IMHO one of the things that contribute to snowballing is the lack of hard -or stronger- counters between units.   Agree with this too. I guess the difficult part is find the right balance to avoid encouraging turtling too much

In the meantime you can toggle diplomacy colors, e.g. via the button left below the minimap.

As a player, I'd like to share a few opinions based on personal experience. Battalions are interesting and well suited for large scale battles; however, for smaller border conflicts, they're probably not suitable. The same applies to scouting, and lightning cavalry assaults probably require more flexibility and speed than a tightly packed group of soldiers. Historically, it's also more suitable for Rome, Greek city-states, and some civ around the Mediterranean; I find it less suitable for other civ. Therefore, I think it would be more appropriate as an option rather than the default. I'm new to this forum despite playing this game for 7 years, so I'd like to thank the developers and the community for creating and contributing to this game. I hope you all find more common ground and further improve the game.

The only reason people do this is because you can defend well with CS and use them as the backbone of your economy. CS gather 3 resources better than civilians, so there is little stopping people from just massing them and then gradually switching to champions when they bank on resources, as you've said. Let's see how you'll turtle when forced to expand and make actual military units...or risk the opponent out-booming you with better eco units.

Oh, you're the guy who revived HC, thanks! Looks like I haven't explored this game enough. I was wondering if there's a way to allow multiple players to choose the same color. You probably know how, right? Could you tell me which part I need to modify?