Uber or Champion units.

**Razor1952** · 02-17-2005, 00:15

I wonder if the modding gods could comment on making and implementing champion units.

Here's one idea for them.

For example for Greeks

Achilles Unit , 1 guy only with huge spear statistics(looks like Brad Pitt maybe?) . Graphically about 10% bigger than normal unit. Overall power about = to one elite unit. Obviously only 1 champion/faction.
Other questions -can you have a 1 unit?, what about recruiting(maybe given at start) and not trainable.? Trainable only at Pantheon?

Any ideas comments welcome.

**Frans Ubberdork** · 02-17-2005, 00:31

Smallest unit size is 6 and it grows to 12 on normal 24 large and so on.

**Myrddraal** · 02-17-2005, 01:13

But you could have that unit as the captain and have 5 bodyguards for your hero...

**Epistolary Richard** · 02-17-2005, 13:45

A few related questions:

1) Would that limit you to a single 'champion' unit or could you have several different ones? So, if you had five different captains (or generals) with their bodyguards could each captain have a different skin or would they all have to be the Achilles model?

2) How many differentiated models can you have within a unit? Say you wanted Achilles favourite 'friend' Patroculus beside him, or the LOTR mod wanted to do the twelve fellowship within a single unit? You could presumably reskin the captain and the standard bearer, but could you go further?

3) On the topic of unit sizes, and I may have totally gone off the deep-end on this one, small elephant units have only three members (though more riders). If you could reduce the size of the riders to be near invisible and replace the elephant model with a human model could we then have a unit of three?

**Paul Peru** · 02-17-2005, 15:14

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

1) Would that limit you to a single 'champion' unit or could you have several different ones? So, if you had five different captains (or generals) with their bodyguards could each captain have a different skin or would they all have to be the Achilles model?

I think the captain's different; the rest are the same. You could make a myrmidon unit with Achilles as its captain, say.

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

2) How many differentiated models can you have within a unit? Say you wanted Achilles favourite 'friend' Patroculus beside him, or the LOTR mod wanted to do the twelve fellowship within a single unit? You could presumably reskin the captain and the standard bearer, but could you go further?

Just 2: the captain and the rank and file, AFAIK

Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard

3) On the topic of unit sizes, and I may have totally gone off the deep-end on this one, small elephant units have only three members (though more riders). If you could reduce the size of the riders to be near invisible and replace the elephant model with a human model could we then have a unit of three?

That would be something! A huge hero with 6 tiny goblins on it

If you want to approach invisibilty, you could probably do something with skinning also. Plus riders can be at least partially hidden inside the mount (you get to set different offsets)

**eadingas** · 02-17-2005, 17:10

You could create Hydra or seven-headed Dragon, using the elephant+riders approach :)

**Monkwarrior** · 02-17-2005, 17:15

I think that in addition to the rank, it is possible to have at least two single units, for example a captain and a standard carrier, so in theory it would be possible to have a myrmidon unit with captain Achille and a sub-captain Patroclus.
This is an example:

Code:

type             spanish bull warriors
dictionary       bull_warriors1      ; Devotio Warrior
category         infantry
class            heavy
voice_type       Medium_1
soldier          carthage_bull_warrior, 40, 0, 1
officer          carthaginian_standard
officer          estandarte
attributes       sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hardy
formation        1, 2, 2, 3, 3, square
stat_health      2, 0
stat_pri         17, 5, pilum, 40, 2, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr    prec, thrown ap
stat_sec         13, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,0.75
stat_sec_attr    no
stat_pri_armour  5, 5, 2, metal
stat_sec_armour  0, 1, flesh
stat_heat        0
stat_ground      2, 1, 0, -1
stat_mental      15, impetuous, untrained
stat_charge_dist 40
stat_fire_delay  0
stat_food        60, 300
stat_cost        2, 1150, 200, 120, 180, 1150
ownership        spain

This is the description of the whole unit in export_descr_unit and it is necessary to define the officer in descr_model_battle:

Code:

type				estandarte
skeleton			fs_standard_bearer
indiv_range			40
texture				spain, data/models_unit/textures/Musico_ibero.tga
model_flexi			data/models_unit/officer_east_musician_300.cas, 8
model_flexi			data/models_unit/officer_east_musician_200.cas, 15
model_flexi			data/models_unit/officer_east_musician_100.cas, 30
model_flexi			data/models_unit/officer_east_musician_70.cas, max
model_sprite		spain, 60.0, data/sprites/numidia_carthage_numidian_cavalry_sprite.spr
model_tri			400, 0.5f, 0.5f, 0.5

Cheers.

**Bob the Insane** · 02-17-2005, 17:46

Some of the Roman units allow for a Centurion, a Standard bearer and a captain in addtion to the normal soldiers...

**Myrddraal** · 02-17-2005, 18:50

I think the limit to officers is 3.

**Kraxis** · 02-17-2005, 19:00

Originally Posted by Myrddraal

I think the limit to officers is 3.

It is 3... But I wonder if that means that there has to be an open slot for a captain.

Btw, do you guys know which factions have officers and what they are called. I'm tired of the Romans being the only ones I can for sure add centurions to (well can actually add officers to the greeks as well). But it would be lovely to add a sort of officer to the Chosen units.

**chemchok** · 02-17-2005, 19:05

Nope, you can have the 3 officer slots filled up and the lesser general will still lead the unit.

**Kraxis** · 02-17-2005, 19:18

Originally Posted by chemchok

Nope, you can have the 3 officer slots filled up and the lesser general will still lead the unit.

Interesting... You just tested that or have you created one such unit by 'accident'? Does the captain then stand in a fourth row or something? A nice protected position I should think given that the other three officers are 2HP soldiers of the unit.

