gords around Truso, Giecz, Poznan, and Gniezno. Piast the Wheelwright would form the Piast Dynasty, slowly expanding the domain of the Polan slavic tribe. In 960, Mieszko I would become the first Duke of Poland, conquering the rest of the territory and converting to Christianity. Over the following century, most of Poland would convert, and viking influence, such as Jomsborg, would be eradicated. Mieszko's son, Boleslaw the Brave became duke in 992, and created archdiocese in Gniezno, Krakow, Kołobrzeg, and Wroclaw, eventually becoming King before his death around 1025. Boleslaw has also been attributed to being the Danish King Sweyn's father in law. Despite a stable relationship with Otto, Henry II began multiple invasions of Poland, as did Bohemia and Kievan Rus. This compounded revolts by Pagans in 1030 created strife for Mieszko II when he became king in 1025. Casimir I would become king in 1039, and reunite the kingdom and formally make Krakow the capital. As the empires changed, as did language. The west Franks for example spoke Old French and latin, the middle Franks spoke Old French, Old Frisian, Old German, and Old Italian, whereas the East Franks spoke old Frisian and old German. The Polans, however, despite influence from the Holy Roman Empire, Danes, and Kievan Rus and eastern slavic tribes, seemed to take a little from everywhere, and spoke Old Slavonic. The Frankish peasants, like the English, primarily wore tunics, trousers, a belt, and simple leather shoes or simple dresses and gowns. Charlemagne reportedly even did the same, though mildly more elaborate designs. Other kings however wore a complex set of several layers of robes such as Lothair I. Kievan Rus - was actually a large loose federation of multiple peoples in Eastern Europe, primarily being Slavic and Finnic people with a number of Scandinavian immigrants. The slavic people were an ethnicity that came to Eastern Europe from the Balkans and euro-asia during the great migration period. The Finnis, however, actually came from (modern) northern Russia and Siberia and inhabited along the Batltic Sea (modern Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) before moving to Finland in the 12th century. The Varangians were Scandinavian and Viking settlers that largely ruled the Kievan Rus federation while all speaking Old East Slavic. The Varangians had been in land since about 750ce, and formed the Rus Khaganate. By 862, the people of Novgorod grew tired of their raiding and control, driving them back to the Baltic, and in the power vacuum, chaos set in. Within a few months, they begged for the return of the Varangians, and under Rurik (possibly Rorik of Dorestad), they settled in Novgorod, beginning the formation of the Federation. By 882 Rurik had died and his relative Oleg conquered Kiev, formally founding the Kievan Rus and moving the capital from Novgorod to Kiev, and thus beginning the Rurikid Dynasty. The Varangians would patrol the long rivers in their ships, and use rafts to help transport trade, as they had a huge abundance of most resources, making the Kievan Rus become a predominant trade empire, soon conquering the Black and Caspian Sea, giving full control of the Volga and Dnieper/ Dniester Trade Routes which connected to the Byzantine and Arab states. Kievan Rus became the only major way to trade from Byzantine and Arab states for more exotic goods to get to Poland, Scandinavia, and the rest of Europe, which seemed to only encourage the pirating and control of the expanding Kievan Rus federation. Soon the Varangians turned to mercenary work too, even forming the Varangian Guard for the Byzantine Army due to their prowess. Sviatoslav I of Kiev was one of the largest causes of this, who was instrumental in expanding regional influence while creating allies to the southeastern Magyars and First Bulgarian Empire, giving room to force his will on the Volga Trade route to the arab states. Ruling from 945-972, one of his final changes was to move the capital from Kiev in 969 to Pereyslavets. Sviatoslav would leave three sons but no right to succession, leading his son Oleg to kill brother Yaropolk and seize control. His third son, Vladimir the Great would flee to Norway, and with the help from Ladejarl Hakon Sigurdsson would come back and conquer all of Kievan Rus by 980, and formally extend the empire to the Baltic Sea, which had previously been independent but frequently used for trade by Varangians. Vladimir would convert to Christianity in 988, bringing further byzantine influence into Kievan Rus while continuing to expand until his death in 1015. His son Sviatopolk I of Kiev would kill 4 of his brothers and name himself Grand Prince of Kiev in 1015, while his remaining brother Yaroslav the Wise claimed to be the Prince of Novgorod. Yaroslav would eventually recombine the principates in 1019 with help from the Polish King Boleslaw I. Under Yaroslav, he begun the basis for the Russkaya Pravda (or Rus Law which was compiled by his sons after his death in 1054) while bringing the federation to its zenith of cultural, political, and military influence. Kievan Rus would eventually split into multiple rival powers in the 11th century, allowing its trade routes to collapse as new ones formed and Constantinople's influence waned. It would eventually be conquered by the Mongols in 1240 with the varangians having integrated into the eastern slavs. Slavs and Varangians, much like the other Europeans would largely wear tunics and trousers with women wearing dresses. Sometime they used furs, as much of the federation was farther north than other parts of Europe. The true distinction with the Rus' fashion came from class distinction. The lowest classes wore simple beige colored tunics made of wool or linen. Upper classes would wear multiple colors and and expensive pelts. They could also afford leather and metal armor, which I'll discuss more in Warfare. submitted by /u/nstav13 [link] [comments] |
