Unit of the Month: October 2006

[Bjornlo]

Wow, I am surprised and flattered to be in 2nd place in such a good field. And, with a monster unit no less! Thank you all very much for the support and votes.

Based on the comments, I'm guessing the custom sounds must be playing a bigger part than I realized. I'm glad I included them. It was fun. And, this way I can time the sounds to match the unit. Something which can not be done using the edit the ini to add generic sounds.

Plotinus, I would suspect that the troll will not finish any higher than it is now. It is a monster unit, as is yours, and those sorts of units always draw fewer votes. Still, there are several weeks of votes still to be cast, eh?

Go Green!

 

[Stormrage]

Several days of voting..

 

[Quinzy]

frnakly i cant see why custom sounds are as important as some people think. if you're willing to go through the "hassle" of adding a unit, surely you can link a unit to other fitting sounds while you're at it...

anyways, hurrah, 2 votes! thanks whoever voted for me!

 

[WildWeazel]

oh gosh.... this is too hard. They're all great, especially the Bedouin and Troll... I'm going to vote for the troll, because it's so unique, has such a variety of animations, and cool custom sounds.

 

[Bjornlo]

frnakly i cant see why custom sounds are as important as some people think. if you're willing to go through the "hassle" of adding a unit, surely you can link a unit to other fitting sounds while you're at it...

anyways, hurrah, 2 votes! thanks whoever voted for me!

Well, sounds should not be used as the sole basis of a vote. I imagine on a fairly generic unit fairly generic sounds can be used. But, to me a unit is better with custom sounds. There is a reason why I take the time and trouble to make custom sounds.
You can not get generic sounds and have them match your units animation. The timing will be wrong. The footsteps will not match the animation. The body will hit the ground and then later you will hear a thud. The other sounds will also not match the sounds. It is a little like watching a badly dubbed movie. Also, I think it adds at least a little to the quality of the game to have more diverse sounds. I have voted for superior units without sounds. But, I also used custom sounds as the basis for tie-breakers between equal units. Otherwise I have to either hope Vuldecon will step in with his excellent timed sounds or make them myself (for those units I've downloaded which came without sounds).
Making good sounds is no harder than making good animations. Plenty of unit creators here include custom sounds. I know I am not alone in this. I suspect their reasons are the same as mine. I just think a really good unit deserves sounds that sync and otherwise matches its animations.

 

[Quinzy]

i have no quarrel with sounds improving a unit, but on the grounds of this competition, sounds really shouldnt make a difference. i thought it was about the animations, not the sounds. i've not made many units, and of the ones i have made, i've only made one sound- a powering down sound fot hte death of my Olai Robot.

anyways, enough about this, i fear i'm making a big deal out of it. so back on topic and let the best unit win!

 

[Keroro]

i have no quarrel with sounds improving a unit, but on the grounds of this competition, sounds really shouldnt make a difference. i thought it was about the animations, not the sounds.

It's 'unit' of the month, not animation of the month. The 'unit' should be considered in totality. The sounds can really improve a unit, but they are more important with unusual units like a troll or a zombie. Imagine trying to get sounds for a troll out of the vanilla civ 3 game, IMO that would be impossible. For a swordsman variant it's not so hard.

So, kudos to those like Bjornlo that provide the full package for their unusual units.
Even though I voted for Cam's unit.

 

[Bjornlo]

i have no quarrel with sounds improving a unit, but on the grounds of this competition, sounds really shouldnt make a difference. i thought it was about the animations, not the sounds. i've not made many units, and of the ones i have made, i've only made one sound- a powering down sound fot hte death of my Olai Robot.

anyways, enough about this, i fear i'm making a big deal out of it. so back on topic and let the best unit win!

I think it is about the best unit. A unit can be the best unit with or without sounds. But, in my opinon the same unit is better with sounds (which, of course, is why I include them).
The two most common basis for votes that I have seen are:
#1: can I use it in MY game
#2: how cool does it look in the preview (not in game)
And, of course occasionally other things do crop up (sounds in this case)... but I don't recall it being as big deal before. Not, that it is such a big deal now. The run-away leading unit does not have custom sounds.
So, clearly most are more concerned with other issues when selecting what to vote on.

