There is a merged PR here (for v0.29) that adds Arminius but as a name that will be used by any AI players in games not a hero: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/8784 The (long) PR that added the Germans as a civ (v0.28) is here: https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/pulls/7104  That PR contains a lot of the discussion / reasoning. If you feel strongly enough I am sure you could open a PR.  

For a few days now I've had the issue that some old topics appear under my Unread Content, and they don't go away even after reading them. It started with one, then two, and more and more random ones appeared until now it's sitting at 22. I thought it could be some cookie issue, but I cleaned everything now and nothing changed:  

Cataphracts should be slower than horse archers. They are a counter, but not a mindless one, tactics must be used, like pinning them down beforehand, or coming from different sides, and should be quite effective in combination with faster and lighter melee cavalry. When collisions are improved hopefully all this would work better.   This is the "base garrison" idea, proposed for siege engines, ships, and buildings (particularly fortifications). They'd justify their autonomous workings, look better, provide a default garrison, act as capture points, and avoid constant switching since their efficiency should depend on its numbers and would need time to regenerate. Look it up with the Search tool. The "base garrison" would also limit the constant capture of ships, since after the enemy base crew is killed, the mostly untouched crew of the attacker (rowers) would be divided between ships (as it was in reality).

Yes, multiplayer save stability is something the developers are actively working on, as desyncs and broken map terrain upon loading are known issues in the current builds. For now, it's best to avoid reloading online saves mid-game until a proper fix is patched. If you're tired of losing your progress to bugs like this and just want to bypass the broken grind, you can check out https://skycoach.gg/ to level up faster without dealing with server glitches, but hopefully, the devs will fix the host files soon. I hope this really helps. Let me know.

It was interesting to see how it all turned out. Going with "Retold" instead of "Definitive Edition" actually made sense, since they upgraded the engine and changed some core mechanics. And luckily, Atlantis made it into the game, so the launch lineup worked out well in the end.