| I Think I'm Ready For The Series To Either End OR Drastically Slow Down Posted: 20 Oct 2019 08:09 AM PDT As a long time fan of this series, playing all the games, researching the story, even getting a tattoo dedicated to the brotherhood, lately I have been having some thoughts about how I feel about the series as a whole. I remember hearing somewhere a few years back that Ubisoft has had some idea of when they would want to end the series and how they would do it. Honestly, I think that may be a good idea. Obviously I would love nothing more than to be playing new AC games well into my 60s, but with specific games that have came out later in the series that have honestly been nothing but $60 DLCs (Syndicate, Odyssey and somewhat Unity), maybe it's time they enter the endgame and put maximum effort into a couple giant finales and call it. Whether it be Vikings, back in Rome, even Japan as a setting, getting their minds set on completing the modern day arc (which is mostly non-existent now) and giving a complete story on the war between Assassins and Templars is something that myself, and i'm sure many others, have been looking forward to. Even if they don't end it all soon and decide to keep on going for many more years to come, I would love nothing more than to have the satisfaction of an amazing game after a multi-year break in between. I personally loved Origins because of the fact that they took the extra time to shape and make it great in many different aspects, but imagine how amazing their games could be if we had 3-4+ year gaps in between. It would suck to have to wait this long, but looking at other companies and series which DO take that long of breaks to work on their games, it would be much more enjoyable knowing that the moment we press start on the new AC game, we're in for a hell of a time with an outstanding level of story and detail. Of course all of this is much easier said than done and I am by no means a developer or anything of that profession, but this has just been on my mind for a little bit now. Please let me know your thoughts and opinions on this including how wrong or right I may or not be. Thanks for reading, have a nice day! submitted by /u/RevivedSicarius [link] [comments] |
| [SPOILERS] The World of the Early Medieval Period and What to Expect from an AC Vikings Game Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:36 PM PDT Since news broke about the next Assassin's Creed title setting being within the Viking Era, I've seen hundreds of comments and questions pertaining to the early medieval setting. Today I want to break down a lot of information in regards to the era and how that can pertain to AC in terms of story, gameplay, and lore. To help make things simple, I'll leave a map I made here to help show where everything is. https://i.imgur.com/EfITZcF.jpg DISCLAIMER - If I got anything major wrong, please let me know so I can correct it. I've spent hours searching through various online resources to make this as accurate as I can overall, though there is some speculation based on lack of resources and called out as what I think Ubisoft might do in cases of discrepancies. I did try to keep everything easy to understand even when diving deep into some subjects, so please let me know if you feel something was misrepresented from this. I also do have some inconsistencies with spellings. Many early records did not have standardized spellings, and Old Norse is a pain, so I keep things anglicized for the most part on purpose. For the sake of this, I do group several smaller germanic and slavic kingdoms such as Bohemia, Moravia, and Poland in with the Frankish empire due to the Frankish Influence in society, religion, and architecture. This was purely for ease of listing. This post was actually written in a google document and is 40 pages long. I understand reddit can be harsh for reading such a long post, so you can read it here. Second Disclaimer: This was WAY bigger than I thought. So I've split this into 5 distinct sections for ease of access. - FAQ and The World of the Early Medieval Period - Current Section
- The People of the Early Medieval Period
- The Politics of the Early Medieval Period
- The Warfare in the Early Medieval Period
- The History of Vikings and What I expect from an AC Viking Game