 

[Darque]

This time around it was a tough one between the troll and the empire swordsman...but the troll killed the swordsman in the end. Great job to all the entries.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Darn, i dunno what to vote.

 

[nc-1701]

Am I the only one who likes the BF-109? The preview looks great and it is likely to be used in game unlike the trolls etc. I also really liked the Bedouin&Aztec guys.

 

[mrtn]

... it is likely to be used in game unlike the trolls etc. ...

According to whom? I'm far more likely to see a troll in my games than an airplane, but then I almost exclusively play fantasy mods.

I voted for Cam.

 

[Plotinus]

A unit really consists of three elements - animations, sounds, and still pictures. The animations are certainly the most important part but not the be-all and end-all. And I agree that the competition is meant to be between units as complete entities, rather than just one part of them - even though the previews only show the animations.

[Bjornlo] It's true that monster units don't seem to do so well. I'm always surprised by this as I would have thought that people would tend to vote for units with a "cool" factor, and monsters have that. But it seems I'm wrong.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

I have also included sounds for my Elf unit, but not all were custom....

However, to refute Bjorn's statement about using sounds from other units... It CAN be done well... All you have to do is make sure that your unit's animation is the exact same length (in seconds) as the original unit's animation, and it will match up perfectly. I work full time, and attend College classes 4 nights a week as well as take Tae Kwon Do 2 nights a week... Basically, if I can find a unit with the required sounds, I'll use that rather than going through the trouble of making a bunch of custom sounds, since I don't have that much spare time.

As is the way these contests go, I'm going to have an ignomious last-place finish.... AGAIN! Therefore, this will be likely the last unit competition I ever enter.

 

[Virote_Considon]

I wouldn't be so pessimistic, H_T, aaglo and Plotinus' units don't have any votes, either. Also, most of the units in the competition have between 0-3 votes. (Well, 0-2, but there's a large gap between the current 2nd and 3rd places).

 

[mmmrrrr]

Nautilus. I can't get past how sleek and awesome it looks.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Yeah, I just realized that I'm currently in 5th place, and only 2 votes behind third.... I'm thinking that the huge disparity between the two first place and the rest is that everyone involved with the WH mod (either developing it or the ongoing discussion thread) jumped onto either the Empire swordsman or the Troll....

It's just that I keep thinking that I've improved my unit making techniques, only to find that I keep doing worse in the competitions... and I especially thought I had a winner here, since I didn't recycle any animations for this one, and I pulled out all the stops to make this unit really good, but alas, it would seem that I have taken another step in the wrong direction.... Right now I'm just asking "What is it that my PCX entries have that my Unit entries don't?" since the PCX competition is the exact opposite (My entry is currently in the lead there).

Still, I find it interesting that the two 11th hour entries are taking such a huge lead... If Bjorn and Cam had been delayed a few more hours, I may have had a chance, but as of right now, I see no hope of winning this month's or any other unit competition. Of course, my viewpoint might probably be a bit skewed due to my not getting near enough sleep due to all the Reasons I listed above as why my modding time is cramped, and the fact that I feel like I got the crap beat out of me due to the last reason in the list (even though I was the one doing the beating, I strained a lot of muscles in the process)...

 

[Grandraem]

3 times I've come to this thread convinced that I was ready to vote, but as of yet I can't make up my mind which to vote for, there's far too many great units. Hmm, maybe I'll vote later after seeing the units again.

 

[Plotinus]

Well, Hikaro, looks like you officially now have more votes than aaglo. No-one can complain about being in a situation like that!

These are all great units, but I would never have thought aaglo's would be the last to get a vote - I think it's one of the best on offer here. But Bjornlo's right that the orcs always seem to get penalised in these things.

 

[Red Door]

I have to go with the Bedouin, but it was hard to vote for over CamJ's entry.