Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

It would be theoretically possible. The point would be considering which nations could have distinctive identities; merely because there were cultural similarities from one civilisation to another does not mean that introducing them to the game would be impossible. Personally I would find more pseudo-greek cultures to help round out the map to be reasonable additions. Areas such as Illyria and Thrace come to mind. Pergamum would perhaps be a favourite of mine since it was a prominent regional power by its own right. There are other, more extreme approaches that could be done however... https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/27864-april-update/

Well that's odd since they had roles in sieges just as much if not more if I am not mistaken.

It is fairly well established that perioikoi served in the military. I'd recommend browsing through JSTOR to see. Over time perioikoi, initially meant to supplement Spartan numbers, increasingly made up the military and even integrated into Spartan units. Neodamodeis were in all likelihood far less common as they represented a route for social advancement for helots, something that Spartans feared. If Neodamodeis were to be introduced to Sparta, it would be reasonable to allow them to be trained through Brasidas.

Valid questions. They would be in my mind be more or less what you said in the last section. Their function should not be anti-archer as a general rule and their projectiles should be anti-building, with a shorter range but higher attack probably. More siege could perhaps be garrisoned within them to increase the projectile count. The ram could then be an optional add on, maybe an upgrade for individual units. They probably would be quite resilient at the cost of being more expensive to categorise them as the ancient equivalent of a super-weapon. Of course to unlock their full potential, a player would need to train a few ballistae. Probably this won't change for alpha 25. That all said, any changes will have the inevitable effect of disrupting balance. Merely being conservative to maintain the fragile gamestate stifle innovation. That all said, I could go with that approach over the current iteration, but it doesn't change the fact that at the moment the game makes siege towers like machine-gun mounted troop carriers.

I'd recommend citing a source for that. Helepolis is literally what Demetrius called it, and this kind of design was not just for a single siege. Two ancient sources refer to contraptions of this sort being specifically ones designed to mount artillery and ram down structures. Since the siege tower to my knowledge is only used by successor state kingdoms in game, I would say that that this version would work well enough generally. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Vitr.%2010.15&lang=original https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/20C*.html#48

And yet the name given to a siege tower is 'helepolis.' Clearly the artistic direction needs to be changed for them to better reflect its historical usage. That's what the Rhodians said.

In the case of Persia that is three out of twelve, not a small fraction. Of course provided that other names are supplied to bring the AI names to a more acceptable number, I would have no issue with that proposal, but the immediate problem is that the game needs more, not less variety in some AI names.

Generally speaking siege towers such as the one used at Rhodes were more designed to house catapults and ballistas, which makes the concept of them launching arrows at all somewhat odd.

That leads to a bigger question by and large since a number of heroes are represented in AI names already (See Persians). I personally don't have a problem with that.

If wikipedia is correct, 3-4 m would be more accurate.

I think that while looking at a lance this size it is easy to assume that it would be of a similar nature to a jousting stick, but it is important to remember that cavalry at this time often lacked saddles, stirrups, and other equipment to make them effectual in charges. Going at full gallop would in all probability dismount the rider as well. The 'shock' factor was more a matter of the simple fact that horsemen engaging in melee was a rare occurrence and its success was probably more due to Persians breaking at the sight of these riders. The Alexander Sarcophagus gives a bit better of an idea of equipment (or lack thereof) horses had. The key takeaway to me at least would be that the lance was employed for the extra reach more than anything else, and as such, I would recommend giving cavalry equipped with this kind of weapon appropriate range to represent that fact.

Mardonius is a notable general who is not included in the Persian list. Cyrus the Younger is also not represented. Tissaphernes, a prominent satrap could also be a leader. At the moment Persia basically just uses monarchs as leaders. Satraps, princes, and generals would also be reasonable candidates. I have little to say for the Seleucid and Maurya Empires unfortunately.

Good question. I did a bit of atlas editor testing of sword versus spear to check results. In 1v1 the swordsman won with 20 hp left, which seems close, but increased numbers reveals it becoming increasingly lopsided. This came to the point where with 20 vs 20, there were 18 swordsmen left with roughly 50% of their hitpoints remaining. I would say that the 1v1 result should end with the swordsman left with 10% hp left. Maybe that number could be 15%, but the fights should be fairly close. This might make the swordsman seem comparatively useless, yet with extra pierce armour and movement speed, I would think their utility outside of this situation would be able to be seen. That all said, in the case of hastati specifically, a better situation would be in which the hastati first hurl a volley of pila, which would add yet another variable into the equation.

