Uber or Champion units.

[Razor1952]

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]

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

[Myrddraal]

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

[Epistolary Richard]

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]

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.

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

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]

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

[Monkwarrior]

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:

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:

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.