New Unit: Imperial Legionary

Yup, here is it. I called it "Imperial Legionary" because it is based on pics of Roman soldiers from the 1st century AD - early empire period.

Please look for the updated unit here http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64864

Installation (the same is explained in the readme that comes with the zip file)...

You have basically two ways to implement this unit in your Civ3:

1. Replace the original Civ3 Legionary

In this case, I recommend to backup the original files from the folder Civ3/Art/units/Legionary/ first, otherwise you have to re-install Civ3 if you want to use them later again. Once the backup is done, copy all downloaded .flc animations and the file Legionary.ini into the folder Civ3/Art/units/Legionary/ - that is all. You can of course change the civilopediapics, if you don´t, the unit will still use the pics from the original Civ3 Legionary.

2. Use the Imperial Legionary as additional unit

I do not give a complete description for new units here, however, when you use it as additional unit, make sure you copy the file ImperialLegionary.ini (you can of course rename it) into the folder of your new unit, because this .ini. file has corrected paths for the sound files (which aren´t needed when you only replace the original unit as described under point 1).


Finally, there are two different "run" animations included. Both .ini files use the file LegionaryRun.flc, but if you like, you can also replace it with LegionaryWalk.flc in the .ini file.

2nd attack anim

victory anim

(anims are a bit faster in-game)

Absolutley lovely!

A great looking unit!

Did you create it from scratch?

Congratulation!
In my Excel spreadsheet of 218 additional units for CIVIII, you are the 3rd to get a 10/10 mark, not counting PTW unit.

Very good!
Nice Unit..

The Badger, the human model itself is from the net, but the rest (body armour, helmet, shield, weapons, clothes and also the textures) is made by me

Very nice, i´ll use it as Praetorian Guard.

actually, this should be used as the real Legionary and the one in the game as the Praetorian Guard.

Overall, nice unit.

Great unit, it will be used in the Ancient Mediterranean MOD for sure!

Question: Does the standard legionary represent a republican-age legionary or even a later period?

This is sooo much better than the Firaxis Legionary - finally, someone understands that legionaries threw pilums before closing with their swords!

Boah ,thats an awesome unit

Great Unit!
Maybe you can create another ancient units? I can help with scans from the book "Warfare in the Classical World" by John Warry.

thamis, here are some examples of legionaries from different times (they are only a gross orientation, there was certainly a variety of equipment in all periods). The Firaxis legionary seems to be a mixture of different times. The shield looks more "republican" (although I´m not sure if Romans used shields with these "cutted out" parts on each side), the helmet could be also an officer´s helmet from the early empire period. I have a book (unfortunately no scanner) were Praetorians are displayed in a similar way....

Edit: Marcus - yes I´ll make more ancient units, but not so soon, since I work on a scifi mod also...

I must say I'm very impressed, one of the nicest looking units Ive seen in a while.

However there are a few practical points that may make your task easier and make your units look even better;
#1 I dont know how you did the shadow; I assume that you did two renders or something like that? I find it easier to dot he shadows in dark magenta (just the colour that is caused by shadows falling on the magenta ground). If you look at the shadow palete in other units on the site most use a graded system from dark magenta to light magenta- so that in the game the shados look soft and natural, Ive only seen yours in flickster but it looks a little hard edged (no problem, but it is different from how the firaxis units are made). Try using two or three light sources placed close together to break up the outline of the shadow. Also if the shadow is magenta colours then you can use blending and softening on the image to remove harsh edges if you want.

#2 I notice that many of your animations have up to 30 frames! Has this caused any problem in game? I have found in the past that with the run animation especialy setting the delay timer in flickster has little to no effect on the animation in game. For saftey reasons I would recomend 10 frames max for run and 20 for the others (though attack animations can probably be as long as you like.

these are just small issues, you have a great unit and I look forward to your next creation.

You´re right, the shadows haven´t smooth edges. However, I decided to leave it that way, because they don´t appear very dark in-game. They just darken the covered area a bit, but not that much that it turns out completely black.

I rendered the shadow in a darker magenta, but since I already had set up the palette with green tones for the shadow I used color masks to replace the colors in the storyboards (later in photopaint).

To the number of frames - no, especially those long anims run better in-game than some of the shorter anims (I also thought it would cause trouble, but I tried and it works well). For example, I still think the speed of the "fortify" and "death" anim is a bit too slow (they´ve both 15 frames) but I´m unsure how to fix this. Even when saved with the fastest frame rate in flicster it doesn´t help much. Maybe I rework those two anims for an update. On the other hand those long anims worked well in the game from the start. I was quite surprised by this...

Yes, but making lon animation should have taken a LONG time to copy & paste in the storyboard

Yeah, in those ancient times before SBB...

Best ancient era unit I have seen!