wolflance

New info abound~ The Cong People (a.k.a bald guy) might not be bald after all. The Chinese description on the left side of this pic mentioned hairstyle. The text describe Cong People's facial feature as “long head” "narrow but plumb forehead", "protruded snout", "big cheekbone", "thick lips" , and "narrow chin". The hairstyle of Cong People might look like this. I am not entirely sure this is from the same figure though.

Here's what I had in my mind (for a proposed hard counter, anyway) Melee Unit Swordsman > Spearman > Cavalry > Swordsman Ranged Unit Ranged Unit does not counter anything, and not countered by anything. Has lowish hp. Slinger : Long Range, Slow Attack, Most Damage, Least Accurate. Archer: Mid Range, Normal Attack, Low Damage, Most Accurate Skirmisher: Short Range, Fast Attack, Mid Damage, Normal Accuracy. Elephant Ranged Unit > Melee Elephant > Melee unit Siege Weapon Siege tower does not counter anything, and not countered by anything. Any melee unit > Battering ram + Stone thrower > Building Any melee unit > Bolt shooter > Any non-siege unit * For the purpose of hard counter, treat siege weapon and naval unit as building.

Ahh, the dilemma of all-wood vs rammed earth buildings...

I think some sort of hard counter system is good...so long as it is logical and implemented well.

You can check my picture on #19

I definitely would like to see that! I hope they can act like the Sensor Tower from StarCraft 2, but that will involve a lot of coding (I guess).

(China) Artist's rendition of the Fortress of Ju Yan, based on the surviving ruins. It seems to me that this fortress wall did not have battlement/crenellation...

This is a Warring States period shield of the Chu State.....not really suitable for a Han Dynasty mod. I just post it here for reference.

A turtle shell shield of the Western Han Dynasty. Left picture is front, right picture is back side. Probably only for ceremonial purpose though. @stanislas69 Do you have a clearer picture of that new helmet? From different angle (preferably)

Artist's rendition of the Han Dynasty Great Wall and Signaling Tower, as well as defensive traction trebuchet (I think). From Osprey's The Greet Wall of China BC 221 - AD 1644. Very few Han-era fortification walls survives to present day, so any visual reference is good reference.

Actually auto-sheep training does make (some kind of) sense. I am thinking something like the StarCraft Zerg Hatchery that pops up to three larvae, only replace larva with sheep.

I see. Now I think being 'selective' is the only way to make a China faction properly. Eyecandy (Note: His equipment is historical)

I just realized that part 1 of the Millennium mod will encompass timeline from 476 AD till 962 AD, which covers Southern & Northern Dynasties, Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty , and Five Dynasties & Ten Kingdoms period...which would be crazy if we were to lump all of these into one faction.

I am aware that most Chinese dragons are without wings, but I think (not entirely sure) that is after myths and traditions of Chinese dragon more or less settled down.

The game have a 'skirmish formation' to enforce the 'keeping distance' behavior, so I suppose other formation(s) could be made to enforce the "switching weapon when enemy too close" behavior.

I think this was discussed in Prodigal Son's thread sometime before. Personally I am fine with it if I don't need to trigger weapon-switch manually.

As with all Chinese source...it is hard to tell . I can find that tracing on multiple websites, but none cite any source.....it is a line tracing of a 2000 year old mural after all. It's name is 四神云气图, if you want to Google it. Some cleaner photo.

About Han Dynasty Dragon, I found a uncolored traced picture of the dragon below. Hope that help. Warning: Big Picture

Liu Bang can be considered a impoverished noble if you count his great-grandfather, but I get your point. I liked the idea of getting him earlier than other heroes in current release, since economic boost is more important in early game. The problem with training him from the farmstead is that I can't set rally point from farmstead. Maybe move him to the 'house' building?

The Ji are good now. Great job!

