Prodigal Son

Isn't it decided that corral animals will serve both as a direct resource (slaughter) or a tickle income (garrisoned in the corral)? No clue if training animals other than sheep is intended for the corral. Could do, but I don't believe it would enhance gameplay in some way. Unless some animals get better for being gathered from and some provide a better tickle, but I believe that's a bit too much.

Why would a corral built encourage cavalry spam? It requires extra resources and build time, it would fit for a cavalry strategy with the ability to train sheep and the cav tech it has, but delay it. Cavalry gather rates could be reduced (or the mechanic change in some other way) if that's what you mean, I agree they're extremely fast on it, currently I find scouting a bad alternative until any starting chicken/sheep etc are harvested. Playing almost exclusively SVN the past couple of weeks, I still find ranged cav to be the best all around unit (and not seriously disadvantaged vs ranged inf - just from playing experience, I can't currently recall their armor stats/types). However my point for delaying early cavalry availability (either with need for corral, removing them from the CC or making them tier 2) is quite different, it's not about nerfing them (that can be done in other ways anyway). It's about having fast units later on, not from the very start, as almost all RTS do, leaving any early rushes to slower units. That's also more historical as well, cavalry warfare was later to develop and get an important role and for most civs it was even (or almost) non-existent until the mid/late classical age.

Np:). You should consider it at some point though, the more people playing and giving feedback on test versions, the better the following alphas get.

Perhaps mixed villagers, (male or female trained at random) could work. It won't be unrealistic either. It would change some gameplay basics and require quite a bit of extra work though.

It will be released in a few days. You could also get the SVN version (a little more complex to install - also this should be windows only, I'm unaware of how to get equivalents for other systems).

I can't say I know too much on dogs, ancient dogs or ancient Celtic dogs:p. All I can say it's a semi-ahistorical choice, as dogs wouldn't be real combat units and at the same time all people had guard/hunting dogs. It's a design choice for flavor I guess, just go with what's already decided?

For this one I can't say I'm certain it's inaccurate it's just that Greek/Egyptian came to mind first as the most obvious choice. Which other ones are you concerned/tasked on? They're kind of a lot to check them all one by one.

Given that the population was mostly Egyptian and the rich/ruling class mostly Macedonian/Greek, I'd guess it would make more sense to have one of the two. Not sure on who did the majority of the land trade. They certainly had trade with Arabs, Libyans and others living in the deserts to the east and west of Egypt so I guess the current one makes some sense as well.

That could work as well. I've also suggested something similar already, with archers added to the CC only for Persians and Mauryans when (as they should) get weaker spearmen.

I've thought of something more in regards to cavalry. Since there's no stable for most civs (and if my idea of moving cav to tier2 is rejected) how about making the corral a requirement for training cavalry units. It's a way to delay early game cavalry spam and at the same time more realistic (needing to breed horses and early era focused on foot units).

So the decision is to have a desert nomad trader for them?

While some of your proposals are interesting they are too many to really reply to at once. You seem to look for detailed and justified answers, while at the same time the majority of your proposals are ill-justified personal preferences, not real gameplay improvements (writing much doesn't always make a valid point and very often you're far more clueless than the "amateurs/bad designers" on your target subjects). Sorry if I sound harsh. I might take the time to reply in detail at some point.

He doesn't look either Egyptian or Greek imo. You could try to replace his robe patterns/colors or use a different design for your clothing.

Thanks for the suggestions:) Could try replacing the textures I guess, it's true that others look much better. The water has two crossings, those might be better if marked but I'm not sure.. this way scouting is more important. The map away from the river is mostly supposed to be flat semi-dry grasslands so not sure pools would fit. I believe there's quite a bit of animals, not too much nor too few.

The collaboration part sounds interesting, the team should know more on if there's more to come. Formations, stamina, running/charging, directional bonuses are planned as far as I know. Morale isn't planned I believe, but seeking fleeing troops all over the map to rally them shouldn't fit well in RTS gameplay anyway. There's also a lengthy discussion on how much micro can fit into 0 A.D. gameplay on the last couple of pages of this thread if you're interested.

Imo garrison bonus should be further reduced (not by too much), and if structures need some bonus, give them more HP/armor. They currently have too much offensive power and forward building is stronger than most other strategies. The defense bonus could also give more response time when stormed by many siege weapons, in such cases structures die too fast. Ships and siege towers are even worse on that aspect, cause they move... a garrisoned one shouldn't have the power of several ungarrisoned. Ofc all this comes down to personal preferences, no choice in this (even well balanced ones) can make everyone happy.

Agreed. I meant that semi-historical would be to use them for some factions only. My desire would be removing them for the two gameplay reasons I mentioned and have the differentiation only through champions being the "professionals", but if not (which seems to be the case) let's keep them as they are.

If I can recall right, this is a planned feature.

Agreed:) All I'm saying is it's a game with similarly important economy and basebuilding to AOE (and tougher than AOM) so adding formations + running/charging + stamina + directional bonuses + toggle/active combat abilities + dismounting + w/e similar extra people might be thinking, is a micro overkill. All that would be ok in a game with very basic macro. Some of them could be added, I'm not against something specific cause I hate it, but since some of those are planned, I don't think more would make it a better game just by quantity. I don't believe AOE/AOM never bothered, the developers just knew their games' direction and what would fit in.

You add basic options in AOM deathmatch, not different combat mechanics:)

I'm around on the SVN lobby if anybody wants a game:)

While it seems iconic for Athens and other Greek city-states, the majority of ancient soldiers would be part-time levies. So I'm not sure on this, perhaps it could work as semi-historical flavor and civ differentiation.

If you mean adding extra micro based things just for deathmatch, I believe that would end up confusing. Having such features available for mods would be very welcome though.

Welcome MJR:) What I'd like to comment on is mostly your first suggestion. Eventually you'll get used to it, it's not that hard to manage, just different. However I'm also kind of against it, since I believe it reduces a lot the effects of tactics like harassing the enemy economy. Normal workers doing all the labor would also allow for bigger variety on the strengths and pricing for early units (like weak/cheap/fast trained Persian spearmen, strong/expensive/slower trained hoplites, without favoring Persian economy too much). Some exceptions like roman troops building army camps could remain in the game. I can't see it removed though, being one of the game's unique and core features.

I don't want an easy game, I want one with a balance of it's micro accordingly to it's macro (or the opposite) not too much of both, and as a personal preference and since the economy/base building in this game is pretty heavy I'm mostly against too much micro. If a simpler economy was used, it might not be that much my kind of game, but heavy micro would make sense. The game shouldn't be just dominated by frantic players, but have other ways for players to be effective as well. I favor realism a lot and the game aims to be historical anyway, but that can be left to having accurate units and civs, not throwing in every mechanic possible in the shake of realism.