[BTS] Ethnically Diverse Units v3.0

GeneralMatt said:

They must have used the same graphics as I saw this knight in the normal game (Well with the Next war tacked on).. And I actually haven't got around to playing the Charlemagne scenario, been having a bit of trouble with my PC.

It sure would be cool having a Firaxis (Or anyone for that matter) list your name in there manual.

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Yeah, we use some of the Charlemagne scenario units as the Europeen medieval units (they are so cool with the flag symbol shield ), so the guy with the lance is the europeen knight and the vanilla knight is the meediteraneen knight.

Hmm, so you guys did that before it was released? That makes sense.. cool. I
just hope you used the light spearmen for the European Spearman, I dislike the original.

I have to admit, the units in Charlemagne are the best of the scenario units released with BtS. Really hope they all get used in some way for EDU.

GeneralMatt said:

Hmm, so you guys did that before it was released? That makes sense.. cool. I
just hope you used the light spearmen for the European Spearman, I dislike the original.

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We didn't use the original for the European spearman, but we didn't use the one from Charlemagne either. If you want you can check out the first screenshot to see what we ended up using.

So has work begun on adding in the African units?

Sword_Of_Geddon said:

So has work begun on adding in the African units?

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I'm in the process of going over my own units as well as the stuff made by the community and figuring out which ones I'll want to use and which ones I'll have to make. Unfortunately I'm keeping rather busy these days and any serious civ4 related work is confined to the weekends.

Rabbit said:

We didn't use the original for the European spearman, but we didn't use the one from Charlemagne either. If you want you can check out the first screenshot to see what we ended up using.

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Thanks, I will have to take a look..

First of all thanks a lot for making my civ experience more colorful.

One thing I like you to consider while adding new units is to make Ancient Egyptian ones different from those of Mesopotamia. This is something that disappointed me with BTS and as you are using their concept of grouping middle east units together for all eras it still shows in your mod.

The older EDU included quite excellent egyptian units. Some of them have made it to BTS. Unfortunately the settler, worker, the swordsman, the maceman, and maybe others are not egyptians by any means.

By the way the swordsman is not middle eastern at all niether egyptian nor mesopotamian. It looks more indian in fact.

For middle ages it is quite accurate to have same units for the whole region. My only note will be that middle-eastern knights shouldn't use lances. They should actually use swords.

Anyway, combined with geo's city styles, your mod is already my default way for playing BTS now. I don't need to play the regular game any more.

Kalimakhus said:

First of all thanks a lot for making my civ experience more colorful.

One thing I like you to consider while adding new units is to make Ancient Egyptian ones different from those of Mesopotamia. This is something that disappointed me with BTS and as you are using their concept of grouping middle east units together for all eras it still shows in your mod.

The older EDU included quite excellent egyptian units. Some of them have made it to BTS. Unfortunately the settler, worker, the swordsman, the maceman, and maybe others are not egyptians by any means.

By the way the swordsman is not middle eastern at all niether egyptian nor mesopotamian. It looks more indian in fact.

For middle ages it is quite accurate to have same units for the whole region. My only note will be that middle-eastern knights shouldn't use lances. They should actually use swords.

Anyway, combined with geo's city styles, your mod is already my default way for playing BTS now. I don't need to play the regular game any more.

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Thanks Kalimakhus, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

As far as more uniquely Egyptian units, that's definitely on the agenda. I just want to add the African style first and then I'll start adding more "sub-styles" as it were - Egyptian, Indian, Mongolian, etc.

And yes the swordsman is really more Indian than anything else but that's how the whole MidEast set is - it's an amalgamation of at least four prominent styles - Egyptian, Indian and Arabian and Persian (the elephant is also Indian ), plus whatever other minor influences inspirations we might've had at the time.

As for the knights, well call it artistic license. While I try to give a more accurate cultural look my priorities are popular perception - that's why the South American set looks as it is, and personal fun - when I was making the ME knight, we already had three knights using the sword and I just decided that a lance would be more interesting. I actually recently had a game where my ME knights clashed with some European knights and it looked really good.

We got a guy on the forums named Bakuel whos created a whole bunch of Egyptian units recently, whos also created some mesoamerican units recently as well. Eventually you'll be able to give the Incans their own subset of flavor as well thanks to Bakuel methinks.

Do you plan on making flavor musketmen and Rifleman because Bakuel, Bernie and others have already made some for Africa, Mesoamerica, and other regions such as India?

I think my biggest request at this stage would be ethnic explorers. I literally hate seeing Hernán Cortés running errands for any god-given civ outthere.

