Zulu Mod!!!

[Myrddraal]

Can I ask how you intend to do this? Are you going to use a similar method to the one suggested in the WWII thread? like very short walls...

If you are, then how are the zulus going to get over them?

[Sundjata Keita]

I didn't know that the WWII mod was going to have short walls. Well we have been discussing it on our forums and have come to the conclusion that we will modify the ballistas so that they are small sandbag walls and instead of the cranking animation a men firing animation will be used and the single big bullet turned into lots of tiny bullets. some problems are will the bullets look as if they have hit lots of Zulus? Will Zulus be able to climb over the wall? How many men can we get on one wall?
At the moment we are hoping that if the wall is destroyed that units will be able to pass through it. Here is the wall so far. I quickly did a frame of animation so I could add some gordon highlanders behind the wall





I have got the wall in game and all that needs doing really is the animations for the people behind the wall. I am sure there are going to be more problems yet though.

[Myrddraal]

Here is an idea, maybe you could make the model of the sandbags as a model which can be placed in the battle editor, then for each city, make a custom map and put it on the campaign. The zulus wouldn't be able to climb over them, so you could make holes in the wall every so often which they can pour through...

Maybe?

[stichmaster1]

we could just make a new animation that has the zulu jumping over the wall, and then we wont have to deal with the slaugtering at a flood point.

[dclare4]

Hi Sundjata,

I know there are specific names for the small shield that Cetshwayo instituted and the older large shields that the veteran regiments used. Will look it up. BTW have you checked out the South African Military History Society? I've done a lot of my research there online.

I like that pic of the Highlander at the Mealie bag walls. I think, for practical purposes we could just have them transport them like a war engine but very slowly rather than the probably impractical method of having them build it up bag by bag. Alternately you could make them 'buildable' like you build siege weapons and at the start of the battle they could be placed anywhere you want but not moveable (but probably destroyable? Could there be an animation of the thing falling apart like the way the trebuchets or scorpions fell apart in MTW?). Imagine if you build a bunch of battering rams but use them as missile shields rather than to batter down gates. BTW - not just mealie bag shields but how about Wagon Laagers? For the Boers particularly, is there a way probably to make this? Probably as a permanent structure in battle, similar to my above suggestion for the battering rams except the model would be unmanned wagons with their horses dismounted. Probably would have to have a specific auxilliary unit to make them buildable though I don't know if you can connect the two.

Oh yeah, a problem too might be these are only available in offensive siege. Is there a way to make them available for every siege battle you think?

Cheers,
Clare

[Sundjata Keita]

Ok lots of good ideas here.

@Myrddraal
This will be a good idea for historical battles and maybee others, especially Rorkes Drift. Unfortunatley the problem is they would get bunched but this would be a problem with the way my walls are going now.

@Stichmaster1
Is just making them jump over it going to work? Does the collision checking work like that? I'm not sure. Anyone know?

@Dclare4
All alomg they were going to be seige weapons and destroyable but even when destroyed the bags are still impassible. Yes the wagons would be good too and we can have them filled with hay or something and then it can all collapse everywhere when it's destroyed or set alight. The Ballistas I have done the wall on are available in all battles.

My conclusion is that when you put ballistas into battle you get two side by side. I am going to build up the wall sideways until only a small gap is left in the middle. Then Zulus will be able to pass through but only very slowly or they will have to move round the sides. It seems silly having them just being able to move round the side but this counteracts their horn manouver quite well.


PS About the names of Zulu war stuff here is a good page

http://africanhistory.about.com/libr...luWarVocab.htm

It contains some really interesting stuff that I did not know about.

[Sundjata Keita]

Here is a little battle for you that I did for someone at twcenter who wanted more ingame screens (sorry for lack of updates today but I have had no time to do anything today)

The Zulu impi line up on the nearest hill and prepare for battle. They chant a bit to try and scare the enemy.



They have few numbers so they do not create uPondo (horns/wings) but instead send the isiFubachant (chest) forward to charge the enemy. They begin to march down the hill as the British now start to fire upon them.



As they see the enemy they begin to charge. About a quarter of the iButho (regiment) are killed from the fire from the bullets. Eventually the Zulus become so close that without proper cover the British must use their bayonets to cut down the enemy (the martini-henry rifle has not been implemented into this model yet so you just have to imagine)



The Zulus with their iklwas start to stab at the enemy but due to sustained injuries while charging their numbers are too few and eventually the Zulus flee.

[stichmaster1]

well there it is, the uPoke shield. i know its not of the best quality, but im getting better.

[Sundjata Keita]

That's fine, just make the little things on the sheild more brown but I can do that if you want. Will put the shield onto one of my textures and post some screens of the unit ingame soon.

[stichmaster1]

i can do it but you will have to wait till 6 pm est

[stichmaster1]

there is the new one, tell me if you want anything else

[Sundjata Keita]

Good work stichmaster1

Here are some ingame screens of the new Zulu skins

uPoke regiment



Another regiment



A shot of them both hopefully distinguishing the yellow shield

[stichmaster1]

uKhandempemvu shield

there is my next skin, hope you like it, send sundjata the file so some screenies are coming soon

[dclare4]

Well they can't make an indefinite number of mealie barricades so maybe if they could be 'scalable' then their use would primarily be to protect against fire or projectiles. Wagons would be of course better protection and impassible but it would likewise be impossible to build a large number of them for 'all around protection'.

