Unit Art

[Deliverator]

Personally, I think of the Sayyadinas as being old like Mother Ramallo in the Dune miniseries:

I really like her outfit and the fact she looks like an old lady of the desert. I know we have Sayyadinas as Bene Gesserit units, but technically the Fremen "Reverend Mothers" - the Sayyadinas are not really affiliated with the BG. The are not really combat trainers in the fiction either I suppose, more the priestesses of the Fremen, so the fact that they dish out promotions in this mod is a bit weird.

We could rename the units as follows:
Shai Hulud Mystic -> Sayyadina
Sayyadina -> Acolyte/Instructor
Discussed Acolyte Unit -> Reverend Mother
Reverend Mother -> Truthsayer

I think the vampire reskin would be more appropriate for a young Bene Gesserit Acolyte basically.

 

[Ahriman]

Shai Hulud Mystic -> Sayyadina
Sayyadina -> Acolyte/Instructor
Discussed Acolyte Unit -> Reverend Mother
Reverend Mother -> Truthsayer

I think the vampire reskin would be more appropriate for a young Bene Gesserit Acolyte basically.

This sounds great to me; with the exception that it means that Reverend Mothers do not require Water of Life, while Truthsayers do.

If we're willing to tolerate it, then I say go for it.

 

[Deon]

Actually AFAIK sayyadinas are lower-ranking Fremen priestesses who had not yet passed within to become Reverend Mothers. So because of their lower rank they may be of any middle age.

I think the vampire reskin would be more appropriate for a young Bene Gesserit Acolyte basically.

Sure. But didn't reverend mothers have an increased lifespan and overall physical features of a healthy woman?

 

[Ahriman]

Actually AFAIK sayyadinas are lower-ranking Fremen priestesses who had not yet passed within to become Reverend Mothers.

IIRC Sayyadinas *are* Fremen Reverend Mothers. Jessica becomes their new Sayyadina when she takes the water of life.

Reverend Mother is a Bene Gesserit term, Sayyadina is a Fremen term.

But didn't reverend mothers have an increased lifespan and overall physical features of a healthy woman?

RM's *could* control their biology to extend their life, should they choose to do so. But they refused to do so, because they didn't want the general population to know that they could do that, because they didn't want the population to hate and fear them (any more than they already did).
Their extended life came only from geriatric properties of spice consumption, and that didn't keep them particularly young-looking. Look at the descriptions and depictions of Moiham for example.

 

[Deliverator]

Actually AFAIK sayyadinas are lower-ranking Fremen priestesses who had not yet passed within to become Reverend Mothers. So because of their lower rank they may be of any middle age.

You know I think you're right, because Chani is named Sayyadina in place of Jessica when she takes the water of life. Sayyadinas can only become RMs by surviving the water of life test.

Here's a link to the passage.

So Sayyadinas should probably look younger, but still with Fremenish clothing. We can then make them the Shai Hulud missionary.

 

[Ahriman]

Interesting, looks like I'm wrong. Thanks.

So we have:
Young Sayyadina in Fremen garb as Shai-Hulad missionary.

Then we have 3 roles for BG units:
Trainer, Minor spy, Major spy.

I'm not sure that Acoltye/Sister fits well as Trainer and RM as Minor Spy. How about we reverse these?

So: young Sister as minor spy. Moderate RM as trainer. Old Truthsayer as Major Spy.

Then, what techs should these be at?

I could see:
Sister minor spy at Law of Arrakis (infiltrator replaceemnt)
RM trainer at Water of Life
Truthsayer major Spy at mind Training.

 

[Deon]

I've checked Dune wiki and it says that Sayaadinas are NOT Reverend Mothers, but the younger priestesses. They become Reverend Mothers later. Can someone check books to clarify it ?

P.S. Oh I see, Deliverator gave a link. Yeah, it definitely shows that Fremen have "reverend mothers" and that Sayyadinas are the first rank in their hierarchy. Thus they should be young.

Personally, I think of the Sayyadinas as being old like Mother Ramallo in the Dune miniseries:

Sorry, I missed your message. Mother Ramalio is Reverend Mother, not Sayyadina, thus she's much older. So I guess that my approach on vampire reskin is right .

If you want details, I can add them. Also I will remove the weapon unless you want them to be combat units, then I will make it into a smaller ritual-looking knife.

 

[Deliverator]

Hey Deon, do you mind posting the files for the unit reskins you've done so far please? I'd like to have a play with them.

 

[Deon]

Sure.

 

[Deliverator]

I'm just watching the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet; man, 19th century military uniforms look badass.

I've gone down this road for the new Mentat unit which has long needed sensible art. It's a German Hussar from Total Realism combined with the head of the Master Fur Trader from Colonization.

