Brainstorm: EA/MA/LA Arabian/Islamic themed nation - Page 3

Squirrelloid · #21 July 17th, 2009, 05:15 PM

"The early 10th century chronicler al-tabari lists the following essential arms and armour for a warrior. Mail, breastplate, helmet leg guards, arm guards, horse armour, lance, shield, sword, mace, battle axe, quiver of thirty arrows, bowcase with two bows and two spare bow strings."

I'm actually surprised at the lance. My recollection of the first crusades was that, in addition to incessant infighting, the muslims were surprised by the european cavalry charge. I'm guessing the referenced translation is using 'lance' in a more general sense and actually means spear. (Lance can refer to any vaguely spearlike object used from horseback, but in the specific european context it was a highly specialized implement by the 11th century).

Which means as much as I like your lancers, I'm not convinced 'lancer' is appropriate.

Squirrelloid · #22 July 17th, 2009, 05:24 PM

And useful link: http://www.umich.edu/~eng415/topics/...ic_Armour.html

Squirrelloid · #23 July 17th, 2009, 06:03 PM

Elmokki, your sprites (at least the cavalry ones) seem to be 2/3 or 3/4 the size of calvary tga's from the game. At least from your png file. Do you have a full size version of them?

(that might be why the riders look so large to me - they're the right size, and the horses are too small?)

elmokki · #24 July 17th, 2009, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Quote:

Originally Posted by elmokki

I wasn't really done with the mod I started (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...hlight=arabian). It's just that I only do any kind of modding when I feel like it. That said, I've been tinkering with a new map lately.

Nevertheless, I'm lazy, so feel free to use any of the graphics (those in the thread are the latest, apart from the lack of puffy trousers.) I might even draw some sprites if you want

Oh, and by the way, curved swords aren't really historical, but I used them since they are what is generally associated with arabs anyway. That, and well, they'll a lot cooler than broadswords.

My Supreme Vizier-hero was going to be like Jafar from Disney Aladdin. But hell, I even wanted a marakata hero

I would absolutely love to share art chores with other people =)

I'll take a look at what you have, see what I can currently use, and work from there.

Curved swords are historical afaict from the crusader states period. The scimitar seems to have been extant (from accounts of the Second Crusade, Saladin is supposed to have sliced a pillow perfectly in half with one following the armistice agreement as a demonstration for the crusaders - Richard the Lionhearted of England bent an iron rod as a demonstration of strength.) Of course, the word used at the time would have been different, as the word scimitar dates from the 15th century - but scimitar describes a general class of swords, not a specific type.

But too much earlier than that and yeah, i doubt you'd find much in the way of curved blades.

Edit: Love the sprites. They look crusades era to me, for the most part. Are they size 2 though? They look big to me... But they're absolutely gorgeous. Not sure about the leather armor on some of them though - all mounted islamic forces would have worn a fine maille. (Also, 'light' means 'archer' or at least ranged. Not that Dominions 3 gets this right ever).

Could i get a translation of "Mubarizun"?

MA was what those sprites were designed for, well, initially they were for EA, but they seemed to fit MA far better.

Anyway, Mubarizun is what I stumbled upon randomly in wikipedia:
"Mubarizun was the special unit of the Rashidun army. It was composed of the elite warriors, who were the champion swordmen, lancers and archers."

That's from Rashidun caliphate's age, 7th century. Representing them as just beefed up heavy infantry is a bit lame, I do aknowledge.

Dervishes - the only sprite I'm nearly completely happy with - don't really historically suit the way they were implemented with dual falchions, but I wanted a sacred unit and I thought a whirling dervish with falchions would be really cool, and would have significant real life background. Close to EA C'tis serpent dancers, except that the serpent dancers don't have berserking

EDIT: The sprites are all essentially ripped from original Dominions 3 sprites and therefore are of correct size. Attack sprites for every unit except the mages and dervish need a bit of a redo though.

elmokki · #25 July 17th, 2009, 06:17 PM

Here's an ingame screenshot to confirm that the mounted units are of correct size:

Squirrelloid · #26 July 17th, 2009, 06:21 PM

Lol, i figured out what I'm doing wrong. For whatever reason the program I am using to open them is opening the sprites with different sizes for the pixels. (Its a layout program, but its the strongest graphics program i have). It must be resizing your image to a smaller scale or something to fit on a 'page'. (But the pixels are most certainly a different size between them and the game's tgas when i open them... so weird).

To avoid any issues, could i get your folder of individual tgas - O'm thinking about playing with a couple of them.

elmokki · #27 July 17th, 2009, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

"The early 10th century chronicler al-tabari lists the following essential arms and armour for a warrior. Mail, breastplate, helmet leg guards, arm guards, horse armour, lance, shield, sword, mace, battle axe, quiver of thirty arrows, bowcase with two bows and two spare bow strings."

I'm actually surprised at the lance. My recollection of the first crusades was that, in addition to incessant infighting, the muslims were surprised by the european cavalry charge. I'm guessing the referenced translation is using 'lance' in a more general sense and actually means spear. (Lance can refer to any vaguely spearlike object used from horseback, but in the specific european context it was a highly specialized implement by the 11th century).

Which means as much as I like your lancers, I'm not convinced 'lancer' is appropriate.

Light lances maybe? I seriously don't know much about medieval weaponry, but light lances are pretty much spears with lesser lance damage bonus and in my opinion suit better for any mounted unit that is supposed to have any "lancing" as main way of making damage far better than a spear

elmokki · #28 July 17th, 2009, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Lol, i figured out what I'm doing wrong. For whatever reason the program I am using to open them is opening the sprites with different sizes for the pixels. (Its a layout program, but its the strongest graphics program i have). It must be resizing your image to a smaller scale or something to fit on a 'page'. (But the pixels are most certainly a different size between them and the game's tgas when i open them... so weird).

To avoid any issues, could i get your folder of individual tgas - O'm thinking about playing with a couple of them.

There's everything I had done. All descriptions, stats and names are really just quick drafts, so don't mind them

llamabeast · #29 July 17th, 2009, 06:32 PM

Squirreloid, you should use GIMP. It's completely free (in the sense of being open source, rather than not being good enough to charge for), is quite easy to use and is ideal for doing sprites.

Squirrelloid · #30 July 18th, 2009, 01:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Squirreloid, you should use GIMP. It's completely free (in the sense of being open source, rather than not being good enough to charge for), is quite easy to use and is ideal for doing sprites.

So, of all the bizarre programs to use I was actually using Canvas - and enjoying the fact that its color tool allows you to *blend* colors by applying one on top of another. Made shading much more intuitive (to me at least).

The fact that it happened to be the best graphics program my computer currently had was also a plus. (I'll confess, most of the graphics stuff i've done in the last 10 years has been graph layouts for publication).

I'll look into GIMP at some point. I have some other things to accomplish this weekend...