Mongolians are going to eat pizza (Pizza90's faction, the mongolians)

[Pizza90]

So with this thread i want to announce my faction, the mongolians

It's going to be a megapack compatible faction and megaglest only. There will be good archers (mongolian archer was probably the best archer ever built in acient time).

Why did i i chose to create a mongolian fction?Simply, because i am interested in middle asia and mongolian empire was very huge. I also love the style of mongolians tents (yurts) and many other aspects of the mongolian tradition. Mongolians used to kidnap instead of to kill the engineers and other science men of rivals cities when the city got attacked, to improve their technology, so that's why in this faction there will be a chinese engineer with all chinese technologies know by him. This faction will be historical based but not at 100% i will add some fantasy things (like an incendiary bird and a golem), the motto of this faction will be "fun over realism". I dont pretend to make a super cool faction, it's my first faction, but i am working hard on it

Cricism is welcome but please dont focus too much on the models, they wont be perfect, i am learning blender making this faction

 I have already modelled some of the units, then i will texture them (i noticed that texturing is a boring thing XD) I will post pictures of my work in the next days. Later (today or maybe tomorrow) i will add a list with all the units of my faction.

I think many people after playing megaglest want to try to make (and play) their own faction, me included, so i am here 

Units:
- Worker
It will be the worker of the mongolians.
- Archer
It will be weaker (as hp) than archers from other factions, but will be a little stronger and will have a longer range to shot his arrows.
- Archer on Horse
Stronger than the normal archer, more expensive to produce but faster and with a longer range of attack!
- Swordman on Horse
Stronger than the archer on horse, more expensive, fast as the archer on horse, but with less sight and a shorter range of attack.
- Spearman
- A good attack, but not cheap to produce and not fast.
- Shaman
- Weak in hp and without offensive attacks, he will have the capacity to heal all the units withing a range to be yet determined. He will be also able to build the healing rock which will work as the shaman but of course will have more hp and wont be able to go around.
- Gobi Golem
More slow than the golems of other factions, with a very short sight and slow in attacks. It's attacks will be powerful but as i said very slow, he will have a very huge amount of hp.
- Giant worm rider
Strong,fast but hard to manage, every X attacks (i have still to decide, probably 10) he will have the possibility (random) to go to hide under the terrain, and it will cost you money to bring back him into the battle.
- Incendiary Bird
Very strong  against buildings and non flying units, weak against anti air units and other air units.
- Chinese engineer
He is the one that will bring chinese technology to the mongolians! He is also the only living units to do not be cured by the shaman and by the healing rocks.
- Antiair Firework launcer
The anti air unit of the mongolians, strong against flying units and with a long range of attack, very weak against non flying units.
- Fireship
A cheap but very slow wooden boat, it will explode when it reaches the enemy, causing a big splash damage. Perfect to sink other ships (if they dont destroy it first ) and to destroy ports and other bildings close to the coast.
- Chinese flamethrower
This special flamethrower consist in a pump that spits fire without interruption, not very fast, but perfect against buildings.
- Chinese trebuchet
A trebuchet with a long range, it wont be able to go around (i think) but it will have a long range of attack.
- Horse
The animal of the mongolians, used for riding but also as food

Buildings:
- Ger Tereg (main building)
The main building of the mongolians. It's a yurt trained by cows, in the future it will be able to go around (very slowly) to run away from the battle (moving it it will cost you money)
- Yurt
The basic building of the mongolians.
- Healing stone
Built by the shaman it will have a good amount of hp and it will heal all the mongolian, except the chinese engineer, units within a range (that i have still to determine).
- Blacksmith
The building where you will be able to do your updates to your units.
- Barracks
It will produce the offensive units of the mongolians.
- Training horse camp
This building will produce horse, without it you wont be able to get food and you wont be able to use units that use the horses
- Port
The building where you will be able to build fireships.

Upgrdates:
- Gunpowder
Necessary to use the chinese engineer, without this update you wont be able to use many units of this faction.
- Stronger arrows
With this update archers will become stronger in attack.