Frequently Asked Questions Q. When is the Viking Age? The Viking Age takes place from 793ce with the Raid on Lindisfarne, England to 1066ce with the Norman Invasion of England and expulsion of the Vikings Q. When will the game be set within this era? We currently can only speculate, but two settings in a Ubisoft Poll from a few years ago were during the Viking Era. The Invasion of England by the Great Heathen Army (865ce) and the Norman Invasion by William the Conqueror (1066ce). I'll discuss more in depth below. Q. Where will the viking game take place? Based on polls from Ubisoft that included the viking settings of the Great Heathen Army and Norman Invasion, England is a relatively safe bet. It is also likely that at least some of Scandinavia will be available as well. From the map above, I believe the best guess would be the island of Britain (modern England, Wales, and Scotland), Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. I will be discussing all of Northern Europe that's shown in the map, though. Q. Why codename it Kingdom in the viking era, and what will the actual name be? The codename Kingdom could be in reference to a number of things that could be present in the game. The vikings had several major kingdoms throughout the Age, the largest of which was the North Sea Empire ruled by Cnut the Great. It could also be in reference to the English Kingdoms that players may invade; or even a gameplay mechanic to making your "kingdom" stronger. While the official name has not been revealed, it's widely speculated to be called "Ragnarok" as a reference to the end times in Norse mythology, due to the connection to Origins, popularity in media, and name being used in several unconfirmed and fake rumors plus a potential concept art leak from 2018. Q. What evidence is there for the game? While Kingdom has not been confirmed by Ubisoft, it was leaked by Jason Schreier, who has a perfect track record with AC leaks. It was followed up by a leak by french website xboxygen that many consider to be legitimate due to accuracy on Watch Dogs Legion leaks. We also have concept art from an artist at Ubisoft that was supposedly fan work for their portfolio, but named "michele-nucera-assassincreedragnarok-bay-09.jpg". The naming convention and timing has many fans speculating heavily. This of course matches with at least one fake leak and several small 4chan rumors that have stated the next game will be named "Ragnarok" and follow Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons great army. https://kotaku.com/odd-tease-in-the-division-2-spills-the-beans-on-the-nex-1833838193 http://www.xboxygen.com/News/29092-Assassin-s-Creed-chez-les-Vikings-nos-informations https://gamerant.com/assassins-creed-ragnarok-ubisoft-concept-art/ Q. Will we play as assassins again with hidden blades? Nothing is officially confirmed yet, but it is unlikely to be full assassins fighting Templars again. The term assassin did not exist until the crusades as a term used to describe the followers of Hassan Ibn Sabbah, who wasn't born until about 1050ce. With the viking era ending in 1066, it's unlikely his influence had been amassed and the Hidden Ones were rebranded within AC lore. Templars were in a similar state, with the Templar orders not existing until the early 12th century. Rather than playing as either a Hidden One and fighting the Order of Ancients, we may also play as a viking mercenary popular towards the end of the era called Jomsvikings to further capitalize on Odyssy's success. I'll discuss them more later.The hidden blade is a bit more likely though, with it having been invented around 460bce and popularized in 44bce. The World Vikings raided and pillaged most of Europe during their voyages, reaching from the Baltic States and Kievan Rus as far south as North Africa, Italy, and even vandalizing Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. I will, however, be focusing on Northern Europe for this discussion, breaking down regions to discuss their land, cities, and architecture. This map of viking trade routes may also be helpful though it isn't 100% accurate. Europe is filled with rivers and marshlands as seen here, which was easy for vikings to maneuver due to their longships. As a result, I do think we might see a few rivers enlarged in Kingdom/Ragnarok in order to make ship travel mildly easier and more conducive to gameplay, much like Rogue did. England, being the most likely to appear, seems to be the best place to start off. England is the largest of the countries in Britain, with the map previously shared it taking up Wessex, Danelaw, Mercia, and Northumbria. I'll be discussing the changes of those Kingdoms later. England is a largely low lying country, with the largest mountain range, Pennine Mountains, in Northern England. Much of southern England, however, are forests and rolling hills in the center of the country, with much of the outskirts being thick marshes that viking longships could navigate through.A good map of Mountains can be seen here: Map of swamps here: I have seen maps of wetlands from the Uk that indicate that there used to be wetlands in the Pennine Mountains, but it seems to be fairly speculative. Wessex was the southernmost kingdom, and under Alfred the Great underwent a large change to fortify many of its towns or burhs. Stone was hard to quarry and come by at the time, with most of it being taken from Roman fortifications and used in defensive perimeters and churches. This did make abandoned roman forts a popular place to start burhs though. We see largely wooden fences with a trench in front surrounding many towns to help defend from vikings. Inside are mostly 1 story houses separated by a few fairly wide streets. A church was oftentimes a centerpiece of the city, and it wasn't uncommon to have some farms within the walls itself along with the outside. While burhs like this were more numerous, they likely won't be the focal points for our adventure in the next AC, instead looking at larger cities instead. They may appear as forms of PoI though or tied to a settlement system. Those closer to Roman ruins were sometimes repurposed to include the first Motte and Bailey castles (more on them in a few moments). Our bigger cities will likely include Winchester, Canterbury, London, Chester, Bristol, and York. York was by far the largest city with about 15,000 people in its walls by the time the Great Heathen Army landed, with the other cities having 5,000 or fewer. These cities, however, unlike the other burhs had large Roman walls around them already. This did mean that the city size was restricted though, and rather than rebuild walls, the people began building up. