Actually, combat was rather tame in comparison to what people imagine it to be. Most actual fights were less "choreographed swordplay" and more "drunken bar fight", and historically, the majority of soldiers did their best to avoid killing each other much to the chagrin of the officers/nobles. Turns out, most humans don't like the idea of killing other humans, filthy worthless foreigner or not, especially when said "foreigner" was "guy from two towns over who didn't even look all that different from you". It was actually unlikely a soldier would die on the battlefield. OFF the battlefield, well, that was where being a soldier (or worse, a sailor) was beyond awful. Poor supplies, no medicine, no infrastructure, frozen winters, unfiltered water. It wasn't even until WWI that more soldiers died on the battlefield than off it.
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@Tarmaque
Actually, combat was rather tame in comparison to what people imagine it to be. Most actual fights were less "choreographed swordplay" and more "drunken bar fight", and historically, the majority of soldiers did their best to avoid killing each other much to the chagrin of the officers/nobles. Turns out, most humans don't like the idea of killing other humans, filthy worthless foreigner or not, especially when said "foreigner" was "guy from two towns over who didn't even look all that different from you". It was actually unlikely a soldier would die on the battlefield. OFF the battlefield, well, that was where being a soldier (or worse, a sailor) was beyond awful. Poor supplies, no medicine, no infrastructure, frozen winters, unfiltered water. It wasn't even until WWI that more soldiers died on the battlefield than off it.