By PF2K on Jan 27, 2022 at 5:04 PM
  1. PF2K

    PF2K Lead Developer
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    [​IMG]

    Today we are continuing to reveal various Indian units and buildings as they roll off the conveyor belt.
    So far, we have mostly revealed Age 1 and Age 2 military units and buildings. Today, we are jumping around the Tech Tree a bit. Even though it’s a little disorganized, this since we don’t create things in a particular order, this format allows us to keep our blogs on a regular schedule.


    Market and Caravan
    ==================
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    Max began working on the Market way back in March right after the Romans were released. It’s worth noting that he took a fair amount of time with the various goods available on its tables. A close inspection will reveal that the Indian market is vegetarian, which doesn’t impact the building in any way other than its visuals, which is a nice touch. You may recall that the Indians can hunt, but they cannot harvest meat from herdables like cows and sheep.

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    We fussed a bit with the animal for the Caravan and ultimately decided to use a Water Buffalo, which should be a nice detail unique for the Indians. Since water buffalo often host bird companions on their backs, we made sure to ours did the same, though she is perched on top of the bundle. It is worth noting that in designing this unit, we noted that other than the Norse caravan (a bear), every other caravan uses a lure dangling in front of the animal. To keep things tidier, we opted to have the Indians join the Norse in this detail. Finally, for fun we want to reveal an early version of the Norse caravan that featured a walrus.

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    Palintonon
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    In designing the Indians, siege units were a complicated topic. The histories vary pretty significantly regarding to what extent they used siege weapons. On one hand, many historians maintain that India was the birthplace of catapults (or, depending on your interpretation, some other kind of stone throwing weapon) and all sorts of other complex war machines. On the other hand, some sources maintain that the Indians used absolutely no siege weapons -- not even have battering rams -- opting instead to use elephants to knock down walls. Meanwhile, modern Indian portrayals of their own history (such as in Bollywood) often portray some absolutely wild siege units, some very similar to Palintonons.

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    Our job is, of course, to piece together a coherent roster of units that expresses the essence of the Indians while also creating gameplay that is compatible with the rest of the game. Along these lines, you likely have noticed that every civ has had an Age 4 ranged anti-building siege unit that needs to be set up and taken down (or packed/unpacked), usually a Palintonon but possibly a Stone Thrower (Celts) or Log Thrower (Norse)

    We chose to simply give the Indians a Palintonon. We certainly could have justified going in some other direction, though we are going to have plenty of elephants and prefer to give some nod to proper Indian mechanical siege, which is a perfectly reasonable blend of gameplay and history. Log-throwing elephants feels a bit too rustic for our taste and some other kind of contraption like a catapult would be difficult to reconcile with the Egyptian catapult, which is much lower range, deals damage in wide area, and doesn’t need to be set up and taken down.

    If you look at the existing civilizations' tech trees carefully, you will notice that Palintonons usually appear on the Utility tab of the tech tree, where they are trained in the Fortress, which is also in the Utility tab. However, the Egyptians have their Palintonon in the Military tab of their tech tree, trained in the Siege Workshop. The Celts and Norse, on the other hand, train their unpacking Age 4 siege unit (Stone/Log Throwers) from their Fortress which is in the Military tab, but they also train their Ram and Farbjodr units from there.

    The Indians will train both their Palintonons and Ram units from their Fortress. This makes them fairly unique in their own right, being the only civilization that trains both a Palintonon and a Ram unit from their fortress.

    However, for those elephant lovers out there, please take a close look at the Rare, Epic and Legendary versions of the Indian Palintonon. Eamon incorporated a number of Indian details, including the lotus flower. This unit is beautiful.

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    Guard Tower and Wall
    ====================
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    We started on both of these buildings way back in March, as well. We went through a number of iterations of both of them while we were working out the general architectural scheme of the Indians. From a gameplay perspective, the Indians will not be particularly defensive, since they will have a very strong in-base resource generation (with Plantations, for example) and presently we expect their Guard Towers to have the same upgrades as the Celts and the Persians, which is the Fortified Tower upgrade in Age 3, and their walls to have both the Stone Wall and the Reinforced Wall upgrades, in Age 3 and Age 4, much like the Greeks, the Persians, the Romans and the Norse.

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    All other civs have a model for their Guard Tower in Age 4. We will still make those versions for the Indians, but you will likely need to wait to see them when you battle the Indians in PvE quests.
    It’s always a little sad not to use the Age 4 models, especially given how amazing they look. However, it is very important that the Indians feel balanced and unique (and, again, don’t feel much like the Egyptians, who are a powerful late game defender).

    Capital City Decorations
    ======================
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    To wrap up this blog, we would like to show you a few of the Indian Capital City Decoration assets that are already made and polished.

    As you might recall, every civilization other than the original two (Greeks and Egyptians) have the following Capital City Decoration items in Vanity Island: Pillar, Large Bush Tub, Small Bush Tub, Fountain, and a Statue.

    Most of these items have already been made for the Indians, as you can see in the picture above.

    Thanks for reading, and we look forward to revealing more of the Indians again in the upcoming blogs. Please let us know your thoughts and questions below!
    All current and future content will stay 100% free and accessible to everyone.