GeoModder said:

I think my biggest request at this stage would be ethnic explorers. I literally hate seeing Hernán Cortés running errands for any god-given civ outthere.

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Yes, the current explorer works fine for Mediterranean and European civs but for the others it's a bit strange. Same with Musketman, really. The problem is making them look different enough from the scouts.

Well, there's already a nice amount of musketman (including at least one of you ) in the database so that's not really the problem.

I would like to avoid "unit creep". It would be very tempting to put a lot of styles and a whole lot of units but I'd like to leave myself some time to work on other stuff other than EDU and plus I want to keep the mod from becoming too much of a graphical burden.

In any case, right now my goals are simple - African set, beyond that, time will tell.

Hello All

Long time lurker, first time poster

I just downloaded EDU, which is awesome, but Im having a problem: Me and my wife play hotseat mode, but for some reason it crashes to desktop. Single player works fine. Any ideas??

I'm gonna download this for one reason! The Ethnically diverse units in BTS, is forgotting on ethiopia!

The Ethiopian units are still white!!!

Also this may be more of a request, but The Mongolians have Chinese Cities. (same with the Indians) maybe that should be changed?

The mongolians had Tents and Huts, similar (but not the same) as the Native Americans.

And Indian cities shouldn't be Chinese cities!

Also Native America and Meso and Southern American civs had differint looking cities.

edit: I just found out this thread is about units not cities...

TheLastOne36 said:

edit: I just found out this thread is about units not cities...

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If you're interested in ethnic cities, check my Ethnic Artstyles mod. (EDU is included in it)
Unfortunately, no unique citistyles for the Mongolians (nobody made a yurt cityset yet), but the Indians use a blend of 3 styles throughout the era's.

I love the ethnically diverse units, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't expand into the modern age as well. The reasons for ethnic diversity over the millenia have not changed much until very recently, and there is still a great deal of regionalism that goes on despite a constant (but gradual) trend toward globalization. This is what I would expect of regionalized modern units (only mentioned if different from vanilla game):

Western Europe
Modern tank: Leopard I/II or Challenger
Infantry/AT/SAM: green camo
Fighter: German Me-109
Bomber: German He-111
Modern fighter: Eurofighter Typhoon

Eastern Europe
Tank: Soviet T-34
Modern Tank: Russian T-80/90 (any of em is fine) with green camo
Infantry/AT/SAM: khaki camo with AK-47s
Fighter: Russian Il-2 or Yak-9
Bomber: Russian DB-3
Modern fighter: Russian Mig-29
Stealth bomber: Russian TU-22 Backfire (not really stealth, but looks more appropriate than an American B2!)

Far-East Asia
Tank: Soviet T-34 (dunno if the Chinese actually had em, but if they could have afforded them at the time they would have!)
Modern Tank: Chinese Mark 98
Infantry/AT/SAM: tropical green camo (perhaps a Vietnamese conical hat for a helmet?)
Fighter: Japanese Zero
Bomber: Japanese Aichi Val
Modern fighter: Russian Mig-29 or Chinese J-10
Stealth bomber: Russian Backfire again?

Middle-East Asia (see if you can spot the theme)
Tank: Something British, like a Churchill tank, with desert camo
Modern tank: Soviet T-72 with desert camo
Infantry/AT/SAM: desert camo with towels on head and AK-47s
Fighter: Soviet Yak-5
Bomber: Russian DB-3 with desert camo
Modern fighter: Russian Mig-29 with desert camo
Stealth bomber: Russian Backfire with desert camo

This list could be improved of course. I just think regions play a great deal in what the modern units should look like, not just the ancient and medieval ones.

I don't know about the modern age...thats too much work for something a little esoteric. I say as long as the units are people not planes or tanks or ships, than you can put the effort forth. Plus I can't tell the difference between an asian tank and an american tank.

ohcrapitsnico said:

I don't know about the modern age...thats too much work for something a little esoteric. I say as long as the units are people not planes or tanks or ships, than you can put the effort forth. Plus I can't tell the difference between an asian tank and an american tank.

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Seeing the Russians cruise along with B-2 Spirit stealth bombers is what I would call esoteric! I would agree that tanks and mechanized infantry could probably stay the same (Shermans and Abrams are ubiquitous, Bradleys are too to a lesser extent). And a generic looking round-wing-tip fighter is ok as well, but definitely the modern fighters and bombers should be regionalized.

And I would say far more people know modern and recent history's military diversity than ancient and medieval military diversity...