Zulu medieval units

[Polycrates]

Hey all,

I'm a massive sucker for Shaka and his Zulus, and I'm a huge fan of the ancient-era Zulu units already floating around, so I thought I'd make some what-if medieval ones too for your Redcoat-massacring pleasure!
A lot of the mesh edits were taken from other units, the maceman face (by sezereth) and mace comes from the FFH team (and an idea by avain), and lots of stuff cannibalised from Firaxis, so thanks everyone!

Crossbowman (uses crossbowman animations)

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Longbowman (uses longbowman animations)

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Maceman (uses Dog Soldier animations)

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Knight (uses heavycavalry animations - included)

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NEW! Javelineer as an archer replacement (uses mongolian_javelinthrower animations - included)

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NEW! Pikeman (uses spearman or impi animations - choose the appropriate nif)

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I also included an African spearman reskin I did - it's a minor edit of a very awesome existing unit (the original was done by sepamu, I believe), I just redid some of the bare skin to make it closer to the texturing style used for the other african units
African spearman (uses spearman animations)

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Smashing some Redcoats!

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DOWNLOAD

EXTRAS

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A few more!
I TAKE NO CREDIT FOR THESE, they took me maybe only an hour's work total, and all the hard work was done by others. I just wanted to fill out the Zulu lineup for my own purposes, and thought I'd share...

EDIT: Now updated, with a couple of small changes to the elephant (war paint and recolouring), a colourscheme adjustment to the cannon (to differentiate it from the grenadier), and a light olive uniform for the antitank

There were two awesome choices for Zulu war elephants; the EDU team's awesome African elephant (with the big ears), and Chugginator's elephant with an amazingly cool Zulu carriage. So I stuck the two together so I wouldn't have to choose any more

I know Zerver made an African cannon with the african rifleman skin, but I couldn't resist making one using Bakuel's African grenadier skin, which is one of my favourite reskins from any civ.

The antitank and the paratrooper are just the standard models with african faces pasted on top of them. They're not really unique, and the antitank looks pretty silly with a Zulu warrior in a Wehrmacht uniform, but it's a little bit of an improvement, I think.



DOWNLOAD


For the sake of completeness, I also just thought I'd add in this African technical. All the credit for this goes to asioasioasio - he made this fantastic model and the excellent original skin; I just changed the drivers and put teamcolour on the vehicle, and fiddled with the details a bit. Teamcolour (faint) is over the entire paintjob, and I've only tested the colours with the african countries - it may look funny for other civs. Anyway, I'm using it as the mech. inf. replacement for african civs, but you can of course use it for whatever




Here's the download, here's the model's original thread.

 

[GeoModder]

Ooooooooooooooooooh!!!

 

[woodelf]

They look super. Nice job.

 

[Chuggi]

Wow, very awesome work I like it a lot. You're very good at texturing and that knight is amazingly creative. Thanks!

 

[bernie14]

two words...IMPRESSIVE and BEAUTIFUL units!!!

 

[NikNaks]

Wow!! Awesome job! Check your PM box.

 

[ripple01]

Great job, look forward to seeing more work from you...

Cheers,
ripple01

 

[Sword_Of_Geddon]

Awesome...nice work.

 

[esnaz]

Wow, these are great!

 

[sepamu92]

Absolutely beautiful The maceman is a true masterpiece!

 

[Bakuel]

Very Beautiful! I love the knight the most. I hope you plan to make more units.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Okay... I'm pretty-sure i'm not crazy, but the "KNIGHT" download doesn't work as-is. I downloaded and installed all five new African units... had no problems with any of them, but the Knight wouldn't show.

After some fiddling around, I have come to the conclusion that the African Knight doesn't include all the necessary "heavycavalry" KFM files. I had to "borrow" the heavy cavalry KFM files from a different unit to get the knight to work.

Just a head's up here... pretty sure there are some needed and missing KFM files with the African Knight.

 

[Chuggi]

Okay... I'm pretty-sure i'm not crazy, but the "KNIGHT" download doesn't work as-is. I downloaded and installed all five new African units... had no problems with any of them, but the Knight wouldn't show.

