naval total war

[Hross af Guttenburg]

i'm not a skilled or knowledgable modder, so i write this at the risk of being laughed out of the forum. anyway, heres my idea for a new mod concept, dunno if its possible or it would work or even if it would be interesting to others....

what about purely ships as units? 1800s napoleonic era ships and fighting only on water maps (BUT OBVIOUSLY with SOME land to act as interesting tactical challenges, some with artillery or defensive buildings on maybe? -this could represent the coastline or a small island to fight over.)


galleons and warships would use cannon as well as boarding assaults (like infantry do in hand to hand combat) upgrades would work as armour: the strength/integrity of the ship, weapon: class of the weapons/boarding party onboard, morale: level of crew)

This would obviously be best suited to custom and multiplayer first but a campaign form wouldn't be impossible either. countries are replaced by sea areas and ports. factions would have specialist ships or crews, british marine soldiers on british vessels, lighter smaller faster ships could balance out between large slow but powerful ships with long range.

the big issues are clearly unit graphics, the vessels would also need to be inkeeping with the scale of total war units which would mean that galleons be pretty large. other issues: speed of units, and getting units to work on water instead of land....is it possible to overwrite?
it would be SO boring to have JUST flat water maps without any land to make for tactical problems etc. so land NEEDS to be a feature, and as said, buildings would also be cool. a few custom maps could be made to start with to get the interest in the mod going.
but i think its a real fun idea with a lot of strong development possibilities. i just hope its possible at least in theory to do.

some inspiring pics:
http://www.neptunepictures.com/trafalgar.htm

[Duke Malcolm]

I thought of this a while ago, too. You could make the sea regions count as land, and vice-versa. castles replaced with ports, as well.

[Duke Malcolm]

Although boarding attacks might be hard.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

dont think so i mean it should work on the same principle as a unit in NTW
several guns of different calibres stand for different ships.
different abilities in boarding assaults perhaps depend on crew, for intance pirates, marines etc all have different boarding abilties. shiåps would have diffrent speeds too. problems are really how to get units to work on sea whilst having battle maps that also include land without the ships moving over land too. etc
realistically, its also bad that we can never have storms or bad sea weather nor can we make winds effect the speed or movement of the ships as they would have in the age of sail.
but boarding would still work on the skirmish/hold/engage at will principles...

malcolm im interested...how far have/did you come in your ideas?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

possible factions:

english
french
spanish
portuguese
dutch
italians
danes
pirates/rebels


ps -i think campaign maps would be a lot harder and more time consuming than a simple multiplayer/Single player based game. if we could pull that off then a long running mod to make an awesome campaign mod would be brilliant

[barocca]

the only problems that i can see

loading units onto ships,
at this stage the game engine does not allow one unit to be carried by another,
stand off and shoot would work,
having troops on board the ships would not,

shooting on the move
the game engine requires your units to stop to shoot,
that would like unrealistic unless ship movemnt was very slow,

[Kaatar]

It'll be possible with Rome. If I were you I'd start planning now and be ready for Rome.

[Duke Malcolm]

my ideas just remained an idea, sadly.
If you make the ship graphics with a close-combat attack, you could have it look like the men are running around, attacking the enemy ship.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

precisely. i still think it is feasible in MTW, even when RTW comes we could make improvements. i understand your idea Malcolm, guys.....- its what i meant when i said 'ships like units' -i didnt mean carrying units on ships but that a ship has a certain crew or unit onboard, the ships will have to fire cannon in stationary positions which would make for some strategy as they will not be able to take many hits. however boarding will work because all that needs to be done is to have the 'crews' fight, whereas in reality -in game terms- its the ships themselves that are attacking each other in close combat. and like i said different ships with different upgrades of crew would be better or worse at boarding etc, in this way the ships would work like a NTW unit (in game terms not in graphics)

so still the major problem is getting ship graphics to move on water and not on land in the game....is it possible and how do we mod it?

[Duke Malcolm]

You could make a texture that looks like water (I think there was a tool for that, but I may have been imagining things again...). It would have to be flat (no waves), and coast would be a bit hard...

[Duke Malcolm]

I decided to quickly make a map to show you what I mean. That backdrop will have to be changed, though.

Download this image (tga) (http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mtw_Uploads/MTWupload/00000001.tga)

...you have to right-click, and 'Save Target As'.

[Kaatar]

My God That looks great. Definitely be possible alright. It'd make some very nice custom games but would a campaign be possible?

Edit:
JPEG for those who can't open TGA:
http://www.imagedump.com/index.c....arned=y (http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=setandget&tp=80074&poll_id=0&category_id=19&warned=y)

[Duke Malcolm]

You could have varying levels of ports (small port, fishing port, port city, port citadel, etc.). You shouldn't build in Deep Sea regions, as well.

[Duke Malcolm]

So... shall we try to make it a mod?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cheers.gif

well thats that problem sorted...hehehe. seems easy now lol

but coast and coastal defences are GOING to have to be a part of the maps whether we make a campaign or mulitplayer mod. otherwise all we'll have is flat maps with no tactics and no strategies, it would be pointless.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

heres some info ...cannon ranges...class of frigates and size of crews and guns.....
http://www.napoleonguide.com/navy_rnratings.htm

anymore links?
lets get a list going so we can pool our knowledge and ideas....

