[rdonj]

For the first question, 99% of all responses are going to be - get gimp. It can deal with .tga files and is very useful for creating unit graphics as well.

I'm also 99% sure that you can't make a recruitable commander that's unique and you can have 6 of them. If you make a commander unique, you can only have one of it. So if you want more than one unique commander, you're going to have to make 6 copies of the same commander pretty much, just with different unit numbers. It'll clutter up the recruitment screen but you'll get what you want. Or you could make them insanely expensive to the point where it's not really feasible to buy many of them. It'd have a smiliar effect, though they'd have to be pretty darn good to justify the kind of cost I'm thinking.

I am not 100% sure about this last question. My guess would be that a unit has to be a commander for autosummons to work, the other stuff definitely only works when it's a commander.