New units

[Caranorn]

I checked through the posts under this heading before I wrote my note, and don't recall seing an answer to my question, still, I could have missed something.

And if the ai doesn't use the cattle and it's not possible to rustle them, then I guess I might as well leave them out. The way it is now, it just gives an important edge to human players as they are cheap to build and help cities grow at a rapid rate. Not to speak of the fact you can go collect gold from barbarian villages.

Guess I'll work on my own ideas now, even if there is little chance of getting outside sprites. I'll have to test some of the less used features of the game (HP's and FP are still there, barely used but seem to work, would help prevent astronomical combat values in an extended unit set).

Caranorn

[Nordicus]

Caranorn:

Pretty much what I thought when I looked it over. I just tweaked the terrain a bit to achieve realistic values, and the AI is not bad at using the new settings--esp. with the new resources' food/prod/gold bonuses....Too bad I couldn't use the cattle sprite for a trade good. Oh well.

What sprites are you looking for?

[Caranorn]

Some sprites I could use would be: a Longbow and/or Crossbowman, a Peltast (in addition to the existing Fyrdman), a Man at Arms (essentially a dismounted knight), an Askari (mounted composite-bowman), a Harquebusier (mounted matchlock musketeer), a Turcopole (light lance medieval cavalryman), a Catapract (Roman heavy cavalryman), a Gendarme (late medieval knight) and/or a Mameluke (early medieval heavy cavalry), a Balistae and/or Catapult and/or Trebuchet, a Siege Mortar (late medieval), and some medieval ships.

As you see, this is a lot, so I don't really expect to get them as long as I am unable to do them myself. I already have at least 8 good sprites as well as a few acceptable ones from Apolyton to use for other units (actually the catapult is one of the "acceptable" but I don't like stealing even if it's from the devil). Even this list of units is already edited (I struck approximatelly every other unit I was thinking of and of course I can use the existing CTP sprites for new units).

And even if I ever get to doing these new units, it will be for a set that includes new combat values for terrain, improvements and instalations. And if I dwell into those areas, I might as well create a few new improvements and wonders, at least I should be able to make those graphics myself.

[Nordicus]

Actually, I've been looking into many of the same units (for a Aip-Specific mod: like Civ-Specific but, essentially, having groups of civs using similar units, etc.).
I have some stuff, ripped off from AoE and AoK, but there's just five facings, no animation or such; still have to add shadows and then make em into sprites...maybe just for my own use (they're not great ), but you're welcome to have a look, if you want.

[Morgoth]

In WesW's revised Medieval Mod (comming soon) there will be new sprites for a Medieval Cog and a Medieval Bombard (Early Cannon)plus an Ironclad.

I haven't done all the animations yet but the basic Sprites will be there in this pack.

If you want them earlier I can send them.

[Caranorn]

Morgoth that's good news. The cog and bombard would fit nicely into what I was thinking of.

Nordicus, yesterday I actually checked through AoE (don't have AoK yet) to capture some graphics for sprites. It's a possibility, but as I said, I hate to steal even if it's from the devil. And I'm sure you know who the devil is to a Mac user. I might also go and get a copy of PhotoShop and try muddling arround with it to make my own graphics. Till now I could get along with cheaper third party material (no alpha channel).

And by the way, my list was actually missing another light cavalry unit (simply labelled horsemen). My idea was to have units fit into various categories, light - heavy - missile cavalry and infantry(originally planned for at least 1 unit or each type per age). Naval units would also be in 3 categories, just missile replaced by transport. Just 1 category of artillery etc. The problem is obviously the need for lots of new sprites. I believe I had a total of at least 56 units from ancient to renaissance. I had done less work on modern units, but renaissance to roughly 2000 AD would have been some 70 more units. Anything beyond that would have been out of my scope. So from Ancient to Modern, some 120 sprites, meaning at least 70 new ones or so. In Civ2, that would have been a matetr of days, in CTP, I simply can't do it.

[BigHead]

I know I'm coming in a bit late with this, however...having added the the new mods, with the cattle, I don't find any explanations for these new characters (sprites) how do I find out what they do...yeah, the catapult throws things, but what does a cow do?

thanks

[Nordicus]

Hey, sounds great, Morgoth. Yeah, feel free to send a copy of them my way. Thanks.

T.

[Nordicus]

Geez, that's weird. I replied to Morgoth's last post and it showed it underneath his--but now it's on the second page....Uh, whatever, must have been a late night.

Caranorn:
Well, both AoE and AoK's graphics can be extracted into the correct format, I think animations and all, but they are way too small. I'm going mainly from screenshots, but a few sites have avis from which one can get bigger versions. A few units I think a guy could get away with using the AoE/AoK's extracted files, just not the "people" units (unless a person does mind battling dwarfs ), maybe a few of the ballistic units....

Well, as an artist, I loathe having to "acquire" graphics from other sources, but like you said, it's not that easy to make a unit for CtP, esp. if you're limited in time or resources. And there's not a lot of people donating good units for CtP, so...

But I'm interested in the list you have. Are they mainly European units you have or do you have some from other areas?
Yeah, I had to rethink all the units due to the 200 sprite rule.
Feel free to send your list over if you want.

BH:
I've never played a game with a cow in it, so I can't say. Apparently, it's supposed to add food to your city if you have a worker on the tile it's on (?), but there were some problems with it and the AI, I guess.

[sentience]

Hi all,

I recently found this site and enjoyed it immensely. FInding out how much CTP can be modified has renewed my interest in the game.

I have many ideas, but I fear my uni commitments won't allow me the time to develop them myself. I thought this might be an appropriate thread to mention them in.

Some proposals:

Legions:- I don't think they get don't get the credit they deserve in CTP. I hardly ever see the AI using them. Perhaps they should come later (an earlier military tactics advance maybe? They still learn about Roman Legions at Westpoint, after all), with iron working allowing units like spearmen, swordmen, etc. Perhaps their stats could be 3/3/0/1 ? I can't imagine samurai in any numbers beating a legion.

PhotoSat:- An earlier spy sat, that can't see stealth units and has a smaller view. Maybe available with Rocketry?

Nukes:- Rename them SRAMs -Short Range Attack Missiles - (or Nuclear Cruise Missiles if you prefer) and decrease blast radius. MAke them cheaper too. Make a new unit, ICBM, That actually goes into space and has greater range. SDI could be eliminated as an Improvement and implemented as a space unit with a wide active defense. I Don't know how you would get the AI to use the latter two, however.

Oil Rig:- As a tile improvement or unit. Unit implementation might be a bit hard, but would act like cows were meant to - Etc with gold and/or production.

Misc late Modern space:- I think the game jumps into hi-tech a little fast. Maybe some primitive space units and techs?

Thats it. Feel free to shoot me down if these have been suggested before or if they aren't feasible. Thanks!

sentience

[Morgoth]

Nordicus
Sprites posted to you today.