I've noticed in some scenarios I've downloaded that there are multiple units with the same name. Eg Spearmen all called 'Spearmen' but with different unit animations for each civilisation.

When I try and do this myself in the editor it tells me I can't have more than 1unit with the same name.

How do you get round this?

You name one unit "Spearman" and then the other unit you add a space after it's name, like "Spearman ". You can do this over and over again, although eventually it gets pretty easy to realise that there are a lot of spaces after "Spearman "!

I think either embryodead or Yoda Power figured this trick out...

Thanks Mithadan. That's a very cunning trick. I've been wanting to do this for ages, but never got round to asking the question.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=203187

May be of use to you.

Cool, I didn't know about that other trick.

Just copy the first one with Civ3Copy tool, and you can have dozens of units with the same name, and no need to use the space trick

Then how do you give them different animations if they have the same name?
Or is the animation folder (under . . . art/units) based on the PRTO_ name?

The name is useless... It's not even used by the editor to identify the units, they use the index in the list.
It's the PRTO that is used to define the animation and pedia entry

Wauw! This is great!!! Oke so lets see....lets say I have a F-16 Falcon plane. One for the USA and one for the UK. I copy with the tool the F-16 Falcon make a second folder in the Art-> Units ect. called 'F-16 Falcon UK' with different animations.

Go in the editor.....change the country USA to UK so it can be build by UK.
Change the PRTO_F-16_Falcon into PRTO_F-16_Falcon_UK

Go to the pediaIcons.txt and make a new line that say's:
#ANIMNAME_PRTO_F-16_Falcon_UK
F-16 Falcon UK

And...

#ICON_PRTO_F-16_Falcon_UK
blabalbalb
blabalbal

Now I have a unit with the same name, different countries, diffrent animations!
Am I Right?

Exactly....

Of if you have 20 civs, you can use the copy tool to create 19 copies of the swordsman...
Then you have 20 swordsman units, you change the PRTO to
PRTO_Swordsman_Civ1, PRTO_Swordsman_Civ2, etc...
And then go in the civpedia, and copy the entry 20 times...
And in the pediaicons, you create 20 copies, at the first with all the animations...

Why?

Because when Sandris makes a new Swordsman for Civ 10, you can just edit the pediaicons to point to the new animation, and use it in your game, without changing the biq at all. And so you can even use it in a scenario you have started earlier!

Dammit, I guess this means I really should get that tool.

Thanks d.highland and Steph. Will have to try this!

Dammit, I guess this means I really should get that tool.
Yes, it's very useful. It also allow reorganizing the units in the list.
So if you create 20 spearmen, and then 20 pikemn(easy as there is a "make n copies" function, you can then either have

Spearman (France)
Spearman (Germany)
Pikeman(France)
Pikeman (Germany)

or after reordering

Spearman (France)
Pikeman(France)
Spearman (Germany)
Pikeman (Germany)

Then, if you make copies for every unit, you can forget the "standatd" update method, and instead of doing

Spearman (France) -> Spearman (Germany) -> Pikeman(France) -> Pikeman (Germany)

You do

Spearman (France) -> Pikeman(France)
Spearman (Germany) -> Pikeman (Germany)

That's wicked, I'm going to hunt it down right now!

Well... The problem is I did that first...And then release managing a mod with thousandth of units, many having the same name, is not practical... So I renamed them!