Unit Graphics 2

[yellowdaddy]

(btw i've finished an ancient transport side view(a copy of Targons, but in oldskool pixels), and i'm toying with other designs and scales... (I'll do you a SE one as well then)i think it should be smaller than the Trireme.. but it's a matter of striking the balance between a visible unit and an appropriate relative scale, i.e. I cuold make an aircraft carrier the same size as the Barque (this is the name I will use to refer to the ancient transport henceforth)
but you might want at least a little scale (is it up to me to decide how much?)

(ps, all my units have a flag overlay of 25x15 px in the top left corner)

a great list of ships which basically correlates with the naval units i want to create is to be found here:

http://www.abc.se/~m10354/bld/shiptype.htm

it does leave the question of what about the Egyptian Barge/Yacht?
I think it's worth having as well as your Roman Roundship (can we have a one-word latin name for it!)
So I'll do both...

I'll need a picture of a wa'aka?! - can we have Maori Moa-back cavalry?!



(below = south to north as it were, like in Civ)

(i've got the test bed... )

that xxjiggawhoxx did some nice mountainsquares, but as squares are out, i'm having a hard time conceptualising what the Garymap will look like, however you word a description!
(I'd like this for my City overlays, which I'm also exploring... I like the idea of making little buildings and having each one represent say 10,000 pop, so your city's will spread out from their centre on the map so the size relates to the population... city types: villages, town, city, metro... city patterns: nuclear (like Moscow), coastal (like Osaka), sprawling (like Bimingham, UK), and linear (like Miami), plus some specials - river huggin (like Rotterdam), walled city (like Rome, ithsmus city (like Bombay), rock city (like Petra?), lake city (like Tenochtitlan?) .. ideas welcome...

(and I meant TYPES of units, not total units)

[yellowdaddy]

with regard to land units.

the current tile for things like the roman soldier are nice, but are too detailed for the size they are... i think enlarging them by 150% (half again) is best if you want this level of detail, but I think the size is actually fine, if they only have about 4 colours, they can be drawn and animated relatively quickly...
(same goes for all units of course)
thoughts on this please...

is there a list of proposed land units?
it's tricky really, unless you opt for Civ style generalisations, how about these notes... (i've no idea really!)

(you could do them in a small range of colours to reflect races!!!)

caveman ! (8000bc)
hunter-gatherer
nomad
early warrior (up to 500BC?)
{http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/soldier.htm}
scout
Swordsman (Bronze)
Spearman (i.e. hoplite, phalanx:hypaspistoi, immortals)
Swordsman (Iron) - skirmisher, viking, legionary
ballistic troops - Assyrian Archer, Slingman
War Elephant
Heavy Cavalry (hetairoi?)
Light Cavalry (Podromoi)
ancient artillery units

Mediaeval:
Longbow
Crossbow
Mediaeval Engineer
Knight
Chain Mail soldier
Pikeman

musketeer
land cannon
naval cannon
chinese rockets

Asiatic:
Samurai
Ninja
Mongal
Hashishin

has anyone thought into this and has any agreement been reached about what land units are in, and out?!

jack

[Gary Thomas]

Clash explicitly starts after the hunter-gatherer stage. It is, after all, the Clash of Civilizations. Generally a hunter-gatherer society would not be called a Civilization. So cavemen and hunter-gatherers would not be used.

A nomad is a type of society, not a military type.

Early warrior is too general. And 500 BC is quite late in the piece. Before that time we would have:

Sumerian spearman
Sumerian archer
Mede spearman
Mede archer
Akaadian spearman or Babylonian spearman
Akaadian archer or babylonian archer
Assyrian spearman
Assyrian archer
Assyrian charioteer
Egyption spearman
Egyptian archer
Egyptian charioteer
Mycenaean spearman
Mycenaean charioteer
Scythian lancer
Scythian horse archer

and a great many more.

A scout is not a military unit.

I do not think that there were artillery units in the ancient era, outside of sieges.

Ninja is not a warrior type (if they existed, they would be assassins). Hashishin (?) are presumably also assassins.

Mongol is a Civilization, not a troop type.

