Ottomans advancement info

[PanicX]

I had posted few weeks ago about adding the Turks in the game. I had created a face by then and know I would like to show how the "alpha" version looks like.
I have chosen to do the Ottomans with Suleyman the Magnificent. In the end there will be a new unit, new leader animations and new civilodepia entries.
The animation for the leaderhead is in yahoo briefcase( see below). You only need to download Su_01, the other one is only the reverse version. Although I am not a graphics artist, I believe I have done pretty well.
The janissarie unit does not have animations yet. I hope it will be done in about 2-3 weeks. This time period can extend as my examination period is coming . Also the leaderhead is slightly different for each era.
Any comments would be welcome.
P.S. There is a minor flaw in the leaderhead animation (slide 28-30) I hope you can overlook it as it is really hard for me to repair it. When I began doing this I created layer over layer and now the picture has become a labyrinth. I was a beginner by then. Now I know how to manage though.

Link for animations : http://briefcase.yahoo.com/pamir14

[PanicX]

The mighty janissaries (no animation yet):

[PanicX]

and Suleyman the magnificent. This is ancient era, before turks settled in anatolia. They still have to pass the mountains behind Suleyman

[PanicX]

this is Suleyman in Istanbul during industrial era (the animation for this is ready).

[mfauzi]

Hmmm... his face looks a tad too familiar.. Where did I see that face before?

Cool moustache though

[PanicX]

that face used to be Julius Caesar. It is too hard to start from nothing Also after thinking about the unit animations, I changed my mind. I am not doing them. I could do an aircraft but doing an infantry unit is too hard.

Should I do janissaries or cannons? As the inventors of cannons, turks were really good at making them. I could increase range, decrease cost, or make it available before (tech tree) other civs... Which one?

[Bilo]

I don't think having a version of cannon as a UU is a good idea; bacause non-combat units can will never trigger golden ages. Janissary as a replacement for longbowman would probably be a better unique unit.

[PanicX]

Good point. I have done some animations for janissaries and I will make it have 2 movement points, so it will be easy to defen any conquered cities.

[nationalist]

The Janissary kinda looks like Elmer Fudd

[cort]

great work pamir!

a minor comment though; lets name the civ Turks not Ottomans. I am sure you know it very well but for those who are not familiar with the issue; Ottomans is the name of an empire founded by Turks. The name comes from the dynasty that ruled the empire. Since the game uses race names for all civs its better to call them Turks.

For the unique unit; personally i dont like the janissaries at all but have no better idea. maybe we should think about the whole turkish history, not just the Ottomans part.
isnt it sad that thinking about all those mighty history lectures that are told to us.. there are no better figures than janissaries who were banned after some time because of their tendency to issue coups..

can you tell me about the tools you are using by the way?

[PanicX]

Thank you Cort.
I have thought about renaming Ottomans as Turks, but it doesn't fit. First of all I would do Ataturk if the civs name was Turks, but I am not that good and I have a lot of school work. Also in the game neither England is named English nor Germay in named German. If you open the civ3mod and go to the civilizations part you will see three parts for the naming of the civ: 1-Civilization 2-Noun 3-Adjective
I put 1-Ottoman Empire 2- Turks 3- Turkish I think this way it is better. Turks belong to the turkish culture, but Ottoman Empire is a civilization.
I never liked the idea of janissaries either . I could put a special cavalry, but that would be russian. Therefor I think a janissarie with 2 movement points sounds good (for backing up all those cities conquered )
The tools I use are civ3copytool, flceditor, adobe photoshop 6.0, jascs animation shop 3.0, image converter 1.0, and notepad.

Progress report: Pedial Icons+Civiopedia+civ3mod done. Ancient and industrail age animations done. 50% of pcx files for faces are done. Basic unit anmations in two directions (Should I make the Janissarie do a 360 degree swing with his gun after attack? It looks cool but a bit to fancy!)

[cort]

i dont want to make it an issue, and i know it is your mod and you are free to do whatever you like but just a few words about the ottomans/turks subject;

1. naming Turkish civ as "Ottomans" is like naming the Russian civ as "USSR". like the ottomans, USSR is no more but there is another Russian country.

2. you dont have to make their leader Ataturk, joan of arc had nothing to do with current french people, she lived ~800 years ago and similarly Elizabeth's reign was during 1600s. i'm sure she is not the most liked figure of English history, just a popular one.
there were no Arabs living in the Egypt during the reign of cleopatra at all.
so i think Magnificent Suleyman/Mehmet II, even Atilla of the Huns would be ok for a Turkish civilization.

anyway, i am looking forward to your completed mod

[cort]

about the janissarie;
you will equip him with a rifle so it will either be a replacement for musketman or rifleman.. i think musketman would be a better choice since Industrial era is not the best time of the Turks

if you havent progressed considerebly in the animation stuff though, i suggest you to redesign them as an assault infantry unit using something like swords replacing the longbowman as bilo suggests.

another idea; there are is no heavily armoured horseman in turkish history so replace the knight unit with a light cavalary. faster but lower defence. like 4/2/3 for a/d/m

...which is the chinese rider actually?! i guess they included the rider to represent mounted hordes used by asian civs and since neither turks nor mongols are in the game, their unit is given to chinese..


perhaps it would be better to chance the UU for the chinese..

[PanicX]

So are you suggesting that I should rename the civilization as Turks or Turkey? Turkey can be reasonable but I dont like calling it Turks since I only meant to concentrate on the turks that lived near Europe. Naming it the turks would be too general, since turks have many different countries.

I havent progressed a lot in janissarie animations so I can change it. When I make the final release I wont have the janissarie animations for running. It will just slide, but soon after I will release a patch containing animations.

Also about the janissarie: Would you prefer it as an attack unit? Longbowmen-Janissarie-Marine? I think you made a similar point, cort, but I could really understand it.

P.S. If I make it defence, it will be musketmen since riflemen gets obsolete too fast.

[cort]

Originally posted by PanicX
So are you suggesting that I should rename the civilization as Turks or Turkey? Turkey can be reasonable but I dont like calling it Turks since I only meant to concentrate on the turks that lived near Europe. Naming it the turks would be too general, since turks have many different countries.

oops. you dont want to cover all turkish history? i am not a nationalist guy but i cant see a reason for ignoring pre-ottoman part of the history.. anyway.. its your choice.
if you ask my opinion, i would have called the civilization as "Turks". Forgive me if i am wrong, i am not playing the game for a while but i remember other civs named as adjectives like American (not USA).

Also about the janissarie: Would you prefer it as an attack unit? Longbowmen-Janissarie-Marine? I think you made a similar point, cort, but I could really understand it.

well, if you want to be historically accurate, what we know as janissaries were actually sultan's royal guard. during peace times, they used to live in the palace. just for --important-- battles, they were leaving the palace.
In the battlefield, they were the most organized & well-trained & most heavily armed corps of the army, and they were clearly an assault force.
So making them a fast moving defensive infantry as you have mentioned wont make much sense when considering historical accuracy. but thinking in civ terms, making them a powerful assault unit will probably make the game a little bit unbalanced. replacing the longbowman will give Turks two powerful assault units together with knights.. which Turks were not using at all..

idea;
1. alter the knight unit for turks, rename it "sipahi" and reduce its defence stat from three to two; which makes it a lighter mounted unit which is accurate considering european knights.
2. replace longbowman with janissary with stats 5/2/1, the best attack unit of its time until cavalary is introduced, which is --not exactly but-- fairly accurate, considering the fact that Turkish armies were unbeaten until late 1600s.