Armies of Asia

Bakuel

King
Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Messages
608
It's been a long time since I last posted on this forum. This year I decided to start back making civ4 units. I'm going to be spending a lot of time on Asia, East and South-East Asia to be exact. Rather then make dozens of threads over the year, I'm going to try to keep it all in this one thread.

The first units I'm making are South-East Asian since that's a region that's often ignored and I'll probably work my way north to more familiar civs like China, Japan and Korea. Or out into the steppe and do Mongolia. But that's in the future.
The first units are Javanese and I'll probably do Malay and the Philippines next and after that do Khmer and the other mainland civs.


A South East Asian Geography Blurb:
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The first thing to do when describing south East Asia would be to define its boundaries and geographical features. South-East Asia can be divided into two parts, the mainland and the archipelago.

The mainland is the region composed of the modern parts of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Southern China and the eastern wing of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau cut it off from the rest of Asia. The mainland can be further divided into two parts, the highlands (low population) and the lowlands and river basins (high population). The area is rife highlands, hills, and mountains which have been traditionally the domain of independent tribes and villages which usually been hostile toward distant government rule from the lowlands. This is something which continues to this day in the Burma-Shan conflict.
But runoff from these very same highlands is what creates the wonderfully fertile river basins which enrich the lowlands and have given rise to the mighty mainland civilizations under review. Rivers such as the Irrawaddy (Burma), the long north-south Salween (Tibet/China, Thailand and Burma), Chao Phraya (Thailand), Mekong (Cambodia) and Red “Hong” (Vietnam) rivers and their tributaries all gave rise to powerful civilizations. These high population regions in turn either attempted to control or deal with the people of the highlands or were in turn conquered by groups coming from the highlands. The interplay between the river basin lowlands and the highlands is one of the important considerations in the formation of governments in the region and still is to this day. This also effected how the river basin civilizations interacted with each other, divided as they are by generally heavily forested highlands with rapid flowing rivers and gorges. Because of the terrain, maritime contacts have always been extremely important.

The archipelago can be divided into two types of islands, the volcanic islands and the non-volcanic islands. The volcanic islands have extremely fertile soil and thanks to the monsoon rains are very receptive to agriculture. The most famous of these, Java, has been home to complex civilizations at least since the 4th century and probably had a high population long before that.
The non-volcanic islands are ancient highlands of the Sunda Shelf, survivors of the rising sea-levels of the past geological eras rather than new land growth. The non-volcanic islands, on the other hand, were some of the most sparsely populated despite their large size such as Borneo. But there are some important and interesting tribes and small kingdoms which have inhabited these islands over the ages and a number of trade ports arose establishing contact between the outside world and the island’s sparsely populated interior, trading various items found in the (generally) jungle interior.

The archipelago has many trade routes in it. However; most are local and are to service the needs of the settlements in the archipelago. Food, mainly rice, was by far the greatest bulk trade good, being shipped (usually) from the volcanic fertile islands to the continental islands or from rural farmlands to the densely populated cities. The other main bulk good was iron and other precious metals, from the old continental islands to the newer less ore heavy volcanic ones. This is besides the usual shipments of crafted goods such as weapons, tools and cloth. Besides these numerous local trade routes there were also the international trade routes which brought goods, as well as services and ideas, into the islands and the greater region. Control of the Malay straits and the trade to the west would be an important consideration for all of the archipelago empires which arose.


A South-East Asian Early History Blurb:
Spoiler :
Since South-East Asia archeological history isn't widely known, here is a condense version of South East Asia history since 5000 BC until the begins of recorded history.

The period from 5000 to 1000 BC shows growing agriculture villages and set the groundwork for the future civilizations in the region. According to the most mainstream theories, farming was introduced into South East Asia around 5000-4000 BC as people migrated from what is now southern China. The migrating farming people began to displace the hunter-gathering groups already living in the region. This process of displacement of hunter gathers would continue up through the historical period and into the modern era in more remote areas. Around this time, Austronesian people began to migrate from Taiwan into the surrounding islands and coasts and by 3000 BC small scale agriculture was in place in the archipelago and there is evidence that agriculture became intensive in Java and Sumatra around 1000 BC. In the coming millennia agriculture would become the main form of subsistence for most people living in the region.

