Specifically, before the tercio dominated the battlefield. Long story short, I'm working on a group of short fantasy stories, and I'm more or less obsessed with historical 'accuracy' so to speak. I love the middle ages (and know a great deal about them) and also love the era of pike and shot. Let's give this a window of roughly 1500/1540
Basically, I was curious about
A: to what extent did the middling nobility, like the counts, have influence?, both political and military? What military roles did they play?
B: To what extent did heavy cavalry still play a role on the field to any great degree? How about knights, as in, the mounted nobility?
C: What would your average nobleman wear, as opposed to an infantryman
D: How did pike formations function? Was it like the Tercio yet, or less organized than all of that?
E: Where did the shot fit in? Was it used on the wings, like in the tercio, or separate or what?
F: How about swordsmen? Generally how was hand to hand combat carried out, from both a tactical, and strategic point of view?
Separate: What did the people do for fun? I know tournaments were commonplace in the middle ages, but I get the feeling they'd fallen a bit out of favor since the close of the hundred years war.
A reply to /u/Utter_Flailiure
If I may suggest, break down your set of questions into smaller pieces, and please also say what your level of knowledge is, and what your expectation is. To fully answer all your questions requires a lot of time and effort, please help us help you.
In the meantime, here are some hints.
A: to what extent did the middling nobility, like the counts, have influence?, both political and military? What military roles did they play?
This is difficult to answer in general, because of two reasons. First is that there is no one standard as to how much power a count, or a duke, has in the first place. So you have to look at them on a case-by-case basis. Second is that the period you are asking about goes through the military revolution period. I wrote a post on how the organization of war changed quite a bit in this period.
B: To what extent did heavy cavalry still play a role on the field to any great degree? How about knights, as in, the mounted nobility?
In which period?
C: What would your average nobleman wear, as opposed to an infantryman
In which period? In which theater? What kind of nobleman, Knights? Counts? Colonels? Captains? Infantry or cavalry?
D: How did pike formations function? Was it like the Tercio yet, or less organized than all of that?
E: Where did the shot fit in? Was it used on the wings, like in the tercio, or separate or what?
You may want to check this out, and this for pike and shot. Prior to the rise of the Tercio, the shot troops tended to have their own squadrons and formed separately from the pike blocks, for example in the Burgudian army of Philip the Bold.
Swiss pikes were exactly that, pikes, with halberds in the mix. Very few shot troops, almost no artillery as they entered the 16th century. No cavalry.
F: How about swordsmen? Generally how was hand to hand combat carried out, from both a tactical, and strategic point of view?
Homework: use google site search to find out about how the sword survived, or didn't, the 16h century ;-). This has been asked several times.