Grautvornix

Great stuff! Very clear interface. - Could that be extended with a "compare" view? (we typically have discussions on actual stats for unit 1 of civ A vs that unit 2 of civ, or these questions "how do I counter xyz") Could this be integrated into the "Learn-to-Play" section? If any possible accessing the actual valid stats in the very game version it is called from? (so whatever balance changes are introduced in the future , this view would always be correct)

Me neither, for me it is the magical mix between building something beautiful and functional, and win the war. And I do enjoy SP session for hours sometimes.

Agree except for capturing gates.

If we cannot decide leave the dicsion to the user! I like it.

My non-scientific ahistorical assessment: People on the lower end of society were always somehow farmers and sometimes ordered to do lumbering. I am not sure if in these times specialized professions were so common (like lumberjack, other probably) Don't take my assessment serious, please.

Just saw this beautiful screenshots by @wowgetoffyourcellphone showing a roman city built around a central paved town square/piazza: The game is rightfully famous for many things - but also for allowing to build beautiful scenarios. Just, if you happen to not use the ATLAS map/scenario editor, how can you build your city around a paved area? Many maps already provide such an area from the beginning, but you need a lot of planning ahead in order to allow sufficient space for builduings that can only be build in a later phase (temple, wonder etc.). Would it be possible at all to allow building a kind of paved area during the game? The typical issue would remain that it needs to be an object that can be crossed also by the pathfinding algorithm. As such it needs to be a building that, while visible, is not blocking and acts rather as a decal with a specific aura (e.g. market features, agora/politics, negative aura for files/reduced soil fertility). Upgrades from sand to gravel to cobblestone would increase the strength or range of the aura. If such thing can be implemented, it could open other interesting possibilities as well: building roads (movement speed), bridges (can be crossed by land forces but not by ships, can be destroyed by ships), channels (can be crossed by ships but not by land forces). Also we could designate/build areas of fertility/watered areas if the respective technology was invented. For each there could be technology steps (wooden bridge, up to stone bridge, farm lane to planked path to paved road etc.) Just dreaming a bit ....

Frankly, introducing textiles as an additional resource is good idea but you would need infrastructure to create that: at least specific fields that grow textile plants or corrals producing sheep, spinning mills and weaving mills. Adding new resource types remains a challenge as if would affect many apsects of game play. A while ago I started suggesting to add water as a resource as this could create particluar situations and game challenges in those desert oasis maps. see also and also a bit further down this discussion we go ntinot he subject of water as a resource and how it could look like in gameplay:

Isn't the bell intended to be a general alarm no matter if units can go inside that building or not? It does not say "come home to me" but "go, look for shelter" I fdo agree that we should have a garrison of 1 to a lookout. It used to be the case in earlier versions of the game. The intent was to permanently occupy a gaia lookout and keep it (avoid decay). This has changed a while ago. Now you can claim a lokkout and it will not decay.

Well unless this is linked to the individual experience of each citizen soldier: advances in fighting capability/ranking up would then coupled to an individual gathering capability decrease. Newly trained uniots would have full capability (for a CS) decreasing with each fight. In the end you woudl have an army of fighter pros that are not good for any gathering anymore while the newbies can very well help in the economy but are less powerful in battle. Sound interesting to me.

If it was for SP only, I would recommend this as an optional setting to chose from. For MP games I am not so sure.

Also in the game type setting wihtin the map selection panel (on the right there is Map | Player | Game type) you can chose a grace period ("ceasefire") for how long you will not be attacked. Finally, in addition to setting AI difficulty to Easy, Very Easy or Sandbox as Boudica suggested, you can also reduce Game Speed on the same Game Type panel (or alternatively from within game using the little clock icon on the left of the top right controls group.

@Obelix this is exactly what I was referring to - keep the discussion going - and sorry fo the wrong threat (bit off-topic) just spawned another idea...

@ThalattaThanks for this great idea for the Persians! We had some discussions a while ago about building bridges and could not really agree on how the bridge would be supported. Now if we could define a special ponton ship that can be linked in, say, up to 5 segments, then we might be able to create a bridge. And it can be destroyed like any other ship. Question is only how we could offer this as a possible option for path finding (topic: "objects you can walk on")

This could just go into the game as a kind of "game background" FAQ (with links to the forums specific topic). Not to be mixed with the "gameplay FAQ".

Oops! But - it does indeed say "Temple of Mars" (personally I never paid so much attention to naming when playing SP)