Feedback wanted!

[Ticu]

I've worked with animations before and know how to implement new ones, so I will do that now.

Also, I have photoshop, and am pretty proficient with it. So if you need help with something that can't be doen in GIMP, I could work with it. I will fix the veil of "Miss Gozen" for now. :P

[kitagata]

I noticed that the Yomi banners that surround the town center in their settlements have some skinning problems. The bottom of the banners contains other imagery. Also, is it intentional that stonewall sieges no longer allow ladders?

[Rinsui]

Both are errors I guess. I'll look into it right away. The new patch I just uploaded also contains the new colours vor Akagi and Zensen, and the new sounds you provided for all units except the Snow Monkeys. Since I didn't fully understand what you did for them, I was weary to integrate the changes to the export_descr_unit.txt and the export_descr_sounds_soldier_voice as yet \ savety first, you know... As you hijacked the romal Light_1 set for the Monkeys, what will happen if another faction (e.g. the Egyptians/Yomi) recruit Snowmonkey Infantry? Will those use the monkey sounds or the normal egyptian Light_1 set then?
Another thing is the Leopard Handlers. As you noticed, I did not implement the changes to their voices as yet, as some of them seem to cause CTDs (according to your tests). However, those kitties are in dire need of new growls, I think. could you look into that, perhaps? I'll do them right now, but just in case you want to continue immediately, they will be named "BLTW_leopard_handlers" internally.
Thanks again,
continuing work after a long weekend,

[kitagata]

The Snow Monkeys should only use the Roman light_1. Units don't change their voice category if you make them recruitable for other factions, and mercenaries in vanilla RTW didn't either, so I think the monkeys are fine. It seems units have a primary "affiliation" to one culture, but I don't know where that's determined in the _.txts.

I'll try them with different factions to see what happens when I get a chance.

In fact, if you can switch the Son Goku from a Barbarian unit to a Roman unit (but only recruitable to the Chinese through export_descr_buildings) then he could just borrow the Snow Monkeys' voice set from Roman light_1.　
Then I wouldn't have to take the Barbarian light_1 voice just for Son Goku.

The leopard sounds have been fixed so they are all the right format. I don't get CTDs anymore with them. When I get a chance I'll put them on filefront.

Lastly, I've never liked the overly-stereotyped eyes of the Mongol units. The eyes of other Asian units are fine, but the Mongols are all sleeping/blind/or squinting!
So I've tried GIMPing in some eyes on the old BL Kharazai units. If you wouldn't mind looking, maybe if you like them you could cut and paste the faces to the new Kharazai units.

I'll include them with the leopard sounds in a while.

EDIT:
Here's the fixed Leopard sounds and the sample Mongol textures:

http://files.filefront.com/LeopardAn.../fileinfo.html

Keep up the good work.

[Rinsui]

Ok. The Stonewalls no more allowing ladders is "intentional by accident", I think. The problem is that the outline of those walls is slightly slanted for the Chinese and Japanese Factions, and thus the ladders and Men would disapper inside while climbing them (as the original obstacle data was not changed - it is a different file from the visible .ITEM file you see in battle). The removal of the ladders altogether seems to have been the best solution the original BLTW developers could come up with - I guess they realized the problems the new models would cause after they were finished, and were too lazy to redo the complete wall sets afterwards. In theory I think I could correct this; no, actually I am quite sure I could. But alas, i also think this is a rather low priority problem. It would take me several hours to do, after all. Remind me once I am finished with everything else.
The wrong skinning of the Yomi banners is not due to a wrong skinning, but due to the Yomi using a slightly differently composed texture for all their banners. No problem to correct this, but I am not sure what side-effects this may have. I'll give it a shot.
Edit: Ok. The side-effects are controllable. This will be corrected in the next patch.