Large agriculture towns begin to appear in the archaeological record around 2000 BC and most of these sites are located in Thailand and Vietnam. These large towns show the first signs of bronze working in the region, probably a import from China. These large towns would be the direct predecessors to the Dong Son culture centered located in the Red River valley of Vietnam. The Dong Son culture would flourish between 1000 BC to 100-200 AD. During this era, iron working began to be used on the mainland and may have been imported from either China or India. Not much is known about this culture, but Dong Son martial culture can be found all over the mainland and the islands. This is the first evidence for widespread trade contact between the mainland and archipelago, before this there is only evidence for migrations. The fruits of this contact would be the importing of iron and bronze working into the islands. Both which appear in Sumatra and Java around 500 BC.
From 300 BC onward hard evidence for cities begin to appear in the region and by 100 AD, the region was scattered with kingdoms. Writing, religion and the nuances of administration were imported from India, or, as the case of Vietnam and Yunnan, China. Contacts with India and China grew, and South-East Asia entered the light of recorded history.


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Java Info:
Spoiler :
Java is a volcanic island which has probably supported a high population ever since agriculture was introduced. Java was an important rice bowl in the region and it's surplus made the rice trade very important. Today it is the most populated island in the world. It boasts a population of some 140 million people, beating out the larger island of Honshu of Japan (around 105 million) even though it has only a little over half of Honshu's landmass. To put the population levels and density in another perspective, even though Java has less then 1% percent of the landmass of the Americas, it has equal to almost 15% of the Americas' population.
Kingdoms have resided in Java ever since the classical period and, besides the Malay kingdoms, Javanese kingdoms were the most important polities in the region. Not only influencing the surrounding islands of Madura and Bali, but Hindu kingdoms like Singhasari and Majapahit spread Javanese culture far and wide through the archipelago. Java is also noteworthy for importing culture and making it their own. With Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese and European influences, culture from all of the major civilizations of Eurasia can be found on this one small island.
In modern Indonesia Java is the most important island politically and demographically. Some may say that Java, with it's long culture and history can be thought of as the heart and soul of Indonesian. Others, however, may argue that the Javanese overshadow and detract from the numerous other ethnic groups that make up the national character of Indonesia.


Mataram Units:

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Majapahit:
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Early Islamic Sultanates:
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Malay Info:
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Ethnic Malays are a group of closely related peoples inhabiting the Malay peninsula, eastern Sumatra and northern Borneo and various areas through the South-East Asian archipelago. Like the Phoenicians and the Greeks in the Mediterranean Sea, the Malay people are famous for being sailors, merchants, colonizers, and fighters. For centuries the Malay language has been a lingua franca in the greater region and Malay culture has spread to many of the islands of South-East Asia. While Malaysia is the only modern country where Malay people form a majority, Malays are significant minorities in Indonesia and Singapore.
Historically Malay kingdoms have played a major role in world history by their attempts to control the Straits of Malacca. Whatever state controlled the traits controlled the sea trade between East Asia and the Indian Ocean, including the invaluable spice trade. Much of early Malay history is centered around fighting over this prime real-estate. Malay polities and pirates would either fight against each other or with foreigners like the Javanese, Siamese and, later, the Portuguese. While great Malay states like Srivijaya could establish hegemony over the straits, for most of Malay history the straits have been heavily contested, bring both unfathomable wealth and misery to the region. Even today, 40% of the world's trade travels through the straits bringing wealth to the governments of Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. In modern times, oil, rather then spice, is the hot item moving through the straits. However, violence still plagues the straits, even if reduced in scope. Piracy has remained a major problem for all of the governments surrounding the straits.


