Flavor Units Project

[Kindred72]

I'd like to point out that this is a fictional game. A game where we play on a fictional earth. In reall life the "americans" had nothing like knight, or pikeman. But in real life the "americans" didn't exist at that time. This is a "what if" game. What if the "americans had started out from the beginning and weren't an offshoot of the europeans and everyone else. what would have happened? What if there were elephants roaming about in Scandinavia. Would the Vikings have had war elephants? What if the Iroquois had discovered gunpowder, or learned to make swords and armor before the europeans or the Asians? This is what Civ is about I believe. I love taking the Iroquois and becoming more advanced than the "americans" and wiping them out. I think this is a project for flavor units, not necessarily UU's. Let's make an Iroquios Knight, and We'll make a "brave" as a UU. or something like that. I see nothing wrong with this. It's all a "what if" scenerio anyway.

 

[embryodead]

I know its not too nice to make a "me too" post, but anyway I will do it
I totally agree with Kindred72. Some people get too historical while Civ3 is a game where you build your own history. It is great to have as many flavour units as possible, but forcing player to follow the only one, right path is missed point imho.

 

[aaglo]

Kindred72,

If the Iroquoise would have mastered usage of iron&gunpowder in weapons prior to the european arrival, who knows what kind of weapons would they have...

So in that respect, some fantasy units wouldn't be so 'fantasy-oriented' after all

 

[Kryten]

I’m not paranoid….I know you’re all against me!
Actually, I thought I was agreeing with everyone…..

Originally posted by Kryten
Instead of trying to decide what an American civ's Pikeman should look like (which they never had), we give them a new animation WITH A NEW NAME, even if it has the ORIGINAL stats.

And Dom Pedro II is right: it would look ‘odd’ in a random game if the native American civs were surrounded by horses, yet never used them.
But I wonder if I may say a few more words about flavour names.

Let’s get back to basics, and call everything by their simplest generic names for the moment.
In the Civ3 Ancient & Medieval periods, there are five types of land unit:-
Offensive Heavy Infantry (3-2-1), Light Infantry Missiles (2-1-1), Defensive Infantry (1-2-1), Mounted troops (2-1-2), and Siege Weapons.
Some civs have units with better attack/defence/movement than normal, and these we call “Unique Units”.

Now, as we all know, the ‘standard’ Ancient Offensive Heavy Infantry unit in Civ3 is the Swordsman, with stats of 3-2-1, whose main weapon is of course the sword.
But the Swordsman is just ONE TYPE of heavy infantryman.
And not every Ancient civ used Swordsmen with dead dogs on their heads as their offensive infantry.
The Greeks used offensive Hoplites as their heavy infantry, while the Macedonians used pike armed Phalangites.

What I am trying to say (in my usual longwinded way) is this:-
Instead of thinking of the 3-2-1 ‘Swordsman’ as the standard Ancient offensive foot unit, think more along the lines of 3-2-1 ‘Heavy Infantry’ units.
Now all we have to do is look in the history books to find what a particular nation used as their heavy infantry, give it stats of 3-2-1, and we have our ‘flavour units’.
‘Light Infantry’ can be treated the same way: they all have stats of 2-1-1 (unless unique), be they Javlinmen, Slingers or Archers.
And all ‘Mounted Troops’ are 2-1-2 (unless unique).

Applying this to the Medieval period, we have Heavy Horsemen (4-3-2), Heavy Infantry (4-2-1), Missile Infantry (4-1-1), Defensive Infantry (1-3-1), and Siege Weapons.
(Again, some ‘unique units’ have stats better than these)
The ‘Heavy Horsemen’ of the European civs was the Knight, while Byzantine Greeks used Cataphracts, Persians/Egyptians/Babylonians/Arabs used Moslem Horsemen, Mongols used Keshiks, Chinese used Riders, and so on.

But what do we do with the various Native American civs, such as the Iroqois/Aztecs/Mayans/Incas?
Well, rather than just giving them their own Pikemen & Knights, I think we should give them their own kind of Medieval Defensive Infantry and Medieval Heavy Horsemen….with new names as well as new animations.
After all, Pikemen are just ONE TYPE of defensive infantry. There were many other types, such as Billmen, armed with halberds or pole-axes. The Byzantine Greeks used Scutatoi infantry instead of Pikemen, while the Japanese used Naginata infantry.
Anyway, Pikemen are very eurocentric.
Just because they used plate armour in Europe, doesn’t mean that everybody did.
The people of the Middle East didn’t use plate armour, they used ringed and scale armour instead. And in far eastern China & Japan they had their own distinctive type of heavy armour.
So let’s do the same for the people of the New World, rather than turning them into some sort of European clones.

May I suggest the following:-
Defensive Infantry = “Buffalo Warriors” (stats 1-3-1, thick hide armour, long spear, round hide shield, buffalo headdress)
Heavy Horsemen = “Cougar Horsemen” (stats 4-3-2, thick hide armour for man & horse, bow, cougar headdress)
Missile Infantry = “Eagle Archers” (stats 4-1-1, large bow, large artificial eagle headdress)
Heavy Infantry = “Coyote Warriors” (stats 4-2-1, thick hide armour, iron tomahawk in each hand, with a headdress of....er....a dead dog. )

(BTW, I also think the Gallic Swordsman should be 3-2-1, and be the flavour unit for the Spanish/Carthaginians/Celts/French/English instead of the Swordsman. Then the ‘UU’ for the Celts can be a Gallic Horseman with stats of 3-2-2….
….this is more historical and logical than a foot unit that costs almost TWICE that of the Roman Legionary!)

