Project preview; Early industrial units

[Smoking mirror]

One other ship which I may do is the Torpedo boad, like an early ship with all the stats of a Submarine but without the ability to submerge (and thus visible to enemy ships) You could use it as a Cheap zero resource ship able to attack bigger ships with a huge volume of numbers- athough historicly this was not a good tactic against later ships, they would be usefull against the Pre-dreadnaughts, the torpedo was a good threat aginst these ships.

Here is the default flc of my coal battleship;

 

[Polaris]

Smoking mirror, I think you are correct that the game could profit from the inclusion of a torpedo boat of sorts. I would submit the case for inclusion of a vessel very much like the CSS David. Since these vessels were epuiped with a spar torpedo, were relatively fast and cheap, they can rightly be viewed as the first incarnation of the modern motor torpedo boat. They would give the MTB line a developement path that would add some interest without detracting from their "cheap & cheerful" utility value to second class navies. Here's a couple of photos.

 

[Dragon King]

I have nothing to criticise about, it all looks very nice. Keep up the good work Smoking Mirror

 

[hr_oskar]

I'm pleasantly surprised with how well the community is managing to create great units and maps in spite of much harder conditions than we had in Civ2 - 3D animated units and a half-done editor.

Anyway, about the Aztec industrial units:

It's very hard to project what sort of industrial culture Pre-Columbian civilizations (or African, or any other that didn't develop advanced technology themselves) would have come up with. It's about equally hard, I think, as projecting our culture a 100 years from now.

If you just want to make the units for pseudo-historical flavor, then it's fine to do it as Walt Disney would, i.e. along the lines you were already discussing.

But to be more serious about it: an industrialized society is likely to have gone through major social changes. The religion and social patterns of its "ancient" stage would be far behind. To presume that Aztec tanks would have pyramid-shaped turrets is like anticipating castle-shapes in European tanks. Things like tanks are developed for practical use, not ceremonial.

 

[Smoking mirror]

I love speculative fiction (or science fiction as it has come to be known as), trying to figure out what a society would be like in a 100 yeas time is as fun as trying to understand what it was like 100 years previously- I am an amature historian (in that my degree is in fine art, not history) and among other things my hobies include writing speculative/historic fiction (nothing finished yet).

All you can do when trying to think of Alternative history theories is try to take in to acount all the evidence of what did happen, and try to rework it on what might of happened.
Part of the western civilizations "Imperial Classical" era (the age of colonialism) was a veneration of history, of exporting thier own culture abroad. It is impossible to tell what kind of social structure an Aztec industrial era culture would form, though you can take clues from the geographical location of the Aztecs- when the spanish arived, they found an exsausted empire fresh from its own civil war, with little technology and no united front against the invaders, but they also found that the aztec were generaly a bigger, more advanced Civ compared to all thier neighbours in the Americas (apart from the Incas, though we will come to that in a bit). If we look at the old world, two civilizations that were large, sprawling, backward nations are the chinese and russians. Through modern history (mid to late AD), the very size of these nations had protected them from invaders, they had little need of scientific advancement (something that Civ doesn't take in to acount is that more than corruption can keep a large civilization from developing scientificly) If the Aztecs were to have presented a strong front against the old world they would have had to expanded quickly (as they had been doing before the arival of the spanish) and assimilate or made an alliance with the Incas to the south (the incas were the only american tribe to develop metalurgy beyond the soft metals). The old world at the time of the discovery of the new was still a comparativly backward one socialy, most nations were still very feudal, even with the advantage of early muskets and cannon (which had actualy been around for a long time in the old world without causing a scientific/military revolution) the old world armies would have fared badly against a united Meso america armed with Iron weapons and perhaps the stronger feudal society (compared to the absolute monarchy/theocracy of the Aztecs) that could have developed in the face of outside social influence, because of the huge supply line involved with sending entire armies across the Atlantic.