Srivijaya:

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Sultanate of Melaka:

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Post-Melaka:

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Cham and Aceh Info:

Spoiler :
In modern times, the Cham and Acehnese peoples have a relatively minor stamp on global affairs when compared to the Khmer, Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Malay and Javanese peoples. Yet this was not always so, and these peoples have left a major impact on the development of South-East Asian civilization.
Much like their Malay cousins, the Cham people were merchants, raiders, warriors, craftsman and innovators. The Cham peoples played an import role in many of the larger cultural trends throughout South-East Asian history. The early Champa kingdom was one of the first Austronesian peoples to begin to import Indian culture and the first Cham inscription predates the oldest Malay one by some three centuries. The Acehnese, descendants of a Cham colony, were one of the foremost champions of Islamic culture and scholarship during the early colonial period and the foremost enemies of the Portuguese. The Aceh Sultanate imported a large number of Islamic scholars into the region and made the first attempts to align local Islamic practice with the ulama in Mecca and Cairo. Aceh history is filled with some of the first accounts of tension and conflict between sharia law and adat (local customs) which can still be found throughout the archipelago today.
Today, politically speaking, the Cham people are not as import as they once were and they are minorities in all of the countries in which they reside. Most westerners, if they hear about Aceh at all in recent history it is about the end of the Aceh insurgency or tsunami victims. Some will probably question their inclusion as I have not gone over more famous Asian civilizations at this time. But Herodotus' words must be remembered:

"For many states that were once great have now become small; and those that were great in my time were small before. Knowing therefore that human prosperity never continues in the same place, I shall mention both alike."


Aceh Early Sultanate Pack:

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Filipino Info:

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Today the Philippines archipelago is well known for it's beauty and natural resources and the country is a rising economic star. But most do not realize that the islands have a fascinating, if mysterious, history. The archipelago is made up of a great diversity of cultures and, before Spanish contact, none dominated either politically or culturally. The concept of the Philippines did not exist before the colonial era and the native people had no common "Filipino" identity. However, many of the peoples of the islands have a history that dates back to the pre-colonial era. While Tagalog and Visayan people were known to be a very literate people, they mostly wrote on palm leave and bark slips which have sadly been lost. Despite this, Filipinos dot the histories of the surrounding lands, Imperial Chinese accounts note emissaries from Filipino kingdoms, wealthy Tagalog merchants lived in Melaka, and trade ships of a variety of nations frequented southern Luzon and Mindanao since at least the medieval period. Three centuries of Spanish rule has left it's mark on the nation and compared to Malaysia and Indonesia the effects of colonialism can be more easily seen. Roman Catholicism is the dominate religion and Spanish style architecture dots the landscape. But much of Spanish culture has gone through what some call a process of "filipinization". It has been argued that the Filipino people have, in a odd way, made Spanish culture their own and with it the idea of a "Filipino" identity.


Filipino Ancient Unit Pack:

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Filipino Medieval Unit Pack:

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Misc:

Javanese Horse Archer
Requested by Xyth.
 
Welcome back Bakuel!! Incredible work. I'll be adding them to History Rewritten as fast as you can make them :)
 
Thanks Xyth! Good to hear you'll be using them and it's nice to see your still around! :D

Nowadays I'm researching, modeling and texturing units as a hobby in and of itself. I spend more time doing this then even playing civ4. I guess it's similar to how some people research, paint and customize miniatures and only rarely actually play the tabletop game.
It's good to hear that there are still mod makers out there that will be using the units. It gives me a reason to keep uploading them.
I'll try to finish up the industrial units for Java by the end of the month and then we'll move on to Malaysia and the Philippines. Hopefully anyway.
 
Wow. Just wow. Fantastic units
Glad to see you back!
 
Wow! I was just recently reviewing your Middle eastern collection and wished that you would have made Asian set, as I have just spend last 2 month putting together my own China/Japan set out of various units scraps I found all over trying to make a consistent unit tree.
Still need lots of Mongol units ;)
 
I've retired from Civ4 modding but I was pleasantly surprised to see you posted stuff up. Glad to see you're back making more content for modders to use!
 