Not for some features are not available in megaglest yet, i will add them when megaglest support those features

A gallery with some of the units (untextured):

Archer:


Gobi Golem:


Worker:


Incendiary Bird:


Fireship:


Yurt:

Horse Training Camp:

Blacksmith:

Healing stone:

Desert Worm Rider:

Fireworks launcher:


*Note about the yurt, the healing rock and the desert worm rider*:
- Mongolian tents (yurt) are very similar, so yurt,ger tereg (a yurt mounted on wheels and pulled by cows) and blacksmith, have all the same base (a normal yurt) but dont worry they wont look all the same or boring! I will add "frills" to make them looking more different, and every building will have a different style to show the team colour.

-The healing rock while looking simply i think it will be nice when textured, because i will add to the rock texture nice mongolian words written in mongolic script and they will be used as team colour

- At the moment the desert worm rider is without rider XD Because i still have to figure out how i can import a blender file into another, (this thing applies also for the other units made by "2 units", like the chinese flamethrower etc.) i plan to add the missing units when i figure out how i can import a blender file into another, if someone knows how to do it please tell me it

[Zhook]

Please, post url to download faction.
And(technical moment) what version of blender do you use for g3d modelling?

[Pizza90]

I am still working on the faction! The faction is far from being done, i have to finish to model my units,texture them animate them and write the xml stuff

About blender i use the 2.63, i am using lucid lynx and there is no stable ppa for it so i use a workaround which consists in using a daily ppa and updating blender just when a new stable is out

[ElimiNator]

Sounds cool, I hope you will be able to finish this. Many people post such stuff and never post a download.

[titi_son]

Nice Faction idea  . I always thought " when will Pizza90 start making a faction", because you always wanted to do something for mg but you didn't know what or how to.

Not for some features are not available in megaglest yet, i will add them when megaglest support those features

I think only "water units" aren't available yet. The Rest you can do with megaglest already!

and i think you mean upgrades and not updates 

[Tyrannosaurus]

If I may offer a critique of the meshes, the human units could use some slimming around the waist. Otherwise good progress!

[Pizza90]

Thanks all for for the compliments

@ElimiNator: yes that's true, but i am very motivated, even if the development wont go very fast because i have a lot of things to do (as i said finishing to model,texture,and learn how to animate and write the xml things)

@PT: thanks! Yes that's true i hae searched informations about how to use blender etc. for more than a month XD Actually from what i have understood the things that are not yet implemented in megaglest (and that i want to use in this faction) are:

- water units
- automatic healing of units in the range of a unit/building
- picking a random number every x attacks and get a random cause (could be a morph,or other things).

I dont know if you can have a building that moves (maybe yes?) the first version of the Ger Tereg wont be able to go around i think because i have higher priorities for the mod. And yes i meant "upgrades" not "updates" i will correct it

@Tyrannosaurus: Thanks to you too. Yes i noticed it too! I will fix it before to texture them I used a different way to model (i made a left side with half body 1 leg and 1 arm, then doubled it, bridged the two parts and added a head) and surely there is space for improvements i will polish the more i can. By the way your Nubian mod seems very promising and you have great 2D skill! When your faction will be finished i will sure play it By the way, are you african? You seem to know very well the Nubian history etc.

I will soon post more pictures of my new models!

[Tyrannosaurus]

By the way, are you african? You seem to know very well the Nubian history etc.

I'm not black if that's what you mean by "African", but yes, I do have an interest in African history. It started with Egypt in second grade but has since expanded to more southerly parts of the continent. And thanks for the encouraging words!

[wyvern]

I like the faction concept, but I feel that the faction could have more variety of human/cavalry units perhaps making the faction all cavalry based with the exception of foot archers would be a nice touch, adding a lancer or mounted maceman or something could be cool and the mounted swordman could be dropped to a fast, basic combat unit like the tech swordman

Also, stronger arrows sounds like a funny name for an upgrade, perhaps renaming it "recurve bows" or something would make it sound more realistic. Either way, good luck, and I cant wait to see this mod finished and working

[Pizza90]

@Tyrannosaurus: Yes i meant if you were black/african/living in africa And you are welcome!

