I know you all guy have been waiting with holden breaths. I will synthesize some of Darcreavers ideas, along with comments and suggestions from others, and merge them with some concepts from my mod to propose a new gameplay for 0 a.d. I hope you guy like this. I commend you for reading all the way through.
General Concept
In general, most think there are structural problems with the game's design. I will not comprehensively rehash them here as there are a dozen threads on this topic. I
I haven't touched on the faction differences yet, but one can look at Delenda Est to see what I have done there and then extrapolate further. I'd make Persians and Mauryans more Zerg-like, masses of low-quality troops with a few battalions of high quality shock troops. of course, a lot more changes and additions to make civs unique. This document was just a general overview and provides the base.
That's basically what I'd propose too, just add loot, treasures, etc. and the trading