Silvius Faberus Atreides

I like this idea, though I have to say that the depiction of the gods should be a little more subtle than in Age of Mythology... after all, this is a historical game, not a mythological one. The gods should work like a special technology. As for keeping favor, you should probably just loose a trickle of resources to represent the sacrifices. Were each nation to have three gods (which seems like a good number) for the Romans I would have: Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus or Juno, Jupiter, Minerva (the old and new Capitoline trinities, respectively) For the Ptolemies, certainly Ammon, Isis, and Serapis; and for the Carthaginians Astarte, Ba'al, and Dido/Elissa, or perhaps Tanit.

I would very much like to see the famous mosaic of the battle of Issus as the background.

From my understanding, a fairly large portion of ancient armies (or at least of the post-Marian Roman one) were formed of local auxiliary units. While I consider work on the AI and computer speed far more important than anything else at this point, I do think that this would be a very good feature for Part Two, especially with the introduction of the Imperial Romans. I would imagine auxiliaries as being keyed to the map at play, much like the Natives in Age of Empires III, though there probably shouldn't be little villages cluttering up the map; auxiliaries should be trained at a special building. The Imperial Romans should probably have a low amount of standard units and have a bonus for the local auxiliary units. Also, perhaps this topic could serve as a list of potential candidates.

My first suggestions: Something that is something of a aesthetic issue now, and will become more pressing once formation bonuses are implemented, is that if a number of units are told to go somewhere, it seems that they will just stop wherever it is as soon as one of the other units reaches there. They will not attempt to even gather together, much less actually assemble into phalanx or skirmish or line. One thing that could help with this is a custom footprint (like in Total War) that the units will orient themselves to. Going further, shall (or are) groups of units be able to be grouped into larger units or what not, like in Cossacks? And one last thing: while there are Hastati and Triarii, there don't seem to be any Principes.

Salvete, Silvius Faberus Atreides ego sum. There isn't much to say otherwise, just that I am now here.