<b>Historical Soldiers<b>

This section seeks to explain the origins of the Unique Units you can find in Age of Chivalry: Hegemony.

<i>Austria<i>
The Habsburg family has been one of the most important in history, combining the empire of Austria with the Kingdom of Spain and creating the first empire on which the sun never set, a phrase coined by the Habsburg king Philip II. Their cavalry, particularly, consisting primarily of heavy lancers, allowed them to win many a battle. However, against the Swiss pikemen these fared less well, and the Habsburger Knights saw several defeats at the hands of the Helvetians.
An auxiliary aspect of the Austrian military came in the form of the Cuman and Mongol horse archers. These troops did good service at the battles of the Marchfeld (1278). After the Austrian defeat at Mhldorf (1322) the auxiliaries fell out of favour and lost prominence.

<i>Bavaria<i>
Bavaria was a country with many aspects. Ruled by dukes with imperial ambitions, sometimes realised, the knightly body guards were occasionally of the highest standard. Unfortunately, this standard was not always maintained, forcing many dukes to take recourse to mercenary knights, many from the Rhineland. Rhenish noblemen like the lords of Heinsberg regularly hired out small standing armies of a few hundred men to the highest bidder, and although on their own they may not have made much of an impact, combined they could form a formidable and determined host.

<i>Bohemia<i>
During the Hussite Wars, the brilliant Czech commander Jan Zizka developed a battle-winning system of War Wagons. While previously carts and wagons had been used to defend camps, Zizka re-designed the carts to be stronger and be able to contain soldiers to defend them. These carts would form a defensive line, often linked together, with flailmen and spearmen standing between the gaps to protect them. Crossbowmen and handgunners would pepper the enemy from inside the safety of the wagon.

<i>Brittany<i>
The Bretons were excellent raiders. During the Hundred Years War, when France was in turmoil and civil war raged in Brittany, too, the Bretons seized the opportunity with both hands. Many enterprising Bretons formed or joined raiding parties spreading all over France, plundering innocents and extracting ransoms for free passage and protection. These merciless brigands brought France to the brink of disaster.

<i>Burgundy<i>
Coustiliers and Ecuyers were the mainstay of a Burgundian army. Coustiliers were supposed to come armed with throwing lances as well as a horse, but on occassion they would fight on foot as medium infantry. The Ecuyers, on the other hand, were the upper class - those who could afford the finest armour - and were of much better quality, perhaps comparable to men-at-arms.

<i>Denmark<i>
From the 11th century on, the Scandinavian kingdoms started integrating the military methods of other European realms, slowly abandoning their viking past. The former viking armies were replaced with more professional forces, including elite formations mirroring Western Europe's knights, capable of doing great damage to any opponent in battle.

<i>England<i>
The Hundred Years War saw English forces lay waste to much of France. The English armies, consisting mostly of men-at-arms and longbowmen, were capable on traveling at high speed, because every man was mounted, even the archers. On occassion the powerful longbowmen would even fight from horseback, though usually they dismounted.

<i>Flanders<i>
The power of Flanders always lay with its powerful cities, centres of trade and the guilds. These guilds quickly grew rich enough to equip powerful citizen armies. Confident in their own strength, these infantry marched fearlessly into battle and even defeated knightly armies on occassion. Their main weakness was, however, that the guilds were often in competition against each other, and so military strength often ended with divisions in the victorious towns themselves. Another problem was, that the dominance of the infantry-minded militias sidelined cavalry forces and made the Flemish armies somewhat unbalanced.

<i>France<i>
The French army took on many mercenaries to fight off invaders. Men would come from Spain, the Low Countries, Gascony and Italy to fight in the armies of the King. Among the most frequent and highly skilled troops to join the French forces were the Scots Guards and Swiss Pikemen, both of whom were, at different times, elevated to the status of royal bodyguard.
