wowgetoffyourcellphone

Good catch. This is probably the answer.

There's nothing wrong with discussing the issue.

I think base game should just go the AOE route and skip all the notions of realistic size, movement, garrisoning siege engines on deck, etc. Just have an upgrade progression (like in AOE). Light Warship -> Medium Warship -> Heavy Warship, and size the ships down a little for better pathfinding. The only "cool" feature I'd maybe implement is ramming, since it's just an extension of charging, a feature we all want for soldiers anyway. But other than that, just stick to the AOE formula for ships, because anything else (besides ramming) will be too complicated to get right, unless someone comes swooping in and wants to put 100 hours into it. Better to make them playable than to spend time and capital on making them half-realistic.

@Stan` @wraitii @Freagarach @Angen Is it possible to make this happen? Screenshots capturing the pointer (perhaps as a config option)?

I don't think there was any "realism" argument originally, just to make the merchant ship a little more useful.

AFAIK any treasure can be collected by merchant ships and land units as long as they are reachable

To me, Aurelian feels a lot like a Principate emperor because of how much he promoted the pagan Sol Invictus cult. Aurelian's imperial army also still largely functioned as it did during the era of the 5 Good Emperors. I understand where you're coming from (the Crisis of the 3rd Century would generally feel like a good dividing line), but I'd prefer to depict the Dominate Romans starting at Constantine I and his founding of Nova Roma and promotion of the Christ cult. With the rise of Constantine, things really start to feel different. Things start heading down the road toward Belisarius and Justinian. Definitely possible as campaign or Atlas units. lol

Agreed. It's like if we made a game about modern warfare and folks insisted the Saudi faction include female soldiers. Just an example. There are ways to include women in the game. The two-gender citizens patch is a good way. Most Athenian citizen women, for example, would have been cloistered inside, but there were likely plenty of lower class and metic women who had to tend the family shop or do some farm work, not to mention the pornoi (prostitutes) and hetaerae (companions), who were out and about. And then there were festival days when women of all classes could leave home and participate. So, as an abstraction, having a mix of female and male citizens can make sense. Mixing in female variants into the soldiery, there isn't much justification there. Though, we don't have to completely dismiss any female representation in the ranks, as there are a handful of extraordinary examples we can include in the game, especially in campaigns. And then there are a couple possible factions, such as Scythians and Xiongnu, where we can justify some significant female presence on the battlefield (or at least in some supportive roles).

Could there have been black Roman soldiers? Yes, but they would have been rare. Would it make sense to include a super rare black legionnaire or auxiliary variant? Yeah, it could make sense. It would be a nice little detail. It just takes someone with motivation to add such a variant (texture, actor work). Is it a bad thing that they have not yet been included? No. You can't expect an historical game to include every outlier imaginable.

Geoids are "round", which is a colloquial term and not incorrect.

@hopeless-ponderer I implemented the Cash Crops from your mod into DE! They are a way to "harvest" coin as opposed the more passive ay of taxes and trading. I really like it, and thanks for the idea! Hopefully I (we?) can differentiate the cash crops going forward for each civ.

Thanks for all of your kind words! The tech pairs have been a feature of the base engine for some years now. It felt a shame not to explore it to its fullest extent. I think I could go even further with it too. Here are some cool screenshots for y'all! (clicky)

It wouldn't look very dissimilar from the Spartan theater. Good idea.

Basically I hate how difficult it is to see arrows in EA so much I'm willing to settle for contrails. Lol They're not too bad as long as they're subtle. Problem is they're hardly ever used subtly. Lol

I agree. Also, cool for the Elephant Archer dudes to shoot at random nearby enemies, as long as the chariot or ele isn't specifically tasked to target a specific unit.

Yes, please. As long as they are subtle and not a mile long and adjustable for mods or in settings. Srsly. Let's make sheep, goats, and cattle capturable, and then give a trickle of food when garrisoned in a Corral. Yassss Kween. See: Delenda Est and Terra Magna. They could easily be added to base game. I think the Persians still look awesome (their wonder needs changed to the Apadana of Darius). The Iberians could use a higher resolution texture, and Carthage could maybe use some updates. Hmm, technically Hastati and Triarii are already "Legionairies," but I know what you mean. Probably need some kind of "Ragnarok"-type tech or power to convert all Citizen-Soldier infantry to champion "Marian" Legionnaires. Maybe a kind of "timed" choice that's high-risk high-reward. Yessssss. I would even make it an in-game feature that you can toggle at-will. A "policy" choice that can be toggled. WIP

I think you will like it, based on a lot of your comments.

Or maybe something like this?

Okay, so for "naval" heroes, such as Themistocles, I think it could be possible to have a tech pair, where you can choose 1 of 2 auras for him to have. So, he'd have his naval aura as a possible choice, and then perhaps a walls/fortress aura, and the player can choose which one for him to unlock.

Themistocles? I have an idea for him, but I am not sure it wouldn't get shot down as ToO RaDiCaL.

Good suggestion. Ideally, we could have a scrollbar there.