After some fiddling around, I have come to the conclusion that the African Knight doesn't include all the necessary "heavycavalry" KFM files. I had to "borrow" the heavy cavalry KFM files from a different unit to get the knight to work.

Just a head's up here... pretty sure there are some needed and missing KFM files with the African Knight.

Well I've found that most of the time it's unnecessary to include animation files in the download as they make the download larger, and you should already have the animation files on your computer. Unless you don't have BTS.

Anyway, I checked the animation files and there were 20 .kf files in each one, and the one .kfm so there were none missing. In any case it's always better to not make copies though. I think your problem may have been something else, XML related.

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

Excellent work!

These are very very nice, especially the maceman. I hope to see more units from you.

 

[Wolfshanze]

Well I've found that most of the time it's unnecessary to include animation files in the download as they make the download larger, and you should already have the animation files on your computer. Unless you don't have BTS.

Anyway, I checked the animation files and there were 20 .kf files in each one, and the one .kfm so there were none missing. In any case it's always better to not make copies though. I think your problem may have been something else, XML related.

Have you actually installed this download as-is and ran the included files? I've been swapping files and units for awhile... I double... triple & quadrupled checked my XML entries... they were 100% correct.

I also counted the KFM files... they were short 7 or 8 files from what I had in another HeavyCavalry KFM download.

I checked my XML, pointed to the KFM included and it did not work.

I pointed to a differant heavycavalry KFM and it DID work.

I repointed the XML back to the KFM included and it did NOT work.

I copied the missing KFM files into the African Knight folder and IT THEN WORKED.

It's either missing KFM files and/or has the wrong ones included. The African Knight did NOT work until I added more KFM files from a differant download.

I was very thorough... I'm certain their's something wrong with this download... it will work, but it needs more/differant KFM files included for the knight (I had no problems with the other units).

 

[Polycrates]

Thanks for the kind comments, everyone!

Have you actually installed this download as-is and ran the included files? I've been swapping files and units for awhile... I double... triple & quadrupled checked my XML entries... they were 100% correct.

I also counted the KFM files... they were short 7 or 8 files from what I had in another HeavyCavalry KFM download.

I checked my XML, pointed to the KFM included and it did not work.

I pointed to a differant heavycavalry KFM and it DID work.

I repointed the XML back to the KFM included and it did NOT work.

I copied the missing KFM files into the African Knight folder and IT THEN WORKED.

It's either missing KFM files and/or has the wrong ones included. The African Knight did NOT work until I added more KFM files from a differant download.

I was very thorough... I'm certain their's something wrong with this download... it will work, but it needs more/differant KFM files included for the knight (I had no problems with the other units).

That's really strange; I was using those same .kf files in testing and they worked fine for me. And I can't see any missing compared to the "definitive" version (the Charlemagne heavy cavalry in the BTS assets). Only thing missing is all the freeze0xxx.nif files which I don't think are necessary (I'm so hopeless on the mesh and XML sides of things, so I might be wrong?). Just to be sure though, I replaced them with the original charlemagne versions and reuploaded the file. But yeah if anyone has problems, it's probably better to point to the kfm in the Charlemagne_heavycavalry directory (I only inculded the anims since it's a kinda non-standard unit).

 

[Wolfshanze]

All these units are GREAT Polycrates! Didn't want to sound negative at all, I just had problems that directly came from the KFM files on the knight unit, but I was able to get it up and running on my end by just pointing the KFM to a differant directory.

The Knight and the Maceman were my favorites in this batch... top-notch stuff, keep them coming!

 

[mamba]

Great, I like them a lot

 

[Grishnash]

Very cool!!! I love them! I like it how you didn't base them off the middle-east like most african units I see But don't you think the crossbowman would be wearing more?

Anyways, very cool! Love it!

 

[Wolfshanze]

But don't you think the crossbowman would be wearing more?

Have you been in Africa in the middle of summer? I wouldn't be wearing too much either!