Cheers,
Clare

[Sundjata Keita]

Well we can make the mealie bag walls quite expensive so that they can't build loads of them. I think the walls will still be a good defensive structure that can stop flanking as well as a barricade against spears and enemy fire when the Zulus got guns.

Thanks for the next shield stichmaster1 I am going to dirty the grey up a bit if you don't mind to make it more prominent ingame

[Sundjata Keita]

Ok I have implemented stichmaster1's new shield texture into the skin I have made to make the uKhandempemvu regiment.





I'm going to start modelling the head peices (all the different feather patterns) soon to make the models really realistic.

[stichmaster1]

i like how you dirtied it up, but get rid of the extreme pairs of button type things, cant remember what they are called, on the grey shield, they dont fit on it right

[Sundjata Keita]

Yeah I just did a quick bit with the burn tool and then I blurred it and then sharpened the edges to create a better shading style. Finally I just dirtied it up with some grunge brushes. Hadn't really noticed the top and bottom bits on the shield were wrong, good spot I will change that now

[Sundjata Keita]

Ok are these shields better

Cut some of the things off this one



Made the yellow dimmer and more obvious

[stichmaster1]

i love it, but i wont be able to get very much done in the coming week, end of quarter and my comp is down so i will try and get one every other day or so, thank god i made a backup on my flash drive

[dclare4]

There's pretty!! Lovely work guys!

Clare

[dclare4]

I was thinking, maybe wagons shouldn't be buildable - could we have like a 'wagon unit' that forms a 'cantabrian circle' or maybe attach them to a certain unit type (the Boer auxilliaries)? Mealie bags should be expensive but perhaps not really prohibitively so - impossible to move yes. There's a lot of ground to cover anyways so probably about as expensive as catapults or battering rams maybe?

Clare

[Lonely Soldier]

Hi!
I know I haven't commented before but this mod is looking GREAT!

Have you had any success with your "portable" walls - sandbags.

I have recently started a mod
( https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...588#post717588 ) with the aim of considerably expanding and authenticating the cities in the original campaign and can see no reason why our mod could not be incorporated into many others - if your team is willing.

The mod itself is in question at the moment - mostly technical issues to iron out - but I can see alot of potential for it in conjuntion with other mods.

Please don't mind me if you are not interested!

Yours'
Lonely Soldier

[Sundjata Keita]

Hi Lonley Soldier,

So far I have got the mealie bag wall (sandbag wall) in game but have yet to sort out the animation. When I get a bit more free time. Hopefully this weekend I am going to swap a few animations round to have archers stood behind the walls. Eventually these will be replaced with riflemen but by swapping them round I know it is possible.

I don't know if we need more realistic towns seen as ours is on a completely different map and in a different time period but if we make sure that they can work on the same comp... I don't know.

About moving them - I think they should be stationary like sap points in battlefield view but you can place them at the start of the battle.

A wagon unit would be interesting. Maybee they could replace elephants and we could have people sitting atop the wagon. Like the wagon in this picture

http://www.thediehards.co.uk/images/boer5.jpg

Would they be able to attack or would they be just for supplies or something.

[Lonely Soldier]

I should have been clearer.

I think that once we have the mod's "system" in place, it should just be a matter of switching the original building models with your own.

[Sundjata Keita]

Oh so you are implementing a whole new siege system? That would be good and we would happily incorporate it with our mod if it fits in.

[Lonely Soldier]

Glad to here that!

Our main concern will be the battle map appearence of settlements - but the settlements will be able to have much more variety of appearance on both maps. In terms of sieges - yes we will be implementing a modified system, but the "system" referred to in my earlier post was more regarding the ability to make towns cover more than one tile of the campaign map. Also if anyone has other comments please go to my mod's thread. Its getting difficult to jump between them! Sorry for any inconvenience!

Thanks again!

[dclare4]

Hi there Lonely Soldier,

Actually I'm interested in your efforts more for my 'other mod' the WASP mod (War of Austrian Succession Period) but I think for ZTW we will need to model accurately places like Ladysmith so we'll be glad for any support or info you could share!

Cheers,
Clare (Harlechman)

[Lonely Soldier]

Thanks for the interest!

It would be good if this support could somehow go both ways...
At present the mod has not got a single team member of any useful skill (in technical terms). Currently, I think I am the only member of the "team" and my skills lie more in the research, development and design fields.

So any help anyone couold render would be much appreciated!

Anyways we should probably move this discussion off the Zulu Mod thread (sorry guys!!!) and onto mine: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=717652

Once again my sincerest apologies to the Zulu Mod team.

I WILL NOT BE RESPONDING TO ANY MORE QUERIES OR POSTS ON THIS THREAD!!! GO TO MY THREAD: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?p=717652 !!!

Sorry about this whole mess Zulu Mod!

[Sundjata Keita]

It's not really a mess and I like your subtle use of advertising, any further questions will now go into your thread so don't worry.