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Dark Ages the early medieval peoples lost the knowledge on how to build out of stone well, and quarry for more stone, making it a very valuable commodity. As I mentioned, this meant many burhs and towns were built on top of Roman forts, stripping them for stone to build churches and walls. The rest of the buildings had to deal with cheaper architecture. The most notable of which is wattle and daub. This is thin branches are weaved together and placed into upright slats and then have a thick mud caked on and hardened. This was the most common form of architecture in the early medieval period due to how cheap it was. Timber was still expensive, and despite using cheaper woods to create floors (these often had be elevated slightly on stakes in order to help slow rot, but had to be replaced regularly), was fairly expensive. Timber frames still had to be used though to help keep the shape of the building. Not common early on, at some point around the Viking Era in Britain, we begin to see diagonal bracing added to help keep houses steady. In the older Roman Cities, many of the roman buildings and forts were stripped early on. London didn't have any of the original Roman houses left by 1000ce, and by 1100ce had stripped the fort itself leaving only the walls behind. This stone was largely used to create stable foundations for buildings, including along the forming of Thames Street and eventually London Bridge. This also meant that combined with improved timber framing, people could start building upwards and outwards. The process of building high floors larger than the first is called jettying, and became synonymous with the medieval era, becoming very popular in the latter half. While jettying had been around for nearly 1000 years, it was still relatively new for Britain, and by 1066, houses were just reaching 2-3 stories high. We do know that this was incredibly popular by 1100-1200, and began being restricted and regulated in London by 1300 due to some fires in 1133 and 1212 due to building proximity. As buildings couldn't grow their first floors to impede foot traffic (regulated by law), having more room in upper floors became a necessity. Somewhere in this time we begin to see the creation of skywalks or covered pathways between buildings. I could not find an exact date for when these appeared, but there's evidence they existed in China in 220ce, so it's not unreasonable for them to have made it to England within another 600-800 years. Again, while jettying was new, we also have mention of the Shambles in 937, a street in York that is famous for its tilted jettying. Most buildings in that picture are from 1300 onwards due to fires, but it's not unreasonable to believe it could look similar. Roofing will likely be almost entirely thatching, or made out of dried straw, reeds, etc over a timber frame. There is some evidence for use of wooden tiles, red roman tiles, turf, and timber as well for roofs, but vary in cost and abundance. Many depictions of medieval england use slate or shale shingles, which while possible would likely be anachronistic, as the first records of those don't appear until the 1300s, more than the few years for other anachronistic changes. Castles were still in very early stages in this period. The remains of the Roman Forts not picked apart had been used by royalty such as in Winchester and Canterbury, sometimes having a church built into them. The other type that may be linked to the smaller burhs are the aforementioned Motte and Bailey castles. These are very early castles that originated around the 8th-9th century in Carolingian France. In them, we have a protected area within an enclosure called the Bailey, and that included the only real way up to the often wooden watchtower or small 2-3 story keep. The motte was a large fortified hill that the tower sat upon. This provided a nice advantage and lookout for guards, while making it difficult to storm. These really did not reach England until about 1066 with the Norman Invasion, though even if we have an earlier setting, I can see a mild historical inaccuracy occurring to push these through, as French and English dynasties did get along and travel to each other on numerous occasions. Overall, Anglo-Saxon Architecture was fairly basic work in the beginning of the period, creating square churches and houses from retrievable stone, timber, and mud. It does appear that the Carolingian Renaissance and frankish styles began spreading to England by the 8th century though, allowing for some larger buildings