Thorfinn the Shallow Minded

The right approach to that question is perhaps to look at the different possible variables at play. Namely, there is defence, damage per second, mobility, and range. All of these are then considered in relation to the cost and necessary training time of the said unit. Fortunately those last variables are constant in most cases. Generally speaking a unit should be able be decent with two of those categories to be potentially worthwhile. Honestly the difference between archers and slingers is more or less a false dichotomy; they had similar roles. It's trying to figure out a niche for the skirmisher that is a bit tougher since their lack of good range, defence, and mobility make their high damage output harder make use of.

Probably they should cost fairly standard resources. One idea that borg was rather favourable towards was having helots be cheaper at the cost of worse combat strength. This kind of practice could be extended to other units as well such as the Persian spearman. I would go with something conservative like -10% resource cost for -15-20% hitpoints. Obviously those numbers could be up for debate, but I think that it could be worth experimenting worth if you want to try that out as well. Fantastic work. My thoughts exactly. One of the key sorts of ways I think would be interesting to see would be something along the line of one approach making the Spartans be more like officer units while the other would allow for a larger mass that could be fielded.

A couple thoughts come to mind for how this could be addressed. Spartan hoplites could be a bit weaker in the Village Phase. Better yet there could be paired technologies available with each phase to personalise them. Yet another approach could be to make their training time a lot slower in the Village Phase to prevent them from being massed (which would be undesirable). Even another option could be to have the Spartan hoplite available at the Town Phase instead, but I like this the least. I would maybe recommend making a helot slinger be possible for Spartans to train in the Town Phase. For Romans, they could have access to a Socii slinger or archer since Polybius states that roughly half of their army was made up of allied troops. The marine could be a gymnasium unit as well. I always found it sad that they are only available on water maps. Geneva had a few ideas that I think might be worth exploring. https://wildfiregames.com/forum/topic/37979-britons-rework-guerrila-and-mobility-oriented-faction/?tab=comments#comment-422631

Glad to be of help.

For Sparta, they could just have their mess hall be available to build at the Town Phase (or maybe even the Village Phase). Spartans training Spartans would be a fun novelty. Athens might be a bit trickier, but at the same time perhaps the gymnasium could be available one phase earlier. I would like to see Macedon's siege weapons available in the Town Phase alongside possibly their companion cavalry. The point is that the stoa is not necessary for this. The heavy skirmisher would be appropriate for Athens and Macedon, but those seem more like City Phase troops than Town Phase ones.

I would have to agree. If there is no ability to produce dedicated siege units, there should be some way in which some units are better able to destroy or better capture buildings possibly through a technology. I would see this being a good choice although it might have the unintended side-effect of making players want to build even more barracks, which is the current meta and is probably undesirable. That kind of builds into another topic considering the extremely economic role of barracks, which is one of the key reasons why turtling=booming.

At the moment most people generally seem to describe the meta to be some aggression in the Village Phase, practically none in the Town Phase, and more in the City Phase. Ideally speaking there should be good opportunities for fighting during all of these times in the game. With that in mind, there are a few reasons I can think of that have led to this situation. The Village Phase has a wide variety of options with unit compositions. The Town Phase does little to help this and in fact introduces a number of defensive upgrades that discourage aggression. With the City Phase, access to champions and siege make pushes far more possible. Given these points, there are a few ways I could see the phases being more distinct and flavourful through a few measures: In the Village Phase, players should only have access to one melee infantry unit (typically a spearman), a ranged unit (either a slinger or a skirmisher), and one melee cavalry unit. This would help to first of all reinforce the general rock-paper-scissors formula that I believe 0 AD is aiming to represent. Also, it probably would not be overly restrictive at least in my mind. The Town Phase would introduce more unit types and perhaps some key upgrades to allow melee infantry to at least somewhat efficiently counter defences by either boosting attack or capture. At the same time I could see rams being introduced. One important thing to stress is that this would not be an iron rule. If one civilisation has an appropriate reason to have more than just the three, that should not be a problem. Likewise, factions famous for swordsmen like Rome could have that as their early unit while Carthage could maybe start off using Numidian cavalry. The point is that where differences are valid, exceptions can be made. I'll admit that these would introduce some difficulties for balancing, but I think that there is still merit to these ideas regardless of that.

Citizen-soldiers are by definition militias. The gather penalty is not necessarily the only option; having troops trained at an advanced rank (and costing more resources/having a longer training as a result) would have a similar effect.

The problem with changing training times is that it does nothing to fix the fundamental issue. Barracks serve a primarily economic role in the Village Phase. Some people might not consider that a problem, but to me, the average Athenian just getting equipped to serve for the military doesn't say to himself, "Whelp, better start hoeing those fields." Introducing a gather-rate penalty of some sort to units trained in the barracks would generally fix this problem. Suddenly booming would otherwise be done by researching fertility festival and training women or going with a suboptimal investment that would leave the player better protected at the cost of efficiency. And there you go. Booming would not be turtling.