[Kaatar]

Why not just make the coastal and land textures have the same attributes as the normal water one? That way the ships won't be able to go onto them but they'll still look like coasts and land.

Edit: Just tried to make a map. It's messy alright :( I'm not a map maker and assumed that each texture had it's own little file with it saying whether it is land or water but it's preprogrammed. The only thing to do is have completely flat maps. There could still be a coast but only one texture can be used, 000. This is the default and is water. It is the only water tile. This is the only impassable tile. If I overwote this with another texture file (say a coast), this would be the default. Basically, all maps must be flat (or you could have huge hills of water but that's crazy talk).

I think you should wait for Rome. The loading onto ships thing was mentioned somewhere in an interview, I'm sure of it. Once Rome comes out it should be possible. Until then, custom battles between ships only and on an entirely flat map. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

I can find about ten types of vessels for suggested use in this mod...

Ships of the line: classes 1-3
Frigates: classes 4-6
Corvettes: frigate-class sloop. Light, fast, with decent cannons and a small boarding party. 'Sloop of war.'
Sloops: a single-masted ship, neither large nor powerful, nor does it carry a sizeable boarding party.
Brigs: a small fast sail ship customised for war, often used in piracy.
Schooner/Cutter: ten times lighter than a first class man o'war. Very small, fast vessel.
Launch: Assault vessel used by marines and boarding parties.


Warships/Man o'wars/ Ships of the Line

It is here that I elect to make the observation about the difference between the 18th century war ships of France and of England. It came down to a known trade-off. It was necessary to achieve a balance between two desirable but incompatible features of a sailing vessel outfitted for war. A sacrifice was to be made in one area to obtain benefits in another: the trade-off was fighting ability versus sailing ability. The general criticism of English men of war was that they were "bad sailers" and could be better if they were "built snugger and lighter." This criticism and reply is seen set forth in a report to the Navy Board, 15th of May, 1747: "40-gun ships may undoubtedly be built slighter and much snugger than our present ships, whose extra strength and height in creases their weight aloft, and may thereby obstruct their sailing, but their guns being on two decks gives good room for both men and guns to be much better disposed on in action, than were they placed on one deck and a quarterdeck as proposed. The French ships are certainly much weaker ships than ours."

Ship Rating Guns Crew Marines Decks Tons

First 100-112 900 100-112 3 2500
Second 90-98 750 90-98 3 2200
Third 64-84 650 64-84 2 1750
Fourth 50-54 420 50-54 2 1100
Fifth 44 300 44 2 900
Sixth 20-30 200 20-30
Sloops 24-30 125 24-30

Frigates
These are the common and lighter warships with guns of different ranges and sizes, they are huge, imposing and capable of good speed. They always carry a crew of marines too which means they have daunting abilities when boarding.
Frigates come in several classes, which designate their size, speed, cannon weights and range as well as the size of their boarding crews.
A frigate is a war vessel of the 18th century. Though the frigate, because it was light and swift, was used primarily for reconnoitering and to relieve warships in distress, it was, nonetheless, a substantial war-vessel, next in size and equipment to ships of the line, "carrying from 28 to 60 guns on the main deck and a raised quarter-deck and forecastle."

Type Rate Guns Gun decks Men Displacement in tonnes
Ship-of-the-Line 1st Rate
100 or more 3 + forecastle
and quarterdeck 850 to 875 >2000
2nd Rate
90 to 98 3 + forecastle
and quarterdeck 700 to 750 about 2000
3rd Rate
64 to 80 2 500 to 650 1300-1600
Frigate 4th Rate
50 to 60 2 320 to 420 about 1000
5th Rate
32 to 40 1 200 to 300 700 to 1450
6th Rate
20 to 28 1 140 to 200 450 to 550
Sloops
16 to 18 1 90 to 125 380
Gun-Brigs and Cutters
6 to 14 1 5 to 25

[alman9898]

It is possible as the stated but only by using tricks to make it appear to be a naval battle

[Hross af Guttenburg]

ok, great. lets do it then. see how far we get. if it is poor then at least its testing for a mod of ROME. IN which case this would be huge

even with a standard single flat map for multiplayer games- games between different factions and ship classes would be great fun and some tactical challenges can be put into the variations between ships and factions. Thinking thought that there will be no cavalry/infantry/artillery in reality just three different ship types. Theres a lot of room to work with.

BUT, what i still dont understand is that if a texture can be made for water why is it not possible to have raised land masses in green? it seems quite simple to me in theory, so whats the problem in practice? in reality we dont need to have impassable land masses, just a player rule that we never take the ships over the hills/land masses. lol. it would work, based on player discretion- just like NTW often does with its generals etc. What dya think?

[Duke Malcolm]

Anyone good at making new unit graphics?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Yeah they will be really challenging...might be an idea to draw up a proposal for the mod and present the idea to a few experienced modders. We can kinda headhunt or something... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/handball.gif But we have to give them something to work on first, and be in agrrement what it is we want http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[Duke Malcolm]

Quote[/b] ] Thinking thought that there will be no cavalry/infantry/artillery in reality just three different ship types.

You need more than just Ships of the line, and frigates.

You need 1st/2nd rate as a type (3 decks), 3rd-5th as a type (2 Decks), and 6th on its own (1 Deck). Perhaps Britain could have a special 1st rate one, to look like HMS Victory.

You need a Corvette/Sloop one, they seem similar.