to exist. Make no mistake, stone work though will be fairly basic within the title, with the most elaborate stone work being window arches and a few stone carvings. Larger sprawling castles, complex stone churches with arches, and even brick based houses will not be in game. These advances were primarily coming from the gothic period and early Tudor dynasty which cemented the traditional fantasy medieval style in most people's heads of churches like Notre Dame, 5 storied jettying houses with plaster filling and timber and brick frames, and massive stone castles with knights in plate armor. Celtic lands consist of several major areas in the British Isles, now making up the countries of Ireland (and North Ireland), Isle of Man, Scotland, and Wales. The celts, while largely good stone workers, each had several unique flairs and differences across the lands due to different cultural influences. Ireland is largely grasslands with a few major mountain ranges along the southern and northwestern coasts, as can be seen in this map. Within the inner part of Ireland and a few surrounding islands such as Mann and Skellig to as far away as Oakney, which were largely isolated from Britain became the home of the Celts, that - primarily in Ireland - lived in clusters of towns called Tuatha with a probable high king. More on his position later. In the neolithic through early medieval period we see the creation of stone huts called Beehive Huts. These may look familiar as the huts seen in Star Wars Force Awakens and Last Jedi which filmed on the Skellig Islands. The Tuatha meanwhile were a cluster of towns that each held 3000 people and 1000 large houses holding 30 people each. A good example of this is Rathcroghan. Smaller houses for single families could be seen too, and like the large houses were mostly circular wood and largely straw homes. Ireland was far less wooded than Britain, forcing the settlements to rely on wood, stone, and straw far more. Vikings began to settle in Ireland though, creating the first real large cities of Ireland by founding Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick which were used as ports and easy staging areas for future raids, especially to Britain. Unfortunately Wales history has been extremely hard to research and understand the architecture of this mountainous and rugged country. Many fires and revolutions during the high middle ages destroyed the history, leaving behind stone castles built post Norman Invasion and records of political turmoil in the early kingdoms of Wales (more on that later). It's highly suspected that despite the Celtic Influence from Ireland, the Britons of Wales, especially in the northern Gwynedd, had architecture similar to the Frankish and English. The city I can find the most on that definitely existed in this era was Bangor, which is one of the oldest Welsh cities overall. It seems there were Roman Forts at modern Newport and Cardiff, but the extent of the settlement there post Rome is unknown. Vikings did settle the town of Swansea as well in the early 1000s, but other than that held no permanent residence in Wales due to the Welsh Kingdoms power. Scotland during its early years was made up of a few separate kingdoms which started to become United under Alba by the Viking Era. The records of many of the country's cities were actually hill forts nestled into the rocky, mountainous, and ravenous terrain of the region that include Craig Phadrig, Aberdeen, Dunadd, Dumbarton Rock, Edinburgh, and Scone. What wasn't Roman Fortress was largely low lying single story wattle and daub houses with timber frames, wooden churches, and a few stone beehive huts, most of which was described to blend into the hills. Scandinavia contrasts heavily with medieval England though. Rather than being a single large Island or collection of isles, Scandinavia describes modern Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. To make it simpler, I'm going to break it up into Viking and NonViking Scandinavia, which was predominantly based on how far north the vikings went. Viking Scandinavia is primarily Southern Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Norway is a very mountainous and hilly region creating massive and beautiful Fjords or inlets with high cliffs. Sweden is on the east side of the mountains being mildly lower but hilly and mountainous nonetheless. Both are mostly covered in a Boreal Forest, or a subarctic Taiga, a forest that is characterized by evergreens in a very cold climate, with tall but skinny trunks and wide but thin branches. This contrasts from the deciduous forests native to England and most of Europe including Denmark, the southernmost part of Scandinavia that's a low lying peninsula known as the Jutland Peninsula with a collection of several large islands known as the Danish Archipelago. The Jutland was home to three of the largest trading hubs in the Viking world, being Aarhus, Ribe, and the largest of Hedeby which contained about 1000 people. Most of the largest cities in Scandinavia were not founded until after the viking era was over, but several major cities weren't far from them. The religious city of Uppsala and the nearby town of Birka were relatively close to modern Stockholm in Sweden and Roskilde near modern Copenhagen. Oslo (or Anslo as it was called) was founded around 1040, meaning it could appear in the title. Kaupung