Citadel:Total War units

[Yggdrasill]

We're talking about 200+ units. I've skimmed through their unit selection and have done about 80% of our own unit lists, and as far as I can see, there are about 20, 30 units at most that overlap. That's not that many, but it would certainly help godspetmonkey. No need to worry about our mod's unique feel...

[Ignoramus]

I can find some unit dedign on google, just pm a list, and I'll find out as much as I can

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I think Godspetmonkey should decide if it is intended to alleve some of the work and pressure. But I still think we should have a unique mod in every way possible.

[Yggdrasill]

Burgundy units

1. Duke's Guard (Household Cavalry)
2. Knights - heavy cavalry that the game starts with
3. Compaignes d'ordonnance men-at-arms - In 1472 these units were created. Heavily armoured knights riding barded horses.
4. Coustillier - lightly armoured horseman
5. Mounted crossbowman,
6. Mounted Arquebusier

1. Flemish Pikeman - after Swiss, the best 15th century infantry in Western Europe
2. Crossbowmen, Arbalesters
3. Handgunners
4. Arquebusiers, Musketeers
5. Archer
6. Mounted Archer - yes they had horses but they never used them in combat, nor were they trained to fight on horseback, it was just to increase mobility. BAsically they will be elite archer unit, capable to handle themselves well in a close combat
7. Pikeman - just an ordinary pikeman unit, no or very little armour, modest status
8. Town militia - lightly armoured spearman, shield and sword

[GodsPetMonkey]

I think Godspetmonkey should decide if it is intended to alleve some of the work and pressure. But I still think we should have a unique mod in every way possible.

To be honest its a big ask of me to produce all the units in the game.
Working at full pace, it takes me 10 hours total to create a new unit (inc. modelling, texture, testing), which normally means 2 days per unit, and thats a simple unit (I spent 3 days alone on the texture for the gothic armour). At that rate, 200 units will take me 400 days, and I only have so much time now due to it being holidays, in a few weeks time I'm back off to uni, so poof, I'd then be lucky to get 2 hours a day to work on models.

It is offset by the fact that as I complete more and more units, I have more and more material to recycle, taking some texture from one skin, and making some quick modifications is much faster then doing it from scratch.

Though, if we are to use several artists work, I think it should be work created for this mod, rather then using stuff for someone else, uniqueness is important, whats more, it means I can easily share my own working material (like textures, anyone like 3-5Mb psd files?) with out it becoming common in several mods. Graphics contribute greatly to a mods feel, and though we overlap somewhat with P&M, I'd much prefer the mods to feel different.

And to anyone who wants to learn 3DS Max and photoshop texturing, trust me, its easier then it looks! Even if you only work on the simpler units, its work I don't have to do, and I can easily give some pointers as well was templates and work material. Hell, it took me less then a month to learn 3DS Max using just free guides and google, and most of the crap I learnt doesn't even matter for RTW models, at the start of this month I couldn't texture in photoshop for crap (though I am good at pointing small scale figurines) but now I taught myself how to use a small set of tools to create good looking skins.

[Yggdrasill]

To be honest its a big ask of me to produce all the units in the game.
Working at full pace, it takes me 10 hours total to create a new unit (inc. modelling, texture, testing), which normally means 2 days per unit, and thats a simple unit (I spent 3 days alone on the texture for the gothic armour). At that rate, 200 units will take me 400 days, and I only have so much time now due to it being holidays, in a few weeks time I'm back off to uni, so poof, I'd then be lucky to get 2 hours a day to work on models.

It is offset by the fact that as I complete more and more units, I have more and more material to recycle, taking some texture from one skin, and making some quick modifications is much faster then doing it from scratch.

Though, if we are to use several artists work, I think it should be work created for this mod, rather then using stuff for someone else, uniqueness is important, whats more, it means I can easily share my own working material (like textures, anyone like 3-5Mb psd files?) with out it becoming common in several mods. Graphics contribute greatly to a mods feel, and though we overlap somewhat with P&M, I'd much prefer the mods to feel different.

And to anyone who wants to learn 3DS Max and photoshop texturing, trust me, its easier then it looks! Even if you only work on the simpler units, its work I don't have to do, and I can easily give some pointers as well was templates and work material. Hell, it took me less then a month to learn 3DS Max using just free guides and google, and most of the crap I learnt doesn't even matter for RTW models, at the start of this month I couldn't texture in photoshop for crap (though I am good at pointing small scale figurines) but now I taught myself how to use a small set of tools to create good looking skins.

I'm fully aware of that and right now it's my biggest concern. I'm planning unit lists accordingly. Even though it must seem that units are completely different, they actually are not, and many units are common for various factions, In fact, I think that no Burgundian unit other than the mounted archer is unique (and even that will be very similar to the longbow unit you already modelled, just with a different helm). For example, the Compaignes d'Ordonnaces and Coustilliers are available for France also. The first unit is nothing more than a glorified man-at-arms (the gothic plate you made with minimal changes), with additional horse-armour and a different helm. The second unit is basically a Mounted sargeant, lighter cav unit, available also for the English, Habsburgs etc. Then with minimal changes to that unit, you can make the mounted crossbowman. Flemish Pikeman will be very similar to the picture of light billman I sent you - so again two units for the price of one. And so it goes...
Many units are the same just with different names and minimal diferences, I use that as a trick to add additional historical feel to the game.
I don't know how many units we'll need in the end, but the max number is 300. So going by that, I imagine that maybe every third unit is completely new and original, everything else is modification, to a greater or lesser extent.
But I am concerned about the amount of work ahead of us.
I think it would be a good idea to again ask at the official forum for some 2d/3d artist to help us. There a lot of people at the modding subforums with at least the basic knowledge of modeling and texturing, and some are bound to be interesed. Uesugi, since you're the point man now, maybe you could drop a post at the official modding subforum asking for help?
As for sharing models, it seems nobody likes my idea very much so I'll just shut up. Just for the record, units are bound to be the same to an extent. It depends what picture they are using as a source for their models, but a Landsknecht is a Landsknecht, no matter how you look at it. You can't invent an unit just for the sake of being unique. Even if you get a finished model, you can make various minor changes, tweaks and such to make it unique. Certainly easier than doing it from scratch yourself.
I really hope someone might decide to take up graphics developement and help GodsPetMonkey (if it really is that easy, then we should at least try). For my part, I promised to try and do some animation work, and I'm sticking to that promise - as soon as I clear up my schedule a bit.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Right, I will plead with the masses. Anyone wanna come watch?