You need a Brigantine/Schooner one.

You need a Launch one.

...I think. Unless that isn't what you meant by three types of ships. If not, then just ignore me...

[Duke Malcolm]

Quote[/b] ]Yeah they will be really challenging...might be an idea to draw up a proposal for the mod and present the idea to a few experienced modders. We can kinda headhunt or something... But we have to give them something to work on first, and be in agrrement what it is we want

We could ask Duke John for units?

[Kaatar]

DJ's a busy man. I don't know if he'd have the time. There's a tutorial around here somewhere. It'd be worth a go.

[Duke John]

Topic moved to the Engineers Guild
It seems that we have a couple of stubborn buccaneers http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

Here's a good site that also has some nice renderings: click here (http://www.flyinglab.com/pirates/logs.php?log_select=381&log_month=2003-6)

And if you want a test BIF for the Ships, then there is a BIF called dutchship.BIF in campaign\ships. It's a leftover from STW, but you can extract the images and use these to make a unitBIF.

Good luck,
Duke John

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Sounds good. we could all try and DIY it. im no modder, but i could it give a go. as long we work cooperatively we should be able to get somewhere.
I think the classes would work well like that actually. how many did you think 6/7 classes?
as u say maybe we can develop a few specials later on, like a marine carrier, a pirate ship, faction specific stuff.
but how would we divide theese up?

infantry replaced by frigates/line ships

cavalry replaced by launches

artillery replaced by light vessels

??? guess its irrelevant right now,...first things first...



---i'm assuming the aim is to do an ONLINE mod then?

[Duke Malcolm]

launches are small, so shouldn't they be infanty, with frigates as cavalry?

And what do you mean online?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

i mean a multiplayer game mod only, like RECONQUISTA is, it ONLY works as an online or custom battle mod. it cannot be played as a campaign mod, because it is to basic or ONLY based on unit warfare. Since we can ONLY produce ocean or flat sea terrain maps it seems impossible to try and mod a campaign mod. We will have to concentrate on a multiplayer mod first, and see how far we get. Do you think that is a good idea?

about the three unit types....i was thinking along the lines that frigates/warships are the backbone of a fleet. but having said that, frigates were probably the few and the elite, whereas boarding vessels were the most common in a sea battle, frigates had several launches and gave covering fire to the boarding parties...so your idea is probably best and most realistic. I agree that ships of the line (or maybe these should be artillery?) and frigates should be 'cavalry' units. Launches with varying crews and boat sizes, can be infantry as you say.

by the by heres some more images:
a brig--
http://www.bucklinsociety.net/images/ShipsAndMaps/BrigentineBluenose.jpg
a fifth/sixth class frigate--
http://www.bucklinsociety.net/images/ShipsAndMaps/frigateRose.jpg
same again....different angle--
http://www.bucklinsociety.net/images/ShipsAndMaps/HMSRose.jpg
a sloop -
http://www.m1n1.org/sloop/s_photos/restaura_mysen.JPG
a corvette-
http://culture.gr/4/42/421/42104/42104a/00/lk04a001.jpg
A first class warship/ship of the line
http://www.visitbosham.co.uk/images/hms_victory.jpg
and again
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/uploads/jpg/PY0717.jpg

[barocca]

here's an idea,

many knick knack shops have various model ships,
not always high quality, but a starting point,
also you could visit some larger model shops, they often have ships on display,
alternatively grandparents may have some model ships,

now you get a digital camera (or a camera phone) and take photo's, you dont neccesarily need huge quality,
these models will be fairly compact to fit into the bif file.

Museums also may have model ships, some may not allow you to take photo's - best to ask first.

the point is you dont want to go to all the hassle of making the models yourself, you want to take photo's of some already built.
and it will be whole lot easier than cruising the net trying to find photo's from the angles you require.

Bif files typically require 4 angles,
i think the info is in the making new units thread around here somewhere.

NOW,
because you have so many inspired buccaneers, i am sure you could all do something towards gathering the required photo's
:-)

B. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

cheers, Barocca, and Duke John, for your inputs -its greatly appreciated.
worries with the Bifs are where to put the faction colours/'shields'....some kind of naval signalling pennants maybe? Anyway, time we got organised, looks like we're modding this monster whether we like it or not http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif


NEWS is maybe we DO have a campaign map possibility--?.... Malcolm....Hows far have you got with sea-maps involving coast and land?

[Duke Malcolm]

My attempt to stop people getting through places with trees failed, but I found out that troops can't go past the third 'tile' from the map edge. If all coasts are behind this boundary, then fighting a coastal battle, possibly even with fortifications on the coast, is entirely possible. I will get back to you on this.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

One possible problem in the campaign games would be reinforcements entering the map from that map edge...
but mulitplayer games should work, although I still don't think the defences would work, that is to say, artillery buildings etc would be inactive. but fingers crossed http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-2thumbsup.gif

[Duke Malcolm]

It works The map works I placed Artillery Towers right at the edge of the bit of the map that you can use, and had the map formed like:
_ _
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|_|_

The lines being walls, and gaps being Artillery Towers. The very edge of the map is the right hand side of the little diagram, the left side is all of the battlefield.

Reinforcements always seem to come in the top or bottom edge of a battlefield, so they souldn't be a problem.

