New Unit: Bantu Spearman(9/15/2006)

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Well I left it out, its not that bad really its not. Civ color isn't as important to me, like Flamand.

 

[Steph]

Personally, I exchange 10 bad units with civ colour against 1 good unit without.

I don't care about civ colour as long as the unit is a flavour unit.

 

[Wyrmshadow]

I'm convinced that some, like Wyrmshadow (for example) could animate a pile of dung and make it look good. And he would have an easy time doing it.

Is this a formal request for a steaming pile of unit?

 

[Bjornlo]

Personally, I exchange 10 bad units with civ colour against 1 good unit without.

I don't care about civ colour as long as the unit is a flavour unit.

This is short sighted and just plain wrong.

First off there is no bad unit trade in where we get to deliver in 10 'name-with-held' units for one Kinboat. But as a result of this Kinboat must withhold civ coloration to cover his unit smooshing and conversion costs.
It doesn't work like that. In fact the superior unit creators include civ coloration. It is typically the marginal ones that do not. Aaglo made me this really cool USMC M2 HMG team. Civ color really does not go well with camo, but it is there and the unit is better for it. He could have used the same half-logic and said... well the USMC is purely american, and so I can just leave the camo intact. How about the several hundred (yes) cool planes, tanks, etc Wyrmshadow has done. Do blue nose cones, stabilizers, etc really add to the asthetics of the unit? No of course not.

There might be more than one applicable civ-tribe that could use any given unit. While this unit looks good (sitting still), there is nothing unique or speacial about him other than the continent he so clearly originated on. He could have been used as a flavor unit for many african tribes. Where the white spearman has always had the look of a lost greek mercenary.

Civ coloration has never been about making a unit better looking, just plain better. Without it, you compromise the usefulness of your unit. And, you make it more difficult for those who have the misfortune to play a game with your halfassed effort.

 

[Bjornlo]

Is this a formal request for a steaming pile of unit?

I'd say yes, but I know for a fact that you'd stick with the sad task of then coming up with how to use it in game. You have made some of the coolest looking units out of models I swore would never be good enough to be used.... you've even combined multiple piles of poo into more than one high quality item.. a nearly mystical and yet strangely disturbing process.

 

[Bjornlo]

Well I left it out, its not that bad really its not. Civ color isn't as important to me....

How can this unit be used for more than one tribe now? it can not.
How can user see this unit and know which tribe is doing what? They can not unless due to your "design decision" they decide to memorize this and ever other colorless unit.... or spend an hour or two going around the map clicking on every unit... but even that bit of tedium would not reveal which tribes unit they say move their their line of sight... bring us back to players being forced to memorize every half-finished unit in the game. What mod creator wants that? What player wants that?
And, this was not the only issue with this unit. You claim you did this for fashion, but left in the more obvious fashion faux-pax of his spear moving through his leg, the spear poking through the ground a bit and jumping a bit more. If you are so concerned with aesthetics, fix those first.
And, I suggest that civ-coloration is not optional, but one of the unit design limitations we have to acces when we make units for the game. I wasn't so blunt before because I thought it was just another oops... but hearing that you did it on purpose really bugs me.

 

[Stormrage]

Bjorn. Calm down

It bugs me too, but if he wants it that way, let him have it. This is a community, but some individualism is allowed. If he wants to make units with a very very limited use then so be it.

 

[Partizanac]

It bugs me too, but if he wants it that way, let him have it. This is a community, but some individualism is allowed.

I agree!

If he wants to make units with a very very limited use then so be it.

Hey! give a guy a brake! man!

 

[Spacer One]

I have to disagree on the civ color thing...

Most units look ok with it. But others, espescially units with a distinctive look(Canadian Mounties, British Red Coats)...should not be Civ colored...(cant make em both red...)

I also prefer having units that are hidden nationality not be civ colored...Id rather have them uncolored than laced with grey...so having a few nonciv-colored units is just as important IMO...

you can always right click the stack of units to see whose they are...

@Storm...This Unit is Great...thanks for making it...

 

[Stormrage]

Lol. Spacer, Swoggy made the unit

 

[Quinzy]

its not storms unit, its swoggies, spacer...

 

[gorn]

Any chance of getting an optional Civ-Colored version later? I like the unit, but I have to agree with Bjornlo. Without civ-color, I can't really use it. Nice unit, though, and very well needed!

 

[Ozymandias]

I've already said that I like the unit and especially the shield Is there any way to make the non-black stripes on the shield Civ colored, or is that too difficult or (I could be made to concede the point) grotesque? (In my own perpetually-in-development mod, there are 3 African Civs that could use this unit.)

As Always, All The Best,

Oz

 

[Blue Monkey]

There might be more than one applicable civ-tribe that could use any given unit. While this unit looks good (sitting still), there is nothing unique or speacial about him other than the continent he so clearly originated on. He could have been used as a flavor unit for many african tribes.

There are also tribals in South Asia whose traditional war garb remarkably resembles African, Oceanic, and even Mesoamerican styles (noteably the headress plumage). While SoG certainly should make any design decisions he likes, it would be very useful to many regional/historical/fantasy/alt.-historical mods to have a version with civ color.

 

[Plotinus]

[Bjorn] I agree that units should have civ-colour where possible, but it's not a complete killer to leave it out. You don't mention the obvious method a player would have of see what unit belongs to which civ, which is simply by turning on the civ-colour circles under units. I never use this myself, but judging from various screenshots posted here, many people do.

What I see as more important is the other flaws you mention, such as the spear going through his leg and so on. I find Swoggy's units slightly frustrating because they all look good and should be great, except that he keeps leaving in flaws like this. Surely it should be standard to play animations in close-up view and check carefully for such problems before rendering them (and then, when rendered, to check again before flicifying). I spent an entire day last week trying to create a decent pike attack animation and ended up with nothing, because I couldn't get it to look right, and when I finally got something halfway reasonable found that it didn't fit the frame. I suppose I could have just rendered what I had, but what would be the point? It's important to check closely for things like this while designing the model and animation. That means using the Auxiliary Camera to zoom right in and check for weapons sticking through the ground, body parts poking through clothes, and so on and so forth. It is hard to see such things using just the Default view.

Also, it would be nice to have Fidget and Victory animations too. Fidget isn't really essential - I think there are Firaxis units which lack it - but it looks odd when a unit promotes but doesn't play a relevant animation.

Swoggy, I say this because I really like the way your units look, and it's just a bit annoying to find that they usually have some odd flaw like those Bjorn mentions. That said, you're getting a lot better and this unit is pretty good. I might find a place for him in my scenario. I'd also say that I think the Default is fine: he does move, though not very much, and it's certainly better to go for less movement rather than more. I remember that Civ Army's first units had considerable movement for the Default and were set to move far too fast - they were absolute horrors to look at. You could probably have given him a little more movement, but it's no big deal really. As usual, the guidelines that utahjazz gives in his tutorial seem about right to me.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

I usually follow Utah's tutorially for default animations actually. I'm following it more closely for the Mayan spearman.