Swordsmen would be faster and have better pierce armour while still trading well against spearmen. Their role would still be slightly anti-cavalry focussed, having the ability to catch them out better than spears. At the same time ranged units could kite them, but those tactics would be less effective and harder to do. Spearmen being hard countered by swordsmen would be bad in my opinion since they lack the ability to properly chase and hence counter the primary unit that they are designed to counter.

That approach would be haphazard. With their current stats, units are already designed to have a built in counter system, and that would merely put it on steroids. As a couple critiques of Lion's system (keeping in mind that I do have a heavy amount of bias to my own) You list sword cavalry and and spear as counters to melee cavalry. I assume that only one of those applies? Slingers and skirmishers are listed as archer counters. What differences are there between the two? Pikemen and spearmen are listed as anti cavalry. Is there any other difference between them. Also, there is no accounting for ranged cavalry, which oftentimes plays a large role in the meta. I'm not a fan of swordsmen countering spearmen personally as it does not accurately reflect history. Legions were able to beat phalanxes primarily due to a flexible chain of command structure that made for more manoeuvrability; that's why at least in my mind the advantage of swordsmen should be that of an all-rounder, not particularly good against anything but not easily countered either. That all said, it's an understandable abstraction. If we compare with mine, I tried to consider ways of making the broad categories still simple and working along the rock-paper-scissors idea of infantry beats cavalry which beats ranged. Ranged cavalry make the whole system a bit more complex as there isn't a clear fifth category to try to turn the rock-paper-scissors into rock-paper-scissors-Spock-lizard.

Agree to disagree then. The Godwin's Law of 0 AD: the longer a forum discussion takes place, the more likely it is that wowgetoffyourcellphone will mention battalions. But yeah, that is a fair point all the same. Battalions or no, flank mechanics would improve the game in my mind.

A couple things came to mind after looking at the Romans. First of all, having the Triarius be trained at veteran rank again would be good; this could come with a +25-50% training time to make them harder to mass. Also, since there is a building in this mod for training Socii, the Extraordinarius should be available there, not at the regular barracks, since it is a socii unit.

Your concerns are valid, but I never stated that spear cavalry would have no pierce armour, just less than their sword counterparts. The point would be that they would be a decent counter to ranged units but not as efficient. At the end of the day though, just because one cavalryman kills three archers does not mean that ten cavalrymen must defeat thirty. The factors you are not considering are formations and the lack of many elements that made knights the effective shock cavalry of the Middle Ages. Provided that the infantry were disciplined enough, a frontal charge was virtually suicidal. Swordsmen could trade efficiently against cavalry yet not incredibly well. If aspects such as flanking were introduced however, cavalry could theoretically be counters for all melee infantry.

To clarify, I generally was stating that all melee cavalry should counter ranged units. I was being redundant, but in my opinion, it is important to have a clear, wholistic standpoint that represents the interplay of every single unit so that people are better aware of one's vision. I don't necessarily care for categorising spear and sword classes (See a topic I posted a while ago), but since they are an integral part of the game, I simply worked to differentiate between the two. Spear cavalry should according to my post still counter ranged units well due to their faster speed, but their lower pierce armour makes them a bit more of a glass cannon unit than the sword counterpart. Fair. My reasoning is that producing said units would allow for higher damage output to support heavy infantry, which should be the decisive element of most engagements. Another part could be them acting as a screening force.

I never said that ranged infantry would be able to beat cavalry. Ranged units could beat swordsmen and might be the best units to do so, but typically they would rely on a unit in front to be able to tank damage. Perhaps swordsmen should not do any better against spearmen if traits such as improved movement speed and pierce armour were introduced. That whole concept seems fairly ahistorical. I think that there would be some clear problems, but adjusting turning speed could make it less potent than you might think. There would definitely need to be some fine tuning with that to ensure that the ranged versus melee dichotomy would work in that framework. Definitely that is a liability to my writeup, but I think that it would provide some much needed differentiation. As I had stated, javelin units in this might work best to beat archers, outperforming their damage and not getting into minimum range; the major bottleneck would be giving them the right amount of pierce armour. Fair. That said, most of the time cavalry were equipped with some of the heaviest armour provided that they were fielded to enter melee fights. Peasant farmers rarely rode horses to battle.