I'm rambling on a bit here, perhaps this should be in the World history forum, but I want to show that when I take on a Graphic project, I do more than a disneyesk "flavouring" of a design, I try to let the design mature fully in my head, taking into acount all the possible evidence of it s development, some time you need to add a little "flavour" otherwise peope would net belive how you came up with the final result.
Allin all I think an old world restricted to its original geographic location, with out the "space to live" which the easy conquest of the Americas gave them would not have developed as quickly, either socialy or because of that, Scientificly. Perhaps the northern tribes would have been easier to subdue, but with help from the central american civilization they could perhaps have slowed the europeans enough to give the Aztecs time to develop in to an Industrial culture.
All this of course hinges on the asumed ability of the Aztecs to develop quickly enough to form a strong national defence against the spanish/european explorers. Admitedly the aztecs would have the same advantages as the Americans in the war of independence against the british, I.E. almost unlimeted localised manpower, local industry, strong moral defence and good knowledge of the local terrain, but they would have had poor weapons and no Horses. Its all a matter of "what if", undoutedly the Spanish would probably have defeated them, just as they did in real life, but if the Aztecs did manage to drive off the invaders the history of the whole world would have been different. Just as the Industrial cultures of the old world decorated their buildings and inventions with an mad clutter psuedo classical motifs, the Imperial Mesoamerican culture would perhaps have done the same. Had the two cultures still been on an equal ground by the time they developed tanks, they would no doubt have been just as much cultural/ceremonial propaganda objects as temples, churches or pallaces. Our own industrial history developed in an era of European cultural hegemony, the european civilizations (and their offspring, the New Americans) were supreme in all spheres of development, war would take on the guise of a "Clash of ideals/philosphy of living" rather than the old fashioned "clash of cultures/histories" that during the ancient /middleages had made culture and art such a big part of Military design (think samurais, european knights, Zulu warriors and Indian elephants, all as much cultural icons as national armies). The collonial era european cultures had taken on a principle of Assimilation rather than clash of cultures.

Also its worth noting from a mechanical design point of view a pyramid shape would actualy be a good shape for a tank, the sloped armour providing good defence aginst enemy attacks.
What I would love to do (Its something I wish someone like firaxis would take on) is a reworking of the Civ III units along a "clash of global cultures" design. Even european units would have to be re-evluated along the above lines, perhaps castle inspired ships and tanks would not be so out of character, though if you look at the drawings of Leonardo Davinchy (sp?) Animal biology has always been the first principle of european mechanical design, the utilitarian "ergonomic" aproach of our industrial era was an offshoot of our "single culture" development.

Oh and for TVA, the heavy bomber has not been abandonded, it wil actual ony take an afternoon to do the animation, but I need to clear some free time in my busy schedule.

 

[hr_oskar]

Very interesting discussion

I must concede that the industrial West did indeed look back into time for cultural models - e.g. Classicism in the Age of Enlightenment. There has tended to be in Western culture an ongoing conflict between its Classical and Christian characters, which coincide with the secular - religious conflict. So during the middle ages and Age of Discovery, the face of the West was Christian, while the early industrial one (and the modern one, pre-eminently) was secular/Classical.

We have no comparison, but I think this conflict of religion and secularism is something integral to industrialization. So I would in my projection of an industrialized Meso-America fit in such a conflict, which is in a way what I was trying to say about the tank.

I think you need to take certain additional factors into account for your historical modelling:

First, the Native American peoples were defeated not only by superior technology. Gunpowder played an insignificant part in the defeat of the Aztec and Inca empires, I'd think, compared to things like disease, politics, and confusion.

Disease was probably the biggest killer. The natives were vulnerable to a host of Old World diseases - I think Smallpox was the deadliest of those.

(What always keeps me puzzled about this matter is that if Old World germs killed off Native Americans, why didn't New World germs kill off the Western invaders?)

Politics and confusion together were also critical, especially in the defeat of the advanced cultures. The people in Pre-Columbian Mexico (of which the Aztecs were only the most powerful tribe) and the Andes region, had no idea of the implications of Spanish conquistadors coming to their lands.

