A request to Thunderfall for a new "Multi Figure Unit Forum"

When I first posted those ‘multi figure’ unit previews in the “Visual Experiment” thread in the Creation & Customisation Forum, I must admit that I was totally unprepared for the huge wave of enthusiasm that they have generated (12 pages in just the first 3 days! ).
Also Steph, who has computer skills that are far beyond my own, has almost perfected a utility that will automatically generate ‘multi figure’ units in just a few minutes, and plans to post this so that everyone can make their own.

Now this will result in a massive flood of new units which will completely swamp the existing Completed Units Forum…..which is still necessary because some people may not want to use ‘multi figure’ units, and besides, we still need to have fully animated working ‘single figure’ units before we can turn them into ‘multi figure’ ones.

Take Smoking Mirror’s Napoleonic Infantryman for example.
Soon this will be expanded into a 6 figure ‘French Column’ unit, a 4 figure ‘British Line’ unit, a ‘Light Infantry’ unit of 4 figures in a skirmish formation, etc.
Or unit combinations like the Civ3 Pikeman & Musketman.
They will grow into ‘Medieval Pikemen’ (3 pikes + 3 pikes), ‘Swiss Pikemen’ (3 pikes + 1 pike & 2 crossbows), a ‘Spanish Tercio’ (3 pikes + 1 pike & 2 muskets), a Swedish/English Civil War ‘Regiment’ (4 pikes in a block + a musket on each flank), and so on.

So if we take all the original Civ3 units and times this number by 3 or 4, then take all the player created units and times them by 3 or 4, and even if we ignore the PTW units for the moment because of copyright reasons……well, as you can see, the numbers are staggering!
And with Steph’s new utility tool, anyone could easily pump out 3 or 4 of these ‘multi figure’ units A DAY!

So would it be possible to have a new ”Completed Multi Figure Units Forum”?

This would be only for completed MF units (requests, discussions and previews could continue to be posted in the existing Creation & Customisation Forum), and could be headed by the usual ‘sticky’ threads, such as “Only Completed MF Units Here”, and “How To Download MF Units”, and “How To Create MF Units”, and so forth.

Rather than make this proposal via a PM, I have decided instead to post it here so that others may offer their own observations, comments and criticisms.

Please let us know what you think.

Sounds like a good idea.

Good idea. I will make the Multi Figure Unit Forum a sub-forum of the units forum.

To make it easier for players to download, I recommend putting all multi-figure *standard Civ3 (non-PTW) units* in a zip or in the same thread so people don't need to visit 60+ threads to download them. For player created units, I guess each unit can have its own thread.

One more thing: I don't think people should post multi-figure units of PTW units. I seriously doubt Firaxis/Infogrames would give permission for that.

Thunderfall, maybe you could e-mail Firaxis and tell them whats going on, and what is the deal on the PTW units.

May-be they could post a reply and give a date, or an idea, on when the PTW units can be used.

PS. Does this copyright thing mean that PTW units cannot be modified as individual units and posted on this site?

If this forum is created, I believe we should have Sticky Library and Request threads where completed units can be posted and new units can be requested and "dibbed" by creators so people are not doubling up on unit creation projects by accident.

Otherwise, great idea

Ohh.. another new forum!

Sounds great! I've seen those units too, and it's bound to make wars look really cool with a bunch of units marching (or rolling). Too bad they can't be moved at once.

Thank you very much Thunderfall.

To gael,

I'm afraid you are quite right: NO PTW figures would be allowed.....not even very heavily modified ones (it really is not worth the risk of a lawsuit).

To The Troquelet,

Good ideas! But I think that instead of a 'Unit Requests' thread (which can be done in the existing Creation & Customization Forum), what we need is a 'Current Projects' thread.
Then people could go to this thread to see who is making what in order to stop 'duplication' of units.

Originally posted by Chieftess
Too bad they can't be moved at once.

Click to expand...

But they can.
At the moment a unit has an animation of a single figure.
A 'multi figure' unit has an animation of several figures, but it is still only one unit.
It just looks better.
And if many units are in a tile (be they single or multi figure) then the usual staking movement applies.

I think CT was saying it would be cool if you could move the multiple units at once, thus making a hundred infantry march at a time.

What's all this with PTW?

Originally posted by Kryten

But they can.
At the moment a unit has an animation of a single figure.
A 'multi figure' unit has an animation of several figures, but it is still only one unit.
It just looks better.
And if many units are in a tile (be they single or multi figure) then the usual staking movement applies.

Click to expand...

What I meant was, units on different tiles. Like (20,20) and (21,20) moving in the same direction at once. Not units on the same tile.

Originally posted by hbdragon88
What's all this with PTW?

Click to expand...

If people are to begin posting the new units fr PTW (even modified ones), fewer will be tempted to buy PTW itself for the new units. CFC may run the risk of a lawsuit fr Firaxis/Infogrammes, for commercial losses blah, blah, blah.

Originally posted by Kryten
Thank you very much Thunderfall.

Click to expand...

You are welcome. When do you think is a good time to create the new forum? Now?

After the forum is created, you can make a few information threads in there and we can make them sticky...

Thank you once again Thunderfall.

I like to come back to you later if I may, as I think it might be a good idea if I first ask in the "Visual Experiment" thread what kind of 'sticky' threads the people there think are necessary.

Originally posted by Chieftess
What I meant was, units on different tiles. Like (20,20) and (21,20) moving in the same direction at once. Not units on the same tile.

Click to expand...

Oops!

Sorry for misunderstanding you Chieftess.

Please forgive me.

Have you desided who should be Moderator of this new forum?

We don't need a new moderator I think (just like all other files forums)...

Sticky thread requests can be made by PMing me or the Civ3 moderators (Chieftess/Hippo).

I did´nt say anything about new mod´s, i just wanted to hear if Chieftess and Hippo were going to continue.

Yeah, it's in the same forum area.

One thing: if you have, let's say 3 units that are visually not on one, but 3 tiles - where will they then be for the game? Probably in the middle tile, right? Now if that unit is attacked by another unit, this other unit would have to move "into" one of the outer tiles, right?

I think that the easiest way I can answer your question Thamis is to ask you to have a look at this thread.....

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=40728&pagenumber=1

....the previews there show things far better than I can describe them.

Got it. Looks cool, but I think it might be very disorganized if you have tons of those units/armies on the map.