New Unit; Early Battleship; Pre-Dreadnaught

Well this is my first new unit in a while; When I get a job I'll get a better 3d Program, and I should be able to produce units much faster, and better! Animating "live" from the model is often dissapointing, ocasionaly something comesout better than you thought it would, but usualy, theres something that just doesn't look right.

Any way this is an early battleship, between the Ironclad and the Battleship- It should require coal and Iron and become available somewhere around the beginning of the industrial era.
You can get the files Here

Here is a preview of the Ship (note that the funnel stripes are now black/brown);

Here is a preview of the unit attacking, Remember to set the rotates before attacking flag, otherwise the ship will fire pointlessly into the ocean.

To add the unit to your scenarios Create a unit in your CivIII/Art/units folder called EarlyBattleship and insert the contents of the zipfile.

Heres the animation;

are the civ-specific colours on the funnels?

Great Unit Smoking Mirror . Now I cant wait for the Dreadnought (Coal fired Battleship) , the Super (Improved) Ironclad, and the other Early Industrial Era Ships . Keep up the good work .

Nice unit! This'll make the naval conflict a lot more interesting.

Top job Smoking mirror!

Very nice unit.
Although it appears you tried a new technique for the smoke clouds...... I hate to be a critic, but it kinna looks like a battleship on LSD...

Originally posted by Neomega
Very nice unit.
Although it appears you tried a new technique for the smoke clouds...... I hate to be a critic, but it kinna looks like a battleship on LSD...

Click to expand...

Is this a critique or compliment?

I think it looks fantastic! Puts my battlewagon out of action, even in my games! LoL!

WOW!!!! fantastic unit.

Yes the civ colours are the "red" colours on the preview. All the texts I read about the Early battleships quoted "lots of smoke", not much acuracy (I guess the gunners are all busy choking on cordite dust). As impresiive as the broadside looks, it would not have caused a lot of damage to a ship of the same sort.

That looks freakin' awesome

That has more guns then the modern battleship but whatever.

WOW! Im impressed yet again. This is insane, all you people can make this? It makes me look small:jump:. A MUST though!

Have to add my compliments, too! Looks great!

The ship has 4 small guns in the main body, these are close range guns intended to take advantage of all available space and provide more protection to the gunners than in the turrets.
There are three twin barreled turrets and one single barreled turret at the very front of the ship. Early warships from the ironclad all the way up to the HMS dreadnaught featured a range of different guns intended for different uses, small guns were considered to be easier to aim and were quicker to reload while the bigger guns were more devasating (if they hit).
It was difficult to coordinate the firing of the guns and the aiming was prety much independant of ship comand (No computers or eectronic coms devices made comand in the fog of war difficult) the smaller guns, despite thier rapid firing and ease of aim were later found to be very ineffective, unable to penetrate enemy armour even at close range, so in later battleships they were removed and more space was alocated to the heavy gun turrets.

Early Battleships would look terrifing and the pyscological advantage given by these monsters could be considerable, but overall, these weapons were not as effective as they would later become- you could compare a bombardment from a Crimean war Cannon brigade to a WWII howitzer bombard by a division half that size- and although the cannons would make much more noise and produce more smoke, as a tank driver you would be better off in front of the primitive Cannons (though you may get vibrated to death... )

I love the attack myself. this really would have been a terrifying sight.

Smoking Mirror: Any chance of posting a version of the preview with a white background instead of the blue water style background? (for civilopedia entries and the like?)

Smoking Mirror, are you making a Mercava tank? When do you think it will be ready?

That is a fine looking battlewagon SM.

Where do you figure it fits into the tech tree?
Electricity would be my guess.

Perhaps an ironclad upgrade, then to Dreadnaught and Battleship ( when you finish the Dreadnaught ofcourse ).

Any suggested stats?

Would battle-cruiser be the right name for this unit?

I dont think so. Im almost positive there is a name though.