In Mexico, there were numerous tribes who resented Aztec rule and saw the Spanish as a possible tool to achieve some political end. The Incas were the ones exhausted from a civil war, so also there did the Spaniards manage to take advantage of the political situation. In both regions, the Spaniards successfully divided and conquered, as the hapless natives had no idea their entire civilization was in danger. How could they have known, anyway?


I think the only way Pre-Columbian civilization might have survived and developed enough to hold their own was if the Europeans had come in a less organized, less sustained manner. If the contact had only been sporadic, mostly trade, the natives might have had enough time to overcome the diseases and realize what they were up against. But for it to have been so, many things would have had to be different, of course.

 

[ViceRoy]

(What always keeps me puzzled about this matter is that if Old World germs killed off Native Americans, why didn't New World germs kill off the Western invaders?)

It was basically because there weren't so many lethal diseases in the new world than in the old world. There was basically said to be "paradise" without the diseases. That wasn't of course rightly true but the basic idea was that in Eurasia there was more larger "base" for diseases in the whole are of European+Asia than in the new world. Europeans had gone through most diseases that nowadays are called "child diseases" mainly becauses they aren't dangerous for adult healthy human being. Likes of measles and scarlet fever where proved to be lethal for many of the natives in the new world.

Certain diseases came from Africa and because the natives where more involved with the slaves than the europeans it was evident natives would get sick and europeans not. Many of the diseases need certain climate to survive and it's all matter of luck.
When the sugar planting started in Caribean many of the slaves died in yellowfever (not sure how it's said in english also know as "Yellow Jack").
Also some of the Europeans died example in Barbados and Guadeloupe so those diseases from Africa where lethal to Europeans. That's why most of folk living in Caribians are black as white folk left the islands to escape the lethal diseases.

One of the other examples is the landing of Mayflower ship. It landed in Massachusets near the village of Pawtuxet. It was before occupied by wampanoag indians but now the village was empty so the newcomers could start the colony of Plymouth. It is believed that indian had died into diseases there brought by european ships that were fishing near Newfoundland.

Explorer likes of Hernando de Soto and his fellow man carried many diseases and many of his stories are later on been criticized as of "fiction" as those tribes and villages he describes weren't found or at least in the way he describes them. But it's very possibly that he told what he saw that time he visited them and later on when the colonists came the indians where mostly already died into diseases.

The driving force for the conquering the new world was political power in Europe and the mission of the church to spread religion.
All wars that Habsburgs (major family power in Europe that time) were payed with the all the gold, silver, gems and other goods that were gained from the Spanish settlements of new world.
If some of the natives could have stopped the europeans at start it wouldn't have mattered as Europeans would have came again and again just like they did in China.

It could be said that new world was conquered with diseases even though it happened with accident than in purpose as there are only few minor incidents reported where european infected native in purpose of killing them. So in the end europeans would have won. It was more like war of ecosystems than fight of cultures.

That was just my humble answer and maybe someone knows more about this thing than I so I leave the stage for you now...


Still about the units...Smoking Mirror
I think most of the posters here would like more "realistic units" than pyramid shaped tanks. I don't mean offend or anything is just that many here like historic scenarios rather than "what if?" and even though we have lot of units now already posted many would like to see many of the units that aren't covered. If you look what kind of units are posted many of them are time period of Second world war or modern and units after middle ages or in industrial time aren't that many.

I believe strongly that European culture would have spread into the new world with way or another and even native cultures could have lived longer I think they would have later fallen like Chinese and Japanese did even though their cultural level was high. So in industrial times all the units would like somewhat same. Aztech pyramid tank would be completely fictional and all kinds of "what if" guessing is really hypothetical than even close to the truth..

But it's your call to make unit not mine as I don't have real talent for it...or maybe I just lack patience.
still...

 

[hr_oskar]

Thanks alot Viceroy, excellent post

Still I don't want to discourage Smoking Mirror here, I think it's a very noble effort for some of us who care to try to de-Westernize Civ3 a bit. Once you reach the Industrial Age, your Civ3 becomes almost entirely Western, in terms of unit and leader appearance especially.