and Trondheim were larger hubs in Norway, with Trondheim towards northern Norway along the coast of the Norwegian Sea. Reykjavik and a few other towns were founded in Iceland in 874, so it's not impossible to see them too. There are many contemporary and modern sources on viking architecture, and while it was almost entirely wood and mud, I do want to discuss some common themes I've seen doing research into Viking Architecture styles. To begin with, some commonalities are that viking villages are generally flat with low single story buildings and wide streets. Ubisoft's last foray into the viking era with For Honor had shown off a viking village with the opposite though, being taller 2-3 story houses, narrow paths on a hill. While undoubtedly visually pleasing, it's certainly inaccurate. As we see from the potentially leaked concept art for Ragnarok, Bay 09 includes a sprawling viking city on a mountain side overlooking a Fjord, with high towers, multiple story buildings, and even a bridge with houses built onto it. Again it's visually appealing, and would likely work well with parkour despite being on a more fantastical side of what we ought to see. The other big commonality is that most viking villages had a sizeable mead hall that was used for town religious and political purposes, often being a timber longhouse. While most viking houses were wooden and had straw and mud roofs, it appears that some commonalities were more based on region. This bit is speculation, as I've had difficulty verify the veracity and historical accuracy of this architectural style, but based on the aforementioned concept art, it's not unlikely to be seeing a more mythicized version of the world, meaning a few historical discrepancies are likely. From what I've seen, these largely wooden and more ornate buildings, despite being 1-1.5 stories were more commonly associated with Norway. I'd speculate that more mountainous terrain could make creating foundations for a house, especially longhouses, fairly difficult; thus forcing smaller and more stable homes to be designed out of primarily wood rather than earth works. Sweden, on the other hand would try to marry a larger footprint of longhouses such as in Denmark while being ornate and suited to the terrain, creating wood, straw, and mud houses that may have been similar to this. Denmark would largely focus on larger footprints using primarily longhouses within their city's defenses, which likely owed to creating some of the larger cities of the viking era like Hedeby. During Harald Bluetooth's reign and even as late as Cnut the Great, the Viking Ring Fortress became popular, especially in Denmark and Sweden, comprising of several longhouses and smaller houses in squares surrounded by a large earth wall, created by digging a trench along the outside of the desired hill. During construction the hill, 4 wooden passageways were left through the hill, with dirt and sod packed on top and to the sides, allowing people to freely move in and out of the fortress. The hill was then fortified with large timber siding on both the inside and outside, while allowing people from the inside easy access to the top of the hill, which now acted as a wall. Iceland greatly differs from these areas though, with a far harsher environment. About 50% of iceland is covered in rough rocky volcanic lava deserts and glacial wastelands in a region called the Highlands. The rest of iceland is rocky and mountainous grassland surrounded by massive Fjords. While there were numerous viking settlements throughout the island, the largest and one of the first was the now-capital-city of Reykjavik. Unlike traditional viking settlements though, many homes were timber built but completely covered in mud and sod. This was to keep the heat trapped in the home due to the harsher environment, creating settlements that may have looked a bit like this. Northern Scandinavia was left largely uninhabited by the vikings, having small tribes of the Lapps and Sami people control the regions, especially in what's modern Finland. The farthest north of this area was of course marked by the arctic circle and boreal forest while the west was more mountains and forest from Norway and Sweden. Finland, though, has a massive area known as central lake plateau, which is a plateau in the center of the country that is full of lakes, swamps, and boreal forest. Going farther south to the Baltic coast will be met with a large swamp and "Archipelago Sea". The Sami and Lapps never contained large amounts of wealth or large cities, creating only small settlements of Mud and Wooden huts, not dissimilar from American Indian Tipis. Frankish territory extended far past modern France, making up modern France, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and a few other countries in what was the Holy Roman Empire. Prior to the viking age, the empire collapsed and eventually split into several regions marked on the map, more on the politics of this later. Seeing all of the Frankish Kingdoms is pretty unlikely, as is seeing any of them in the main game in my opinion, but they do hold some of the richest lands and cities in the Early Medieval Period in Europe. The vast majority of this region is open grasslands, soft rolling fields, and forests scattered throughout the areas labeled as Brittany, West Francia, Normandy, Lotharingia, and Saxony. Frisia