I should of got a picture, I'll do that later.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

You really are the king http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

great stuff, would it work then with smaller partial coastal features, different heights etc? sounds like you are onto something there mate i wonder is it possible to adjust the edge of the map to include a wider area,...i mean to enlarge this unplayable edge that we would could have a whole harbour at the edge of the map etc....?
keep us posted dude
I'll start first moves in creating a ship unit this weekend but i dont think i'll get much done till next week. just a thought though...first class ships of the line had around 100 guns on average, thats 50 on each broadside....imagine 50 cannnons firing simultaneously from one vessel? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-jester.gif
From one unit.... i'm not even sure if its possible. but unit/ship armour is gonna have to be high to tolerate the hits. can we mod the the cannon ball fire too, so that when they bounce off the ground (now sea) they don't bring up dirt but white foam etc? Worth looking into. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif

[Myrddraal]

Quote[/b] (King Malcolm @ June 09 2004,20:24)]My attempt to stop people getting through places with trees failed, but I found out that troops can't go past the third 'tile' from the map edge. If all coasts are behind this boundary, then fighting a coastal battle, possibly even with fortifications on the coast, is entirely possible. I will get back to you on this.

Why don't u edit the cliff texture to be land. U can't go through the cliffs. Just make it flatter and a different texture

Then u can place the fortifications on the shore, u can also make more interesting coastlines.

U could also use another of the cliff textures as shallows. A slightly lighter sea texture so that u couldn't go too near to the shore.

[Duke Malcolm]

Quote[/b] ]Why don't u edit the cliff texture to be land. U can't go through the cliffs. Just make it flatter and a different texture

Then u can place the fortifications on the shore, u can also make more interesting coastlines.

U could also use another of the cliff textures as shallows. A slightly lighter sea texture so that u couldn't go too near to the shore.

What are the cliff textures?


Quote[/b] ]I'll start first moves in creating a ship unit this weekend but i dont think i'll get much done till next week. just a thought though...first class ships of the line had around 100 guns on average, thats 50 on each broadside....imagine 50 cannnons firing simultaneously from one vessel?
From one unit.... i'm not even sure if its possible. but unit/ship armour is gonna have to be high to tolerate the hits. can we mod the the cannon ball fire too, so that when they bounce off the ground (now sea) they don't bring up dirt but white foam etc? Worth looking into.

I think that the ships should only fire from one side, I don't think It's possible to have it fire from two...
I think we could mod the balls bouncing thing, we just have to find the right file.

[Myrddraal]

Quote[/b] (King Malcolm @ June 11 2004,20:35)]What are the cliff textures?
I think I'm getting confused, but that sounds like a pretty obvious question.

The cliff textures are the textures which are used for making the cliffs.

+ Surely u don't want the projectiles to bounce at all. (u can do this by editing the projectile stats, there are several columns which say what the projectile should do if it hits a tree, a man or the ground)

As for the shots all being fired at once, I don't think its possible. The solution would be to make it as if the guns on the ship fired one by one, make the reload time quite short to do this, and say that by the time the last gun has fired, the first is reloaded again.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Yeah it is possible to make/have a unit with like 50 cannons fire from that unit at the same time....its awesome http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/ceasaryes.gif i've got that far at least in testing, and its only from one side.... broadsiding, as it was called then. and in fact cannon-shot of a certain size did in fact bounce off the water to a point, its good that we can adjust this in the game/unit modding.
so far the little i have tested, has raised some interesting issues, such as the crew/ship's guns. the unit size or battle icon that states how many men the unit has would in the game therfore represent crew, and this would vary and represent damages and strength. The more damage, the less guns fire, less ability in hand to hand/boarding. but the major issue is that 1 vessel equals one unit, not one soldier. so a ship that is made up of 100 guns or a thousand crew is not really linked to the graphic although it is essential to gameplay. if you get my drift. i dont know how this will turn out in the graphics/unit modding yet. but like i've said i'll keep it posted here as things develop.

some varied thoughts/suggestions i've had so far...

for campaign*
king = admiral
princes =commodores (not born but 'commissioned' -example) Your faction's monarchy has commisioned a new commodore from among the ranks he will join active service in _ years.
princesses = ambassadors Your faction's monarchy has requested a new ambassador for the crown, he will join active service in _ years.

no longer use word 'general' but 'commander' or 'senior officer' example..'your senior officer is fleeing the field.'

point: can we write it into the game that any fleeing officers are automatically to be killed off or 'court marshalled' for what was mutiny. in this way players would be much more cautious of playing 'rambo' but instead fight more wisely: at least in campaign, as every unit's valour and characteristics will be innate to that vessel as the officer IS the vessel/unit so to speak. if that vessel flees a battle, it would count as mutiny and would therefore be 'replaced' for the next turn. ......On the same point, all lost crew and guns on a unit that suffered damages in the prior turn must be restored to full compliment in the following turn as an automatic feature of the game.

admirals/commodores' unit =flagship, a larger than 1st rate ship of the line, often faction specific, example: HMS victory etc.

for unit attributes*

ships of the line:
slow to turn, ultimate fire power + range, large boarding party and crew, heavily armoured, slow, large target.

frigates:
great variety between speeds (charge/walk etc) half sail, full sail etc, heavier guns less range, more damage, boarding party, armoured.

corvette/sloop/brig/schooner:
fast, quick to turn, few long range but less damaging cannons, poor boarding, poor armour, small crew, but small target.

longboats/launches:
slow to turn, small target, slow moving, attack/anti-armour bonus, close range (rifles or rockets a lá napoleonicTW style) strong boarding party. poorly armoured.
longboat variants (also faction specific):
armed sailors( rifles)/boarding party
combat batts/boarding party
marines (rifles)/boarding party
sharpshooters/boarding party etc etc

vessel graphic* for 'dying' must show ship damage/reflect sinking ship somehow, men and debris in water.