Talking about the leaders btw, I think those especially need to be de-Westernized. I hate the way Industrial Cleopatra looks like an English lady and all the other ones too get ties and Western hats etc. That just feels wrong to me

 

[Smoking mirror]

Yes I guess when you look at it, the new world looks very much beyond salvation, those darned westerners would have got there in the end. The thing is.. I was thinging less of our own real world, and more of the "Custom worlds" that most people play on. I realise that most people who use modified units do so for historical acuracy and therefore play on Earth maps (or parts there of) but I quite often play on random maps, and although Civ III has "culturaly linked starting locations" you can find situations very different from those in real life- thats where I feel the "Flavour" industrial units would be best placed, You have to admit, if you are playing as the Romans, located on a huge pangea with the Aztecs and Japanse neighbours pyramid tanks and pagoda battleships would not be stretching the imagination that much further. Perhaps I feel that It would make an interesting "fun" addition to Civ III.

Any way, I do plan to finish my coverage of the historic units, Human units are very labour intesive, and with my program don't come out too well so I generaly stick to mechanical units, this limits me as to just what I can do and as a consequence the early eras have remained undeveloped.
Anyway, I've been working on the Naval Unit progression and I think Ive come up with a general outline;
#1Trireme
#2War galley (bigger ships designed for ramming/destroyng other ships rather than boarding actions, I feel this would be very welcome, will start it soon)
#3caravel
#4Frigate/galleon
#5Ship of the line
#6Ironfrigate/Ironclad/steam transport
#7Super Ironclad
#8Steam cruiser
#9Pre-dreadnaught (see below)/destroyer
#10 super-dreadnaught (coal battleship, see above)
#11 modern battleship and so on...

Triremes are around seemingly for ever and any naval tactics are impossible because they are better on defence than on attack, thus the only way to win a naval battle is not to wage one, but we all know that early history is full of naval battles (not always very predictable or successfull granted) so we need a tactical warship for the ancient age.
The coal Battleships have been divided into two categories to represent the escalating arms race of the early industrial period before the rise to dominace of air power. They are basicaly divided on a BC/AD line marked by the british battleship dreadnaught. In a WWII scenario Predreadnaughts would already be obsolete (though they would still make up much of many nations outdated navies) and although modern combustion engine Battleships would be buildable few would be available from the start; Any new battleship would represent a substantial building regime and only realy be of use to the Americans/Japanese.
Here is a preview of my Predreadnaught battleship (note that much of the ship is made up of a central citadel mounting counter productive small guns, and even the turrets only have two guns each) it is based partly on the "thunderchild" Illustration from Jeff Waynes musical version of "The war of the Worlds";

 

[Smoking mirror]

You may also notice that the Powerplant (as represented above deck by the presence of Funnels) takes up a lot of room in the early Battleship. The Turbine revolutionised Ship engine design and later ships could go further and faster on less machinery.
I was thinking of doing a battlecruiser (I used to use one in my old Civ II Imperialist scenarios- never released and since lost) but even the historians seem fairly confused as to what use these ships are. In civ II you could build Destroyers, cruisers and battleships, destroyers were fast, cheap and used for destroying enemy transports, while battleships were strong and slow and used for destroying enemy fleets. The problem was, what to use Cruisers for? they were too slow to chase destroyers and too weak to fight battleships, so everyone did what they always do when the tactical use of something is unclear, either avoided them altogether or tryied unsucessfully to include them inthier strategy by building shed loads of them. In Civ III however the bombard ability could make battlecruisers very usefull indeed, adding their (relativly) cheap (Reasonably) powerfull bombards to the attack strength of the Battleships.