@Wyvern: Thanks! I feel that having too many humans/cavalry units would make the faction too much all the same (by the way i have problems at modelling horses -___-)  that's why i wanted to add more variety, however the mod is not finished and i am open to improvements/new ideas Yes "stronger arrows" is a funny name XD But it's just a "sketch name" i will change it for the final version, i just needed a quick name for the techtree.

ps: i added new pictures of my units 

[Ishmaru]

To answer your question Pizza90, Yes MegaGlest supports healing units nearby, through the use of attack boosts. If you need an example look at the factories in Annex, they heal any allied vehicle within 5 spaces of the factory.

And you could have moving buildings, but note you cannot use cell maps with them.

Good luck with mod!

[Tyrannosaurus]

I really like the yurt buildings!

[Hagekura]

It's great you've started making a faction.
Texturing is the most hardest part for me too when making a model for glest. Forza!

@Tyrannosaurus: Thanks to you too. Yes i noticed it too! I will fix it before to texture them I used a different way to model (i made a left side with half body 1 leg and 1 arm, then doubled it, bridged the two parts and added a head)

You can also use mirror modifier to make a symmetrical object in blender.
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.4/Manual/Modifiers/Generate/Mirror
I usually make fundamental parts(Body, legs, arms, head) of my model with mirror modifier, after that apply mirror modifier and add asymmetrical parts.

I saw screenshots of your models. I like fireworks launcher. also the buildings models are looks nice.
Now then, I have an advice about models that you shouldn't divide object too much. For cylinder part of tents, I think even around 12~16 verticles looks round enough for in-game. keeping object with minimal verticles will also helps you editing them more easily.

For humanoid models, if you have a time, I suggest you to watch them:

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http://fineart.sk/photo-references/figure-drawing-all-its-worth-andrew-loomis/012
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http://fineart.sk/photo-references/figure-drawing-all-its-worth-andrew-loomis/063
of course you don't have to know correct anatomical details for making models for glest, but it will helps.

By the way I have some books that describe about mongolian soldiers, so I want to scan and post them in later.

[Pizza90]

Thanks all for the compliments

@Hagekura: Grazie mille! Yes texturing is hard, i thought it was the easiest part but i was wrong! Luckily blender has the "smart unwrap" function so at the least i don't have to select manually all the faces XD Thanks for the links, those draws could be useful! About the number of faces, i think in blender (you use blender right?) there is an option to remove the unnecessary faces, do you know how to do it? And thanks for the pictures you will post! I have some good pictures about mongolians i found on internet but yours are welcome too! Do you have tipps for horses? I made some horse models but they all have fat legs :/ and i dont want to use someone else models (i prefer making my own models). I can't wait to play mongolians vs japaneses 

[John.d.h]

For bringing a model from one blender scene to another, you want file > append.

[Hagekura]

Thanks all for the compliments

@Hagekura: Grazie mille! Yes texturing is hard, i thought it was the easiest part but i was wrong! Luckily blender has the "smart unwrap" function so at the least i don't have to select manually all the faces XD Thanks for the links, those draws could be useful! About the number of faces, i think in blender (you use blender right?) there is an option to remove the unnecessary faces, do you know how to do it? And thanks for the pictures you will post! I have some good pictures about mongolians i found on internet but yours are welcome too! Do you have tipps for horses? I made some horse models but they all have fat legs :/ and i dont want to use someone else models (i prefer making my own models). I can't wait to play mongolians vs japaneses 

Yeah I use blender （I'm still using 2.49b ） plus photoshop for painting textures.
I don't know much about options to remove unnecessary faces, but maybe blender has some sort of that functions.
About tips for horses, an american artist Jack Hamm's book "How to draw animals" is a fantastic introduction for rendering animals include horses. I'm also learning about horses with this book.

