A visual experiment: Would you like Civ3 to look like this -->

I have been secretly working on a project for Exsanguination's "Alexander the Great" scenario, and in addition thestonesfan has also mentioned it as a possible future improvement in the "War in Civ4" thread in the General Discussions Forum.

We are all used to combat in Civ3 looking like this....

.....but without making any rule or mod changes, just simply downloading new animation graphics, how would you like Civ3 to look like this?

A SINGLE unit of Hoplites being attack by a SINGLE Macedonian pike phalanx......
(Please note that the routing Hoplites do not escape, but are later captured/deserted/died of their wounds, so the unit is destroyed)



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IMPORTANT NOTE:

MANY PEOPLE IN THIS THREAD HAVE SUGGESTED MAKING THE NUMBER OF FIGURES DECREASE AS THE UNIT SUFFERS 'HIT POINT' LOSSES AS SHOWN BY THE 'HEALTH BAR'.

THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE IN CIV3!

As I said above....."....without making any rule or mod changes, just simply downloading new animation graphics."

....and here is how it would look in the game.

Alexander the Great has just landed in Asia Minor and is about to cross the river Granicus....



....obviously all these units would normally be in a single tile. I have spread them out for display purposes.

If anyone is interested, the units are (starting on the left):-
2 units of Companion Horsemen, a unit of elite Hypaspists, 3 units of Macedonian pike Phalanxes, a unit of Thracian Peltasts, and 2 units of Greek Horsemen. There is also 2 units of light infantry skirmishing in front of the army (Javelinmen & Archers), and a stack of Allied Hoplites in reserve, as well as a fortified Spearman unit in the nearby city of Granicus.

Large figures, such as ships/chariots/elephants/tanks, because of their size, will have to stay as 'single figure' units.
But for the others, I was thinking along these lines:-

3 figure units = all horseback units, Cannons (3 guns, forming a 'battery'), mortar crews, Workers, Settlers, and Aircraft (with one large aircraft in the foreground, and two smaller ones in the background, to simulate a 'squadron').

6 figure units (3 by 3) = all Ancient & Medieval foot units (including Bowmen & Longbows, but NOT skirmishers).

4 figure units (in a line) = British Napoleonic infantry, Medieval Crossbowmen, and 19th century Riflemen.

4 figure units (in skirmish formation) = Slingers, Javelinmen, Archers, Napoleonic light infantry, and all Industrial & Modern foot units (except for American Civil War and Victorian Riflemen, which would fire in volleys, in a line).
All thestonesfan is suggesting, and all I am working on, is to change the appearance of the units, so that instead of each unit looking like a single man, it could look like a proper UNIT (i.e. a body of men, representing a phalanx/cohort/legion/battalion/regiment/squadron/battery, depending on the period).

Any thoughts?

Wow, looks good. I think you've pretty much covered it.

Looks good. A true Army . I bet this modification can be eaysely done with any foot unit .

ifr this is possible, then this would be AWESOME

You gonna start changing ALL the units over? Me want

GIDustin

oh yeah, one question.

The attack animation of the red side above shows all 6 jabbing their spears at the enemy, but the blue side only uses the first row of theirs. Can you explain this? Will we have different animations for "ATTACK=" and "DEFEND="??

GIDustin

This looks BRILLIANT!

I forget what the name of it was, but there was a kind of cavalry [I think it was dragoons but don't quote me on it ] where the unit was grouped in three rows, and had hand-pistols. The first row would ride up to the enemy, discharge their guns, then ride back to safety to reload, while another "wave" rode up to the front lines to fire, and so on. That would also look great in Civ3...

I notice that the "killed" animation has a different animation for each man in the unit... is it possible to do the same thing for attack? IE one horseman jabs down with his spear, the other cuts across with his sword, etc but probably that's too much work.

Damn.... that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.... Kryten, you are my new best friend.

Amazing stuff. What other units do you plan on changing?

Wow, that does look really good. It makes me wonder why they didn't make the game look like that in the first place. How much work does it take to change one unit?

I plan on doing that in my next mod.

I was experimenting with it in my futuristic mod, but I figured that it doesn't work well for long range combat.

BTW, that is kind of how Master of Magic II was supposed to work, except that instead of losing HP, guys would drop off the army as it was damaged..... (If you ever played MoM you would know what I mean)

I was thinking of making the dead fade into the ground, and then having more guys rush from the rear to the front in the next attack sequence if the battle persisted beyond 64 frames, but that scattering effect looks great!

Also, with my 3-d program I will probably make the guys look very small, so as to be dwarfed by giants and dragons..... :cute:

Oh, and the whole thing looks awesome. Good work, I am salivating......

EDIT: I have been sitting here for about five minutes now.... just looking at these guys.....

The first thought was how neat certain irregular units would look, such as barbarians, horse archers, and modern guerillas.

The second thought was: why doesn't Firaxis think of this stuff?

You must not sleep much, Kryten.

Your hard work looks really great.

Holy crap, thats beautiful. Please continue upgrading the units!

To GIDustin: the 'red' side are Macedonian Pikemen, using the 21 foot/7 meter two handed sarissa, while the poor old Hoplites are armed with only a spear. This means that the 2nd rank (and in reality the 3rd, 4th, and even the 5th ranks!) could participate instead of just acting as reserve.....and graphically shows why the Macedonians were able to defeat the Greek Hoplites.

To Troquelete: I think you are thinking of late a 16th/early 17th century "Caracole".
But due to the frame size on the map it is not possible to have two ranks of horsemen, let alone have them moving about within the frame!
Still, we can 'mimic' or 'simulate' it by having three Civ3 Musketmen on horseback.

To Neomega: I loved Masters of Magic , and I can’t understand why ‘multi figure’ units haven’t become the norm in all strategic games like the civ series.

To Skullbones & Redking: actually, it is very easy. I'm sure this has gone through every 'cut-'n-pasters' mind....."Why put just one figure in a frame when you could put six?".
(Mind you, I have been cloned, so that one of me goes to work while the other one animates.
I think we need a third clone……for sleeping! )

THIS IS GREAT! I LOVE IT!
For my Noah's Arc mod, I was thinking about doing this or something like it to upgrade the units instead of having a Raptor upgrade to a T-rex, they would ug to a group of 2 raptors ()this would also spread out the usage of the dinos throughout the scenerios).

I love this idea, it's one of the best ones to come along in a while. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!

:jump: I'm glad some one else is doing this and tested it in game I am doing the same thing to make a Roman Testudo but don't have a lot of time, so it's going very slowly.

I loves it

Sweet! Free publicity!! Thanks Kryten!

Those are simply too cool! I know it's a cosmetic change, but I think it would change the whole feel of the game, and in a good way. I'm especially looking forward to artillery units. I'd trade my woman and car for these!



Just kidding about that last part guys. I can't walk to work!

lol

There are so many married guys here at CFC, and all of em seem like they would trade their wives off for a faster computer, faster internet, and more civ3 stuff.

(Good thing I am not married, i have all the time in the world . . .)

GIDustin

Originally posted by GIDustin
lol

There are so many married guys here at CFC, and all of em seem like they would trade their wives off for a faster computer, faster internet, and more civ3 stuff.

(Good thing I am not married, i have all the time in the world . . .)

GIDustin

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