[kitagata]

Tested the newer sounds for the Leopards, and they definitely don't cause problems anymore.
If you haven't gotten them, they are linked in my last post.
Messed around with Son Goku, and he can't borrow the snow monkeys' sounds. You're right, by making him recruitable for the Chinese, he takes their voice. I can give him sounds, but I'll have to take one of the Eastern/Parthian voice classes. Same for the Incarnation of Kali.

I'm going to test the snow monkeys to make sure that when they are mercenaries, they keep their monkey voice in any army. Again I think I remember that it is true in normal Rome Total War, so it should be fine.

Also, what are the sounds that the beast riders use? Did you make them camels? They don't use horse sounds.

Lastly, While the model is pretty cool, do the demons need the headless horse cavalry? It seemed like their strength was infantry, with just a few cavalry and archery units. Also, it doesn't seem quite as 'Asian mythology' as the other demons.
I can get used to the unit, though, but maybe you could at least limit it to the custom battle or something. No offense, the unit looks good, but I dunno...

What's coming up in the next release???

[Rinsui]

@Kitagata
The next release will be on July 1st. This will be a new "base" version (~1.3GB), that will supersede the current base version+patches.
It looks like we can't have distinctive sounds for all those special units we are about to field, then. Well, please do not hack more of the original unit sounds; for Kali, Dragons and some of the more stupid-looking Yomi Units etc. it would suffice to have an "undistinguishable grunt" of some sort - one for all of them. So you are free to "conquer" one of the voice types - Light_1, Medium_1, Heavy_1, General_1, Female_1 - for each of the cultures; and I guess you will have to do that for mercenary units anyway. Unlike yourself, I am not sure the snow monkeys will keep their voices in an "egyptian" army. Rather I am convinced they will not, just like Son Goku doesn't. Hmm. This is a problem we didn't think of...
Yep, I fear I was right. I just tried the snow monkeys within a Yomi (egyptian) and Rebel (roman) army. The roman ones had your beautiful screechings, but the Yomi ones were just plain soldiers. Damn. I really liked those monkey sounds. But I guess you understand we cannot afford to sacrifice one whole voice cathegory for every faction just for a single unit. My test was with custom battles, so I am not 120% sure this will affect stratmap mercenaries as well. But then again, do all mercenaries really use roman voices? Until this problem is sorted out, the monkey sounds are on hold and will not be included in the next release.
Beast riders are "camels" too, yes. Horse sounds would be a little strange for them, eh?
The headless horses mainly fill a gap in the Yomi roster. The problem is: there are generally four levels of cavalry: 1 is light, 2 is medium, 3 is heavy. The Yomi had medium (beast riders) and heavy (shishi). Undoubtable, Shishi "look" pretty heavy, and not just "medium". They have a certain weakness to ensure a Yomi player doesn't get overly cavalry-enthusiastic (they may run amok), but a giant lion just isn't "medium". The next decision was to make the beast riders either medium or heavy, and to fill the third slot with something appropriate. I first thought about using the Tengu Camel Archers for this, but I need them to have at least a second missile unit for the Yomi.. If you take the time to read through the unit descriptions, you will note the Yomi have serious problems with live horses.. Now ok, it is possible to... grr. Yes, I could make up a new Yomi archery unit, alright - to fill the ensuing gap in the missile department. But I don't want it to be "better" than the Kappa archers, just different. Hmmhmm. Let me think about this. Hmm.
Btw, I agree the Yomi cavalry, and especially their archery shouldn't - relative to the other units they field - be the best. On a sidenote, however: in MP battles with unlimited amounts of money, the Yomi will be nearly unbeatable. The BLTW campaign game should give even the most experienced players a real challenge when facing a Yomi army - and I think just giving them a money boost (which is very easy to implement), I want them to be really stronger than the other factions. But... now I have to go back to unit-implementing. Tedious bug-slaying has slowed me down a lot during the last days. It's time to move on.

Edit: Upon several trials, the new leopard sounds worked like a charm. I also included the new mongolian eyes into the new textures that are currently used for all units but generals and officers - this gives a bit of variation to the faces. Very good idea indeed.