Hidden Arquebusier from the Vanilla Game?

[Joij21]

I was just browsing on the Civilization IV homepage when suddenly as I was looking at the screenshots I found some peculiar pictures. They appear to show cyan colored arquebusiers that are part of the Greek civilization. They even have a stand like thing to keep the weapon propped up when fortified.

The link to where I found them is here https://civilization.com/civilization-4/

It appears like this might have been the Alpha or Beta version judging by the smoother terrain and strange looking trees. Though still it looks cool that this could have been the original musketman, especially judging from the fact that the ones that are not fortified are using the musketman's idle pose. Too bad it didn't make it into the game as it would have made a great early gunpowder unit. What do you guys think?

 

[MightyToad]

Ooo
I'd be very interested in this. Maybe some one some where has this. Maybe they released an early demo, or something thats languishing on some forgotten server.

 

[Walter Hawkwood]

They didn't unfortunately. Those are indeed alpha assets, with some traces (such as low-res textures) still in game files. I tried negotiating their release with Firaxis people a while ago for the benefit of the modding community, but nothing came out of it.

 

[Lone Wolf]

These musketmen (and the pikemen seen in the pike-longbow Malinese group) look very close to Civ3 musketmen and pikemen. It seems that Firaxis initially used 3D model prototypes of Civ3 sprites, or initially designed Civ4 alpha/beta units to look like their Civ3 equivalents.