Anyway, here is a little preview of the Predreadnaught

 

[GenMarshall]

Here is the Definitions I found on the Battlecruiser:

Main Entry: battle cruiser
Function: noun
Date: 1911
: a large heavily armed warship that is lighter, faster, and more maneuverable than a battleship Merriam-Webster

BATTLECRUISER
A capital warship lightly armoured but with the same gun armament and stem turbine propulsion as a DREADNOUGHT BATTLESHIP

Battlecruiser
a warship of maximum speed and fire power, but with lighter armour than a battleship. Macquarie

Great job on thoes ships Smoking Mirror

 

[ViceRoy]

on random maps, and although Civ III has "culturaly linked starting locations" you can find situations very different from those in real life- thats where I feel the "Flavour" industrial units would be best placed,

Sometimes the always safe history feels...little boring when you know what to expect.

Maybe I was trying to make you do those other industrial age units first before you do that Aztech thing...
as I'm looking forward seeing those battleships in action...

Anyone making "Imperalism"-mod or anything like that about time period of 19th century?

 

[S-Priest]

Sometimes the always safe history feels... little boring when you know what to expect.

Quite so, that is, boring

The devil's in details, and nothing's as interesting as a devil's temptation

Speaking of which: most of the units and stuff suggested are based on mainstream roles. But, in order to make combat more interesting, more specialised tactics have to be present, that is, more specialised units. Sure there's not too much gameplay modification freedom in Civ 3, but some ideas are just out there waiting to be picked...

Some naval battles were won by tiny boats approaching a large vessel under the night's cover, then its tripulation of fighters boarding the victim ship and assassinating the big ship's crew. Remember that the naval warfare with frigates, corvettes, galleons and whatnot was characteristic of the European, Western culture.

The Aztecs or the Incas could have small attack boats incapable of direct attacking, but capable of light bombarding (probably a "1" bombard value) and carrying 1 warrior unit each. The stealthy night-approach could be mimicked with the "invisible" flag, say. Those tiny boats wouldn't be capable of sailing in open sea or ocean, of course. But, that's an idea.

Regarding pyramid-shaped tanks and pagoda-like battleships... Not practical. Aztecs themselves and the Japanese, if they ever achieved an industrial level of development on their own, would probably make military vehicles and battleships in accordance with their geographical location, materials available and probable war role.

An Aztec tank wouldn't be pyramid-shape; it'd be quite triangular though (take a look at the first Christie tank) and with sloped light armour. An Aztec tank would also be light and fast, perhaps with an increased clearance and some sort of a more effective suspension to move freely in the jungle and climb mountains. Aztec tactics would be likely to concentrate on a surprise-hit-run-hide-in-the-jungle style, hence the tank wouldn't be heavily armed, but thanks to its agility would have a fairly high defence value. So it may be assumed that an Aztec tank is a low-profile (easier-concealed), angular, fast vehicle with an advanced suspension (higher clearance, maybe even four rows of tracks instead of two), and with triangular sloped armour. Its turret is fairly low (Aztecs weren't very tall people either) and carries a medium-calibre gun (for close-range ambush assault/assassination, not long-range tank duels). Perhaps a couple machineguns, one internal, another external coaxial.

 

[S-Priest]

Here's an experimental Russian tank based on the T-10, Object 279:

Notice the four tracks! That kind of additional stability would come in handy for the rough mountainous terrain and mountain jungles of Aztec/Inca empires!

The long gun would probably break after the first wrong turn or collision with a particularly harsh tree though

Actually, this means that non-Western civs may have the ability to develop and accept technology that would be rejected as "too unorthodox" by the Europeans, as the Christie tank case shows. So, unusual design that befits more a certain civilisation's profile is a feature, rather than allegoric (and not very realistic) shape design.

