Some questions and opinions

[Guest]

I am working on a program in my spare time to simulate, to a certain degree, a sword fight. Obviously it will not be 100% real since many subtle motions and tricks can not all be implemented. I have been using a longsword in the germanic style as my reference (i.e. one longsword held by two hands).

The basic idea that I plan to use is breaking the combat arena into 9 squares. If a person clicks the top left square then drags his mouse down to the lower right he will slash downward in a diagnol (for one example). A double click in the square an attack is originating from will preform a parry.

The attacks and blocks will be time based. My current time is saying 1200 milliseconds (1.2 seconds) to complete an attack and 600 for a parry. These numbers can easily be adjusted.

What I would like is to create a game that simulates a realistic fight, but one that is still fun. I figured I would have the four primary guards (Ox, plow, roof, and fool) and then I would break each of these into the various moves you can preform from those guards. Switching between guards will also take some time. For example, if your in the 'fool' and you want to do an overhand slash it will take the 1.2 seconds for the slash plus an extra .2 seconds to move into the correct position.

My question is what guards/stances you think I should use (more, less) as well as what attacks and blocks can be preformed from each. I would like some historic and realism behind the program which is why I came here to ask.

For attacks I basicly broke it into down diagnal, down, horizontal sweep, uppercut, and up diagnals. (8 points).

My main websites of reference so far have been:
http://www.thehaca.com/essays/StancesIntro.htm
http://www.st-max.org/FechtWeb/longsword.htm
http://www.uwm.edu/People/tpmiceli/swords.html

The second link had alot of info on the primary guards and secondary guards, as well as many strikes. Alot of it was hard for me to follow as I do much better with a picture or example.

I downloaded a PDF from the third link and it made a sword fight sound as though your stance mattered little, which confused me more (heh). If you look at the PDF for reference go down around page 82 where the strikes start.

Any help, suggestions, comments, or advice would be great. Thanks.

[Jake_Norwood]

Kyle-

First, check out the combat simulator at www.theriddleofsteel.net/support by Brian Leybourne.

Second, assuming you go a wholly different route, I would begin by seeing what displacements work against what attacks and what stances, as per Ringeck, Meyer, etc.

Jake

[Scott Anderson]

kind of reminds me of what little i've seen of the highlander ccg combat system.

SPA

[Guest]

Well, the program I am wanting to do will be real time multiplayer (assuming the net code works out) rather then a turn based. It will also have only one type of weapon (originally I was thinking sword/shield but decided just a two hand longsword may be better).

As for displacements, thats one of my main problems. Im having a hard time finding out just what the purpose of each stance is, what sort of attacks can be done from each stance, and what displacements work vs what.

I was going to start the program with the four default stances to keep things simple (ox, fool, plow, and roof). I know the ox and roof are high guards, the plow is more of a middle guard, and the fool is a low guard. I read a PDF file which talked about how to make any striek from the plow position, which made me wonder what the advantages or disadvantages of the others were.

The one website had alot of info regarding strikes but it seemed to only tell how to preform them, to accurately do a program I need to know when you do a certain strike, why, and how it gets blocked.

My initial idea was to keep things simple and merely have slashes and stabs with an easy block. But I figured, if I was going to try and do this program for fun, I should try to make it historically and realistically accurate as well.

It frustrates me that the best sword fighting game they have on the market is Jedi Academy, which is a joke. Unless im way off a sword fight (throwing away the actual training and skill using the blade) is about countering your opponents moves in a way that leaves you in a favorable position. Almost like a game of chess.

I just found this page when searching for 'meyer displacement' which may be helpful, I need to look through it. Any help, be them suggestions, comments, or webpages, is welcome. And for the record, if it matters, im doing the program for fun, not profit.

[Guest]

To add one more thing...
After reading it talks about how if a person strikes in a certain way you block with the long of your blade and use the tip to slash. I understand what this means but the problem arrises in the question of how a person blocks the blocked attack. Why would you attack overhand if the person will block your attack and slice you in one swoop?

Im not sure how I can translate some of this into a computer game, which is why im asking so many questions about strikes and displacements. Obviously it would be easier for someone to say "if the person does an under strike you should use the BLANK displacement"...but that wouldn't be a real fight would it? Are there set parries/displacements for certain strikes?

Also, after a person strikes out and/or blocks, do they immediatly go back into thier guard? Would you go from the plow stance to doing a slash, then back to the plow? Or does sword fighting flow more. I.e. does each attack/block lead you into another attack and/or block.