and part of northern Saxony were large swamp lands. Angers, Tours, and Orleans are the southernmost cities in western Francia and near the border of Brittany. Rouen was just inside the Duchy of Normandy, with Paris along the same river not far outside the borders. Frisia's largest city was Utrecht, with many modern towns like Amsterdam only existing as fishing villages if at all. In Saxony and Lotharingia we'd see larger cities of Hamburg and Frankfurt. While the exact populations of many cities are unknown, by 1050 Cologne had around 21,000 people and Paris had 25,000 by 800, far more than any English city. Just to the east we have the regions of Pomerania and Lusatia, both regional names for kingdoms of Bohemia and Moravia along with groups of people living in what's now modern Poland. The northern area of Pomerania is a fairly flat and grassy area known as the Polish Plain, contrasted with the southern portion that has steeper rolling hills. Wolin was a major stopping and trading hub for Vikings, and likely related to the potentially mythical city of Jomsborg. To the south three major cities existed along separate riverways that fed back into the Baltic: Poznan, Prague, and Krakow. Most of these areas had a very distinct architectural style known as Preromanesque, which as it sounds came before the architectural style Romanesque. The Merovingian Dynasty from the 5th century to 751 is what really inspired this architectural choice, which then split into 2 similar but different styles of Carolingian and Ottonian, after rulers in Carolingian Dynasty and King Otto. An example of the Preromaneque Architecture would be Charlemange's Palace, which upon observation has clear Roman influence due to presence of arches and round structures, but overall left a fairly flat facade. This Carolingian Monastery has fairly few discernable differences to this Ottonian church in Frankfurt. We do see a large emphasis on the interior beauty though, as evidenced by this carolingian church. By the 11th century we start to see a shift towards being larger and more ornate buildings such as this church, which has an obvious emphasis on the facade. While this is the era in which castles and keeps started to be made, most buildings would not be above 3 stories, and real castles wouldn't be built until after the Norman Invasions of William the Conqueror. For now, we'd likely just see more Motte and Bailey castles. That primarily covers the big landmarks made by and for the kings and religious. Peasants, however, did not have such luxuries, often living in the stone houses left behind by the romans in these cities and forts. As the cities grew, due to walls existing, much like England, it became common (even earlier too) to start building up by using wattle and daub, stripping the stone as needed, though France (at least with the rich) had far less of an issue with acquiring stonework. Paris was subjected to multiple raids, though two really stood out and were encapsulated in art that can help show what the city may have looked like at the time. The first was in 845 at the hands of Ragnar Lothbrok, and as we can see, it had a decent sized Carolingian Palace in Ile de la Cite (please note that the larger cathedral attached to the palace and Conciergerie weren't built until the 13th century, but the section with the lower roofs were updated around 800), juxtaposed by the Preromanesque churches and Roman Ruins on the outskirts. By 885, however, Rollo had to face walls on the other side of the bridges, helping defend the outer city more. The TV show Vikings actually did cover this as well, seemingly combining the two sieges and adding a more anachronistic flare such as the taller roofs on the towers and greatly exaggerating the size of everything, despite Paris definitely being more built up than English cities. It would not be unlikely to see cities largely built up as the classic fantasy medieval cities, though with mildly less stone and no bricks; not dissimilar to this (https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/medieval-port-3d-1144332). Even in that we see the Carolingian church rather than a larger gothic one, which is an important thing to remember for the early medieval period. Kievan Rus was the most different to any region discussed so far. Like other Northern European areas, it's largely plains, a few rolling hills, and mountains to the southwest of the region in what is now mostly Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus. I do include the modern Baltic States in the map of Kievan Rus territory though due to the area being primarily inhabited by small tribes, Slavs, and often being used as a hub for piracy and trade by the Varangians that inhabited Kievan Rus. I want to discuss this group of people later, but their land was very important, being the easiest way for vikings to trade with people from Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East, as the Varangians controlled every major trade route in Eastern Europe from the Black to Baltic Sea. This lead to what would be the most interesting architecture in the title though, as despite likely having roots from vikings, eventually turned to Eastern Orthodoxy based on Byzantine tradition, and developed the architecture as such. By about 1000ce, the capital of Kiev was decorated with large wooden and stone monuments with exotic and ornate domes inherent to the Byzantine Structure. Kiev, while the capital was one of the 3 major cities in the region, with the other 2 being Polotsk in the north west, and the original capital of Novgorad in the north. TL;DR: There were several distinct regions and architectural styles in the early medieval era, ranging from the viking single story houses and longhouses, to multi story compact cities made of wattle and daub and timber frames which could be surrounded by large stone churches, juxtaposed by the exotic domes of the eastern Rus. submitted by /u/nstav13 [link] [comments] |