So, battleships... Hmm. Hard to think of a really Japanese battleship, unless equipped with kamikaze-sailor-launching guns OK, so a Japanese battleship would rather be a battlecruiser (Pocket battleship? There's the Japanese habit for making things more miniature - because of the scarce availability of most resources) and carry certain advanced weapons, like maybe first seaborne, primitive rocket projectiles? After all, rockets were known to the Chinese and Japanese long before the Europeans knew gunpowder. So, let's make rockets a distinctive Japanese feature: if they were pushed into an arms race, with their ingenuity the Japanese invented sea-based massive rocket guns. The battleship would have larger, longer-barrelled guns and an improved aiming system (each projectile has to be put to a fair use!). And since you're craving for a distinctive look, what about an elevated deck carrier-style (squished and flattened, wider than the ship's main hull, however it's called)? That way more space may be allocated for turrets and additional rocket launcher turret/tubes on the deck.

So there it is: a smaller, space-optimised, simple rocket-launching (a-la Katyusha) battleship with long-barrel guns and a squished and wide deck.

 

[S-Priest]

A companion to the Privateer - the Pirate. An early amphibious unit with hidden nationality and a low A/D value (something like 3/3). Comes with Navigation, requires gunpowder to build, costs 1 citizen to build, armed with pistols.

In the same fashion, mercenary units with hidden nationality could be built... Although, that's when I miss the old Civ II's ability to bribe Barbarians!

Give the Privateer a 1-unit transport ability, beef the Privateer up a bit (A3, D2, B1/1/1) and you're ready to terrorise the seas, Sir Francis Drake style.

 

[zulu9812]

about tank design - I agree with S-Priest. It's better to imagine tanks as based on military practicality (terrain, available resources, etc.), rather than on social norms. I imagine that effective jungle weaponry would be short-barrelled wide bore guns, flamethrowers, or indeed any weaponry that covers a wide area and thus negates concealment. Any weapons that removes the need for line of sight, such as a mortar, should also be considered.

 

[Smoking mirror]

Yes, as I said at the begining, if you Ignore the cultural aspects and concentrate on the technical/military aspects of Jungle warfare, the most likely result would be the Carden loyd tankette or Bren gun carrier- in fact tanks are realy not of particular use in jungle warfare as it maximises their defects (vunerability to consealed Infantry and antitank artillery while traversing woods or jungle) while reducing its advances (little space to take advantage of its high speed).
The main fact of the matter is though, the aztecs were not purely limited to the jungle, any expansion was likely to occur to the north in to florida and North mexico/texas, as happened when they came in to conflict with the Anasazi.

The chistie (or more properly the russian version the BT tank, the christie design was only half finished when the russians took it on and even fully developed the russians felt that the BT tank was unworthy of the "T" designation given to other tank designs and was only a stopgap mesure untill its usefull aspects could be translated in toa new design; the T34) tank represents the early Tank already about half way through its development, When I sugested the idea of a pyramid shaped tank, I was sugesting the earliest beginings of Aztec tank design, the aztec equivalent of the british WWI tank. When the Tank was first developed in WWI there were real problems as to what form it would take, british newspapers showed numerous schetches as to what these new "wonder weapons" would look like, mostly recycled from Leonardos concepts for an armoured fighting machine. The very reason for the tank was a tactical response to trench warfare, and its early forms were fairly simple, and in some cases could tend to the rediculous; Take a look at the AV7, how this design could be considered less silly than a pyramid is hard to fathom as the pryamid design would actualy have been more effective.

Before the British empire had such a strong effect on the development of the japanese, they had had a strong mechanical engineering tradition, tending towards clockwork toys and automata- the idea of blending eastern rocket research of the chinese with the mechanical/clockwork expertise of the japanese seens like a good idea to me, Perhaps rather than a tank/warship design for each civ, perhaps a better (and more achievable) idea would be the development of a special set of flavour units for each global culture, as if that culture had developed semi independantly from the rest of the world (think starting on a random map of continents with each of the five global cultures on thier own continent). Therefore the designs should be a fusion of each of the influences of the civs that make up that culture.

