New Desert Oasis in EB 0.8

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 11-15-2006, 16:07

EB 0.8 is getting closer, and we finally got this oasis plan to work out just like we want it. shifty157 did most of the work on the .cas files, and tk-421 did a lot of mind boggling palm placement coordinate work. The biggest recent achievement though was getting permission from Caius Brittanicus to use his Crusades palm trees. With some work from me putting it all together and begging shifty and others for help in figuring some things out, the result is what you see below.

You have a desert oasis that only appears in sandy desert areas, and has a lake, with reeds and cattails growing around the banks, muddy banks around the edges, and wonderful palms all around it. The lake is impassable as well. You will find the oasis in random places - it is placed at random based on the terrain - as long as it is in a sandy desert.

Below is a Ptolemaic battle Kull played today against the Seleukid forces. Thanks for the screenshots Kull! (my cpu is too slow and won't render the shadows of the trees that you see here) Thanks go out again to shifty and tk and I can't thank Caius enough for letting us use these palms - we had the oasis without them, but they make it so much better. Make sure you check out The Crusades if you like the way they look.

Two last things, if anyone wants to work more on palm placement, it's done by the coordinates in one file - we'd be happy to let you go at it and put more in there or change the distribution up. But this is what we have so far. And if you see anything in there that you aren't supposed to see, well, we're close enough to 0.8 that a little more won't hurt anything.

Refreshed after a quick drink from the oasis, Ptolemaioi Klerouchikon Agema gather in the shadows cast by the tall Palm trees as they await the Seleukid onslaught:

Seleukid Hellenikoi Cataphractoi smash through a formation of Syrian Archers as the Klerouchikon Agema form a phalanx beneath the palms:

As the battle spreads along the whole front of the oasis, the sky is suddenly obscured by a vicious sandstorm sweeping in from the south. Eyes tearing as they squint into the stinging sands, Seleukid Hypaspistai square off against a charging band of axewielding Aithiopion Agema.

A frog's eye view of the left wing of the Selukid army collapsing in the distance:

With their left wing in dissarray, and with Ptolemaic cavalry and African Elephants approaching to complete the annihilation, Seleukid Cretan Archers save the day. A rain of fire arrows panics the Ptolemaic elephants, sending them off on mad career through the startled horsemen of the Agema Kelrouchikon.

The Ptolemaic General and his Galatikoi Kleruchoi race after the retreating Seleukids on the left, but are cut off and and surrounded when his cavalry reserve fails to arrive in support. Seleukid Indian Elephants wheel toward his flank, preparing to deliver a devastaing blow.

The idyllic landscape is an incongruous setting for this scene of death and mayhem:

Seeing their leader in desperate straits, several units of Ptolemaic Klerouchikon Agema race out from under the sheltering palms and rout the Seleukid Indian Elephants.

With the Seleukid line collapsing on all sides, the Ptolemaic Agema Kelrouchikon spot the retreating Cretan Archers and charge in to take their revenge:

The Seleukid General is cut down as he tries to flee the field of battle. As the Seleukid standard crashes to the ground, the Arms of Ptolemy are raised high, and triumphant voices shake the palms with cries of victory!

**vizigothe** · 11-15-2006, 16:44

Nice! That will add more depth to the desert battles. I was sick of endless fields of sand. Nice work!

**Tellos Athenaios** · 11-15-2006, 17:17

Great work!

**MSB** · 11-15-2006, 19:58

**Birka Viking** · 11-15-2006, 20:03

**Ypoknons** · 11-15-2006, 20:45

Good to see the Cretan and Syrian archers in action too. I think we had gotten the Cretans as a tease before but it's still cool.

**Sarkiss** · 11-18-2006, 19:34

Originally Posted by Teleklos Archelaou

The biggest recent achievement though was getting permission from Caius Brittanicus to use his Crusades palm trees.

TA, Gaius said that those palm trees need fixing, they are too big.

i just stumbled on this thread
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=71645
imo they still look great though.

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 11-18-2006, 20:22

We will probably have one more edit of those files. It's a big hassle, so they are definitely not easily changed. They'll have to stay that size for now. I agree that they're big, *but* they're not monstrously big and their current size makes it possible to zoom down beneath them- whereas shrinking their size will probably keep you from being able to manouever the camera beneath them in battle.