Indian Dev Blog #8: Gatherer Elephant, Fortress, Age 3/4 Town Center, Gear Progression and more!

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Hello there Celeste players! We are finally back with another development blog. It's going to be one of the biggest ones yet so get ready to dive in.

Today we are revealing one of the many Elephant units of the Indian civilization, as well as their Fortress, their Silver and Golden Age Town Centers. We are also showing you the gear progression of the Spearman and Turanga units, which we already revealed in previous blogs. Finally, we will be showcasing the two main terrain sets that will be released alongside the Indian civilization: Indian Rocky and Indian Marsh.

Gatherer Elephant
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You might have already guessed or heard about this unit, but this is where we are finally putting an official confirmation of its existence: the Indian Gatherer Elephant is the Indians' special economic unit that is available via the Town Center starting in Age II. It gathers resources faster than Villagers and carries significantly more, but cannot construct or repair Buildings like regular Villagers can. It may also be subject to a Build Limit, but that will be determined later on during our playtesting sessions.

Being one of the Indian civilization's economic cornerstones (alongside the Plantation which was revealed in an earlier blog), the Gatherer Elephant allows Indians to get ahead in economy by the gathering efficiency it provides. While constructing Buildings is one of the most important aspects of Villagers, during the course of a long game, most Villagers spend nearly all their time gathering resources instead. This is where the Gatherer Elephant shines with its exceptional resource gathering ability, particularly for resources that include longer travelling distances for resource drop-off (such as trees).

The Gatherer Elephant has one unique upgrade of its own - also available in the Town Center - which increases its Carry Capacity, Movement Speed and Health (essentially its own version of Loom and Wheelbarrow/Hand Cart, since it doesn't get affected by those upgrades), but also another upgrade shared by the other Elephant units of the Indians. This is a pattern that you can also see with the Babylonian Ox Cart with the Reinforced Cart, Cargo Expansion and Iron Wheels upgrades.

From a technical standpoint, it is also one of the most complex units of the civilization, having more animations than nearly any other unit. Walking, Idle, Melee Attack, Bored, Berry Gathering, Gold Mining, Stone Mining, Fishing, Farming and Hunting, to name a few. We are not finished with all of these animations yet, but here's a sneak peek at a few of the finished ones below:

PF2K's Personal Note: We need more animators to help with the Indians! Check the last part of the blog for additional details.
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This is how the Economy section of the Indian Tech Tree shows the Gatherer Elephant:

Age 3 and 4 Town Centers
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We previously revealed the Age 1 and 2 Town Centers for the Indians, and now we have the Age 3 and 4 versions ready to show.

Now that you have seen all of the Indian Town Centers, let's have a look at all of them together, shall we?

Fortress
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We briefly mentioned the Indian Fortress in a previous blog, but we weren't quite ready to show you the building itself yet. However it is now ready for you to see. (after undergoing more re-iterations than any other building in the Indian civilization roster, in fact!)

In designing the Indian Fortress, we decided to go back to the game's roots and go for an asymmetrical approach to the building's design. You can see this in the Greek and Egyptian Fortresses, too. Where the Persian, Celtic, Babylonian and Norse have a nearly perfectly symmetrical design, the Egyptian and Greek Fortresses are asymmetrical, and you will see the same on the Indian Fortress.

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Visual asymmetry isn't the Indian Fortress's only special feature, though. It is also the only Fortress in the game that will train both a Palintonon and a Ram unit - in contrast to the Egyptian Fortress that trains no Siege units (but Elephants instead) and the Greek/Persian/Roman/Babylonian Fortresses that train only Palintonons. (The other Indian Elephant units will be trained from a building other than their Fortress, which we will reveal later)

When the Indian Ram unit is ready, we will show that to you too to finally wrap up this building!

Spearman and Turanga Gear Progression
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Similar to the Bowman and Ranger, we are now ready to show all the different visuals of the Spearman and Turanga units, which we revealed in an earlier blog. Eamon has once again done fantastic work on these units, and we think they look beautiful!

Indian Terrain Sets
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As with the Romans, the Indians will be launched with two brand-new terrain sets: Indian Marsh and Indian Rocky. These terrain sets have been carefully made using real-life references from various parts in India, and have trees/wildlife that are unique to them, such as Asian wild elephants, banana trees, and more.
Here are some landscapes from these two terrain sets, under different lighting settings:

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The pictures above are from the Indian Marsh terrain set, which is the primary terrain set of the Indians. The ones below are from the secondary set, Indian Rocky:

Help Wanted! We Need a 3D Animator!
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As we mentioned earlier in the blog, we are currently in need of additional help with the Indian civilization. Our previous 3D animators are no longer able to spend as much time on the game due to real-life responsibilities and as such, our progress on the animation side of things (and as a result, the progress for the entire civilization) has slowed down significantly.