**chemchok** · 02-17-2005, 19:42

I was testing the limits. Originally, I had also thought that the third slot needed to be "open" for the lesser general, but wanted to make sure. And yep, the lesser general stands in the fourth row. Here's a screenshot.

**Kraxis** · 02-17-2005, 20:29

You added a Triarii??? How did you do that?

**chemchok** · 02-17-2005, 20:51

Hehe, you can use any model for the officers. Just make sure there's a specific faction texture defined for the model in descr_model_battle.txt.

Code:

type                    roman praetorian cohort i
dictionary              roman_praetorian_cohort_i      ; Praetorian Cohort
category                infantry
class                   heavy
voice_type              Heavy_1
soldier                 roman_praetorian_cohort_i, 40, 0, 1.3
officer                 roman_centurion
officer                 roman_standard
officer                 roman_triarii
attributes              sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap, very_hardy
formation               1, 2, 2, 3, 4, square, testudo
stat_health             1, 0
stat_pri                14, 4, pilum, 35, 2, thrown, blade, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr           prec, thrown ap
stat_sec                12, 4, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr           no
stat_pri_armour         8, 13, 5, metal
stat_sec_armour         0, 1, flesh
stat_heat               5
stat_ground             2, 0, 0, 0
stat_mental             10, disciplined, highly_trained
stat_charge_dist        30
stat_fire_delay         0
stat_food               60, 300
stat_cost               2, 1250, 320, 90, 130, 1250
ownership               romans julii,romans brutii,romans scipii,romans senate

-----

In export_descr_unit.txt the "soldier" line references the model used for the unit. In the case of the praetorian cohort, the soldier line is...

Code:

soldier                 roman_praetorian_cohort_i, 40, 0, 1.3

Ignore the numbers and just use the text in bold. So to add three praetorian cohort officers to a velite unit you would add the following (bold) lines;

Code:

type                    roman velite
dictionary              roman_velite      ; Velites
category                infantry
class                   missile
voice_type              Light_1
soldier                 roman_velite, 40, 0, 0.8
officer                 roman_praetorian_cohort_i
officer                 roman_praetorian_cohort_i
officer                 roman_praetorian_cohort_i
mount_effect            elephant +6, chariot +6
attributes              sea_faring, hide_improved_forest, hide_long_grass, can_sap
formation               1.6, 2, 3.2, 4, 3, square
stat_health             1, 0
stat_pri                9, 2, javelin, 50, 6, thrown, archery, piercing, spear, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr           thrown
stat_sec                5, 2, no, 0, 0, melee, simple, piercing, sword, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr           no
stat_pri_armour         2, 9, 2, flesh
stat_sec_armour         0, 0, flesh
stat_heat               1
stat_ground             2, 0, 3, 0
stat_mental             4, normal, untrained
stat_charge_dist        30
stat_fire_delay         0
stat_food               60, 300
stat_cost               1, 270, 170, 30, 40, 270
ownership               roman

Simple as that.

**Kraxis** · 02-17-2005, 21:50

Hmmm... Could be very useful as I have found out that the greek_officer is in fact a Macedonian officer (well in gameterms as he carries that odd Lambda-that-should-be-an-Alpha on his shield). I really want officers for the other greek factions as well (especially the Seleucids).
Now I just have to see what kind of soldiers would be good as officers... Perhaps Royal Pikemen would be good, just too bad they have those spears, would seem out of place in a pike-phalanx.

Btw, have you noticed that some dev at CA made a typo back when he created a skin? The Thracian warriors have the skin called thracoan ('i' and 'o' are right next to each other).

**Razor1952** · 02-18-2005, 03:09

Thanks for the replies guys. I presume the scale modifyer can be used to make bigger units on the battle field?

I think I would implement the champion unit this way.

eg Greeks.

Achilles(general unit)
+3 officers(different associates eg. Patroclus)
+bodyguard Myrmidons 12

gives 16 unit size on normal

I unit per faction given at the start , not trainable but retrainable in original capital( I believe I just make build time 999 turns to do that).

Once lost lost for good.

Stats to make unit equal to one elite unit (eg Spartans) in battle.

Movement will be better than normal troops.

Slightly larger than normal troops to stand out in battle more( a la scale modifyer).

All I then need is to select the right skins(or modify) a few and make changes as posted above.

Anyone see any problems with this approach?.

For the player if he takes care of his champion he should be able to get it up to muchos experience (can you get higher than experience 9?). May make for an interesting side strategy issue. The downside will be the ai won't be able to handle the use and retraining of this unit effectively.

**Epistolary Richard** · 02-18-2005, 15:11

Originally Posted by chemchok

I was testing the limits. Originally, I had also thought that the third slot needed to be "open" for the lesser general, but wanted to make sure. And yep, the lesser general stands in the fourth row. Here's a screenshot.

So, as per chemchok's example, we can actually have five differentiated models within a six man unit. Superb!

**eadingas** · 02-18-2005, 15:15

Um... no, you can have five different models within a 10 man unit: 6 soldiers, 3 officers, 1 commander. Officers don't count towards 6 men minimum limit.

**Epistolary Richard** · 02-18-2005, 15:33

Ah, thanks eadingas, I'm now downgrading it from a superb to a merely very good.

**Fireward77** · 01-15-2008, 04:31

Can Someone Explain What I gotta Define in Descr_model_battle for a regular unit to be used as a officer?

**Aradan** · 01-15-2008, 15:26

Nothing really (apart from giving it the skeleton you want - fs_standard_bearer for example), you just have to add the unit model's name to the officer tag in the EDU of the other unit.