I believe not using traders is a common agreement between players and so is not building walls (But they build mass watchtowers which is basically the same). They say it destroys the rush for ressources cause you nearly have infinite of it. I'd need a historical proof they weren't part of armies, cause IIRC they had some nice swords. Even though the damascus ones came way after that. Also, I think a good way to check if a unit is OP or not is too test in Atlas with the same amount of enemies (That can be of different types) I was worried that spearman would not be efficient anymore against cavalry but apparently ptol spearman are really efficient against ptol cavalry.