Posts from Which units would you replace in the Sylvan castle?

Indeed. And as we know from the Elder Edda, Valkyries no longer fight; instead, they bestow upon chosen heroes (read: their beloveds) a kind of magical protection from various harms in battle and protect them from witches. In general, they ensured victory in battle and collected the souls of fallen warriors. However, one "demoted" Valkyrie, punished for disobedience, was a very strong warrior, although she did not participate in battles.

WOMEN DIDN'T FIGHT IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Well, that's a rather bold statement:
During the siege of the city of Kozelsk by the Mongol troops, women fought on the city walls alongside men. Princess Olga led her retinue into battle after the death of Prince Igor. On a piece of ornamentation that we all saw in school, depicting the Battle of Hastings, there is a fragment showing a lady gouging out a knight's eyes. Not to mention the Eastern nomadic peoples, where women could hit a squirrel in the eye with a bow while riding a horse.

Women by nature are support mages, but not warriors.

A wife is neither a mage nor a warrior! It is a gift from God to a man! It is the most beautiful flower in the universe! And there is one for everyone... one out of all... the most beautiful of them all... You just need to find her... May God grant that it is not on the battlefield.

And not even during wartime.

Regarding the claim that nomadic women shot from horseback, I haven't heard of it. I suspect it's either a myth or, at best, unverified information. And even if they wanted to, nomadic warriors couldn't have hit the whites of someone's eyes, as they didn't have any whites to aim at :D. However, there was a queen of the Sarmatians – that is, horse archers – who was attacked by the Persian king Cyrus, and she defeated and killed him, then put his head in a bag of blood, telling him to drink his fill of what he so desired. If I'm not mistaken, she also fought; but I highly doubt it. Regarding Olga, it wasn't just her; many female rulers led their troops into battle. But, good heavens, they didn't actually fight! In general, leaders of large armies rarely engaged in combat (although, of course, there were exceptions – take, for example, the Duke of Flanders, who, being an old, blind man, went into battle and, according to the chronicle, personally killed several enemies). Regarding sieges, yes, women often fought during sieges, but not with weapons in hand; they threw stones and other debris at the attackers or poured boiling resin or hot water on them. Regarding Hastings, everything is so intricately embroidered that it's hard to tell who is a man and who is a woman, especially if the woman was wearing armor. But it's an interesting fact. If it's not too much trouble, Archer, could you tell me where I can see this (besides the place where the tapestry is kept :D)? And if the woman wasn't wearing armor, it doesn't mean anything – no one said that women never killed anyone

did you notice that the archer women are somehow... and they shout like men, but the dancing men shout like women when they die (still, archer women).

No, what are you talking about! The archers in the Elven faction are clearly male! It's only in the fourth game that they were female. In my opinion, the best Elven archers are the unupgraded ones from the third game. In the second game, they were some kind of Elven Georgians.

Added 3 minutes later
I have nothing against Georgians (well, except that they pursue an overly aggressive policy), but Elves should be fair-skinned and have light-colored eyes! By the way, according to Tolkien, they should not be blonde, but dark-haired: in his works, only a few Elves had light hair.

To be more precise, the dark-haired elves were from the Schism faction, while the light-haired ones were from the Sylvan faction. As for Lorien, I don't remember. They seem to have been albinos. Archers are masters of the bow, and dancers are all male. The only women in the elven army are the dragons – the earthly embodiment of Silanna.

That's true – if we limit ourselves to The Lord of the Rings. But he also mentioned something about elven lineages in The Silmarillion; I don't remember exactly, but I think it turned out that all elves from across the Sea, except for the lineage of someone with golden hair, had dark hair, and those who remained had different hair colors.
And in The Lord of the Rings, the Rivendell elves are among those who came from across the Sea. Galadriel is supposedly a descendant of that golden-haired one (or maybe not; hardcore Tolkien fans, please don't attack me! It's been a while since I read The Silmarillion!), and the elves of Mirkwood (or Twilight Forest or Black Forest) didn't even go across the Sea. That's why they are the weakest, and that's why Glorfindel chased the Black Riders relentlessly, while Legolas only once managed to hit one of those winged creatures.
Yes, and another thing about Tolkien and elves – they were very strong! And they even preferred melee combat to archery! In his works, besides Legolas and the elves of Lothlórien (well, and the people of Nargothrond, who, while hiding, shot passersby with poisoned arrows from cover), no one really used bows, but they eagerly engaged in melee combat.
Conclusion: Let's have elf swordsmen! Let's have elf swordsmen! And let their level not be the second one...

