[MOD/MODCOMP] Better Looking Units

[Deliverator]

BLU Mod is all about creating a richer visual world for Civ4Col by adding new art and unique units for each race. There are also new gameplay features such as the Gold resource.



Features of BLU Mod 0.6

Art
+ Conquistador replaces Veteran Soldiers for Spain.
+ Carabela replaces Caravel for Spain - both this and the normal Caravel use the EE2 unit adapted for Civ4 by Walter Hawkwood and Refar.
+ New flag for Spain - the Crown of Castile banner - perhaps not strictly historical but it looks good!
+ New Simon Bolivar Leaderhead by Ekmek

+ Marine replaces Veteran Soldier for France.
+ New flag and colour scheme for France. I never liked that dark purple colour. They now use a nice royal blue. Iroquois moved to light blue and French King to a nicer dark blue.

+ Veteraan (needs a better name - can anyone Dutch suggest?) replaces Veteran Solider for Dutch.
+ Dutch have a custom replacement for the browncoat musketman
+ Revised Dutch Leaderheads by lionheart (and Dutch King renamed to Stadtholder)

+ Aztec Warrior - reskinned Aztec Jaguar
+ Sioux Warrior - reskinned Dog Soldier
+ Sioux Scout, Musketman and Cavalry by bernie14 (with horse textures adapted from M2TW)
+ Maya Warrior - added to the mod but not reskinned yet
+ Incan Warrior - added to the mod but not reskinned yet
+ Iroquois Warrior - merge of Logan Leaderhead and Native Warrior
+ Iroquois Scout, Musketman and Cavalry by bernie14 (with horse textures adapted from M2TW)
+ Apache Warrior - Apache leaderhead merged with bernie14 unit - my favourite leaderhead port so far.
+ Cherokee Warrior - based on the vanilla scout but using Celtic Warrior animations.

+ Implemented sezereth's blood spatter effects in most units.

+ Improved Veteran Units and REF using Oleg153's textures as a base.
+ Various mounted units have more realistic horses.
+ Tweaked a lot of unit scalings.
+ Main menu graphics and music (Vangelis - 1492 Main Titles).

Interface
I have added easy camera controls for panning the camera through 360 degrees and also tilting the camera (code by Lutefisk Mafia). This lets you have a look at the action from another perspective.

The hotkeys are:
Ctrl + LEFT/RIGHT arrow key: Rotate the camera in 45 degree increments.
Shirt + LEFT/RIGHT arrow key: Rotate the camera in 15 degree increments.
Ctrl or Shift + UP/DOWN arrow key: Tilt the camera in 5 degree increments
Ctrl + HOME: Return to default rotation and tilt.
(Remember ALT-I hides the interface and CTRL-I minimises it, so you can take and post screenshots!)

Gameplay
+ Gold as a resource! Gold sells for a very profitable 50 er... gold a unit in Europe, so it is worth seeking out and exploiting. (This still needs balancing I think - so post feedback)
+ Maya civilization. Using the standard Holkan graphic for the Warrior unit initially.

+ A tweaked version of Cephalo's FaireWeather called FaireWeatherTweak. In detail:
----- added a new parameter called Regularity which affects the regularity of the land shapes. Default 'Quite Irregular'. The default setting is more irregular than before, leading to some interesting maps. Due to the randomness involved, it is not guaranteed the Regular setting won't create irregular shapes - it is just affecting the likelihood.
----- rebalanced amount of Plains vs Grassland - more cotton and less tobacco.
----- slightly more jungle around the equator.
----- more tundra around the poles.
Some FaireWeatherTweak generated maps


+ Bonus placement reworked and optimized for FaireWeather/FaireWeatherTweak. In detail:
----- prevent resource 'clumping' - standard map scripts (A New World, Caribbean) avoid this because of fractal method used in terrain placement - you have forest next to a plains next to a marsh next to a grassland. The more realistic FaireWeather layout and man made maps suffered from resource clumping. (This does mean that if you want to play the stock fractal map scripts - you'll have too few resources, but you can always switch around the XML.)
----- Iron, Silver, Gold can appear on any hill - regardless of terrain or features (forest, jungle).
----- Fur and Deer can appear in grassland/forest as well as tundra and ice.
----- tweaked likelihoods and amounts of most resources to get a balanced mix, in particular Silver is much less common and Gold is quite rare.
Resources are placed randomly whether you are playing a scenario map or a mapscript map

+ Spanish Carabela starts with Navigation I
+ French Marines start with Amphibious
+ Aztec/Maya Warriors start with Swamp Fox I
+ Sioux/Iroquois/Inca/Cherokee/Apache Warriors start with Skirmisher I

Credits
Credit goes to the following:
bernie14, sezereth, Ekmek, lionheart, Walter Hawkwood, Refar, Oleg153.
BLUModMod uses units ported from Empire Earth II and textures from Medieval II:Total War.

Just unpack the Mod to your Colonization/Mods directory, then you can either load the mod from the game menu or create a shortcut with the target, for example:
"C:\Program Files\2K Games\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization IV Colonization\Colonization.exe" mod=\BLU Mod 0_5

I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU INSTALL THE OFFICIAL FIRAXIS PATCH BEFORE TRYING THIS MOD - available here or here. The game's not much fun without it.

The mod now uses modular loading which means you need to have the following set in BLUMod 0_6.ini:
; Modular XML Loading
ModularLoading = 1

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> DOWNLOAD THE LATEST VERSION HERE <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Version 0.4 - Screenshots

Spoiler:

Version 0.2 - Conquest of Paradise

Spoiler:

Changes:
Conquistador Units for Spain - this is the first release of these - there is still some tidy up to do on the unit textures.
Merged in the Europe Screen Mod by koma13 - no one should be without it.