For example the Asian culture; the "asian" culture group is made up of the chinese, the japanese and the indians (as well as the koreans and mongols, come play the world). The asian tank would be likely to first emerge from India, where tank tactics had already been developing for centuries in the guise of elephant warfare, much of Asia is made up of Islands, jungles and forests as well as (a conflicting infulence on design development) a large area of open stepe to the north, northwest. I think for southeast asia a small, semi amphibious rocket armed tank would be most likely, with perhaps colourfull silk banners and flags making up much of the designs apearance.
For aircraft design fighterplanes are more likely to be the focus of most design improvements used for antiship, ground attack roles, looking mainly like planes everywhere (because of airodynamic constraints) walebone and wood would be likely materials for building- a light, small engined ground attack/carrierbased plane armed with rockets would be most likely.
As was noted above, an asian war would be quick to show up the vunerabilities of warships to air power, especialy with air armies so well armed with rockets/missiles. Carriers/transports would also be needed to make war in southeast asia where the many islands would make suply of ground based airfields difficult to keep suplied and protected from amphibious attacks. I think very early on asian warships would tend towards carrier/missile cruiser hybrids with perhaps rocket broadsides and tall "vertical launch" primative missiles (perhaps with an early clockwork steering mechanism) for delivering a large amount of explosive or incendary to distant island targets.

For the record, Rockets were fist used seriously as a part of modern western warfare contemorary with the crimean war, though early designs proved to be inferior to the Cannon of the time, because of inacurate aiming caused by the eratic flightpath of the rocket. Remember also that China and India were verymuch part of the "birthplace of gunpowder" and it was used in muskets and cannon generaly more often because of the forementioned inacuracy of rockets.

 

[S-Priest]

Actually I was thinking more of a WWII-times Aztec tank. For WWI... Well, a pyramid-shape tank might be an idea, although not exactly a pyramid shape (that still sounds a bit off), more of a triangular face design reminding the early Christie chassis. The pyramid could have an influence on the layout of the tank, with the turret sitting in the geometrical centre of the tank (the inclined, triangular sloped glacis of a Christie tank would provide a good visibility). Early tanks did have a quite tall silhouette, so such a tall layout wouldn't be of any surprise. The Aztecs would probably be the first to come up with a Christie-type suspension because of their territory's natural obstacles.

Yep, tanks are also very poorly suited to jungle warfare because of the ventilation issues... I'd guess one may cook a turkey inside a tank's turret in Mesoamerica during day.

Another thing is that with the development of industrial equipment/era, practical and engineering considerations take over any aesthetics. Some sort of superficial decorative, cosmetic elements would be present on a battleship or tank, maybe the materials available would also make a difference (say, a different shade of colour for steel units), some kind of a local battle deco/insignias. Actual majestic threatening (not crappy-vulgar-aggressive) looks could be developed for the Asian units. After all, our Asians would understand the importance of a combat unit putting an enemy into mystical fear with its magnificent appearance. An Asian unit would be less likely to look industrial-ugly, and Asian designers would be interested in making a military unit both handsome and dangerous.

Regarding those pre-Columbian small attack boats... They could be fatal-bombarding, "blitz" and with an animation of boarding or shooting tiny warriors instead of flying projectiles

For rocket warfare, the Asian civs could be given a special technology (this is a fiction after all), something like "improved rocket aiming". Then, perhaps, you could even have early Rocket Samurai Troops

 

[GenMarshall]

*Bump*

How are the ships comming?

 

[Smoking mirror]

Iv'e done the default animation for both the superdreadnaught and the Predreadnaught, though I'm undecided as to which to push to completion, I think I'm going to do the predreadnaught, as that is the most different from the standard battleship, the superdreadnaught differes only in the size of its guns and its method of propultion. Plus I like the Pre dreadnaught more (Iv'e changed the funnel stripes to black/brown to provide more interest to the unit).

I'm still working on the super ironclad model, I'm just fiddling with the cabin etc... I think the original model had too much civ colours, its just as bad as having not enough civ colours.

Ive been trying to get all my Civlopedia and units 32 stuff worked out, i tried doing a scenario the otherday and my files are so disorganized I couldn't work out what was what. I'm going to have to do some spring cleaning.
Here is the default flic of the Pre dreadnaught;