before overboarding soldiers from the assault tower onto my walls, I want to be able to dig ditches in front of them to protect them from battering ram! Really, i think that could be a fun idea, but the wall snatching need to be sorted first, as mentioned above

This is my biggest (and ngl, only) complaint with the game atm. While I personally think that things like building styles and combat styles should be more varied, different forms of slavery (or just different uses) would honestly be a good step. (An example of varied gameplay is the recent addition German storehouse wagons)

Icon styles in computing history went from simple to rich in gradients and effects (Windows XP and the like, "because we can") back to simple, but now with a lot of perception psychology knowledge put into them. Most 0 A.D. icons are very 1990s, even 1980s-ish. 

Hello, yes we've all been there!  For new players, this game inspires some casual ancient city building, but it's really about building out fast in the beginning. There is some discussion in this forum about how to make the game more accessible, it may be just about terminology (renaming the difficulty levels), though I guess modern gamers are also used to a rubberbanding AI that adapts to the player's gameplay, which is what bigger commercial games do. "No idling units! Place things well to keep distances short, running around is not productive! The first barracks need to be ready at minute 4! Your civ center and your barracks need to churn out non-stop! (Use auto-queue feature.) 100 pop (about 50 civilians, 50 citizen soldiers) at minute 10 or earlier! Then you'll have no problem with the AI opponent. (Phase 2 at around minute 8, second barracks and third barracks or stables before minute 10.)" This is the gist, in my opinion. Maybe info like this should be in the map selection screen. The tutorial, if paid attention to at all, also doesn't get that message across. It's not good "game design" if this info has to be researched on the web. So that means early game is balancing working food, wood, and building houses fast enough. When the auto-queue breaks or you have hit the housing limit you'll know there is room for optimization. There is an option to enable in-game time to be shown on the top right, this should be enabled by default in my opinion, because it is central to this game. You'll find each civ is a bit different, but not much. Romans however aren't exactly the easiest civ because they have swordsmen as the only melee unit in the beginning, and they need iron, so you need to manage that early. Usually (with other civs) you don't have to start mining stone and iron before minute 7. A few need early stone for the slingers though. (Also Romans lack proper ranged units).  

That made me have a blast from the past:   Yes, maybe some things could be made more distinctive, it would confuse me at the beginning, the problem is that one gets used to suboptimal stuff to the point of forgetting it (like ridiculously small font size).