Version 0.1 - Better Looking Veterans and REF

Spoiler:

Comparison of the existing Veteran with the new one:


The Veteran Musketman and Veteran Dragoon have been reskinned to look similar to continental troops such as these:

http://www.srcalifornia.com/uniforms/p20.htm
http://www.srcalifornia.com/uniforms/p26.htm

The new REF units are basically transparent versions of Oleg153's units. Making these guy's transparent was originally done by PrinzMyshkin - I simply polished and tidied up a bit.

[Deliverator]

Aim
The overall aim of this mod is to add unique unit art for all Colonies and Natives. If I can add a few other fun features along the way then great.

Future Work/Ideas
1. New unit art for Arawak and Tupi.
2. Complete Dutch and French Military
3. Reskin (remodel?) Incan Warrior and Mayan Warrior.
4. More variety in unit faces - too many soldiers currenty have the same face.
5. Reskin basic browncoat Musketman and Dragoons.
6. Reskin cannons.
7. Ship reskins

Incidentally, if anyone has any ideas or suggestions then post them here.

[ExtraCrispy]

Let's see what other unique units we can come up with
Musketeer: Replaces regulars for the French King

[Deliverator]

Things are coming along. I'm learning quite a bit about the intricacies of swapping body parts from different models in blender.

[Deliverator]

Also if anyone is good at texturing and wants to help out then I can focus more on getting the models tip top.

[Deliverator]

Nice! I started from scratch and I now have Conquistadors plus flash bangs and minus bandy arms.

[Deliverator]

Version 0.2 is out now with the Spanish Conquistadors. Enjoy...

[charle88]

Looks good!Maybe you could update the spanish models' by adding the head of bernie's industrial spanish musketeer unit.

[Deliverator]

Thanks for the suggestion. Wish I'd see this earlier.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7948950

I'll have a play after I get the different native units started.

[veBear]

Looks great Hope you dont mind if I use the Conquistadore in my Mod? It would fit perfect.

[Deliverator]

Not at all. I'm happy for anyone to merge these into their own mods if they want.

[Deliverator]

After much battling I've finally got the Aztec Jaguar from Civ4 into Civ4Col. It is not straightforward, but I think I've finally found a way to do it. The Jaguar is working with all animations just need to add the sound which I think can be done via XML. If the method works for the Quechua and Dog Soldier then I'll post a tutorial at some point.

As you can see I've produced a new shield, but the rest of the texture is unchanged. I've upped the resolution so it can look a lot better with some work.

[Dale]

Awesome work!

[Deliverator]

Here's a peek of what's coming next. Before you think I've become an awesome texturing artist - I sourced a lot of these textures from M2TW. With a bit of blending and bending they work really well. The great thing is there are loads of textures from the Americas campaign that are perfect for Colonization and the quality is fantastic.

[Deliverator]

Aztec is done, and I've also added Lutefisk Mafia's code for rotating the camera through 360 degrees. You can tilt the camera too. Once I've reskinned the Conquistadors I'll release all this stuff.

[Deliverator]

Tutorial Images

[Aymerick]

Nice work Deliverator!

I've had this idea for some time to reskin the French veteran soldier based on the "Compagnies Franches de la Marine" and make it unique. As I recall my high school history (I'm French Canadian that's why...) they were stationed in the French Caribbean islands and all over new France.

I suggest you look at this website (http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/en/page_1.asp) which as a lot of information as well as pictures and drawing of all types of uniforms like these examples:

French veteran soldier:
Soldier, Compagnies franches de la Marine of Acadia and Plaisance (1701-1713)


Sergeant and soldier of the Compagnies franches de la Marine of New France, between 1716 and 1730


French artillery:
Men of the Compagnie des canonniers-bombardiers of Canada


Soldier of the Compagnie des canonniers-bombardiers between 1750 and 1760:


Armed brave:
Micmac warrior, around 1740


I'll work on the "franche marine" texture and update with my progress.

[charle88]

Originally Posted by Aymerick

Nice work Deliverator!

I've had this idea for some time to reskin the French veteran soldier based on the "Compagnies Franches de la Marine" and make it unique. As I recall my high school history (I'm French Canadian that's why...) they were stationed in the French Caribbean islands and all over new France.

I suggest you look at this website (http://www.cmhg.gc.ca/cmh/en/page_1.asp) which as a lot of information as well as pictures and drawing of all types of uniforms like these examples:

French veteran soldier:
Soldier, Compagnies franches de la Marine of Acadia and Plaisance (1701-1713)


Sergeant and soldier of the Compagnies franches de la Marine of New France, between 1716 and 1730


French artillery:
Men of the Compagnie des canonniers-bombardiers of Canada


Soldier of the Compagnie des canonniers-bombardiers between 1750 and 1760:


Armed brave:
Micmac warrior, around 1740


I'll work on the "franche marine" texture and update with my progress.

Actually,most of those units have already been created by oleg and me for my french and indian war mod.

EDIT:
Here are some pics.

[Deliverator]

Cheers guys. I have amended the todo list in the second post. I'm definitely interested in doing something for the French military soon. Now I've got pretty used to adjusting models in blender I'd like to try and do something that's slightly more than a reskin for them. Looking at these images maybe I could use a different style of hat or something.

[Deliverator]

My latest crazy idea is converting leaderheads to units using blender. It has worked pretty well so far.