honestly: I prefer the type 2 (and maybe with brighter red) : but for some civs/ships you might want the darker hulls.
(and it depends how it appears in your game screen) :
the best way to see it is to put together the ships of the different civs and see if they are easily distinguishable or not
(and if a common theme can be seen per civ, and a common them per ship type :
Color and theme vise they should be. I mean, so far I have:
- Paddle wheels and chimneys (Mechanos)
- Black ships (Calabim)
- Brown red and gold with eyeballs on it (Scions)
- Green and orange, think summer/autumn (Ljosafar)
- Black and silver and potentially purple and even blues (Svatalfar)
- Patchwork (Balseraphs)
And than on top of that I have distinct styles like:
- All elven ships are sleek and pointy (based off the Muslim ships from
here)
- Humanoid civs get more conventional ship designs, but again off that huge template + vanilla ships
- Lizardmen get their own thing entirely that looks like nothing of the above
- Ditto demonic civs. I am looking into lore options for those...
And on top of that I intend to add various bits of flavor like the Cualli trireme that's going to have a huge triceratops skull for a ramming bow or (if I can make it happen) some of the more magically inclined civs substituting spell effects for cannon.
So it should be distinct enough once I am done with it.
-you identify directly that its a queen of the line, and you identify directly that it has the Scion theme:
I am working of the following criteria:
- Galley = Oars and simple sails.
- Trireme = Oars and elaborate sails. Basically a visual upgrade from the galley.
- Cog = Modified cog model with the distinct U shaped hull in some way present.
- Caravel = light sail only ship.
- Frigate = Sleek big sailing ship with 1-2 rows of cannon.
- Galleon = Big rotund sailing ship.
- Manowar = Really big impressive but sleek ship with 3 rows of cannon.
- QOTL = Not making these right now because I need to build up a whole new animation set as the original model is broken.
roman-style (beware that all trirems already have a roman style)
Not when I am done with them. I am looking to make the ships more civ specific so you will get stuff like angular pointy ships for the elves, regular ships but with paddle wheels and chimneys for the mechanos, boxy roman style ships for the scions. So at the end of the day very few civs will have vanilla looking ships.
(NB : maybe you can take some inspiration from the city buildings ? (for fore and aft roofs, shapes of masts..etc))
Masts pretty much have to stay the way they are because it''s the only functional shape. But yea, I am fiddling with buildings and tents and stuff for various models.
Like right now I am trying to figure out how to work in a Mascarade caravan tent thing into a galley. And what building to use as a template for temple like structures I keep wanting to add to the Bannor.
And how to represent a magical component on the ships of the more magically inclined civs. Because I want there to be something there signifying that and I don't want it just to be a spell effect mist thing. But it also has to be recognizable and yet semi-universal so that I can for example use the same thing for the Illians and Amurites. And the mage guild is looking as an interesting option.