| Hidden mechanics in the Ezio games Posted: 20 Oct 2019 02:46 PM PDT I am also currently playing AC2 and in some Let's Plays I found some like hidden mechanics, for example doing a roll to dodge a guard or I also found out that I can sort of like navigate Ezio to make and assassination while I am still jumping or making a wall jump. So does someone know any hidden mechanics like that and what button combination do I have to make? submitted by /u/Darmabfall88 [link] [comments] |
| Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Gold Edition on sale for $34 from $100 on Xbox Store Posted: 20 Oct 2019 04:06 PM PDT If you never picked up AC:O or wanna play AC III remastered here's your chance. Gold edition also comes with all DLC for AC:O so a whole lotta content submitted by /u/PlatChat [link] [comments] |
| Assassin’s Creed 3 - Hostile Negotiations - How to complete in a ‘canon way’ Posted: 20 Oct 2019 01:39 PM PDT On the Mission Hostile Negotiations where you Assassinate William Johnson, after the assassination, all the guards will attack you, but also kill the natives. Now obviously Connor would not compromise the natives lifes (especially since you have to kill Johnson before he kills the natives). What would be the correct/canon way Connor would have accomplished this memory without getting all the natives hurt or killed? Can you run and the guards will follow? Can you assassinate Johnson another way rather than an air assassination (there is a voice line he has if you show yourself) or do you simply have to smoke bomb all the guards and kill them extremely quickly (but you don't have smokes at the start of the mission, you have to randomly find them on bodies, and I'm sure Connor wouldn't have compromised the mission that way). submitted by /u/BadgerBadger95 [link] [comments] |
| Is it okay to play AC Odyssey before Origins ? (story wise) Posted: 20 Oct 2019 10:18 AM PDT For Story overall. I managed to keep all spoilers since AC2 away and never start neither one of the games except when I did benchmarks for previous games since Unity. Now I see that Oddysey is about mythology, that is something what I loved since kid, and it's hard to play any other AC games before that. Without spoilers if possible, I would appreciate if someone can elaborate do I miss anything from story if I play AC:O first ? I know that story is based somewhere before even first AC (if I'm not wrong, its hard when I'm avoiding spoilers). Also I love RPG elements, grinding and looting and I see from some text-reviews that Oddysey have much more of those then Origins ? Would appreciate feedback on this. submitted by /u/Schnappi07 [link] [comments] |
| How Do I Get Hermes's Homie? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 12:19 PM PDT I have 120 hours in Ac: Odyssey. I have completed every single location in the game. Ive even collected every single piece of Oricalcum and I didn't even need to. Every single sub region has golden text. I've double checked Valley of the Two Kings, Atoll Point, Chytra Atoll and Kradia Isle. I've completed everything in all 3 episodes of Legacy of the First Blade. Unless there's something in Fate of Atlantis that counts, I honestly think my achievement is glitched and it's bothering the fuck out of me. If someone has any suggestions for me to doublecheck or solutions to my problem please feel free to comment. submitted by /u/BrashSoulstorm [link] [comments] |
| Getting Anubis Outfit in Origins Posted: 20 Oct 2019 04:01 AM PDT I know I have to finish the weekly "Trial of Gods" events to get a random piece of the set. But I can farm it non-stop, or I have to clear the events once/week? submitted by /u/ElectroWolf138 [link] [comments] |
| Is there any way to fix 1680×1050 black bars in AC - Black Flag? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 09:56 AM PDT so I currently have a monitor wich only supports 1680×1050 but I want to play on native since it looks a lot better but I have no idea how to remove the bars and I even did research but the only fix was 3 years old and the file didn't exist anymore. submitted by /u/uzzy762 [link] [comments] |
| How to get Pharaoh's outfit in Origins? Posted: 20 Oct 2019 05:22 AM PDT |
| Please Help (AC3 Remastered Xbox one X) Posted: 20 Oct 2019 04:42 AM PDT So i'm trying to platinum this bundle of bugs, but i can't get "Listen to all of Washington's Conversations. Now, ive read that people say go back to sequence 9-1, i did that, but he wont let me talk to him. I did not get the Frontier Challenge 2 before i started this mission originally, and i remember talking to him once but i skipped the cutscene. Ive completed the game, and ive talked to him once in NY. Am i screwed? submitted by /u/frekt [link] [comments] |
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