To be more precise, the dark-haired elves were from the Schism faction, while the light-haired ones were from the Sylvan faction. As for Lorien, I don't remember. They seem to have been albinos.

Archers are masters of the bow, and dancers are all male. The only women in the elven army are the dragons – the earthly embodiment of Silanna.

What about the dryads?

What about dryads?

Oops, I forgot.

If we take Tamriel as an example (sorry for straying from Tolkien, it's just my second favorite game after Heroes:)), then light-haired elves were only the wood elves, dark elves were albinos, high elves had golden hair, and only wood elves had light hair. By the way, wood elves wield long swords just as well as bows and can even compete with the Nords. Let's have elf swordsmen!:) In my opinion, they look good, but they could have been made better. IMHO.

I haven't heard anything about nomadic women shooting from horseback. I suspect that this is either a myth or, at best, unverified information. And even if they wanted to, nomadic warriors couldn't have hit the eye of a squirrel, as they didn't have squirrels around:D. However, there was a queen of the Sarmatians – that is, horse archers – who was attacked by the Persian king Cyrus, and she defeated and killed him, then put his head in a bag of blood, telling him to drink his fill of what he so desired. If I'm not mistaken, she also fought, but I highly doubt it.
Regarding Olga – it wasn't just her; many female rulers led their troops into battle. But, oh my, they didn't actually fight! In general, leaders of large armies rarely entered the fray (although, of course, there were exceptions – take, for example, the Duke of Flanders, who, already an old blind man, went into battle and, according to the chronicle, personally killed several enemies).
Regarding sieges – yes, during sieges, women often fought, but not with weapons in their hands, but by throwing stones and other debris at the heads of the attackers or pouring boiling resin or boiling water.
Regarding Hastings – everything is so stylized there that it's hard to tell who is a man and who is a woman if the woman was wearing armor. But it's an interesting fact. If it's not too much trouble, Archer, could you tell me where I can see this (besides the place where this tapestry is kept:D)? And if the woman wasn't wearing armor, then it doesn't mean anything – no one said that women never killed anyone.

I agree that participating in battles, specifically during the MIDDLE Ages, was not typical for women; it was considered immoral (I'm talking about Europe). A woman was supposed to be the guardian of the hearth. However, the fact that they received some training is more relevant to the early Middle Ages and is practically beyond doubt. And if there was training, then there should be precedents for its application, but the thing is that I think this wasn't particularly highlighted in the chronicles, due to the downplaying of men's achievements.
Regarding the tapestry, I watched an English program about the Battle of Hastings, and this moment was given some attention, so I remember it. By the way, she wasn't wearing armor:), but there was a knight in armor...:D, but here, artistic embellishments by the authors of the tapestry are possible.:cool:

You know, it wasn't just seen as immoral, but also because women were simply physically weaker than men (of course, there were exceptions). Besides, a woman was usually pregnant at least once every two years – although most children died in infancy – and with a baby bump like that, you can't really fight much...
But, of course, there were cases when women fought in open battles – I myself remembered something and posted it in the first post on this topic.
As for belittling men's achievements – that's definitely not the case, because for a medieval person:
firstly, a man was clearly so much higher than a woman that such cases wouldn't belittle him;
secondly, the motif of a female warrior is quite popular in various legends (and, by the way, it is presented there as something amazing! The only exception – and I also wrote about this – is Celtic mythology), and therefore, it attracted men's attention.
As for combat training for women... I don't know, Archer, where you got this from, but I, and for example, Marc Bloch, and countless other historians (well, I'm not a historian, of course:D), share the opinion that in the early Middle Ages, in its heyday, and in the late Middle Ages, women were only taught to manage a household. They even started teaching them to read and write much later than men. And there were no female alchemists (that's a fact!), and they didn't study at universities (but now we have only girls in psychology:D).
And as for Europe, you're exaggerating. In Europe, women were always treated with much more respect than in China or Arab countries – it is enough to say that polygamy appeared in China (although, perhaps, it actually appeared even earlier, in the Paleolithic era), and in Arab countries, a woman is almost not considered a person (and how else to explain the fact that paradise in the Quran is described only for men? As far as I know, nothing is said there about what may happen to a woman after death). Women were most respected in Western Europe (chivalrous gallantry:)), and they had the most equal relationships with men among the Vikings – they asked women for consent to marry, they could insist on a divorce, and in general – read the sagas and you will see for yourself:)

Added 1 minute ago
Yes, and one more thing. I think we've gone completely off-topic about female warriors:( Let's either open a new topic to discuss this issue, or just move on to elves. At worst, to elven women;)

Three posts ago, I tried to steer the topic back to its original course.