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I'm looking forward to play mongolians vs japanese too. along with Mr.war's the great ming faction, we could have some interesting match with three eastern-asian factions.

[Hagekura]

So they are pictures of mongol soldiers scanned from books I have.
sorry for bad quality of images and bad translations of the descriptions due to my poor english skill.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/259/mongol1.png/][IMG]http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/2679/mongol1.th.png[/img][/URL]Left: Mongolian Horse Archer
From their childhood, mongolians trained with horse riding and archery, and they consisted cavalry corps with superior archery techniques. their armor is very light. Some wealthy men of them wore armor patched with metal plates, but their true source of strongness is a mobility, so they prefered to wear very light armors. Their underwear are made by silk, their long coats are felt, and leather cuirass.
Silk clothes are expensive, but elastic, and when wounded, the silk clothes press the wound and stops bleeding. so they prefered to wear them more than heavy armors.

Right: Mangudai(Special Attack Troop)
"Mangudai" are light-cavalry. Their task is to bring enemy force into prepared traps of mongolian main forces. So to speak, their task is to be used as a decoy. When encounter with enemies, Mangudai release arrows and fallback immediately. They are even break ranks purposely when fallback, to provoke enemy pursuit. the enemies pursue mangudai unwary trapped into mongolian main forces. Like racehorses today, mangudai's horse kicking strap was attached near the saddle, to lift the rider's hip.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/189/mongol2.png/][IMG]http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/1310/mongol2.th.png[/img][/URL]Left: Mongolian Heavy cavalry
Mongolian heavy cavalry were used to finish the enemy force wavered by arrow attacks. They equipped 4meters long lances, and single-edged scimitars, and bows. Both rider and horse were armored with Lamellar armours, and wore mongolian boots which have curved up front tip.

Right: Kheshig
"Kheshig" are true elites of mongolian armies, only the choosen best soldiers could be Kheshig. When Kheshig first appears in record of early 13th, Kheshig consisted by 1500 men, but when Genghis Khan became a leader of mongols, members of Khesig was 10000. Their military organization was called "Keshiktei", which main role is as bodyguards of Great Khan, but Keshiktei also worked as an leader development institution of mongolian officers. Khesig soldiers wear heavy armours, which means they are not only chosen elite soldiers, but they also are wealthy nobles suitable to be officers.

[Pizza90]

@john.d: thanks for the tip i will try to see if i find that option!

@Hagekura: grazie mille! Those images are great! I hope they will help me to make better models (especially for the horses models). I didnt know mongolians had also a "light" version of horsemen without an armour! I found only pics with heavy armours on them! So now i was thinking to make the horsemen "light" and then make an upgrade to add them the armour

[Hagekura]

Prego!
And here is a picture about mongolian siege weapons from the same book.
Later I will post some more pictures of mongols and chinese soldiers from another books, I hope they will help your work.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/mongol3.png/][IMG]http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/5678/mongol3.th.png[/img][/URL]
Upper-left:Pao
"砲(Pao)". The" Pao" is a chinese human-powered catapult. Multiple ropes are attached on one side of the bracketing, and throw the projectiles such as stones by pulling the ropes all together.

Lower-left:Hui hui pao
"回回砲(Hui hui pao)". "Hui hui pao" is a persian trebuchet. It throws the stones by the power of counterweight. The waterwheel like wheels depicted in the illustration is used to lift a weight. Man walks inside the wheel and rotate the wheel to raise up weight. This mechanics was used in the ancient roman construction cranes, maybe it was introduced from romans via persia.

Upper-right:Ballista
Chinese had the ballista called "床子弩(Chuangzi Nu)". It's a large-sized crossbow using restoring force of bow strings.
Meanwhile, persian used Ballistas using "torsion springs" mechanics . They are smaller ballistas and they could throw 1kg stone projectiles with range of 100 meters, and more larger ones of them could throw 10kg projectiles with range of 150 meters.
Mongols used and improved the ballistas, and by the improvement their shooting range even reached to 350 meters. They used the ballistas in siege warfares, furthermore they also used them in field battles.

