Adeimantos

I got the impression that you wanted to halve armor and double attack. If anything i think that would make melee weaker and make it more possible to win battles with an army of only archers.

Basically, this change makes infantry more similar to infantry in the age of empires series. I think you should apply the changes you propose to some melee units but not all of them. Leave the spearman alone, maybe reduce only the melee armor on the swordmen and only the pierce armor on the pikemen (that'll affect how much you should increase their attack), go ahead with the other changes. That way each unit will be more unique, allowing more strategies for army composition.

Maybe make the unlock champions upgrade really cheap, and eliminate it for dedicated buildings. Having to wait for city phase and then the long train time delay them a lot.

Increasing melee attack and reducing armor would make infantry more like Age of Empires. It would also make them better against siege (good), and more vulnerable to range cav (and jav cav are OP already). Reducing javelin dps should happen first. I'd like melee infantry to include in some tanky units and some with higher attack lower armor.

I've gotten better at using select wounded or idle units; press the key, then slowly drag the selection box. It doesn't respond quickly enough to be practical for saving wounded units during a battle, but it's useful in less urgent situations.

I like the idea of these upgrades, haven't decided how many of them i like individually. Maybe try a commit with one upgrade for each unit instead of two, just pick the better one of each pair? Maybe a poll asking how people like each upgrade individually would be nice.

Looks like i just missed voting. I would have voted yes on all the ones that are close.

I think pikemen should be unique by being really strong at melee but weak against range. Attack similar to spearmen, but 8 hack armor and 4 pierce armor. Also if crush gets reworked they should have higher crush armor than most units, so they'd be good against elephants and axe or mace units.

About archers targeting other ranged units, I'd like them to normally target the nearest unit, but when you tell them to attack a unit, they should go on to attack other units near that one after they kill it. Meat shield infantry and range dps should continue to be major roles, but I'd like more diversity among units, so there would be more other roles, different ones specialized in different ways. Pikemen could be a more specialized melee fighter, weaker in pierce armor, swordmen stronger in pierce armor than melee, a range unit or two should be more armored instead of only differing in attack and range; the elephant archer of course, but I think the skirmisher (peltast) should be too. There should be a couple melee units that have high attack and less armor, like the axe and mace men Kush has, and a cavalry.

I gave trees a short range aura boosting pierce armor and slowing cavalry, haven't noticed any more lag.

I tend to forget whether to start dragging a rectangle before or after pushing down the key, and sometimes it doesn't seem to work either way.

I've started trying to use that, and i for selecting idle units. Sometimes I get it to work, but haven't mastered it yet. I like 1.25 speed; my time is valuable and I'd rather have more of a challenge than have to wait around.

Axe infantry would have something like 9 hack 2 crush attack, 4 hack 2 pierce armor. They'd be good against swordmen (foot and horse) and siege. Kush has macemen, with only crush damage, so they aren't good against units. It makes sense to me for persia to have axe infantry and cavalry both.

If there were an axeman unit, what civilizations would have it? I think Persians would, Herodotus mentions them in the army that invaded Greece, and anyway they are short on infantry in the game. Who else?

This game does better than most at historical accuracy, but it's not possible for any game to be totally accurate. Reality is too complex to simulate in a game, and gameplay quality is important too.

Is there a way to easily change a units size in a mod? In bfme2 modding all you have to do is add: scale =2.0 to double a units size. That would be nice for a mythology mod, for making giants, great eagles, etc.

Not quite how I would rebalance it, but would work. With these changes maybe the spearmen attack bonus could be reduced. Also remember that infantry have the advantage of being able to pay for themselves by gathering resources.

I submitted a merge request, but got a message saying "pipeline #681930164 has failed." What does that mean? For cavalry, I'd recommend dropping jav cavalry fire rate to 1.5 seconds, and having a horse housing system where you need a corral for each ten horses just like you need houses for units.

Lots of good ideas in this thread, here's a few more. Ships should have a 'boarding' command, or there should be a type of ship that does this as its standard attack: it pulls alongside an enemy ship, allowing the melee units on board to attack those on the other ship, and when that is done, to capture it. Ramming. More use of catapult ships and fire ships (every ship could have the option of being converted into a fire ship, dealing damage until it destroys itself.)

Military buildings should only be capturable below 50% health, maybe soldiers should attack rather than capture by default, and you should not be able to delete buildings (at least recently captured ones). Citizens should have a dismantle order where they harvest the resources of a building. There should be an axeman unit with more attack against buildings, an upgrade that gives spearmen a bonus against buildings, maybe an upgrade giving someone a torch ability and/or fire arrows for archers.

How does the patch for switching weapons work, can the AI use it, and could it be included in a mod?

I prefer natural counters too, and like you're saying, what's important to me is to have a well developed counter system, not just lots of similar units where whoever sends more units wins. With 3 damage and armor types it is totally possible to have a robust counter system without damage multipliers, and I think we should do more to take advantage of that. For instance, the javelineers could have high pierce armor and low crush armor, making them good against archers and jav cavalry but vulnerable to slingers. Besides line units and counter units, etc i think some units should be more specialized and others more all purpose. I'd make the slingers really good at damaging armored infantry but really vulnerable to cavalry, while javelineers would be less somewhat effective against infantry but a bit less vulnerable to cavalry. Likewise pikemen would be more specialized against cavalry than spearmen but more vulnerable to archers.

It would be interesting to take the game in that direction, but it would be a pretty major overhaul unless we did it to just a couple elite units or something. Unless we decide to totally change course we should stick with making combat work similar to the way Age of Kings does.

If this game was going to be realistic there would need to be fewer units, most would be able to switch between two weapons, with major differences between civilizations. As it is, two different units often represent different roles or actions that the same soldiers would have in real life. With this system the 'rock-paper-scissors' system is an important part of strategy, and I like the general pattern Wow lays out, though I'd do some details differently.

I actually gave chariots a trample aura in a mod i was working on for a23. It might be better if it only dealt damage when moving, but I don't know how to do that. It basically makes chariots better against groups of weaker units, so you'd want to counter chariots with champion units like spear cavalry.