Sailing Ships Reskins

Xenomorph said:

I went and renamed them "Scandinavia" or represent their overall influence on the cultures of that region as a compromise. That way I can mix and match Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish units without feeling any guilt about it. Well, except for lumping all those cultures together of course, but since no representatives of those countries are coming by my house to make demands that I do otherwise, I feel pretty safe in doing so.
Besides, I'll just claim American ignorance.

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Like the fact that Finland isn't part of Scandinavia?

But I get what you mean Xeno

Once more unto the breach: Portuguese Sailing Ships (Reskins)

They look good, more flavour for the seas.

Thanks, JustATourist, I added them to VD 4.0!

Great work!!!

avain said:

Thanks, JustATourist, I added them to VD 4.0!

Great work!!!

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Cool. That's what I wanted to hear.

And with colonization that will be out un september, I guess those units will be used a lot !

Nice job ! I'm glad that you're still working on this

Well, I need someone elses oppinion.

I am working at russian sailing ships. I don't wanted to use the standard galeon again, so I played a little bit around. What I wanted was a transport ship likely to be used in the shallow Baltic Sea. I read about the "pink" (don't laugh, the ship was called this way), which is discribes as something like a frigate but with less draught (is this the right word in english?) a small keel and used for transport mainly, but I found no pictures... Anyway, I played a little bit around, made one of the vanilla ships more bulky, reskined it a bit... But I am not sure about the result.

Does this look like a transport ship or does it look too much like the original vanilla ship? Or is it just ugly (/plump)? Perhaps I should return to the galeon.

JustATourist said:

Well, I need someone elses oppinion.

I am working at russian sailing ships. I don't wanted to use the standard galeon again... Does this look like a transport ship or does it look too much like the original vanilla ship? Or is it just ugly (/plump)? Perhaps I should return to the galeon.

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You could always model the European Merchantman instead of the Galleons...

JustATourist said:

I am working at russian sailing ships. I don't wanted to use the standard galeon again, so I played a little bit around.

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Historically, Peter the Great commissioned many galleys for use in the Baltic. "Galley," of course, is what the ships were referred to at the time; the Galleass unit is more like what he built (though the galleass used different sails and a different bottom). They were used both as vessels of war and as transports (along with barges). He famously used them to defeat several Swedish vessels at the Battle of Gangut.

Xenomorph said:

Historically, Peter the Great commissioned many galleys for use in the Baltic. "Galley," of course, is what the ships were referred to at the time; the Galleass unit is more like what he built (though the galleass used different sails and a different bottom). They were used both as vessels of war and as transports (along with barges). He famously used them to defeat several Swedish vessels at the Battle of Gangut.

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When speaking of the Russians vs Swedes, we're pretty-much talking of fighting galleys, which pretty much refers to the Galleass type unit. I think he's looking more towards the transport/merchant role, not the fighting type.

JustATourist said:

Well, I need someone elses oppinion.

Does this look like a transport ship or does it look too much like the original vanilla ship? Or is it just ugly (/plump)? Perhaps I should return to the galeon.

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I think it looks a lot wider (especially the galleon on the far right) but it really needs to be seen in game to be judged properly. Perhaps side by side with the original Galleon? Though from what I can see it looks good, the black eagle and the flag make it distinctively Russian.

Wolfshanze said:

You could always model the European Merchantman instead of the Galleons...

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I didn't noticed this one before anywhere, or else I would have used it before. Is it animated?

Xenomorph said:

Historically, Peter the Great commissioned many galleys for use in the Baltic. "Galley," of course, is what the ships were referred to at the time; the Galleass unit is more like what he built (though the galleass used different sails and a different bottom). They were used both as vessels of war and as transports (along with barges). He famously used them to defeat several Swedish vessels at the Battle of Gangut.

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I didn't want to use a galleass as a replacement, because some mods use the galleass as an additional unit class. And as Wolf mentioned before, the question was primary what to use instead of galleon as a troop transporting vessel.

Chuggi said:

I think it looks a lot wider (especially the galleon on the far right) but it really needs to be seen in game to be judged properly. Perhaps side by side with the original Galleon? Though from what I can see it looks good, the black eagle and the flag make it distinctively Russian.

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Well, I had a look ingame and I am not convinced myself. In Nifview it does look quite different than the privateer but ingame it does. It would be possible to increase the fscale, but that won't solve the problem. So, I will try something else with this flag and the black eagle.

JustATourist said:

I didn't noticed this one before anywhere, or else I would have used it before. Is it animated?

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It comes from the pirates game. Be warned, high polycount and such.

Incredible high polycount, even more textures and I don't find animations. Very nice model, but you are right, I don't think either, it is suitable for Civ4.

On that wider privateer... i did not follow the discussion into detail, only read the most recent posts, so forgive me if my comment is just
You might achieve a more bulky look but changing the sail configuration - i.e. removing some of the trinagle sails should make look less slick. Compare to the picture of that merchantman above - it is ner fully square-rigged. Also cutting away a few cannong might make the ship look less militant.

JustATourist said:

Incredible high polycount, even more textures and I don't find animations. Very nice model, but you are right, I don't think either, it is suitable for Civ4.

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The model is FULLY animated in-game, with movement, firing and sinking animations. It uses the default Galleon animations... I've used it in the Wolf mod for some time with no problems... high poly or not, it works fine and I've never noticed a slow-up in game performance from using them at all (and my system is four years old).

Use it if you want, or don't... but I've been using it in my mod with no problems at all.

Oh... here's an example of reskining the Merchantman Galleon if you're interested... comparing a German version of both the default Galleon and the Merchantman. Compared side-by-side in-game... like I said... it is fully animated with combat animations and all... just use the default Galleon.kfm. To get the below result, you only need to reskin the main sail dds and the flag dds.

It is a beautiful ship for sure, I am just a little bit frightened by her high polycount and the huge textures... Well and maybe by GeoModders warning. Just call me conservative. Perhaps I will reskin her and another transport ship so the mod makers can choose themself which of both to use. This way the decision isn't my problem anymore.

I've had custom Spanish, English and French Galleons imported from Pirates for a long time in the Wolfshanze Mod... to no ill-effect to gameplay from my experience (and nobody else has complained about them either). I'm expanding it further since I've never had problems before to other European powers (basically all northern/central/eastern naval powers... Mediterranean powers will still get Spanish-style Galleons).

The only time the Wolfshanze Mod tends to crawl, is typical of all custom mods... late-game on larger maps with a weaker/slower system. I've never heard anyone complain the game was crawling in the age of Galleons!

If every model in the game had a high polycount, especially well-used ones like infantry and/or cavalry types... then you'd probably take a hit where you can little afford it... but I think a few high-poly galleons won't kill anything... there's usually not that many floating around, and I'm not using the model with all 34+ civs... only a handful of European powers... and I've already tested it in-game with three European powers to no-ill.

Slapping a national emblem on an otherwise Spanish Galleon, just makes the ship look like a prize of war, rather then a domestically built ship. Not a problem you or I created surely... just the way it is. I don't think it's a cardinal sin to use the model in-game... let Geo poo-poo on the idea all he wants... his love-child, the excellent citystyle sets are used by every nation for every age all over the map and definitely need to stay low-poly for obvious reasons... a few galleons, for a few years, for a few civs that are high poly won't kill anyone, and my testing backs that up.