 

[Xen]

actually, the name Buffalo soldires was the name of the black cavalry during the spanish-american war....and the name of a kick-@ss bob marley song

I compleatlly agree on the suggestion for the gallic foot unit, and have gallic horse be the UU for the them Krazy Kelts


I

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Kryten: Ok, I think we're basically on the same page here then. I really do think that the Native Americans should have something more unique than "Iroquois Knight" or "Iroquois Pikeman"... I was just saying that their class should be relatively the same, as you said, heavy cavalry, heavy infantry, etc.


And, btw, I too saw utahjazz's Greek Swordsman and was thought to myself "Uh oh!"

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Also, does anybody have AIM or Yahoo Messenger so that way we could do some discussion in realtime? If you don't want to post it right here on the thread, then PM me.

 

[Nder]

Kryten, I think we are on the same page, except for the Greek Swordsman.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

I would say the Greek Swordsman is the bulk of his argument... if you're not on the same page there, you're really not on the same page...

 

[Nder]

Originally posted by Dom Pedro II
I would say the Greek Swordsman is the bulk of his argument... if you're not on the same page there, you're really not on the same page...

yeah, I know, and I know its one of those points that Kryten is never gonna give up on.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Nder, got any more unit name/style suggestions for me? I'm updating the list now.

 

[Xen]

Kryten dosent have to give up on it- it true, just check out my article on the classical greek military here- http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55910

 

[Nder]

I know he doesn't have to give up on it. I wouldn't want him to. He wouldn't be Kryten if he did.

Dom,

Janissaries - Ottoman Medieval Infantry

Musket Jannisary - Ottoman Musketman

Nizam-i Cedid - Ottoman Riflemen


It would be cool if you could link to the download thread for the user created units.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Look at this... I ask him to post some new names and ideas and he not only does that, he fetches pictures for me too!

Great! I've been wanting to do something like this... but I've a bit of a full plate right now... if you look at the list, if you see it in green, my name is probably next to it...

 

[Nder]

Oh, I think you should call the Japanese Warrior an Otomo Warrior to match the Otomo Spearman and Otomo Archer from PtW. That way we have the first three units all wearing similar clothing, which makes sense.

And a new Samurai Archer should be made for the Longbowman.

I think we need to come up with a new name for the Indian Infantryman, Turban Infantry just doesn't strike me as accurate or politically correct.

 

[Nder]

the Javilineer for the Celts is an AoK unit.

the Mayan Plumed Archer for the Mayans is also an AoK conversion (just the head is taken from AoK)

 

[LouLong]

Dom Pedro II, you could actually add some of the Cossack thread units to the list of done units, except if you think they don't fit (colors, size, details,.....). Personally I think the Strelitz fits in well for a Russian musketeer. And it is legal !!!!

Oh right it is a musketman which brings me to my second point :

Firaxis forgot some stops on the long road to modern warfare. For time/upgrade reasons probably but I think you could add musketmeers and Napoleonic fusilier for the infantry line. With the Cossack thread you already have a bunch of units for musketeer and late pikes as well as a few other (from Arab archers to hussars).
SO question eventually : will you stick to the Civ3 lines (you should keep the chariots BTW) or will you try to complete it ?

Nder : I am back from holidays. Soon you are gonna have some fun criticizing me again !

 

[Dom Pedro II]

Well, the Javelineer listed as not done (its in black)... I would want somebody to make a totally new javelineer.

And somebody did do a Mayan Plumed Archer that was not from AoK (simple cut n paste job though from two Civ3 units).

Otomo! That was it... I couldn't remember. I haven't been on my home computer for days so I couldn't just look it up.

Is it called the Otomo Archer though? I thought it had a much more complicated name? Actually, if you could just post all the names, that'd be great since I can't get to them at the moment.

 

[Dom Pedro II]

LouLong! Where ya been? I haven't seen any new units...

I'd love it if you got involved with this.

About the Cossacks unit conversions, as I said to Steph, I'd rather have units made for Civ3 what with copyrights and all. Just in case if there's ever a third expansion pack, we're not left high and dry. Also, as I said... this is a not supposed to be a modpack, this is supposed to be a graphical resource, and at the moment (to at least get this a little more under control) I want to just focus on replacing the existing Civ3 units.

But personally, in my own mod, I do have a lot of units between the Musketman and the Civil War Rifleman.

 

[Nder]

That was just from memory, I knew it was an Otomo Spearman and I just gave that name to the Archer. They are wearing very similar clothing, though slightly different. I don't remember the exact name, but I think you are right that it is something much more complicated.

The Plumed Archer is the Civ3 Archer with the AoK Mayan Archer head atached.

I guess I assumed, and made an a$$ out of myself.

@Loulong: Criticizing you? My comments are all meant to be constructive, so I can only hope I never offended.