Cheers

[LDiCesare]

One note about the ship lists: TURTLE SHIPS! These were the best ships of their time, centuries ahead of any other ship. Korean turtle ships are late game (Koreans at the time didn't use firearms though they knew gunpowder - the ship did use some kinds of cannons, was the first ironclad, and used smoke screens to hide their exact position and maneuvers).

Siege weapons probably don't need too much doing. I've already made three of them but their facing may not be correct. I even wonder whether they shouldn't simply be shown as engineers because catapults were often assembled at the place they would be used during the Middle Ages.

[yellowdaddy]

ok,

I'll look into Turtle ships..

did you get my WIP of ship units? I'd appreciate some input... i.e., are you happy with the number of types, style, (relative) size (to each other), [or is it entirely up to me?!]

I think I ought to do the Aircraft Carrier (arguably there are two types - WW1 and post WW2) as well, as it is likely to be the largest naval unit and a useful relative size yardstick

I can make 8 directions for each once I know what people think (particularly about the relative size of units).

---

I'm not sure if I want to get into land units just yet. I've been dabbling in City graphics (as mentioned), so I'd like to do that after I've sorted out the sea units.

however, out of interest, are all your units going to be based on ancient middle-east/mediterranian ones...

as you may know in CIv they add in special units like Aztec Jaguar Warriors and Zulu witch doctors (or something)... do you intend to have warrior types classed in strata but with ethnoculturally distinct unit gfx, or do you intend to have entirely unique units to each civ/nation (impracticable?)
I mean, it hardly make sense to have Zulus producing their own samurai and using the same gfx as the Japs, or having the Romans producing Jaguar Warriors...
I think it would a nice touch, and entirely feasibel to have a few different shades for skin colours of units (an argument for less detailed human land units) so you cuold have black samurai and australasian Vikings etc... by having the visible skin of each unit as one or two flat colours...

[LDiCesare]

as you may know in CIv they add in special units like Aztec Jaguar Warriors and Zulu witch doctors (or something)... do you intend to have warrior types classed in strata but with ethnoculturally distinct unit gfx, or do you intend to have entirely unique units to each civ/nation (impracticable?)

Actually, it's possible to restrict units to a given civ (though I should rework it), so unique units are possible. Even better, you can change the graphics of a unit based on tech (could be something else), so a same unit can have different graphics based on a few techs. If you think civ2 scenarios which used a tech to tell you you were (or were not) of a given civ, then it's very possible to have the same unit use different graphics based on their civ. Right now, archers and siege weapons change graphics as their related techs increase.
So we certainly would like to have civ-specific units, but I think it would have to be more flexible than civ3, because civs should split and evolve differently from game to game, and you could reasonably end up with 3 'Roman' civs in a single game.

About ships, I think the list is okay, but as Gary said, we first need ancient age ships, and particularly a transport.
About galleys: Technically galleys, biremes, triremes, quintiremes are all galleys. I tend to call 'galley' a ship with a single row of oars, because I can't think of any specific name. Roundships (small/large sail) would be the first needed. As far as I know, triremes are the oldest galleys, but I may be mistaken.

[yellowdaddy]

Laurent - I e-mailed you a GIF of units i've started to draw! I don't mean the list I've typed on the forum! check your inbox!!!

[LDiCesare]

It looks like I can't get the mail. I tested sending myself a mail through poly and it was only able to send me a mail telling me it couldn't send one. Weird... You might want to post eh gif here if it's not too big?

[Gary Thomas]

The oldest recorded fighting ship types were the triakonter (30 oars) and the pentekonter (50 oars), which were single banked galleys.

By the time of the Assyrian Empire (700 BC) the Phoenecians had developed the bireme with two banks of oars, but still with 50 oars.

The trireme was developed by about 450 BC with three banks of oars. It was technically advanced, with around 170 oars and rowers, and was the basis of all navies of the Greek era.

The hemiolia (meaning one-and-a-half) of around 500 BC was a specialized pirate vessel, able to approach under oars and sail, but ship the sail for the final attack.

The Rhodian navy modified a trireme into a tremiolia (two-and-a-half) specifically as a pirate catcher.

Carthaginian and Roman quadriremes and quinquiremes were developed by about 250 BC. A quinquireme had 120 oars and up to 300 rowers.