Spoiler :

 

[Deliverator]

Unit art from patch 1.7.3.2

New Soldier and Infantry plus Deon's reskins for the Ordos and Harkonnen Heavy Troopers.

Both the Soldier and Infantry have both a pistol and a knife. They will use the knife against melee units and the pistol against other ranged units. The animations were made by adapting the SAM infantry machine pistol animations, and combining them with the Charlemagne Light Swordsman animations. The Light Swordsman anims are really handy for Dune Wars because they are the only set I know off that featuring stabbing as well as slashing.

I re-rigged Bakuel's Kahina unit to missionary animations for the Shai Hulud Sayyadina. There is now a proper Shai Hulud religion spread effect to go with her. I made some tweaks to Deon's vamp reskin for the BG Instructress. There is a new Great Prophet made from ambrox62's middle-eastern ancient spy, and the new Mentat unit.

I'm using Deon's reskins for the Atreides Ducal units although this isn't probably the final look we want for them. I switched the head on Deon's bladesman reskin and it's being used for the Kindjal Soldier for the time being. I know a kindjal is actually a much smaller sword, but this can be sorted out later, probably using the Light Swordsman animations again.

 

[Praylak]

Looks friggin awesome!

 

[Deliverator]

Egg Soldiers of Dune!

Spoiler :

(I made these eggs for david's new project and I thought the in-game test was too comical to not post a screenshot...)

 

[davidlallen]

Thanks a million, that was super-quick. Here is a shot with a little more context.

 

[Deon]

That's a great job, Deliverator! I really love the pistol-wielding units, they are awesome.

That dragon nest is smexy, David .

 

[Ahriman]

Very cool dragon.... a secret project! I'd be very happy to give design feedback if you're working on something new.

I also have several ideas for some Civ5 mods, looking ahead to the future.

 

[keldath]

ohhh eggs! i feel like eating an omelet

so a secret project huh?...got me interested now david.

civ 5...think there will be dune wars for civ 5? im in!!!

 

[Ahriman]

I think we'd be better off optimizing Dune Wars for Dune4, and then maybe working on something different for Civ5. Just IMO.

Random ideas:

Spoiler :

I do have some ideas for a Rome scenario that might be fun for Civ5.

Most scenarios are designed to be played as any faction, and so are limited in their ability to actually provide a challenging and flavorful environment.

Some of the best Civ3 scenarios were those designed to be played by only a single faction; Red Front for example, playing as the Russians resisting German invasion.

The general idea would be to make a Civ scenario (or two) that was designed to be played primarily from the Roman perspective. Somewhat like Rome Total War and some of its mods (especially the SPQR mod) and the Barbarian Invasion expansion. This way, you can make the game historically accurate, and you can make the game HARD, because you're not trying to create a game that can be played from multiple perspectives. Sure, people might only play it once or twice each, but its worth it if the mod is good enough.

The game would start with early Republic Rome and chronicle the rise of Rome. And then a second (on the same map) could start with the split empire and chronicle the Fall of Rome.

You can have a range of victory conditions designed around specific goals for the Roman player.

There would be "Road to War" type aspects with events that would trigger, either on historic dates or historic dates + random modifier.
These would include things like particular wars (and civil wars), or invasions of barbarian hordes.

We could have a detailed tech tree with engineering/technological, political and military innovations, and a detailed unit roster. Things like the Marian reforms would be techs, not events. There could be a detailed roster of units, starting from ancient phalanx-style militia, and then through Hastati/Principes/Triarii, and then eventually legionaries and auxiliaries (which would require unique location resources that you could get only by conquering particular territories - would work great with the Civ5 ability for strategic resources to require a limited number of units).

[Gaulish cities would be built on top of the Gaulish Auxiliaries resource. Conquer the city, you can recruit 3 Gaulish auxiliaries. Some rare units like Balearic slingers would only be possible from controllnig the Balearic isles. And so forth.]

Other factions would be a mix of enemy players (Carthage and the like) and barbarians.

So basically Rome Total War meets Rhyes and Fall meets Road to War.
Plus maybe a mix of Europa Universalis type options that give you different choices in events (do you control the Senate or Caesar, like picking sides in the English Civil War in Europa Universalis).

If anyone was skilled enough to code such a thing, and we had people interested in doing art, I'd put the effort into doing the design work.

Spoiler :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322393&page=3
see whole thread but particularly post #43 onwards

 

[Jester Fool]

Now I know why you can kill me with your brain That was a very spirited discussion you linked to. As far as porting Dune Wars to Civ5, don't. It would be a total waste of time IMO. Now as far as your Rome mod idea - that sounds bad ass! From what I've read about Civ5, a Total War type mod would probably lend itself to Civ5 quite well as far as the mechanics go. Just my two cents.

 

[Ahriman]

Now I know why you can kill me with your brain

That's just a Firefly quote I use to mock myself
Glad you think the ideas are interesting.