Enhancement to freehand formations: units now actually order themselves by distance, and don't cross each other's paths. Nice when microing ranged cavs. Before : After : Committed for integration in R29 too, as part of https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/852 (use common sorting functions).

as a bourgeoisie of this scale, I must say that I divide people in classes by using petra: >1100 = can't defeat very hard petra >1200 = can defeat very hard but will be tough 1300 = can defeat multiple very hard petra bots 1400= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots but barely 1600= can defeat 4 very hard petra bots with time but easily enough 1700= can defeat 5 very hard petras alone. this scale is calibrated for a27 dumb petra,not the gigachad we have right now thanks to troops scanning for units even while attacking buildings (lucky if you did it in a27, 1400+ is nigh impossible in a28)

I think the biggest problem with the rating system is its too easy to "farm" points and then refuse to play against bettter players.  So in a lot of ways most of the ratings you will see don't mean anything.  For 1x1 it should be more like SC and you get assigned a player based on your rating, so new players can only play new players etc (For rated games) that way you cant get to 1500-1600 by only playing 1200 players I try and find rated games of ~100 of my current rating, but its harder cause a lot of 1400/1500s don't want to play rated, mostly cause they probably aren't 1400-1500! 

I meant unique champions, like the Mauryan Elephants, the Persian Inmortals, and the Mauryan Amazon women (I forget their real name). These units are a lot more unique in play style than the basic units, and I feel like because the stats are so generic across the civs, the game really just becomes who can boom faster, whereas fantasy RTSs often end up becoming more strategy focused with varying tactics against various civs.

Acknowledging that following call is not relevant to 1v1 and no-team matches: Don't forget the impact of Alliances with strong Team Bonuses.