The liburnian was a light bireme from about 100 AD.

By 300 AD a fore-runner of the Viking longships had begun to appear in northern waters.

With the collapse of the Roman Empire, the standard vessel for the Byzantine Empire was the Dromon (and its smaller relatives). These were 50 oared biremes with varying numbers of rowers on the upper oarbank.

All of the above vessels were galleys.

Cheers

[yellowdaddy]

I sent the gif to Gary and Mark too... I'm surprised Gary hasn't posted any comments about it yet...
If I can just get my specific queries about the units cleared up, I can disappear for a while and finish them off in eight directions and whatever else you fancy.
I can then start a new thread about City squares...

I don't think i'll have time to post any images until Monday evening (maybe!) - i work all weekend, and I haven't sorted out my uploading software and web site etc..

[yellowdaddy]

right, I've now created a website to host my work in progress graphics for the game.

I'll try and add more stuff over time

http://jackmcneill.tripod.com/

I look forward for some constructive criticism from all concerned.


Right, Now I've put some stuff on the site - I could post the images here, or just leave them there and amend my profile (when the baby stops screaming for a while!!)

[LDiCesare]

I looked at the images.
Except the obvious criticism that all ships don't face the same way, I think the ships look good except for the caravel, whose sails seem wrong to me. They look too triangular.
About the flag, I noticed the flag didn't always have the same size in all your boxes. I think if we want a flag, we should use it as an overlay (so people can add their own flag to existing graphics), assuming it's formatted a certain way (given X x Y dimensions).
I'm not sure about the cities. The small brown dots are hard to make out.The overall effect of the big city with lots of small suburbs looks good in the screenshot, but I can't help think it's a very American-like city. In France, you'd rather expect small buildings in the centre and skyscrapers outside in the suburbs.

[yellowdaddy]

Bonsoir (?) L,

Oui, the flags are intended to be overlays... The idea being twofold -

1. because I reckon you can't use (m)any more colours than Civ 3 does if you want to identify units for lots of civs/nations if you want to allow (m)any more nations.

2. you can have nice flags for historical accuracy. I know i'd like them in a WW2 or Napoleonic scenario - thuogh I recognise that flags are less obvious in ancient time - we'll just have to dredge through the FOTW website and do some research - I decided to just use SPQR on red for the romans...
++++++++++++++++++++++
the city overlays... i envisaged doing a range of different styles for different eras. Sure cities take different forms throughout the world, and I would do my best to replicate that. (I'll try some different colours...)

what i like about this approach is the size of the city reflects the population, and the shape of the city reflects the geography and economy.

e.g.: I could envisage an industrialised Egyptian nation with linear river-hugging conurbations rather than squares or blobs. You could display areas of mountain villages - places where cities could not evolve easily, but significant populations could exist, like in Afghanistan I suppose.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The ships I just copied from whatever images I could find. That Caravel is a copy of a real one:

http://www.hobbyworldinc.com/woodship40b.html

http://www.abc.se/~m10354/bld/shiptype.htm

I think it's "the Nina"
(I can't remember where it's from, I searched on Google for Caravel, so...)
here it is - the first one that comes up!
)

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I'd appreciate answers to the following questions:

1.I'd like to know how many and what different ship types are wanted!

2.I'd also like to know what people think about scale - how small should the smallest unit be compard to the biggest? and;

3. how big should they actually be? (the Carrier and Dugout

[Gary Thomas]

That has got to be the strangest looking "caravel" I have ever seen depicted. Basically it is a four-masted carrack or nao with lateen sails on three masts. Such a ship may have existed, but certainly isn't a caravel. It just might be a picture of the Santa Maria, caravel rigged, but even that is doubtfull - it seems to be too big. What is the source of the picture? I checked the references with the picture but could not find this one.

In answer to the question I want a Roman era transport, that is, an ancient roundship similar to the one in your sample, but pointing in the other direction.

A series of pentekonter, bireme, trireme and quadrireme would also be nice. All pointing to the right.

Cheers

[Gary Thomas]

It occurs to me that the galleys should have two views, one under sail, and one under oars (wth no mast).

Cheers