For (computer) font, there's SimLi, which is distributed with the Chinese version of the Windows (I am not really familiar with licencing, so I am not sure what licence it use). Another one is 漢鼎繁隸變 or HDZB_7.TTF, allegedly released by University of Heidelberg's Institute of Chinese Studies as open source, but I cannot find the original source of that claim (I can't read German either). Link here: http://www.certifiedchinesetranslation.com/fonts/Chinese.html (Most Chinese font sites do not care about copyright and licencing at all, so I am so flooded with 'free but probably illegal' stuff and it is really confusing...) EDIT: Hopefully larger picture of that Han Dynasty dragon. It is actually from a funeral banner...

Part.3 Unique Technology and Research For the most part, Han Dynasty is a balanced faction. They have good infantry, good cavalry, good economy, okay siege, okay navy, and weak buildings (ideally, as Chinese wooden or rammed earth buildings cannot possibly compete with Greco-Roman stone structure, some of which still stands today). This does make the faction feels somewhat bland (jack of all trade, good at everything but master of none), and I hope some unique tech could remedy that. Warfare Crossbow: THE bread and butter weapon of Chinese army. Allows for tough, hard-hitting, slow-firing, and easily spammable (train really fast) ranged infantry unit.Repeating crossbow: This thing is overrated. Maybe make it a research to give women (civilian) something to defend themselves with.Two-handed sword: Another (often overlooked) unique weapon for the Chinese. I dare to say at that point of time, the Chinese and Indians were the only civilizations in the world tho utilize two-handed sword (discounting falx and rhomphaia).Solid tree saddle (Eastern Han): First to use this, provides a more stable rides so...health upgrade for mounted unit?Horse of Ferghana / Blood sweating Horse: Imported (Received as tribute) horse breed from Dayuan (Ferghana Valley). These horses are what the Greek and Persian called Nisean horses, and might be related / ancestors to what we called Argamaks or Akhal-Teke today. (The number of these horses under possession of Han Dynasty was limited though, unlike Persians, which were able to export their horse) Reorganizing Military Treatises：Historical event(s), happened three times throughout Han Dynasty. First time by Han Xin and co., second time by Yang Pu, and third time by Reng Hong. Numerous but extremely messy pre-Han Dynasty military treatise (such as Sun Tzu's Art of War, and hundreds of other books) are tidied up, re-evaluated, and reorganized into a more presentable format. Decrease recruitmen time?Economic Borehole and Shaft Mining: While not as good as the Romans (I think), Chinese were good miner.Blast Furnace: Already in the mod.(Book of ) Discourses on Salt and Iron: Could be a paired tech (State controlled vs Private Enterprise). State control boost military and trade but strain resource gathering, Private enterprising boost resource gathering yield but decrease trade and military.Alternating Field Farming: Farming UpgradeMulti-tube Seed Drill: THE tech that is "thousand years more advanced than rest of the world". Farming UpgradeHeavy Mouldboard Iron Plough: Farming Upgrade Book of Fan Sheng Zhi: Western Han Agriculture Treatise, Farming Upgrade (again ).Tech with uncertain gameplay value PapermakingCompass (?)Silk Trade: DuhCeramics and PorcelainSeismometer (Eastern Han)Once again, this list is not meant as a 'put everything I listed into the mod!' suggestion. The modders are always free to choose and discard as they see fit. I will update this list if I could find more information.

Glad to hear that. There's a new announcement about upgrading unit with new models (and animations) for the main game, I though maybe we could wait for the new upgrade to come out before working on the mod's unit.

6.4) But what about this? I also recall that the Gates at the Dunhuang Great Wall ruins are arched as well. Although that could be due to erosion. Arches are also extensively used in Han tombs and the sewage systems of Chang'an. So IMO it's not unreasonable to assume that arched doors are occasionally used in some fortified structures as well. That sign is not exclusive to the Shaolin Temple but is found at the main hall of all Buddhist temples. Of course that means it's still very out of place. What you normally get instead is a unique name for the particular building which could be anything really. And yeah agree the font is wrong it should either be seal script or clerical script. Apparently I was wrong on that one...which shows my knowledge on architecture is really limited When I say removed, I mean removed from gameplay. They can definitely be reused for later period mod or eyecandy . By the way, is there anything that can be done to the crossbowmen/mounted crossbow animation? I believe current one use same animation as bowmen.

6) Unit call sign, decoration and bling EDIT: Ahh, finally all done.