Fabius

A good idea if you intend to use experience as a resource that can be used to upgrade troops, but not for specific individuals unless you feel like doing micro on last hits, and we doing RTS not Dota last I checked

I want to see new features and a breaking of the status quo. The only way forward is to bite the proverbial bullet and assume you cannot please everyone. Whats more, there ought to be more cohesion and unification around progress, eg if an idea is put forward discuss and if it is reasonable accept it and pass it on to whoever has the coding skill to make it happen. You can't all do your own merry thing and expect your game to survive. lists, discussions, action, progress is what you need. And a unification of vision

The reason they get armour is because in this era the more elite soldiers could afford to buy their own gear and so it is reasonable that they get better armour the more experienced they get. Currently it is excruciatingly hard to make meaningful use of that experience bonus unless you are a Greek state with hoplite tradition or have idle troops in a barracks for 4 minutes.

True, I had forgotten that. Well how about the Senate house for Rome then? And other factions too if they happen to have a building of sorts for such things

Every Carthaginian players dream map

This is one very nice thing about Selucids and Ptolomies, you can immediately have a hero to lead your forces to battle, whats more they have an elephant hero that can level a civic center by itself if properly protected. Every other civ has to build a silly fort which costs a lot and takes an age. At least the Spartans, Athenians and Gauls have an easier time of things with unique buildings, I think Mauryas as well. But the others are stuck building forts

I believe the traction trebuchet originated in Asia and then made its way down to middle east and the eastern Romans who adopted it in part i think because it proved more reliable. The Romans liked using them for field battles among other things. Then later on it became the counterweight trebuchet.

Yes, Torsion weapons were generally a lot more complicated to build and maintain, and traction trebuchets and the later counterweight trebuchet proved much more useful and easier to build, and they could also be built larger so as to threaten previously impregnable fortifications.

It largely comes down to what would be most effective and simple to use.

A bolt shooter is in the same category as a ballista, I don't think it can shoot fireballs, though maybe flaming jars would work, sling arm catapulst would be a better choice for that. Also later era Roman bolt shooters used mostly metal components, so they could easily do incendiary bolts if necessary.

Also they would light and fire very close together so it probably would not have time to catch fire. Overall a fire pot would be a much more effective way to set something on fire than arrows.

metal plating, also its a long bolt so the flaming part is likely sticking out in front and not on the actual framework. Same way that incendiary arrows would work except on a larger scale.

Two because I would like to have a reason to enjoy using catapults again, and three for tactical diversity.

For use against siege yes, we need to be careful with ranged units though. This is why i prefer to add it to catapults, one because ranged units already have a lot going for them. Catapults do not.

Is that possible to code for?

Chiefly I would like to see it as a technology for those civs with catapults. Basically apply fire debuff to targets within a given radius.

This bring me back to the idea that utilising the fire mechanic from Iberian cavalry could open up some interesting diversification. Nobody has a monopoly on fire, I think it would be interesting to have a diversification in the incendiary department.

True, and would be devastating against a wooden structure.

A bolt shooter would be a safer option for shooting flaming projectiles.

A good point, though I belive this type was still quite accurate, the Trebuchat which also uses the sling arm was noted for being quite accurate as well. In rough seas though pretty much anything will be inaccurate, it must also be noted that in that age most battles would have been fought in calm weather and near the coast, so accuracy would not really be an issue.

The ballista can fire stones directly, all the catapults in the game follow this design. So yes they would actually count as artillery. While it may not be really possible to sink a ship with one mounted on a ship it would still do significant damage to a ships superstructure.

The force exerted by an axe stroke versus that of a sword stroke is significantly different, an axe head will generate much more damage than a sword stroke will. It comes down to the design of each. An axe head is designed to generate high cutting damage in a small area, a sword will generate cutting power over a much broader area but has much less weight concentration.

Fair point, I would argue axes should have a stronger bonus since they can comfortably threaten both man and machine at once

With all respect there are only really three ways to inflict damage, pierce, hack/slash and bludgeon/crush, if you want to add permutations of those you would need to add resistances for them which means things get complicated quickly. Your best option is to use damage modifiers. Its simple and allows for alterations using the existing foundations without bloating things.

Mace units maybe not, real maces are not the monstrous chunks of metal you see in fantasy, they are actually rather small. An axe yes, this I definitely agree should have bonus damage against siege and wood. The hyrecanian cavalry could greatly benefit from this. So could Kushite axemen.