[Graphic Mod] Varietas Delectat v9.2 [civ specific unit sets]

[mamba]

Yes, but in some cases it's about realism in the very practical sense of the word. No matter how you look at it, the lack of any sort of armor in medieval times (I'm talking about the Greek units now) for the core units of an army just isn't right. [...] Also, the use of heavy armor after gunpowder is also strange (Roman praetorian Grenadier - I have not seen this unit, but I can imagine how it looks).

I agree, which is why I said they might be more realistic, but they won't be historically accurate either.

If there were plenty of additional units to choose from, I would also replace some of the ones I currently use, but I rather have a roman grenadier with armor (for which I completely agree that it is too much armor) than to have 40 grenadiers all looking the same except for the color of their uniform.

Some variation is imo desirable here, it shouldn't get too unrealistic however (which it currently, out of necessity, sometimes does).

 

[avain]

I LIKE the fact that the Egyptians look that way in the medival era and beyond. Avain please listen to my opinion too. I view Civ as what if not as history.

I find it a million times more fun to look at medival ancient egyptian looking guys than to look at arabic lookalikes posing as egyptians like in some ethnic deverse mods. Please Avain do not listen to those who want historical accuracy. Its no fun at all.

Basically what I'm saying is I love all that Chugginator hates with regard to flavor units.

"WELL, THEN I HAVE AT LEAST ONE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU" - said Death

Khmm... sorry...

So... not to worry! I do like the way Egyptians look, and I'd never swap them for arabic looking ones. I was talking about things like the Greek Knight having too little armor, etc.
Where I can imagine and do use "successor" civs units is where there is no such civ in Civ4 - eg. as Mexico for the Aztecs - and even there I'd prefer what-if ones if available. Speaking of Rome, there's no Italy in civ, I know - so I could use Italian medieval troops for Rome - but I chose to include those for Holy Rome, and use only Modern Italian troops where no Roman is available. This is where it came down to personal preference, I guess...

 

[Bakuel]

I curse that Roman Grenadier! Such an evilly convinced unit and the object of so much displeasure! As the creator of it, I can only feel ashamed and humiliated. I knew I shouldn't have armored it! This act will follow me to my grave.
Oh well.

Oddly enough, the grenadier isn’t as heavily armed as the 1805 Rifleman (which Avain’s excellent mod uses instead of the less heavily armed 1880), yet everyone points out their displeasure by referencing it? Anyhow, you can always overwrite the dds file in the grenadier file with the dds file from the Roman 1880 rifleman (you may have to turn off the gloss in the nif file as well…). This would get rid most of the armor.

On the other topic, I like what-if units. They’re really fun to make. I like historical accurate units as well. They are also really fun to make. But I personally was first drawn toward civ as the creation of an alternate, “what-if” history. So, I usually favor “what-if” units (within reason of course). Also sometimes, I prefer just to make a whole new civ rather then fuse it with an old one. For instance, to me at least, Italy is practically its own civilization separate from Rome. Sure it shares some ties with Rome, but I personally think they are two different cultures. Also, I would feel like I was slighting (or over simplifying) the two cultures (and the whole complex history of the Italian Region) by making them represented by both ancient Roman emperors and modern/early modern Italy politicians. What about the Lombards? What about the medieval maritime kingdoms? Papal States? So it’s some personal bias as well.

On another note, I wish more mods had more diverse themes (historically accurate, historical “what if”, or whatever) and stuck with it. Which is one of the reasons why I liked the Total Realism mod. It had a theme and ran with it (sometimes making things more complicated then I thought necessary, but hey, at least they had some sort of theme or plan). I look forward to Chugginator’s ethical diverse mod to have an alternate vision of the way civs should be represented (Ancient Egypt to Arabic Egypt for example). More diversity in diversity mods is always a good thing I say. Also, I want to see what units he has been making recently. So I hope he finishes it soon.

 

[avain]

I curse that Roman Grenadier! Such an evilly convinced unit and the object of so much displeasure! As the creator of it, I can only feel ashamed and humiliated. I knew I shouldn't have armored it! This act will follow me to my grave.

Now this is exactly what I was fearing of. The worst thing we could do is to piss off talented unit makers...

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Bakuel, you just can do a better diversity mod than Chugginator and achieve your nemesis this way.


....
and everybody will be happy too !

 

[mamba]

I curse that Roman Grenadier! Such an evilly convinced unit and the object of so much displeasure! As the creator of it, I can only feel ashamed and humiliated. I knew I shouldn't have armored it! This act will follow me to my grave.

No need to feel ashamed or humiliated, someone wanted that particular unit, you made it, nothing to be ashamed of.

As I said I prefer some variety and do not mind what-if units, he just uses too much armor for my taste (and I do use the 1880 rifleman ).

 

[Bakuel]

I'm not put off Avain! That statement was more tongue in cheek then anything else. But I do think that it's a bit weird that the Roman Gernadier gets so many negative comments. I'm going to reskin it sometimes just to appease them all.
But truthfully, I am happy whenever people comment on my units (negative or positive) because it proofs that at the very least people are downloading and looking at them.

@snipperrabbit!!
I wouldn't want to enter in a rivalry with Chugginator, after looking at some of his newer units, like the ancient European spear men, it would be an uphill battle (or massacre) for me to even make anything that could stand up to his textures alone. Besides, I am waiting for him to release his mod so I can steal his units and reverse engineer them, then I can learn his techniques and counter them!

Or be merely blown away by them.