[Duke Malcolm]

I've made some more maps. I have the basic sea map, as you've seen, and I've made a sea beach map, and a sea map with a coastal fortress (probably the highest 'castle'), and I am making a sea cliff map.

I have also started work on editing the campaign map, adding in new sea regions.

[Duke Malcolm]

Quote[/b] ]Yeah it is possible to make/have a unit with like 50 cannons fire from that unit at the same time....its awesome i've got that far at least in testing

You mean you've made units?

anyhow, here's some pics of what I've done.
http://www.image-dump.com/dump/previews/SeaFortressThing.jpg
larger image (http://www.image-dump.com/view.php?m=2&x=13595)

http://www.image-dump.com/dump/previews/EditedCampMap1.jpg
larger image (http://www.image-dump.com/view.php?m=2&x=13594)

EDIT: I will do the king - admiral thing, and such like.

[Myrddraal]

Have u tried making the cliff texture work as normal land.

I u guys like, I would be willing to give this a try for u. It would help if u sent me the textures. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-clown.gif

I would also be willing to help make maps if u want it

[Hross af Guttenburg]

yeah, malcolm, i'm test/making units but i dont have any unit graphics and that is no small problem for this mod...

wow, well done this is great love to see moer, glad you can do the king changes etc...

ill keep working on these units as and when i can thru next week. hope i have something to show for it later...NEED unit graphics....

[Myrddraal]

I hate it when i get the feeling I'm being ignored http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif
not ignored mate,...its a free community. glad to have yoo aboard. If you want to mod something just do it and tell us what you do and how far you get...
we all want a good mod, its great that you like the idea and are enthusiastic like us
seems like malcolm has pretty good control over the maps, our biggest issues now are units graphics... WIthout them we have no mod and no point to our work. Thats where we need most help. I live in sweden adn we have no really good model shops where i can take digital photos. I think someone that lives in a big city would be able to help.
i have downloaded a lot of good pictures on the net, but like someone else has said, without the perfect correct angles its still a long way off.
But even when we get the right photos and right angles we still need someone to actually do the BIFs ..i dont understand duke john's guide at all...i think i'll stick to working on units and the game-writing.
so, graphic artists, come and help us please

[Duke Malcolm]

Myrddraal, I edited the cliff textures to have water at the bottom of them, but I cannot test them, because I have misplaced my VI disk. Give me your e-mail so I can send you the textures if you still want them.

Hross af Guttenburg, I have began to edit the king thing, at the moment, it goes:
King - Admiral
Prince - Rear-Admiral
Princess - Ambassador*
General - Commodore

*I was thinking, instead of marrying, of Ambassadors, like Princesses, I could change it to setting up an embassy. there might be a problem with trying to 'marry' your own ambassador to your own rear-admiral, but I think I might just be able to change incest to...distrusting, or something, because you have an ambassador following the guy around.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Cool, Malcolm, sounds good. Yeah, ambassadors marrying commodores, heheh Good thinking. Guess we can think about portraits next? Napoleonic-style with a kick? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I've had more thoughts ...(lol, i get these a lot on the way home from work... ) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
anyway... i was thinking about advanced things we could do to give the mod a real identity such as HTW and NTW háve done with changing the 'loading screen' backdrops, the in-game icons, battle formation buttons etc, ...for example, NTW uses napoleonic eagles etc, HTW will in the next mod version have greek formations in the buttons instead of just the 'open' 'closed' wedge' etc....
The thing is though, that as our units will made up of one single vessel in most cases, therefore the formation buttons have no use....any ideas how or what we could mod these too? Maybe we should have a chat to the HTW and NTW guys to see what they have done...

Another point, the provinces must have exponential worth...I mean, the sea areas cannot be farmed like lands so we would have to work heavily on trade which would be a really important aspect opf the naval superiority and following historical accuracy/reality. But what happens with sea areas that are not connected to land? Seas like the north sea are not connecting to a harbour or port...how are these controlled or built up? What worth do these neautral sea areas have if nothing can be traded from it?...Stuff to think about...

[Myrddraal]

Quote[/b] (King Malcolm @ June 14 2004,16:57)]Myrddraal, I edited the cliff textures to have water at the bottom of them, but I cannot test them, because I have misplaced my VI disk. Give me your e-mail so I can send you the textures if you still want them.
mad_toad@hotmail.com

I still don't think u've quite understood what I meant by the cliffs, I guess the solution is to give it a try and upload a few pics.

Unfortunately unit graphics are not my strong point
In fact I need one to go with my WoT mod.

