A visual experiment: Would you like Civ3 to look like this -->

I've finished the first version of CIV3_SBB with multi units support.

The preview is not very nice, because I don't know how to produce a gif with alpha blending from FLICSTER.

The size of the file prevents me from showing more than one direction, but all of the 8 are done.

The tools allows to procude a 6 units animation, directly from the PCX storyboard done with FLICSTER. It copies nicely the shadows before the unit itself, and it copies properly all the 8 directions.

I will add later an option to desynchronize the animation.

Oh, I forgot... Building the FLC is done is about 5 minutes, everything included.
 
Originally posted by Dragon King
Okay, i knw the scale is hidiously wrong in all units, but we know this is so the units can be easily represented in the game, you cant have true scale of a marine to the size of the aircraft carrier, the marine would barely be the size of a single pixel.
Click to expand...

Dangg, an idea for Civ4! Differently scaled grid for different sized units! At its easiest it would require cutting the current grid squares to four parts. When a big unit, like an aircraft carrier, is selected, it would use the old-sized big squares (or even more, like one and a half squares). A lesser unit, like infantry, would take 1/4th of a big square.

Imagine the possibilities. The armies (units) that lose hitpoints (men) would actually get smaller in size. Catapult fire could scatter to some random small square next to that being shot, accuracy (and scattering range) getting better and better as it is upgraded.
 
What would be great is to have the armies on the squares grow fewer in number as technology progresses.

This is how I would do it.

While previously there would be an army of 6 hoplites, later there would only be 2 marines on a square, not in a line. when attacking, they would crouch and crawl or lie down.

Why do this? because in ancient times, an attack force would number in thousands. As Guerilla warfare progressed and gained popularity, attackers came in smaller groups. Nowadays any fight is usually between groups of less than 100 (I assume). As it has been said before, 6 marines on one square attacking like an ancient army looks fake.

The way I'd lay it out (if i knew how to make units) is one marine in the foreground, at the front. At the background, towards the back, another. The early fighter groups would be of up to 5 planes. later on, 2. And so on.
 
Originally posted by ZeroOne
Dangg, an idea for Civ4! Differently scaled grid for different sized units! At its easiest it would require cutting the current grid squares to four parts. When a big unit, like an aircraft carrier, is selected, it would use the old-sized big squares (or even more, like one and a half squares). A lesser unit, like infantry, would take 1/4th of a big square.

Imagine the possibilities. The armies (units) that lose hitpoints (men) would actually get smaller in size. Catapult fire could scatter to some random small square next to that being shot, accuracy (and scattering range) getting better and better as it is upgraded.
Click to expand...
Yes, i love the idea, zooming in on squares and have them spread out. This would give more oportunity for realistic battles, naval air and landbased. On the main map you could control armies...where when you zoom in you can control the separate units. Also, where on shall we say the main map, where cities are one square big, when you zoom in the city could be spread out over several squares so when you attack you can only attack certain parts of the city at a time. I guess you have official captured it when you control a certain percentage of the city, or say capture a particular place like the governors building or something like that. Rather than just piling your units at their units, you will need to use tactics in order to defeat your enemies! I like it:D
 
Nice work Steph, but ive heard that it should be illegal to post pictures of animations from PTW, well thats what ive heard. And i think it would be illegal to, if you posted the hole unit. Its very cool though.
 
Just wanted to say that Kryten´s idea is excellent, I love the unit anims with multiple troops :goodjob:
 
If this was to be applied to the existing unit set, it would be the first and only mod I would rush to install on my system.

Brilliant. :goodjob:
 
Originally posted by Yoda Power
Nice work Steph, but ive heard that it should be illegal to post pictures of animations from PTW, well thats what ive heard. And i think it would be illegal to, if you posted the hole unit. Its very cool though.
Click to expand...

Where in PTW can you find this army unit? ;)

I haven't seen it.

By the way, as you can see I've solved my problem with unit animation where the color of the shadow was not the same. Next step : introduce some delays
 
If this was to be applied to the existing unit set, it would be the first and only mod I would rush to install on my system.

Brilliant. :goodjob:
 
I restarted my musketmen. Now they are in a line insted of 2by2 plus i had to fix the fortify and attack so i decided to compleatly start over. They might be done later to day. Of course they wont be as good as other peoples because the animations aren't stagered but they'll be good as the first playable muilti-man unit in civ

*senses this thread will be atleast as long as the 1000 reasons you know your playing civ III to much thread*
 
Wow, great stuff! This will certainly make Civ 3 look a lot better once it's finished ...

I really like sebsage's idea of changing the graphics if a unit is hurt. This reminds me of the "Master of Magic" combat animation, which was also pretty handy because hurt units could be identified at first look.

Another question: Is it possible to have different animations for regular / veteran / elite units? Or to combine both questions, is there a possibility to link the appearance of a unit to it's amount of current hit points?
 
Do you know what is in my opinion the best part of this idea? The possibility to give every civ unique unit for every part of the game. Because we can change also the formation!

That's what Kryten did with the Napoleonic unit : French column, English lines.

Another good think is to link the size of the unit to some attributes. In my mod, big infantry unit need 1 population, but support units (like archer) don't.
 
"John Kryten, you've done it again!" (a quote from Frascape, John Kryten is the main character)

You beat me to the release! I was working on this, but making the units smaller, so they look real when they are in the cities. I only have 1 done, cause I was trying to perfect it. Anyway, nice job old friend :goodjob:.
 
I am going to be a spoilsport here, sorry for it in advance!

I find that the current Civ choice of representing a unit by a single guy is appropriate. It keeps the interface clean and lets you quickly see the overall situation of the board.

What strikes me from the screenshots is that it becomes very cognitively challenging for me to see what is going on. I need to remember that a hoplite unit has actually 6 hoplite guys in it, and then I need to start subconsciously counting in groups of 6 to know how many hoplite units I have. When the map starts to be full of units, all you see is a sea of guys where it is no longer even clear where a unit starts and ends.

Another thought I'd like to toss into the air is... the most typical complaint I hear about single-guy units is "Hey, this is supposed to be a group of X guys and not one!". Well, now we have six-guy units... and I might whine that "the Greek hoplites had 30 guys in a typical formation and not six!", where 30 is a random constant thrown in for the effect... it's still inaccurate in a sense if you want to follow the same logic.

It does look good, but I don't think it's functional. Sorry :)
 
It certainly looks great, Kryten! I have a question though. What will a Civ3-army look like? Will it be mixed units like Steph showed, or just the top unit?
 
I think its all good.
Steph you have done some great work with that civ3_Sbb thing.

I really like the idea of building 'army units' rather than individual types of units. Combined arms if you will.

Anyhow, carry on! long live kryten!
 
I just got an idea. Is it possible to have it so that each unit is shown as only one unit, but then when it goes into combat changes into multiple units? I'm glad someone is finally doing this, because I've been wanting this for sooooo long.

My hope for Civ4 is: say you have a Roman legion vs a Greek hoplite. They are only represented by one unit, but when they go into combat, it goes to an RTS type screen, where you have 100 little legions, vs 100 little hoplites. This is much like MOO3. But I realize it could get tedious watching every single battle in a separate screen, which would mak CTP like stacking useful.
 
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