@mamba Yes someone uses the 1880!! I liked that one, better myself.

 

[avain]

Actually I did like both riflemen, and it was almost pure chance that the more armored one got in - I'd preferred to have them both, one as a musketman - but then we had another excellent musketman (this one also by bakuel). I've never dreamt that this choice would cause this much turmoil! Guess I have the first change for the next update!

 

[frekk]

I LIKE the fact that the Egyptians look that way in the medival era and beyond. Avain please listen to my opinion too. I view Civ as what if not as history.

I find it a million times more fun to look at medival ancient egyptian looking guys than to look at arabic lookalikes posing as egyptians like in some ethnic deverse mods. Please Avain do not listen to those who want historical accuracy. Its no fun at all.

Basically what I'm saying is I love all that Chugginator hates with regard to flavor units.

I don't even find such things plausible as what-if, but I certainly agree with you in regards to fun. It is a heck of alot more fun to see medieval Egyptians in gold and blue, or lorica segmentata in the Renaissance. If I wanted historical accuracy or plausibility, I wouldn't be playing civ.

It may break some people's suspension of disbelief, but if it's that easily broken, how come the rest of the game hasn't broken it already?

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

True Frekk true.................

 

[bernie14]

personally, i love the "what-if units", but i have noticed that they are more contraversial, draw more criticism...this is natural, since one person's concept of "what-if" may be totally different that anothers, but hey, if polish hussars can ride into battle with large wings, why cant "romans" wear a little traditional armor while firing their rifles? ...the other thing i noticed is that even though i have only made one "what-if" (an egyptian rifleman), it does not seem to get as many DL as other units ...

bottom line is that it is WONDERFUL that the game is so customizable that we can all pick and choose the units we like

 

[Chuggi]

Ummm, also Chuggi, are you talking about the World Piece mod to include? I thought Cultural Diversity was going to be a cultural diversity mod?

It was originally, but his mod is too awesome not to include.. I may make an unmodified gameplay one as well but then that would be essentially the same as your Variety one so... not sure.

That's cool!
Of course, tastes differ, and that's ok. I'm more on mamba's side with what-if units.
As Alexandros wrote, yes, there is an abrupt change and maybe sub-optimal units to represent Greece. But - as there is a separate Byzantine civ, I don't think it's a good idea to add byzantine units to Greeks. The Greeks I'm looking for is a Greece that could have been a major power beside the Byzantines, at the same time - and this can very much happen in civ.

I'm eagerly waiting for the thread and your mod - and not just to shamelessly rip it off as I said previously

Well that's good. Anyway we all have different preferences... so for example in my mod the Romans, Greeks and Byzantines will look medieval, but they'll all look a tiny bit "what if".. the medieval Italian knights aren't just Byzantines for example... tis hard to explain.

well, given that all those ancient empires no longer existed at that time, we do not know what their units would have looked like.

I am fine with not liking them, everyone is entitled to ones own taste / preferences. Other variants might be more realistic, but they certainly aren't historically accurate either (unless you e.g. consider Italy the successor to Rome, i.e. pick units as they were in the same region but not from the same origin).

Looking forward to it, didn't you say something about a release this month ? this doesn't sound as if it is released that soon to me

I'll be doing things like having Italy as a successor to Rome, and having Native Americans as the United States ancient units.. It'll be fun to play in game because at some point you're going to have a mix of the first "americans" fighting alongside some of the natives... I'll also have Mexico and Peru as successors to Aztec and Inca.

Also I'll be making the thread this month with loads of screenies.. but probably won't be able to get a release as I've still got tons of work to do.

@Bakuel : Don't worry about updating, it's a good unit It's just that I don't like what-if units in general and that one's incredibly "what if" so I was just using it as a an example...

 

[mamba]

Well that's good. Anyway we all have different preferences... so for example in my mod the Romans, Greeks and Byzantines will look medieval, but they'll all look a tiny bit "what if".. the medieval Italian knights aren't just Byzantines for example... tis hard to explain.

I guess we'll have to wait fr the screenshots then

Personally I like the units to be a little what-if for those ancient civs, i.e. take some aspect of their original units and take it to the more modern units without making them too implausible. I admit that this probably isn't easy.

As to taking Mexico for the modern Aztecs, I pretty much did the same thing, if there were modern aztec what-if units, I'd probably prefer those however.

 

[GenMarshall]

Is the expansion pack for Varietas Delectat compatible for this? or would I have to wait until that's updated?

 

[avain]

Is the expansion pack for Varietas Delectat compatible for this? or would I have to wait until that's updated?

It's updated already.

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Well someone should make an Aztec Cataphract. And an Incan one too....

 

[GenMarshall]

It's updated already.

Thanks . I already have 7z (I also use it to back up my files and store them onto my iPod) so the update as well as the addon of the expansion pack would be a snap.

Of course, I will delete the old folder.

 

[ripple01]

I believe there's an Incan Horseman in the database that could serve as a Incan Cataphract... I use it in my CivFusion mod.

Cheers,
ripple01

 

[avain]

updated to v3.3
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Ok, guys, this thread now has more than 30.000 views
over 570 posts
and the download counter for VD is almost 2000! (since I put it up here, not from v1.0) - edit: 2008.01.27 20:17 - target reached

Maybe it's childish, but I'm happy! Thank ya all!

 

[RPG]

You should be happy, this is a great mod!

Will the Modern Era Expansion be compatible with v3.3 or will that be updated soon? With lots of new units, I hope!