Lower-right:Invention of Gunpowder.
Gunpowder was invented at china at least in late 10th centuries, there even are some reports of 7th centuries that mention about gunpowders. Mongols get gunpowders after invading china.
In Mongol invasions of Japan, mongols used grenade like bombs.
Later gunpowders spread into a western world from eastern europeans made contacts with mongols.

[Hagekura]

Here are another illusts about mongolian warriors and warriors of Yuan Dynasty of China.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/31/mongol4.png/][IMG]http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/5279/mongol4.th.png[/img][/URL]Mongolian Heavy Cavalry (13th centuries)
The mongolian warrior depicted in the illust has a battle standard of the leader of the Xiongnu, Touman Chanyu(Tumen). They were different from at all points from western knights. Their basic tactics is, weaken the enemy by skirmish with arrow attacks, and when the time is right, engage the enemy by lance charge. It is not depicted in the illust but they had small round shield at their left forearm.
Their equipments includes backup bows and strings. Their bow was composited from multiple materials. the bow's characteristic "C" curve occurs by stretching the bow string strongly.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/266/mongol5.png/][IMG]http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1323/mongol5.th.png[/img][/URL]Mongolian horse archers ride steppe pony.
The steppe pony had narrow length of stride but runs very steadily, and very tough. The steppe ponies were very important war equipments for mongolians. The noticeable thing is that the horse does not use breast strap which european knights required.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/gen1q.png/][IMG]http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9453/gen1q.th.png[/img][/URL]Cavalry of Yuan Dynasty.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/69/gen2y.png/][IMG]http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/519/gen2y.th.png[/img][/URL]Heavy Infantry(Left) and Light Infantry(Right) of Yuan Dynasty.

[Pizza90]

Thanks again hagekura!

I just wanted to give a little update, i haven't done much about this mod in these weeks, i have been busy and my laptop with ubuntu is "unusable" because of a bug with drivers on amd64, so i am using my old windows desktop, which is not the best to model in 3d.

My latest model is the model of a port, in the next days i will post a picture of that It's a simple model but i think it fits well in the mod.

Trying to use the option "append" in blender to import a model into another one doesn't work :/ does someone know why? or if there are alternatives to do so? Thanks all

[Hagekura]

Looking forward to the updates.

Trying to use the option "append" in blender to import a model into another one doesn't work :/ does someone know why? or if there are alternatives to do so? Thanks all

I don't know where exactly did you fail of append procedure, but  for example I post how I use append(in blender 2.49).
In this example I try to append bomb object from Houroku Thrower into Samurai retainer.

First open the samurai retainer blender file and select file<appned or link option.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/844/append1.png/][IMG]http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/4742/append1.th.png[/img][/URL]
Then select a target blender file (in this case "houroku_thrower.blend" file)

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/585/append2.png/][IMG]http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/5199/append2.th.png[/img][/URL]
Next. In this case I want to append bomb object from the houroku thrower blender file, so select "object".

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/append3.png/][IMG]http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2738/append3.th.png[/img][/URL]
Select the target object. In this case the target object is the "Sphere.002". and then press the "Load Library" button.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/526/append4.png/][IMG]http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8414/append4.th.png[/img][/URL]
done.

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[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/append5.png/][IMG]http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3365/append5.th.png[/img][/URL]

[Pizza90]

First of all sorry for being so absent <.< i have been busy but since a month (more or less) i am back. About the faction, the project is not dead! I have had problems with my desktop pc (the one i used for modelling), it had problems with hard disk and fans, now i am on my laptop and i have been able to retrieve all the models of the faction so the development will continue, slowly due my studies, but will continue!:) ideas and feedbacks are always welcome.

ps: Thank you hagekura for your help! I will try doing what you wrote! (by the way did you switch to blender 2.6x?)