I struggled with trying to understand why this game felt weird when compared to other similar titles. For a while now I thought that this weirdness comes from the Citizen Soldier system, but it's not it. The weird part is that your units don't progress. Yes, many of them have ranks and get cooler looks as they go up in rank. But, it's the same unit in the end. A Hastati is always just a Hastati (unless you upgrade him to a Centurion, a rare example of unit progression). In "Age of" games, you get unit line upgrades.  Militia upgrades to Man-at-Arms, which upgrades to Long Swordsman, etc. Scout Cavalry upgrades to Light Cavalry, which upgrades to Hussars. You get the picture.  There isn't that familiar upgrade icon below the unit. We do have unit classes, and this helps to differentiate civilizations. But, for me at least, the unit upgrade system is what the game (intentionally) lacks. 

https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/8410 https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/issues/8408 Germanic names issues.

I continue studying the code step by step.   I had a future idea... A ststus effect called fear that makes you vulnerable in defense (attack component) or in bonus to be convertible. Fear status. It would be a combo to force a unit to convert. It consists of reducing conversion resistance while under the status "fear".    

Yes the Germans are in the Game.

While the idea of putting troops behind walls is both historical and interesting, in the context of current gameplay it is not nearly as efficient as simply breaking the walls with catapults or rams, however there is the other usage of siege towers which is fire superiority, being able to overlook enemy fortifications and essentially clear them or support an assault on them. It is not like we can map an exact historical battlefield anyway. We do not build siege towers on site and then roll them up to the walls, and we also roll them over terrains they historically cannot go over, their very movement is largely ahistorical, so frankly I say add interesting features with the understanding that yes players will probably use it as an infantry carrier/tank or something equally amusing, but that is ok  

I heard they plan to kick off the release process for R28 this month.

I think they are in the nightly build now. https://gitea.wildfiregames.com/0ad/0ad/wiki/NightlyBuild