If you or someone you know can spare a few hours a week (or something around that) who has previous experience with animating (preferably in Blender), please send me (PF2K) or Max v.R. or Eamon (Chaos) a message on Discord with a few examples of your previous work so we can bring you in on the team. Thanks in advance for your help!
(PF2K's Personal Note: This is how Eamon got in the team as well!)

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to revealing more of the Indians again shortly as we pick up the pace. Please let us know your thoughts and questions below!

All current and future content will stay 100% free and accessible to everyone.

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Project Celeste Development Team

What do you think about this week's blog? What would you like to see next? Let us know in the comments below!

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Project Celeste is completely free and always will be. However, we gladly accept donations for our overhead costs, which are larger than we have budgeted. If you want to support us, you can do so HERE.

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FIRST ELE <3

 

lets goo finally an elephant cant wait for the war elephants, love how the elephants just throw the berries over there head hahaha , great work guys loving it. thanks for the update

 

Hunting animation for the Gatherer Elephant?
Can it grab a tigre and throw it into its backpack?

 

Hrmm. I don't know why I was under the impression that the Indian Elephant Gatherer would scale with Villager techs and advisors, akin to how Wood Gathering Elephants of the Empire do (They scale with every villager tech as well as every villager advisor)

 

That fruit toss anim is chef’s kiss

 

Looks very nice.

Must say I'm a bit surprised that the Gatherer Elephants will be able to do all tasks - I kinda suspected they wouldn't be able to work on farms and with that I assumed maybe not on food at all.
I like the berrie animation though. But will they also work as hunters?

When I think of it I like the idea that it's more vercitile. You guys do an amazing job as usual <3

 

Looks very nice.

Must say I'm a bit surprised that the Gatherer Elephants will be able to do all tasks - I kinda suspected they wouldn't be able to work on farms and with that I assumed maybe not on food at all.
I like the berrie animation though. But will they also work as hunters?

When I think of it I like the idea that it's more vercitile. You guys do an amazing job as usual <3

it turns out that real Indian elephants help in tons of tasks — they plow fields, they carry wood, they pull carts. So they should be able to gather all of our materials.

 

Night lightning looks so good. Keep up with the good work Celeste team!

 

Both Aoe2 and Online getting Indian novelty. What a marvelous time to be a RTS player

 

I don't catch the point about symmetrical and asymmetrical Fortress.

It just look like cubes from my point of view


Can someone explain a little bit

 

Love the art direction. You guys are the best.

 

I don't catch the point about symmetrical and asymmetrical Fortress.

It just look like cubes from my point of view


Can someone explain a little bit

let me try to give an answer on your question.
most fortresses are point symmetrical around the x and y axis. in simple words: the central tower is perfectly in the middle of the design and all 4 towers are exactly the same. what we tried is to deviate from that design perspective and come up with a more interesting design while keeping close to the existing designs. we did this by placing the central tower off center and move it more to the back. due to that the building gets a clear "front" and "back", and this led us to a different design for the 2 front and back towers.
hope this answers your question

 

let me try to give an answer on your question.
most fortresses are point symmetrical around the x and y axis. in simple words: the central tower is perfectly in the middle of the design and all 4 towers are exactly the same. what we tried is to deviate from that design perspective and come up with a more interesting design while keeping close to the existing designs. we did this by placing the central tower off center and move it more to the back. due to that the building gets a clear "front" and "back", and this led us to a different design for the 2 front and back towers.
hope this answers your question

Ok,

I should see it by rotating building or camera

 

i hope it makes sense

 

*Happy elephant noises intensify

 

So I was seeing some chatter on the discord about the Elephant Gatherer's efficiency vs Villagers, but a bigger question in PvE is their efficiency vs Caravans.

As I have mentioned multiple times, Caravans have significantly higher gold generation compared to villagers in PvE - So high, in fact, that it's more efficient to simply spam caravans and trade the gold for food/wood/stone then it is to have villagers gather food/wood/stone, with Egyptians being the only exception (Due to a combination of multiple factors!). This is before the co-op factor, which boosts Caravan gold generation even further.

Considering that both Elephant Gatherer's and Caravans are both A2 units, this means that both units essentially compete with each other for the same role (A2 pure eco unit).

While I anticipate Elephant Gatherer's being better then Caravans for Food/Wood generation in Champion Mode, I worry that they will be nearly unused in PvE, outside of a specific A2 advisor that greatly boosts their impact, akin to how Amunet helps Egyptian Villager eco beat out caravans in PvE.

 

great work so far guys, can't wait to see all that you have instore for us, cheers!

 

Somehow I can see a Age of Mythology vibe here (if the game get an expansion, they could add Elephant gatherers and that monkey with Fire Pot gear - previously introduced on weekly blog).

 

Looks beautiful! Love the gather elephant <3