Since some people have started adding to this topic, I thought that I might as well share my rambling thoughts. First of all, there are a few key categories: melee infantry, ranged infantry, melee cavalry, ranged cavalry, elephants, and siege. -Starting with melee infantry, they would always be cost effective against cavalry. Spearmen would be the most straightforward counter to cavalry provided that they can reach them. Swordsmen would have the best pierce armour of the infantry and a slightly faster movement speed than other infantry. They would trade favourably against spearmen and could potentially provide a threat to ranged units. Generally speaking this would be a unit that would have no hard counters or be countered very effectively by others. Pikemen would have as much pierce armour as spearmen at the most, and would derive the greatest advantage in fights from numbers. One on one, they would lose to spearmen and swordsmen, but as their range becomes an important component of the fight, they would become increasingly overwhelming. -Ranged infantry would benefit from the highest range and generally would do well against slow units. Javelinists would have the highest damage output of all ranged units to compensate for their low range. They would also benefit from the highest pierce armour as well. They would be situationally useful against melee infantry and elephants provided that the player effectively kites with them. Their marginal movement increase compared to their other ranged counterparts would also allow them to potentially close the gap against archers and slingers. Archers would generally boast the longest range at the cost of a minimum range. In general, having a pure archer army would be suicide if any melee units could close the gap. Their damage output would be nothing incredible. Slingers would have an intermediate range and have minimal armour, making them the squishiest of the units. With the lead bullets technology researched, however, their range would exceed that of archers, but that would only apply to a handful of civilisations. -Melee Cavalry would be best against ranged units and always trade poorly against melee infantry. Sword Cavalry would specialise in killing ranged units. Spear Cavalry would be a soft counter to sword cavalry and would also be a soft counter to ranged units, but their slightly lower pierce armour would leave them more vulnerable to their attacks. They would also be one of the fastest units in the game. -Ranged Cavalry would have lower damage output than their infantry counterparts but would also be the best unit when it comes to hit-and-run tactics. Javelin Cavalry would be perhaps the best ranged counter to archers. With their fast movement rate, reasonable dps, and moderate pierce armour, they could move into minimum range easily enough, let out a volley, and get back into minimum range quickly enough to repeat the cycle. Cavalry Archers would lack much dps and would have a minimum range, meaning that melee cavalry catching them out would be a massive hazard. Despite that, their range, comparable to slingers, would allow them to operate at a fairly safe distance while their movement rate would make that a fairly unlikely possibility. In fact their best counter would be ranged infantry, which would be able to effectively outperform them in a straight fight. -Elephants seem fine the way they are to me. -Siege are anti-building units, but the Bolt Shooter is a bit of mixed bag. It’s speciality should be at targeting clumps of units with its area of effect.

Agis has always been that way. I have several times argued against his inclusion in favour of other more notable Spartan kings. That also is reasonable. Also, since the slinger is a helot unit, it should probably cost 45/45 as well. Actually I'm sure that the Spiffing Brit would argue quite compellingly that in fact 0 AD is perfectly balanced...

Fair enough. I was generally just saying that only cultures that fielded large amounts of mercenaries historically should be able to do this kind of strategy in most cases. You are very correct in that there should be interesting options for every civilisation in the early game for aggression or defence, whether that consists of mercenaries or not.

Honestly unless we're talking about civilisations that were famous for fielding mercenary armies like Carthage or the successor states, I don't really see a good reason for mercenaries to be trained in the village phase.

I think one of the problems is that there is a total lack of reward for minor engagements. In Age of Empires II, scout fights are common cases in which players can work to capitalise on their micro skills, and even a small difference in hitpoints can be critical up to early Feudal Age. Cavalry instead are mainly rewarded by just gathering chickens, which was of course the primary thing that horsemen did historically. Much of this could be fixed by incorporating more rewards into scouting, which in turn could lead to early game engagements. Resources that can be captured already exist in game. The issue is that these are rare in most maps, and in fairness, it would be difficult to balance since depending on the amount of randomness, it could lead to a large snowball in the early game. I would say that one thing I personally find disappointing is that rushes basically consist solely of cavalry. I would personally like that to change; how it could be done is a separate matter.