Yes, so "lancers" have +1 range over a regular spear, or 2, id have to check.  But than Cataphracts have an additonal 1 or 2 meters on top of that... but it sounds like the xyston is a long 1 handed thrusting spear.  Not a lance.. so I may need to change it even more... what would the advantage of a 1 handed thrusting spear be vs a 2 handed lance... the companion cavalry still didnt use shields... they were also still considered schock cavlary, but not quite as damaging as cataphract but also a lot more mobility....  lots to think about!

Ok that works   I am fine with that...  and if it's easier for you and we are working together time to time then I can switch it.  Most of the help I get is just telling me how to rebalance things and then I decide if I want to do mixins, more templates etc. So for cav later today Ill go back to a CS spear cav and a Champ spear cav template.  Then we need a shield mixin, could potentially be the same for both, whether its champ or cs.  The only thing I look at sometimes is the numbers, I'm a little OCD I would rather the repeat time be 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000 than 1215 We then would need a 2 hand spear mixin? a lancer mixin and a cataphract mixin? How would you break down all the different civs we have?  You can send a pm if its easier, and I/we invite you as a collaborator on the git. So we try and do this a little between mixins Hoplites vs regular spearman although they are both CS, just sets apart the equipment they would use, not really their training/professionalism.  Sometimes we use a civ/team bonus to incorporate more of a professional force.   We have lots of limits in our version. Sparitates are not one fo them though In fact spartiates and Periokois are what enable you to train more helots   You cant really have 1000 helots and 2 spariates and 4 periokois We have done this a little agian through some of the ways mentioend above. You gotta  a lot of good stuff here! I look forward to working with you more, I personally do better working with at least one other person rather than by myself, keeps me accountable.  But I also could NEVER work for some big corporation/group where I'm just told what to do and have no real voice

If you want to keep lancer template and cataphract mixin, you can mix and match any way you want. A cataphract is heavily armored by definition, that is one difference. What you should not neglect in my opinion is: even though both have strong charging capability i.e. lancers, kontos is a longer weapon with more reach than xyston, so you might want to reflect that in increased range.

I started mine mainly with some artwork. I plan to make it unbalanced by design for single player. I guess it is a relaxing hobby of sorts. But i will surely share any idea from my mod which may contribute .    I am a sw project manager, i like to simplify and keep design modular where possible, hence the suggestion. What i like about mixins is: you can keep common/major unit types, so unit types appearing for most civs and are significantly different in templates, and add small differences in mixins. But this is just my preference.   I hear you. The game should aim to incentivize historically accurate armies, and small changes in top to reward insight. Ideas i have but havent put to test to see the effects: 1) keep citizen soldiers we want to incentivize as they are, and make the citizen soldiers we want to downprioritize another category like allies or dependents, which keep their stats and cost but lose resource gathering. In a sense, they are unprofessional soldiers we recruit only if we need them tactically. This may be a drastic change but i wanted to consider and try. 2) or introduce allies/dependents, keep their resource gathering, but put some kind of limit to their number based on a set ratio between number of allies/dependents allowed per citizen soldier. In fact, such a ratio-based limit can be introduced for mercenaries and champions as well, with some civs having a civ bonuses or techs relaxing the given ratios. For example Carthaginians being allowed more mercenaries than other civs. I know limits are not popular in the game but a Spartan army with no hoplites is a travesty... 3) the mildest approach would be to introduce unit-specific generic upgrades, and allow each civ to have only the upgrades of units we want to incentivize. So in your example, a Spartan player will have good hoplites but poor javelineers, so will build javelineers only when they are crucial tactically.

It's just chat gpt summary so not sure how accurate it is: Companion cav: armed with the xyston (long thrusting spear). Sele cataphract: Wielded a kontos, a two‑handed long lance. So i guess in someways we are in accurate calling companion cavalry lancers... although they are still considered "Elite heavy cavalry"  And here its even considered a 1 handed weapon, even though they still didnt use a shield... this is where it gets so "confusing" and tricky. How to differentiate each! Feature Companion Cavalry Seleucid Cataphracts Armor Medium-heavy Very heavy (rider + horse) Weapon Xyston (1‑handed) Kontos (2‑handed) Mobility High Low–medium Shock power Strong Extremely strong Tactical role Breakthrough + maneuver Frontal hammer Best terrain Open but flexible Wide, flat plains