New unit; Napoleonic Rifleman

[Smoking mirror]

Here it is! As an counterpoint to dark sheers colonial musketman here is a slightly later type of infantry suitable for the napoleonic wars.
I would recommend having the firaxis rifleman come slightly later on the techtree (industrialisation perhaps) while the napoleonic infantry (or early rifleman or flintlock musketman etc..) should come either with nationalism or military tradition.

You can get the files here;
Flintlock
Create a new file in your CivIII/art/units folder caller EarlyRifleman (no spaces) and extract the contents of the zip file in to it.

Here is a preview;

 

[GenMarshall]

Great job on the Napoleonic Rifleman . Insted of SM's Default name, I am going to call it a Grenedier. I know it does not have the right uniform to be called a Grenedier, But in certan games (Imperialism I & II and Empire Earth) It reminds me of the Grenedier unit. . I cant wait for the next unit you have planed .

 

[dannyevilcat]

Hot stuff! I am soooo gonna make a spot for him in my game ASAP!

 

[Smoking mirror]

The evolution of firearms was fairly slow, the first being just a miniturized cannon, strapped to a wooden board. The earlist were lit with a match or open flame and the slow burning match developed for artillery was soon intergrated in to the design of the gun (the matchlock musket). Later as the design developed the matchlock, which was almost useless in adverse weather conditions, was replaced with a mechanical Flintlock, which ignighted the gunpowder charge with a spark from the flint.
Flintlocks were still difficult to use in wet weather and still had the unfortunate side effect of sometimes blowing up and killing the gunner, but they were a big improvement on the matchlock.
Rifling increased the acuracy of the weapon by causing the bullet to spin as it traveled down the barrel.

A good progression of firearms would be;
The arquebus (firaxis musketman)
The matchlock musket (darksheers colonial musketman)
The flintlock musket (napoleonic infantry)
The breachloader and
the repeating rifle (Firaxis Rifleman)

Here is another preview;

 

[kemal69]

Awesome unit smoking mirror. I feel ashamed that I once said you had an obsession with tanks. You're talents know no bounds. This is an incredible piece of work. I will be adding this to my game alongside dark sheers unit ASAP.

 

[unscratchedfoot]

Wow this is a great new unit! I love your stuff man. Don't ever stop. I just wish the age of musketry would last longer in the game so we can enjoy using this (and Dark Sheer's) awesome units. I doubled the time it takes to research stuff in my game but its still not long enough. Maybe one more lengthening is due.

 

[Smoking mirror]

The biggest improvement in napoleonic era riflemen over the colonial musketmen was not in the muskettechnology however, but in battletactics (eficient use of the bayonet etc..) and also in social development; The napoleonic wars saw the first real use for mass conscription; It was something that had been done in the european navies for decades, to a greater or lesser degree, but when pressganging a ship crew a captain had the advantage that his crew would soon be far out at sea, where harsh discipline was easy, many ships were like floating prisons with the officers as wardens and the men as criminals (which many were anyway).
Developing conscription on land however was much more difficult, it required completely new tactics, the threat of force was not enough to motivate an army of thousands that greatly outnumbered their officers; The government had also to conscript the mens ideals through propaganda and rampant nationalism and patriotism- the soldiers of the napoleonic wars were not just hired guns who fough purely for money (An infantry man in the 1800s often had to pay for his own equipment and meals), but natioanlist patriots fighting for the glory and power of their nation.

Here is the civlopedia image, remember to convert it to PCX format;

 

[Jon Shafer]

Sweetness.
Thanks.

 

[kemal69]

Originally posted by unscratchedfoot
Wow this is a great new unit! I love your stuff man. Don't ever stop. I just wish the age of musketry would last longer in the game so we can enjoy using this (and Dark Sheer's) awesome units. I doubled the time it takes to research stuff in my game but its still not long enough. Maybe one more lengthening is due.

I agree with you on that one, there's so much more strategy involved in using these style units, especially before the discovery of steam power and the annoying unlimited movement railways.

Fighting out a battle with cavalry and infantry units takes a lot more skill and gives me more pleasure than building SOD's of tanks moving them instantly wherever they are needed!

 

[dog]

Great job. I'm so happy you and DS made these units! Now we don't have to go straight from D'Artagnon to Johnny Reb. Awesome work.

 

[Kal-el]

Outstanding!!!

 

[kemal69]

Originally posted by smoking mirror
A good progression of firearms would be;
The arquebus (firaxis musketman)
The matchlock musket (darksheers colonial musketman)
The flintlock musket (napoleonic infantry)
The breachloader and
the repeating rifle (Firaxis Rifleman)

How would you fit that into the game without heavily modding the research...

 

[ViceRoy]

How about next the Napoleonic Cavalry?

I don't mean the one you made the sword armed cavalry but one from 18th century?

It would fit nice to the theme...

 

[thestonesfan]

This one was quick! Excellent work!

 

[zulu9812]

this unit truly is amazong, now how about that breechloader....

 

[W.i.n.t.e.r]

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE THIS ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


have U ever played CIV2 Great Napoleonic Battles ????- If U click on my signature where it says "Napoleonic Units Compendium" U can see some 2-D units I have created. With really minor (!) modifications to the Head Gear it would be easy to create Austrian, British, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Prussian, Swedish, etc... troops- I will (with your permission try my luck on the Austrian )

 

[sween32]

it turned out really good! i thought you said you were having problems getting them to run right? perfect for the french rifleman for my mod

do you know if you're going to finish the light infantry?

 

[Deathwalker]

Great Unit

 

[Deathwalker]

Very nice Unit

 

[Ed O'War]

A good progression of firearms would be;
The arquebus (firaxis musketman)
The matchlock musket (darksheers colonial musketman)
The flintlock musket (napoleonic infantry)
The breachloader and
the repeating rifle (Firaxis Rifleman)

Here is another preview; [/B]

A great and long needed unit. However, the evolution of firearms should be a little different:

Arquebus
Matchlock
Flintlock musket
Muzzle loading rifle (using Minie bullets and percussion caps-this is the Firaxis rifleman of the Civil War era)
Breeach loading rifle
Repeating rifle (lever-action like the Sharps or Winchester)
Bolt action rifle (WWI and early WWII, like the Mauser or Enfield)
Semi-automatic (M1 Garand)
Assault Rifle (semi-automatic and fully automatic selectable fire, first developed by Germans in WWII)

There may also have been a percussion cap musket between the flintlock and the muzzle-loading rifle, but I'm not entirely sure of this.

Anyways, great unit!