[Myrddraal]

Quote[/b] (Hross af Guttenburg @ June 14 2004,22:50)]Another point, the provinces must have exponential worth...I mean, the sea areas cannot be farmed like lands so we would have to work heavily on trade which would be a really important aspect opf the naval superiority and following historical accuracy/reality. But what happens with sea areas that are not connected to land? Seas like the north sea are not connecting to a harbour or port...how are these controlled or built up? What worth do these neautral sea areas have if nothing can be traded from it?...Stuff to think about...
Maybe these neutral sea zones should be just that, completely neutral. No buildings, just sea. Make a resource called land or something which all buildings need to be built.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Yepp, neautral seas sounds plausible...I think they should tie in with trade and routes though, I'm thinking athat could be the major income and econoominc point of the game...

Duke John has informed me that 1 ship= 1 man, which is bad news because i had hoped it was possible to a have a single unit graphic of a ship and that be reflective of a hundred men. NOw when the ship unit dies, thats it. There will be no weakening of the unit/ship...it will just be a unit or not...when 'dies' it will just sink...before it sinks it will still be fully functionally. That's a bit naff...
So at least we won't have to worry about half ship's crews and ships with half a gun-load after damages from each battle. BUt otherwise its generally a negative thing...

In addition the units I have been working on which were based on multiple cannon fire is now useless too. I had hoped that the unti graphic could be completely unattached to the abilities and stats of the unit, in which case we could have a ship with 50 heavy guns and they would die 1 by 1 and affect the ship's effieciency too. The ship would slowly be bombarded to death rather than just suddenly 'die'...Not least of all the longship/launch units which were to be made up of a napoleonic type rifle men is now impossible it seems.
It seems to me that there MUST be a way around these issues...otherwise there really is no mod. A ship cannot fire more than 1 cannon at one time. if 1 ship = 1 man, as 1 unit, then we have no mod until RTW.... but if the unit graphic can be detached from some of the information in the unit stats then we should be able to do something.

[Duke Malcolm]

You could make it look like smoke coming from cannons in the actual unit bif, instead of the projectiles image.
You might also be able to edit the cannonball projectile image to make it look like many cannonballs, although I'm not sure.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

the important thing is that it looks and actually fires many projectiles... otherwise there will be no varying strength of cannon fire on each level of vessel.

[Myrddraal]

Well if u don't want my help u wont get it. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-speechless.gif
I don't know why I bother really. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

Bye. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

God, what's wrong with you?
What have we done to you?

[Duke Malcolm]

Quote[/b] ]Well if u don't want my help u wont get it.

I don't know why I bother really.

Bye.

I tried to send you the textures that I use twice, and it didn't send properly. It didn't tell me until 2 days ago. I will put them on the upload thingy for you to download.

[barocca]

what you could do is simply concentrate on small ships, frigates as the largest.
while boarding actions and capture would not be possible you can still have manouver and fire,
you could still sink a ship by close combat

perhaps for sea zones away from land you could have a reosurce fish or whales which allows you to build fishing and/or whaling fleets and harvest those areas.

thus control of those areas is worthwhile.

rebels could be pirates?

pictures simply need to be taken from 45 degreese either side of the bow and same for the stern

B.

[barocca]

online 3d models

http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/vehicles.asp

http://objects.povworld.org/links6.html

i am not sure if a demo exists for this game
http://www.akella.com/priv/news-en.html

another section for the same game - has links to galleries of screenshots
http://akella.com/aos2/news-eng.shtml

heres another - again uncertain of demo
http://www.akella.com/seadogs/screenshots-eng.html

temporarily offline
http://7seas.cjb.net/modelbase.htm

general site - usefull i hope
http://www.wargamer.com/aos/manifest.asp

more models?
http://boatdesign.net/Directory/Boat_Plans/Free_Boat_Plans/

general data and notes - supposed to be viewable models, but i could not find them
http://www.rodlangton.com/napoleonic/list.htm

thats all for now,
i am sure with a little research you should find a few 3D models of ships you can take screenshots from and adapt to units.

B.

[Duke Malcolm]

the textures are in the beta upload thing, called maptexture

[Myrddraal]

Quote[/b] (Hross af Guttenburg @ June 19 2004,00:43)]God, what's wrong with you?
What have we done to you?
Nothing sorry, I didn't mean to put it quite so harshly http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-oops.gif

I was in a bad mood, that post was inexcusable.
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif

Thx King Malcolm, hopefully I can make up for my terrible behaviour when I show u what I meant with the cliffs. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-confused.gif

Its probably just me, but I'm having difficulty finding the file, is a link availiable?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

myrdaal: no problem, nor did i mean my comment so harshly either. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif You are very welcome here and very welcome with any comments or work with the devolpment here. its your mod too http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

Many thanks Barocca, i hope we find some useful stuff there. Yes, it seems that we need to cut down our ambitions for the first step of the mod. rebels as pirates is already decided. but mutiny/retreat needs to be looked at...maybe commanders who develop the 'fast runner' characteristic can be modded to 'mutineer'? and then rebel or follow that he be 'executed' or replaced by another officer...

i think i have a couple of ship 'shots' already which are perfect BUT i really can't get my head around how to do the unit graphics even following duke johns guide. so if anyone wiser or smarter wants to try i can send the shots i have...
a question: how large can our unit/vessel be? can it be a really large graphic as much in proportion to the models/units graphics in the game?

i think sea areas could depend more on trade and using the items from the ports or lands that the ports represent to give different territories their worth. farming/fishing-whaling could take a secondary role as income just as trade does in the MTW game. trade replacing farming's role in our mod....

