Mounted versions of units (06/04/06)

[Rabbit, White]

Intro

I've decided to take some of the regular units in and put them on horses. The result is these 16 pretty cool mounted units, including mounted Warrior, Spearman, Settler, Archer and more. All these units use the default animations from various mounted units in civ4, so when setting them up you just need to make sure that their art defines point to the proper KFM files. For a complete list of which units match which animations take a look at a spoiler at the bottom of the post.

Originally the units came in three groups (hence the "update" sections) and each had a separate file but since then I have consolidated them all into one zip, which you can download here. I have however left the original structure of the post.

UPDATE 06/17/06

Added four more units, most likely the last in this series. The units are, the Maceman and the Hypaspist that use Companion Cavalry animations, the Scout Horsearcher that uses Horsearcher animations, and the Spearman that uses Keshik animations.

Spoiler some technical info :

For some reason the maceman and spearman's FX files have lost their gloss (they still look shiny but the glare doesn't shift as you move the camera). If you want you can restore the gloss by using the non-FX version of the file for both NIF and SHADERNIF tags but then the unit won't support team colors.

UPDATE 06/09/06

Added more regular units on horse. In particular - settler on camel (Camel Archer animations), regular archer as horse archer (Horse Archer animations), templar knight and swordsman on horses, both in light (Companion Cavalry animations) and heavy (Knight animations) versions.



Forgot to mention: The heavy swordsman and templar (i.e. the ones using knight horse and animations) have two sets of weapons. The swordsman as you can see uses the knight's weapons but his own sword and shield are still there just hidden. So it's trivial to hide the current set and show his own or even do a mix'n'match (if you have the nif viewer). Same deal with the templar, only he uses his own sword and shield by default while the knight's ones are hidden.

This doesn't affect performance in any significant way but of course if you're optimizing for a mod you should remove whichever parts you're not using.

I wanted to do the same thing for the archer but the whole bow and arrow setup is much more complicated and it didn't workout.

Original Post

Ok, there was a request for a Settler on a horse, but I thought it'd be cool to put more units on horses. So here are six units, they are Settler, Warrior and Scout on horses, and each one with two versions, one using spear animations, the other using sword animation. Most of them use their own weapons though for Warrior and Scout that have spear attacks I gave them actual spears since their default weapons don't work well with such attacks. Here are some screenshots:


The ones that use spears, use the Persian Immortal animations, so make sure to point to the appropriate KFM file. The other ones use the Companion Cavalry animations, the Companion Cavalry is found in the Units/Scenarios folder.

Spoiler list of animations for the units :

Warrior w/ club - Companion Cavalry animations
Warrior w/ spear - Persian Immortal animations
Scout w/ hatchet - Companion Cavalry animations
Scout w/ spear - Persian Immortal animations
Both Settlers use staves but one is in a MSettler_Spear folder, that one uses Persian Immortal animations, the other is in a MSettler_Sword folder, that one uses Companion Cavalry animations.

Swordsman and Templar Knight on light horse - Companion Cavalry animations
Swordsman and Templar Knight on heavy (knight's) horse - Knight animations
Settler on camel - Camel Archer animations
Archer on horse w/ bow - Horse Archer animations (who would've guessed )

Hypaspist and Maceman - Companion Cavalry animations
Spearman - Keshik animations
Scout w/ a bow - Horse Archer animations

Enjoy

 

[Amra]

Very, very nice! And I got the first post?

How the heck did that happen?

 

[Red Door]

My God! This is one of the best things ever.

 

[Hadrean]

Wow! this is amazing!

 

[GarretSidzaka]

Good job, once again redifining Civ IV!

 

[Wyz_sub10]

Ok, there was a request for a Settler on a horse, but I thought it'd be cool to put more units on horses. So here are six units, they are Settler, Warrior and Scout on horses, and each one with two versions, one using spear animations, the other using sword animation. Most of them use their own weapons though for Warrior and Scout that have spear attacks I gave them actual spears since their default weapons don't work well with such attacks.

Absolutely, totally stealing the Scout-on-horseback for my First People's Mod.

Great work.

 

[woodelf]

Sweet work Rabbit. They all look perfect.

 

[Chamaedrys]

They are very cool!

 

[Cannae]

O boy this looks good!!!! thanks!!!!

 

[Ploeperpengel]

Again very useful stuff to skin new WH units( if I ever get back to this, *sigh*). Thx

 

[Rabbit, White]

Glad you guys like it. I'm gonna add couple of Camel based units to this as well.

 

[seZereth]

thanks for that one rabbit ! what about a maceman and a swordsman on horse

 

[Rabbit, White]

thanks for that one rabbit ! what about a maceman and a swordsman on horse

Shouldn't be too difficult, I'll post them in a day or two, although the maceman will be without the mace since it requires its own animation, and obviously none of the existing mounted units have that.

 

[seZereth]

Shouldn't be too difficult, I'll post them in a day or two, although the maceman will be without the mace since it requires its own animation, and obviously none of the existing mounted units have that.

The mace animation isnt what i need, its the model on horse

 

[Ploeperpengel]

A Knights Templar wouln't be bad either! On the Knights horse of course cause horse is not horse of cause

The other two fighters would do good on the Knight's horse as a second version too. This way we can use them for both heavy and light cavalry. There are many Knightly Orders in WH. Also the Templar on a normal horse could be good as a base for some elvish Light Knights.

 

[Portus]

have time i want say you are the true artist
what more can we expect.....

 

[woodelf]

Would it be possible to use something other than a horse or camel? Like a wolf or panther or bear? Or maybe shrink the horse down to a pony and make halfling pony riders?

Or Kael's worg riders?

 

[Rabbit, White]

have time i want say you are the true artist
what more can we expect.....

Lol, thank you but this is hardly art. I just manipulated existing units, the whole thing is more akin to, well a puzzle actually - grab a piece, put it somewhere, and see if you can make it fit.

As I mentioned, I'm going to add some Camel variants, and I'll do some of seZereth's and Ploep's requests. I don't want to get too much into this though, as there are hundreds of possible combinations and doing them all is unrealistic .

 

[Rabbit, White]

Would it be possible to use something other than a horse or camel? Like a wolf or panther or bear? Or maybe shrink the horse down to a pony and make halfling pony riders?

Or Kael's worg riders?

Shrinking horses won't work, at least if you want different ratios for different parts (i.e. not just making the whole thing smaller), since it seems that animation dictates the scale as well. I tried making a donkey by making the legs shorter, and neck and head bigger, but when I loaded it into the game it looked like a regular horse.

As for wolf or bear, no, it won't work. Unless you're willing to have a wolf that moves like a horse Although... I just had an idea... unlikely but worth checking out. I'll let you know tonight if it works.

Essentially what I'm doing is what AlazkanAssassin did with his Napoleonic Era Units, except that it's simpler - I don't need to attach different heads. So it's somewhat limited - I already tried making a Centaur using this technique, no dice.

 

[woodelf]

Looking forward to it Rabbit. There are plenty of abominations that might use the wrong animation to move, but would look awesome with riders.