submariner

No I havent really played any of those LOTR strategy games. Games that I played a lot and enjoyed which are from RTS genre are, Age of Mythology (classic, no titan crap), Age of Empires 3 (amazing in LAN parties), Command & Conquer Generals, World in Conflict. None of them had battalions, but also none of them had an option to have so many units as you can in 0ad, so I did not want to suggest any conversion to squad based game even if it suits very well in something like Total War series, but those are half TBS half RTS. For me that battalionish support of @Freagarach is featureful enough, as it adds a lot of convenience, which becomes necessary when there's a lot of units. Total War series has simulation element in those battles where formations and positioning and maybe waiting instead of charging or just walking instead of running, with polearms actually working based on impact of cavalry charge and whether it was light or heavy lancers, swiping infinfantry even if its polearmed. In Total War sense it fits but in fully RTS game hard battalions does not fit that well.

That's what I was thinking about custom grouping would be much more powerful than hard battalions. @Freagarach now thats interesting as I see something with "form", "disband", gonna have to learn how to apply diff.

Yes I got told so on IRC. Only made me think that different damage calculation should be applied vs organic, mechanic, structural targets as depending on terrain, but slingers had different pros and cons in comparison to archers Havent looked into them, but it's a bit hard to mathematically express berserker/fanatic kind of fighters capabilities, they have to be boosted by stats or to have some demoralizing/inspiring aura, but as you're historian and say that they carried shields its then again, shielded infantry should be more capable at defeating slingers yet its a bit different thing about archers because then it depends on shields. Just to clarify I heard that initially it was aimed that crush would be siege damage, hack would be melee and pierce would be ranged. But it could be at least 9 damage kinds using crush/hack/pierce types. c/h/p melee, c/h/p ranged, c/h/p siege so as defenses which might make it a bit easier to balance without inventing more types.

I only just learned that they are as you say hard battalions. I do not approve that being a thing in a main game as for large scale total war kind of battles maps and populations are too small and it's city-building kind of RTS. I only had in mind making custom packs of units of your own choice not to bother microselecting them later so maybe groups/parties is a better word for what I mean, than battalions.

I want some grouping of units as well but it might be too harsh against bots. Even workers grouped in groups of 5 or any custom number for easier managing. I only play the game on sandbox learning about implemented mechanics. its complex to efficiently place field workers and even infantry gets mixed up in melee/ranged packs. No need to turn it onto squad based RTS, just an optional grouping would be sufficient I think. And actually by the idea of opensource I think I should look into mod myself and attempt to learn something from it instead of my pointless ranting.

Reading all these interesing ideas makes me think. That it could also be a way to make specific directions one could upgrade, like specific upgrade paths defensive/offensive and/or just less broad, more specific but cheaper upgrades. These current expensive upgrades can be justified as they boost a lot of units. But more specialized upgrades like upgrading just spearmen or macemen or swordsmen, would make upgrades cheaper, allowing to upgrade just the type of fighters you are planning to use on a particular match. Raidable storehouses comes to my mind relating to some trading/logistics suggestions, but that might need some central storage and some timers or units relocating resources determining how long there's anything stored.

That I understand. But Hoplite is Hoplite, not every spearman infantry was shielded. However I've noticed that slinger does mostly pierce damage, which is also a perfect example of what you mean..

"Weapon Parts" "Armor Parts" might be simpler than a lot of different weapons

While I like the idea of stronghold crusader kind of gear resources, but lootable corpses or market itself exchanging weapons would make a bit more sense.

As I'm just getting in understanding game mechanics to decide where I could contribute apart from translations. If I may add on Spartans. I remember playing them and using their most basic civil spear infantry. As unit is shielded with clipeus it has a bit hard time in 1v1 fight against a most basic slinger. I'm not sure what type of damage slinger does, but I would guess it should be crush and clipeus is really sufficient shield to cover against thrown rocks, but the part where spearman was approaching a slinger was not any special, it was when they got into close quarter combat and spartan hoplites had shortswords and trained for using spear and sword and I'm not talking of the animations, but that slinger seemed a bit too capable in close quarter against spartan close quarter fighter. So I second "Peltast Tradition" I think it should add resistance against ranged crush attacks (assuming slinger does crush damage) And ofc maybe also Hoplite tradition