Fantastic as always! And props for completeness.

Civ5 modders can make use of them too, converting them is relatively easy. Now if we can find a civ5 unit maker who isn't already swamped...

It's good to know that others like the completeness and documentation. It makes the whole thing worthwhile.
As always, any civ5 modder can use the models as long as they give credit and link to the thread.

Beautiful work . I'm glad you're back .

Wow. Just wow. Fantastic units
Glad to see you back!

Thanks for the kind words guys!

Wow! I was just recently reviewing your Middle eastern collection and wished that you would have made Asian set, as I have just spend last 2 month putting together my own China/Japan set out of various units scraps I found all over trying to make a consistent unit tree.
Still need lots of Mongol units ;)

Mongols will probably be sometime away. It's all South-East Asia for now.

I've retired from Civ4 modding but I was pleasantly surprised to see you posted stuff up. Glad to see you're back making more content for modders to use!

I'm still at it. Even if your retired, hopefully you'll still pop in and take a look at the stuff every once and awhile. I even have a new and improved Vietnam set planned.

Great to have you back Bakuel! When Capo returns I am sure he will agree :goodjob:

It is interesting how these differ from the Austronesian Pack that Walter Hawkwood shared with me(which I believe was also your work), fantastic work!

Yes those old units are my work too. I just really don't like some of them. Some are extremely inaccurate and derivative. Some I like, the Moro units for example. But the old Javanese units... The less said about those, the better.

Any modder that has them are free to use and/or modify them of course! I just won't be releasing them.
 
Awesome work! You do not know how much your units have helped in making my own. It's good to see you back!
 
Magnificent units! I am amazed at your works!

P.s. For several years tormented by the question - do you planned to return to european units after finishing work on the asian? Planned you to Poland, Lithuania, Sweden, Roman, German?

Yes. I do plan to return to European units after Asia. Especially Poland and Germany. But this won't be for awhile.

Awesome work! You do not know how much your units have helped in making my own. It's good to see you back!

Thanks! Feel free to use parts from these as well, as long as you give credit.

Now that's a lot of Indonesian units. Noice.

Yes, Indonesia has an interesting culture and history. Now it'll be easier for modders to add it to the game.
 
This reminds me of a question I've had for a wile. Now are Indonesia and Malaysia interchangeable and could be depicted as one civilization in a mod per say, or should they be separate? I suppose it could go either way.

Could go either way, depending on the period you're representing and how you define what a civilization is. Up until the Majapahit empire I'd say Srivijaya and Java were definitely separate civs, but from then on there's significant blending of territory, culture and politics, and a single civ makes more sense. I've gone with a single Indonesian civ in my mod, but now that Bakuel's made all these wonderful units I'm sorely tempted to split it into two.
 
Thanks Xyth! Good to hear you'll be using them and it's nice to see your still around! :D

Nowadays I'm researching, modeling and texturing units as a hobby in and of itself. I spend more time doing this then even playing civ4. I guess it's similar to how some people research, paint and customize miniatures and only rarely actually play the tabletop game.
It's good to hear that there are still mod makers out there that will be using the units. It gives me a reason to keep uploading them.
I'll try to finish up the industrial units for Java by the end of the month and then we'll move on to Malaysia and the Philippines. Hopefully anyway.

I'm like you, I almost never play anymore, but modding has become my favourite hobby. The research process as much as the creative one.

Yes those old units are my work too. I just really don't like some of them. Some are extremely inaccurate and derivative. Some I like, the Moro units for example. But the old Javanese units... The less said about those, the better.

Any modder that has them are free to use and/or modify them of course! I just won't be releasing them.

I'll be using selections from that set for Burma. Inaccurate, but looks great. Will you be making Mon/Burmese/Thai units as part of this project?
 
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