[barocca]

[url="http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mtw_Uploads/MTWbeta/maptextures.zip"]maptextures file - this will only be on this server for a few days, then it will be on the 3D server

[barocca]

i am uncertain that you would be able to make a general rebel when he gets the fast runner vice,

but you can change the vice descritpions, and i think, but have not tried myself, that you may be able to change what is displayed as the Vice Title -

i would suggest any vices that give minuses to health could be reworded to describe some battle injury - ie loss of leg,

and any others you find annoying could likewise be reworded

i find unhinged loon annoying myself and immediately assassinate any general who has that vice.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

i was thinking along the lines that an automatic in-game assasination kinda thing (lol) could be written into this mod so that generals who flee are killed off and replaced -this would represent the navy's intolerance for mutiny or harsh rules against fleeing battle. That way, players will be very careful with which general they risk in moves and attacks because they won't want to risk losing a character with high valour etc.

Another thing that's come to mind about the admirals replacing kings....what do we do about heirs? if the commodores and the admiral is killed does that mean that the 'faction' is destroyed? surely not, but how do we safeguard aginst this? perhaps we could just change the wording so that...'the navy has been destroyed without the leadership and experience of its admirals...' instead of 'your faction has no surviving heirs...and has detoriated into minor factions...'

i'm looking at basing the ships/units on projectile stats...to see if i can reflect ships crew in artillery crew...so that the efficiency can be effected as the ship is damaged...and i'm looking at the different types of ships and their ranges, effects of projectile, angles of fire, etc so that different warships types can be releflected even if they do not really follow history directly. it would make for different classes of warship in the mod and simulate how different classes of warship had greater variety of guns. a napolenic type 'rocket' gun can be placed in a corvette for example or a brig...etc etc

Does anyone know which column or how/if we can alter the look of the projectile fired? It would be really important to this mod to make it look like shot from like fifty cannons etc...otherwise we must look at quick reload times as someone wisely suggested.

[SwordsMaster]

Can you attach ships lifes similar to the Great warrior merit (+5 health IIRC)? That would make them die slower.

I dont know if it is doable, I just had the idea, but the ships could get tired after being exposed to fire, so they move slower, they have less attack-defence, etc..

Anyway, great Idea guys http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Well its a good idea, what we could do is give the ships themselves more identity by giving the captains for example 'elite royal marine detachment' = +2 close combat defence/attack etc rather than character traits going to his actual character...the ship will be one single unit in effect, so the general/captain will to all intents and purposes 'be' the ship. Therefore we can do things for the ship and crew through these things.
I wonder in fact if we can use actaul names of ships in some way, that'll really add a lot of realism and atmosphere to the game.

[Myrddraal]

That would be a great idea, vices like steward and trader would become thinks like: This ship has participated greatly in trade etc. etc. Theres unlimited possibilities.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

hey, thats a really smart idea, i never thought about it like that...yeah, I guess we could do all kinds of things like that...

[barocca]

if anyone has Tortuga / Pirate Hunter
you can take some screenshots like these, and use the pics for the mod.

http://www.gamingbliss.com/games/unsorted/piratehunter_2.jpg

http://www.ascaron.com/gb/gb_tortuga/screenshots/schlacht3_g.jpg

i have never used the organ gun in medieval - does it fire multiple projectiles?
could you change the projectile type to be cannon balls?

B.

[Duke John]

Why don't you just play the game above, it looks great http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wink.gif

And sadly enough the organ gun only fires 1 cannonball. A cannonball is a 3d model, so I doubt that you can multiply them.

Har har,
Duke John http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Yeah, I've actually been looking at the specs for the organ gun to use for the ships, but as Duke John says it boils down to be better off palying age of sail or something....

we can have a half decent pre-Rome version of the mod with quick reload times etc, but wihout a grachics guy we still don't have anything. I have my hands full working on the units and it seems malcolm is working on the most of the other aspects of the campaign. As I've said here, I've got a pack of good shots but no one to do the graphics with them...
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-wall.gif

[Inuyasha12]

I've read the posts and it seems that this could become a great mod http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

Anyways since you might need ship names i found some websites. One has only english ships but the other one has many names for many nations.


all nations ship names (http://web.ukonline.co.uk/aj.cashmore/index.html)

uk ship names (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Royal_Navy_ship_names#Lists_by_Type)

Hope this helps

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

[barocca]

graphics aren't that hard,
the hardest part about aking new units is getting weapons and shields right,
now seeing you are making a ship mod you dont need to worry about those,
also seeing this is a ship mod you really dont need many actions,
after all a ship walking, running and charging are going to look basically the same,

for shooting - well thats easy, open gun ports, flames and smoke,
for reloading show the guns being rolled back into the ship,
for fighting have some teeny tiny men along the sides of the ship with swords/pikes - if you put lots of smoke around you wont need to worry about detail on the men..

all you need to get started is the 4 views of the ship,
45 degrees either side or the bow and the same for the stern.

use bif reader to extract any set of bmp's,
(use the high detail 512x512 ones)
wipe them so they are clean green and use anything to edit the bmp's to add your ships,
when you are done (and keep them to 256 colours) simply use bif reader to reimport them,
then use bifreader again to determine co-ordinates (as you scroll around the image the co-ors are displayed,
if you have a major error when you playtest them the most likely cayse is you forgot to translate the co-ordiantes down to a 256 square image, even though you have a 512x512 image the game expects them to be 256x256.

to make sure you have the same relative positioning on all 12 bif frames simply mark a grid in a colour you will not be using on the frames,
when you are done simply replace that grid colour with green.
save copies of before and after grid so you can go back and tweak things if you make a mistake.