[Saranalos]

Me! no really we do need more modellers its a bit much to heap it all on godspetmonkey so everyone had best start recruiting.

[GodsPetMonkey]

In truth I do have a friend who is damn handy with 3DS Max, and he offered to help if I needed any, but sadly, he is in the middle of moving and starting a new job, so its a bit much of me to ask him to start cranking stuff out at this point in time.

And I have to teach him how to use photoshop

[Saranalos]

I would try to learn 3dsmax 7 but unfortunately I am
A: Not rich
B: Not old enough to have a job that will pay for 3dsmax
C: Probably not going to get an internet connection fast enough to download the tutorials, and too busy at the moment.

Although I have photoshop I am not very good at it.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I understand, maybe when we are making CTW 2.0 the modding continues we can get him to help. If anyone survives this mod. Oh well just gotta hope someone in the general modding forum volunteers.

[GodsPetMonkey]

You never know.

On a semi-related note, Silver had threads going at a few of the other RTW sites, perhaps you should post an update in them or something?

[Saranalos]

or put up BIG SIGNS everywhere


also I can update the rtw heaven thread if you want.

[GodsPetMonkey]

I don't see why not

Silver would often repost the latest images (of both units and camp map), so it might be a good idea to include those, it shows the mod is moving along, and I would guess that a part time modeller would be wore willing to work on something that isn't going to die in a few weeks time.

[Saranalos]

I will update the RTW heaven thread then I will also take some pictures from citadeltotalwar@hotmail.com and post them with it when there is new pics if that is okay.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Sure.

BTW Saranalos as soon as I can edit SR's posts here I will add your name, what job do you have exactly? You seem to help out with everything that you can but I do not know what to put down....

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Where exactly did he have the other threads?

Godspetmonkey where did you learn to model?

[Saranalos]

Just put me down as an everythingist

I joined the team as a unit scripter but since there has been no real demand for scripting at the moment I am helping out with everything I can I will update the threads in forums that I know of but I will also update other threads as well if you find one.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

K I will use that exact word and everything. Guess now that I have something to do for the mod I will have to do most of the stuff on weekends. Because my family hogs the net connected computer and I live in the boonies without broadband I have only one hour gauranteed on week days. But weekends I can stay up later and get more time.

[Saranalos]

Good I am updating one of the threads as I type it has fallen way behind and needs to be bumped up a bit.

You should also see about being able to edit the Citadel Total war posts.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I posted a request to Tosa about that in the watchtower. SR had those sorts of powers I believe and I need them if we are going to avoid a lot of confusion....

[GodsPetMonkey]

Where exactly did he have the other threads?

Godspetmonkey where did you learn to model?

100% self taught. IMHO all those courses and books are junk (and you have to pay for them). Theres nothing you cant learn by just sitting there and trying things out!

I just started playing about (I had some prior experiance in lightwave, but it was little more then making boxes and moving points (aka vertices)).

After about a week, I knew my way arround well enough to create things and do a good deal of editing, then I just learnt from small tutorials everything else.

Really, to model for RTW all you need to know is how to edit meshes/polys and UVW map, thats pretty much it for simpler units (although if you know how to, and want to, you can create units from scratch, but it takes alot more time, and really, doesn't give that much of an improvement anyway, theres only so much you can put into a low poly model, and humans are all shaped like each other).

The real killer is texturing IMHO, I spend alot more time makeing nice textures then models, as with

[Saranalos]

The map editor coming out with the patch could just be for custom battles and not the campaign map but if it is only for custom battles it could be very usefull for historical battles?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

True, that would be great.

BTW nobody is volunteering to join as a modeller yet. My thread in the general mods section has gone unanswered.

[Saranalos]

The unit limit was raised it in the 1.2 patch to 500, but I'm not sure about the models limit... it may have been kept in order to keep the tex memory requirements under control

Look above and smile

A dev posted this so it should be true.

but unfortunately

The other limits (200 provinces, 255 unit models, 20 landmasses) have been left in place, and it's unlikely that there will be another patch which will change those. Oh well...

[Ignoramus]

Do that mean we will need the patch to download Citadel?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Most likely, the patch has many improvements, including the much complained about friendly fire. CTW would probably end up being harder to make without the patch or worse. The patch is 56 mbs. so if you have a friend with boradband you may want him to dl it (if you have 56k like me).

[Saranalos]

Just leave the download overnight thats what I did.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

I am going over to their house anyway now, so I might as well wait a bit. Plus my family usually wakes up before me, because I stay up quite late and they might do something and on top of all that the comp sometimes chooses to restart itself when somebody is logging on or off.

[Ignoramus]

How about adding Norse Spearmen, Halberdiers, Pikemen, and Arquebusiers to the Danish units list?
I could provide info about equipment for N. Spearmen.