[Jake_Norwood]

Kyle,

Please understand that I mean this will all respect, but it will take you years (or a very studious few months) to come to enough of an intellectual understanding of these displacements (ignoring any kind of physical understanding, which of course heightens intellectual understanding, etc...). You will not be able to write a program modeling historical combat until you understand historical combat on at least some level. That means reading and comparing the masters of the schools that you want to emulate, and consulting (heavily) with a skilled and knowledgeable practicioner who has as much enthusiasm for your project as you do.

After reading it talks about how if a person strikes in a certain way you block with the long of your blade and use the tip to slash. I understand what this means but the problem arrises in the question of how a person blocks the blocked attack. Why would you attack overhand if the person will block your attack and slice you in one swoop?

Good question. The answer is because a more skilled person can overcome this defense/counter, and it takes a skilled person to perform the defense/counter, and the stars need to be in alignment (metaphorically speaking).

Are there set parries/displacements for certain
strikes?

Yes, there are! There are several--perhaps countless--counters for each strike. A few of them are considered more important, and the others are really just variations on them. Here's the meisterhau list, truncated significantly:

Scheitelhau vs. Alber and Low cuts, or some high cuts.
Schiller vs. Pflug/plow, thrusts, and "all that comes from above
Zornhau vs. Zornhau
Krumphau vs. Ochs and high cuts, low cuts, and thrusts
Zwerchhau vs. Vom Tag (high guard) and all that comes from above, including other zwerchhauen.

"Thust when he thrusts, cut when he cuts."

Remember that all displacements, except the absetzen, are really strikes. All good displacements (including absetzen) create an advantage instead of simply defending.

Also, after a person strikes out and/or blocks, do they immediatly go back into thier guard? Would you go from the plow stance to doing a slash, then back to the plow? Or does sword fighting flow more. I.e. does each attack/block lead you into another attack and/or block.

Strikes and displacements are essentially motions from guard to guard, often passing through another guard. Joachim Meyer in 1570 writes that all cuts are composed of three guards, the middle of which is usually the long point. Thus a scheitelhau (in his book, schedelhauw, translated often as vertex strike or parting strike), starts in Vom Tag (high guard), passes through long point on the actual cut, and ends in Alber (or in Pflug). Thus every attack or defense lead from one guard into another, making fighting very, very fluid. See some of the clips on this site to see what I mean.

Jake

[Guest]

Im aware it won't be 100% accurate, my goal is to get close. The game, for example, wouldn't mimic every slight variation of each attack and it won't be a high quality program (as in pretty art, very detailed, etc) because I am not a team of people. No offense taken by the way.

Another problem im running into is the fact that none of the historical references are in english. Obviously many are translated to english but the wording (and the alternating between german and english words) can complicate things.

I guess maybe it would be easier to program a sword/shield type over a german longsword. That way its more of a direct attack and block system instead of a bunch of complicated variations of turning attacks into blocks. Heh. I will have to think on it a while.

Thanks for the help.

[Brian Hunt]

Hi Kyle,

please also remember that a shield is as much an offensive weapon as it is a defensive one. You can punch with it, bind with it, block with it, cover a line of defense. Also a one handed sword has many of the same offensive and defensive movements of a longsword. The ms I.33, a 13th century manual on sword and buckler, has binds and rebinds both above and below performed offensivly and defensivly with the sword, as well as strikes.It also has defensive and offensive moves for the buckler. When you add a second option in the second hand, you can create that many more potential possibilities and complications. Sword and shield is not a simpler form of combat from longsword, just a different one.

Hope my 2 cents worth helps, and doesn't hinder. <img src="/forum/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Brian Hunt.

[Guest]

Your hindering! Hahaha

Well, if anyone could point me to a good list that breaks the many strikes into their three stance parts I could probably work from that. Say you have to be in the correct stance to attack, if its blocked you end in the middle stance, else you follow through and end up in the final stance. That concept would translate into a game pretty easy.

That would then only leave me with how im going to handle displacements.

[Scott Anderson]

I'm only aware of a few transitional guards and you don't seem to stay in them very long. otherwise all attacks and defenses seem to be effectivly a transition from one guard to another, with being defended against or actually succeeding in striking making very little difference as to where you end up. the only exception that i can think of would be entering a bind which leads to an almost totally different ball game of attacks and defenses.

SPA

[Guest]

So is there a good list somewhere that tells the various strikes and displacements and what guard to start in and what guard you end up in?

In one of the addresses i put in my original post it goes through many guards, strikes, and displacements but it only gives a couple of examples. I found it much more easy to figure out what they were talking about when they said "the downward striek starts in the wrath position, passes through the longpoint, and ends in the fool (A to E on the chart)"

Would be cool to find some better pictures and examples too. Those 2d pictures are not very good drawings, they are somewhat hard to understand. I saw on the ARMA pictures a guy doing the hanging point stance and it made it very clear what it was exactly.