Fabius

I was strongly oriented toward defense in A23 and have seen the decline in its viability since. you need catapults to properly turtle, which we don't have in a functional form.

Hi, is there a test version of A26 currently available or is it still under construction?

Hi, Romans had the longest range siege in A23 and also the strongest. Particularly their scorpions, great aesthetic and faster setup time, higher damage, and smaller unit template. For all intents and purposes the scorpion felt like a unique Roman unit even if it probably was not created as such.

As an avid bolt shooter user I can point out that the Ptolemies have a bolt shooter almost identical to A23. And its the most useful in the game in my opinion. Rate of fire is far more useful than more damage, they can already one shot most things with just 160 pierce damage. 240 is overkill unless used against elephants, the big elephants die in roughly four shots. An interesting idea, you could make a technology that improves rate of fire for bolt shooters.

If there is sufficient historical reason for Persians to have them then there is no reason to deny them. Whats more in the spirit of 0 AD which as I understand is historical fantasy to a certain degree, in that civs from different ages and areas of the world are all placed in contact with each other, if I as a Persian king decided I wanted an army of mercenary Greeks and had the option, I don't see that as being out of character with the game. It is supposed to be historical what-if

This sounds like a fun idea for unit diversity and encouraging expansion.

We did have champion javalineers in A23 for Persia, Sparta and Athens. They were all clipped for A24.

I have played 0 AD since mid A23. And I personally feel that there has been to much focus on balance and not enough on actual game improvement. Specifically I am referring to things that make civilizations feel and play uniquely. A24 was a net loss of Civ features for something that already felt like a full fledged game with differentiated civs, it just needed a little balancing to ranged siege and slingers and it would be fine. Then further differentiation of civs could have been done to flesh things out. A25 while nice is still just A24, now with a skirmisher meta, extra blacksmith goodies and better pathfinding. I really hope A26 returns some of the sparkle from A23.

Ah ok

Curious question about battalions, if implemented would that mean that the roman maniple checked battle lines are a viable tactic to use? Currently the only why to do that is by control groups. So are battalions essentially the ultimate form of control group?

Interesting idea, the concept to my eye seems inclined to encourage more elite armies and probably use of bolt shooters, and catapults if they ever get returned to usefulness. Which I will say I prefer over the current mass block tactics that pervade everything.

Relating to Bolt shooters, I've noticed they sometimes stop attacking altogether even though they are in a target rich environment, which has lead on at least one occasion to the destruction of my defense network because they are not returning fire at all. Setting them to aggressive seems to fix this but their default setting seems to be buggy and one does not always remember to do this, especially as that leads to other problems like bolters invading enemy bases or moving out of position and compromising critical areas.

I mentioned elsewhere but what about changing the current Legionary Engineers bonus from just a straight catapult attack bonus to rather having legionaries build catapults instead like they do in Delende Est, which is an awesome mechanic, the idea of catapult dropping someone is hilarious. It completes the roman siege inventory of siege walls and fortified camps I think.

Epic

Does the scorpion still unpack faster? I thought that got removed as well in A24 when they upscaled it to match all the other bolt shooters. Then added back as an arsenal tech.

Understood. In that case as a further expansion, how about borrowing the rank four centurion promotion from Delende Est and applying it to the core 0 AD Rome? With the extra distinction of applying to either Triarii or Hastati/Principe?

Well there are cataphracts which are basically precursors to the plate armoured knight. So yes they did have cavalry with high pierce resistance.

Its an interesting idea, it does make certain automatic third rank troops impossible though, for instance Skiritai commandos and the possibility of third rank Triarii( which I am hopeful gets added).

The javelin cavalry is termed as an allied unit so theoretically would have some skill at their choice of combat, so the lance cavalry seems a more appropriate target for not getting any ranking bonus since its a native Roman unit.

Why not also increase the damage of the lancer? And/or give them an attack speed equal to spearmen?

The Roman legionary and his scorpion carrying mule from A23 Still sad it got replaced

Any specific reasons Iberians why considered OP?

That seems like a good resolution to the problem

This is a bad idea, we still want to enjoy using it. For example I enjoyed using Roman siege in A23 and then it got nerfed into the ground in A24 onwards and I am still annoyed at that. I am certain there are players who enjoy using fire cav because its a unique entity for all intents an purposes, much like Roman Siege from A23. If you going to impose this level of cost you may as well not have them in the game and you'll have a dead feature and frustrated players as an end result. A better option is to simply make the fire damage apply only to buildings, setting people on fire with a pointy stick seems rather unrealistic, its not a movie.

Consular have no chance because of the high hack armour on fire cav compared to return damage taken. Cataphracts may still have a slim chance given their 1.5 damage modifier against cavalry and higher health pool, but I honestly think they will still lose badly. Bolt shooters no longer have the fire rate of A23 and catapults have no area damage. And infantry dies or cannot do enough damage to merit them even trying. As it stands there is no hard counter