    ========
    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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    BOSAIF, rtsgamer, bbgambini and 18 others like this.
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Comments

Discussion in 'Indians' started by PF2K, Jan 27, 2022.

    1. indianempire

      indianempire Woad Raider

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      Nice job guys. Loving the caravan and the walls. Still waiting for them elephants man.
       
    2. CrimsonCantab

      CrimsonCantab Berserker

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      Wow. That is a beautiful palintonon. Everything looks awesome guys, keep up the good work.
       
      Slyrevick, Andy P XIII and PF2K like this.
    3. Drag0nstarz

      Drag0nstarz Woad Raider

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      Looks awesome, Thanks a lot for your work.
       
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    4. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      Us not showing elephants is becoming a thing. We should see how long we can keep it up without everyone killing us.
       
    5. Slyrevick

      Slyrevick Immortal

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      I never noticed there was a carrot to make the caravan moving forward :)
       
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    6. goorz

      goorz Long Swordsman

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      amazing work , thanks for keeping this game alive :) Walrus caravan is great .
       
      Andy P XIII and Slyrevick like this.
    7. RekiemOne

      RekiemOne Champion

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      the little details on the 3Dmodels that change everything <3
       
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    8. purpleganja

      purpleganja Berserker

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      What is the water buffalo eating?
      Did it catch the lure? It looks like the bambo branch under the vase could have held it, but is now broken.
       
    9. frogs.poison

      frogs.poison Immortal

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      It varies depending on the civ - Actual carrot is only for the Greek Donkey civ. Celt boar's use a bowl of slop, Romans use a red target (quite funny), ect ect. I like how the Caravans are each unique and iconic to each civ.

      Now with that said - Towers and Walls. If I recall in the Roman blog post, https://forums.projectceleste.com/t...icus-stronghold-tower-age-iv-keep-tower.4435/
      Most civs also have an unobtainble Keep tower that's generally used by the AI (Most Roman legendaries have plenty of Roman Keep Towers). Will India also have a Keep tower? Also, has the Norse and Babylon Keep towers been made yet, or are they still lacking one?

      Finally, will India have a unique Market tech akin to the Celts, Persians, and Rome? In my brief readings on the Mauryan empires their roads weren't really mentioned, unlike Rome and China.
       
    10. PF2K

      PF2K Lead Developer
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      The model will be made, but it isn't ready yet. Same for Babylon and Norse.

      The Indians won't have a unique caravan speed upgrade. They have other economic advantages going on for them.
       
      Comecudemod and frogs.poison like this.
    11. Fristi61

      Fristi61 Champion

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      Looking good! Toot toot honk honk and other glorious elephant noise onomatopoeias!
       
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    12. frogs.poison

      frogs.poison Immortal

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      I would like to say that I am disappointed in that we will not have a Elephant Thrower which is 4 elephants that throw other elephants at the enemy for the meme values.
       
    13. CainProtocol

      CainProtocol Spearman

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      Oh yeah It's all coming together! :cool:
       
    14. Wade Lebron 36

      Wade Lebron 36 Spearman

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      Amazing work all!! Cant wait - Thanks!!
       
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    15. Comecudemod

      Comecudemod Woad Raider

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      Did they deserve a palintonon?

      Loved the brown color on towers and walls, the best archicteture for me
       
      #16 Comecudemod, Jan 28, 2022 at 3:23 AM
      Last edited: Jan 28, 2022
    16. frogs.poison

      frogs.poison Immortal

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      Not sure what you mean by "deserve". Even before Rome, more civs had palins then did not. And having a Palin vs having a Thrower is a major balance decision in both PvE and PvP.
       
    17. i3ackero

      i3ackero Long Swordsman

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      Woo everything looks great! Palintonons are excatly how I imagined them to be :D One thing I don't like is caravan. I mean the idea behind this choice is fine, but this buffalo's legs looks weird to me, a bit blocky. But maybe it's just me, or perspective and with animation visible it would look more natural :) No offense, just my point of view.

      Now we also know that Indians will have Ram. It's interesting and started me to wonder in what will be Ele units as I expected that one Ele unit will be designed to replace Ram in its role. So with 4 Elephant units I suppose one will be "lighter eggy" rider, "lighter eggy", gatherer and Juggernaut. Or maybe any relligious / priest elephant unit as they often (like cows) took important role in celebrations? Mounted religious/support units would be really unique and already took place on other AoE games so maybe if not for Indians it would be worth to consider for one of potential future civs :)
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
    18. MechSmith

      MechSmith Champion

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      I love the upgraded gates, for one nice little bit of attention to detail- the spikes. Larger indian fortresses often had spikes covering their main doors from 1-3 metres above the ground specifically to prevent enemy war elephants from being able to easily brute force their way through.

      My compliments to whoever modeled that, if you were thinking to yourself "will anyone notice?"... the answer is yes and it's awesome.
       
      Andy P XIII likes this.
    19. Andy P XIII

      Andy P XIII Moderator
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      You caught us -- we haven't animated the caravan yet, but he was ready for his photograph to be taken. I think this explains his blocky legs. Once he loosens up a little he should look more comfortable.
       
      i3ackero likes this.
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