TRY making ONE ship to begin, even a simple one will do - it really is not that hard,
you have the existing bifs and action pages as templates

lets worry about cannon balls later - maybe we can edit the existing catapult shot image to be lots of small ones
B.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Many thanks Inuyasha12, but I think the names there are mainly modern vessels and we want to concentrate on the 18th century era warfare. The link still might be of use however,

Barocca, ok, shit....I'll try it again...if you want something doing right, then do it yourself...

I am thinking that because we intend to use the standard MTW defensive buildings on the land masses of the maps, the sips should really be to scale. I was thinking of grafting Napoleonic marines onto the ships although these (as we have learnt from trail and error) cannot be individual units but part of the single ship graphic. It will look good I think using their movements in the close combat phase, and of course it will give us some perspective to work from so that the ships are the right size. Because I wonder if it is possible to have such large graphics for a unit as some of these ships should be, in-keeping with the scale of the other MTW units and buildings?

Anyway, even if I can't get my head around Duke John's guide I'll try it again...

[Inuyasha12]

Actually many of the modern ship names aren't modern at all, and have been in the navy for centuries.

Part of tradition im guessin.

[Inuyasha12]

I think you should get this topic pinned http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-gossip.gif + http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/idea.gif = http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

[JAY THE CONQUEROR]

U COULD MAKE BOARDING, U COOD MAKE LITTLE SAILOR SPRITES AS PROJECTILES, NO U DO NOT FIRE THEM FROM THE CANNON U COOD MAKE THE TEXTURE ANIMATION LOOK LIKE HE WALKS OVER A BRIDGE OR SUMFIN http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/barrel.gif

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Inuyusha, yepp, seems that the link IS good for inspiration like you say, we can use the names expecially foreign factions...

Jay, its so crazy it might just work. But then it could not work for a ship which fires cannon balls too, but the boarding boats could work like that maybe...

[Duke Malcolm]

Sorry, I have not been able to do anything lately, I've been a bit busy. I think I have nearly finished with the king-admiral thing, just a couple more things to change. Also, the sounds have to be changed from a baby crying and that, so we'll have to find decent replacements.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Phew I was started to worry, me shipmate that's something else to adde to the list, sounds etc. the armour or march noise when moving on the campaign map army icon also needs to be changed, it a whole can of worms that...

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/gc-dizzy2.gif

[barocca]

guys,
if you got my gift let me know,
i intend to delete my gift over the next 48 hours,
it's taking up a chunk of space on my server that i can ill afford,

This mod is by no means dead in the water, so to speak

perhaps rather than trying to make a 100% serious mod you can make a fun mod,

personally i think it would be a great deal of fun to sail around a map blasting away :-)

all you need now are some piccies of ships to start making your units

i will try and find my copy of tortuga and see if i can get you some piccies, but dont count on me,
i have 100 other things to do,,
including trying to track down that annoying popup ad on the org home page that should not exist

B.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

Yeah B, thank you very much We got 'em and its really given us a morale boost

Malcolm is handling that side of things, so I'm sure he can write up here himself what he's gonna be doing.

As for myself, I'm finally getting to grips with the graphics, I've got moer than enough images to work with, but more pics can never hurt, just for variations sake. I'm just trying to get my head into the details of the unit grpahics now, but i think we'll actually have a ship unit to test with and develop very soon....

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/medievalcheers.gif

NOT a serious mod????

You insult my honour, sir

[Duke Malcolm]

I have finished the new campaign map, and I just need to finish the pretty pink lines, and use LMM.
New regions are: Sea of Azov, Celtic Sea, Gulf of Bothnia, Gulf of Finland, Gulf of Antalya, Gulf of Pomerania, Gulf of Sain-Malo, Scottish Coast, English Coast, and Danish Coast. I think that's it.

[Hross af Guttenburg]

http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/bigthumb.gif

it'd be fantastic to see a pic of the map when its done

[Duke Malcolm]

Sure, but you'll have to wait a while, I go on holiday tomorrow, and I don't see the coast being finished today.

[barocca]

uploaded to the beta directory 4 screenshots of a carrack,
the file is called tortuga.zip
http://www.totalwar.org/Downloads/Mtw_Uploads/MTWbeta/

ignore the flames near the front (edit them out),
i was turning in circles and getting shot at - took a little damge,
i actually did about 20 circles and took about 100 screenshots to get those 4 images,
and my ship got captured too - oh well...
i can reload the save game (he he)

i may also be able to take shots of my ship firing and dying if you wish,

i can do similar with a galleon and a flute ship, and i can always go capture more ships as well...
frigates can be hard to capture, but hey - if the mod requires a sacrifice then thats what i'll do,
providing these are any good to you at all that is,

cheers,
B.

[Duke Malcolm]

Great Pictures

Thanks for them, I'm sure Hross will be happy with them.

[Duke Malcolm]

Any progress with the units so far?

[Hross af Guttenburg]

progress is that there is no progress I can't do the graphics. I have tried and tried.
I suggest we keep in touch and do a little more groundwork whilst waiting for RTW. We can do everything we want with that....