It would make it a riskier investment since there would be a slower return on the investment made first on the barracks and then on the units produced. What are alternatives? What about economic upgrades or a faster phase up? Granted, the point I would make is that people produced from a military building should be better at military stuff and worse at economic stuff than those trained from a non-military structure. Giving them an increase in hitpoints like +10% while having a -25% gather rate would be a fairly reasonable start to make barracks units not be a go to option for expanding one's economy; those numbers are of course arbitrary, but the point stands. Villagers in Age of Empires II take 25 seconds, making it roughly 15 with 1.7 speed. Starcraft II sets training times of economic units to 12 seconds. That distinction small by comparison, but the fundamental difference is that every early game unit in 0 AD can work to snowball the economy, a large part of which expand the military as well. There is a reason; I clearly articulated that, but I will admit that it is not a solution I particularly care for. The point is that if we wish to reduce spam, decreasing training times is not the solution. Other options include increasing the cost of the barracks and/or increasing the training times at the barracks. Again, these would not address the fundamental issue (at least in my opinion) that I did point out.

I'll say it quite simply. All melee units should counter rams. Making spears, swords, pikes, and other types of weapons have dramatically different stats in terms of their efficiency of taking down rams is frankly rubbish. There should not be an elaborate meta built around who can dismantle the most simplistic siege weaponry.

It would mean that during the Village Phase unit production would be effectively capped. The Town Phase becoming a greater priority of course is one side-effect that it would have. The point is that unit spam during the Village Phase is a thing, and merely increasing training time has not stopped it. I would go for a different approach (like the change to the barracks mentioned).

The reason that the spam exists is attached to the fact that barracks can carry out virtually an identically economic role as they can to a military one. If units trained at a barracks started at an advanced rank or had a gather rate penalty, both of these would make the barracks a risky investment to commit to early on from an economic standpoint. I have pointed out before and can make the same point again; 0 A.D. has extremely fast training times for their units compared to games such as Age of Empires 2 or Starcraft II, the latter of which is already considered a quick-paced game. If we want to reduce the spam without changing the economic functions of the barracks, simply having a cap of 1 barracks during the village phase would do the job; it would have other effects undoubtedly, but it would "fix" it.

Dedicated workers could possibly have technologies in later phases that boosts their output; that could ensure that they would be more efficient workers in the late game but not make them a go to unit in the early game.

I agree with Dakara that removing the metal cost from Civic Centres and attaching a stone cost instead would be a good choice. That all said, the point shouldn't necessarily be about making stone a necessary resource. When was the last time a war was fought over a quarry?

Fair points. As I would see it, javelinists would be the best ranged units equipped to face infantry head on since effectively fighting melee unit with them already is fairly involved. Personally I would like seeing archer and slinger missiles doing pretty minimal damage head on, making their role one of softening melee units unless there are some units in place pinning them down, which would allow for them to surround the force. Naturally that's just one approach, and undoubtedly it would have side-effects. Those problems in my mind would be navigable.

I think that this feature in moderation could add some nuance to the game. In general ranged units probably could have little directionality to their armour by virtue of them rarely wearing much. Instead it could be focussed on melee infantry, making things such as flanking them a relevant way of countering them. A way I could see this particularly working well would be that a simple kiting manoeuvre would be suboptimal since the ranged unit would basically just strike in the direction with the most resistance. Instead it would be a matter of surrounding the force to hit their vulnerable sides.

Possibly there could be a case for some factions that are more 'civilised' using more stone in their structures; one of the Settlers games did a similar thing with one being more stone dependant, another being wood dependant, and the last being a bit of a balance of the two. It wouldn't change the inherent issue (if we call it one), but it would be a somewhat thematic way of differentiating one civilisation from another; it being worthwhile is another question.

One thing that does come to mind as a basis for why stone is less important in 0 A.D. compared to say Age of Kings can be seen in the fact that fortresses, previously essential for producing siege weapons, lack that utility with the inclusion of arsenals. Maybe the question could be a matter of how fortresses could have more uses outside of being super towers.

I have already argued against his inclusion. Agesilaus II was much more emblematic of Spartan hegemony following the Peloponnesian War even though his diplomatic stance in part led to its downfall; honestly he was a remarkable historical figure that deserves more attention at least for his extraordinary life. Athenian marines could be affected by a different technology; marines existed before Iphicrates, and having their existence contingent on him seems strange. The same could be said for Cretan archers.

Perhaps this might be a lone dissenting opinion, but having Iphicrates let alone Iphicratean like units seems against the central idea of 0 A.D. The goal is to represent civilisations at their height, which in Athens case would be most likely the timeframe between the Persian War to the Peloponnesian War.

I don't really see the issue myself. Costs can always be adjusted to compensate for that.

I stand corrected. That all said, just because a building existed does not make it a worthwhile part of a building roster. Undoubtedly people in the ancient world had latrines, but for some reason they are not represented. As it seems, the Stoa was removed for even more pertinent factions like Athens, but having a structure that served social functions and was the main meeting place for philosophers serve as a training ground for mercenaries does seem a bit odd. That was an underlying piece of logic behind its removal. Also Spartans can build multiple mess halls, so I don't see where the point about them being able to build from only one building comes from. That all said, I have mentioned before and point out now that Sparta could theoretically be able to build mess halls in the town phase or even the village phase to make champions a more staple part of their unit compositions.

In theory that is possible. The problem is that spears are generally always preferred to swords in most situations due to better reach; the advantage of the sword was its utility as a side-arm, not as a main weapon. The idea of troops using the sword alone is generally a pure fantasy idea (with a few exceptions).