Thalatta

I just realised, even better would be for Emperors and Empresses (only) to upgrade to using an Imperial Carriage (which would be kind of slow). Some of its characteristics, taken from Records of the Grand Historian: "I have always been told that only the most distinguished men of the empire are privileged to ride with the Son of Heaven in his six-foot carriage", "Your Majesty proposes to gallop down a steep slope in a carriage drawn by six horses", "He then began to ride about in a carriage with a yellow top, decorated with plumes on the left side, and to call his orders “edicts” in imitation of the Han emperor, all of which was intended to show that he was an equal of the ruler of China".

I didn't pay attention to that part, but for Han Xin an obvious upgrade could be "Marquis of Huaiyin" then. For Emperor Wu you can't really go higher (and strictly, it's a mistake to use that, since that's the posthumous title, but whatever, it would be a headache otherwise), so I guess a mount would be fine, but, although a horse and hunting enthusiast, he probably never rode to battle (maybe Expansionism should be a Global Aura, and Builder a Ranged Aura instead, to keep him more "domestic", in opposition to others like Han Xin). And, although I'm not really focusing on the Han right now (still at least 600 pages to go for the Athenians, as I've said, things I do to myself), an obvious Unique Tech (or even Unique Building?) for the Han should be the Blast Furnace ("The oldest extant blast furnaces were built during the Han Dynasty", whose effectiveness was enhanced by Du Shi in 31 AD using bellows operated by waterwheels, helping mass produce cast iron, which was already known in China, but unknown in Europe until Medieval times). It could speed up Forge techs and soldier recruitment. Since they are "most efficient at a somewhat larger scale of production", maybe some cumulative effect could be considered in case of making it a Unique Building (https://www.scribd.com/document/248548406/2-Iron-Making, https://donwagner.dk/EARFE/EARFE.html).

The Hero naming nomenclature is quite inconsistent. For example, one is "Liu Bang" "Emperor Gaozu", and another is "Emperor", "Wu of Han", when I think that last one should be (considering how the first was written) "Liu Che" "Emperor Wu" (adding "of Han" seems unnecessary given the faction in question). The others, following this nomenclature, would be "Lü Zhi" "Empress Gao", "Han Xin" "God of War" and "Wei Qing" "Grand General" (where I swapped the last one, and I don’t think "God" is a good translation for "Xian"). I'll just check characteristics for the Heroes you asked for. I'm not sure if some things can be done so I give a few extra ideas. As usual, I leave exact values to you. Using "The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han" by M. E. Lewis for Emperor Wu: Builder (Global Aura): faster construction ("The last great builder in Chang'an was the fifth ruler, Emperor Wu", "renovated the two existing palaces and filled out the space within the city walls by building three new palaces. He also constructed a massive sacrificial center to the northwest of the capital", "filled it with dozens of new structures, carved out a large artificial lake, and erected statues of the Weaving Maid and Cowherd stars", etc). Despotism (alternative Global Aura): if the Han are more a quantity over quality civ, this would double down on that by penalising somehow all units, in exchange of a metal trickle as a function of civilian population ("The wars of Emperor Wu required taxes that drained the meager resources of the peasants", "Mercantile wealth was taxed at twice the rate of land, so merchants seeking to protect their wealth bought up real estate", "Thus, large numbers of peasants ruined by the government had to sell their land to merchants and officials pushed by the same government into buying them out. The result was social inequities on a vast scale", while "old ruling houses that had formed the Warring States elite. Such families had served as figureheads for many of the rebellions against Qin and had been forcibly resettled in the capital. They were eliminated during the reign of Emperor Wu", "moved these powerful families to the capital region, he forbade their living near one another precisely to avoid this kind of dangerous alliance"). Expansionism (Ranged Aura): attack bonus ("the emperor turned his attention outward", "Decades of peace had given the Chinese time to develop a new style of army based on cavalry and crossbows that could successfully engage the Xiongnu in the field. In 134 b.c. Emperor Wu finally undertook to destroy the Xiongnu through military action"). Cult Reform (Special Technology): healer and Hero buff bonus ("introduced several new cults, most importantly those to the Grand Unity (Tai Yi) and the Empress Earth", "describe Tai Yi as the embodiment of the state of non-differentiation that existed prior to the division of the world into Heaven and Earth, yin and yang"). Market Supply (Economic Bonus needed?): slow barter price depreciation ("Emperor Wu established an "equal-supply system" intended to stabilize prices by buying up products when they were abundant and cheap and then releasing them onto the market in times of scarcity"). Using the "Records of the Grand Historian", translated by B. Watson, for Han Hsin (Han Xin): Intransigence (Global Aura): units much harder or impossible to bribe ("When Hsiang Yi heard that Lung Chi’s army had been defeated, he was fearful and sent Wu She, a man of Hsü-i, to attempt to bargain with Han Hsin, but Han Hsin refused to listen"). Leadership (Ranged Aura): large aura with combat bonus ("in leading an army of a million men, achieving success with every battle and victory with every attack, I cannot come up to Han Hsin"). Bait (alternative Ranged Aura): small aura that makes enemies attack, even when garrisoned and from behind walls ("As Han Hsin had anticipated, the Chao forces finally abandoned their fortifications completely in their eagerness"). Dummies (Special Technology): again quantity over quality, unlocks unit that looks like some normal soldier (for other players at least), but it's way cheaper and weaker ("Han Hsin thereupon planted a dummy army and lined up a number of boats as though he were about to attempt to cross the river"). Reprieve (additional "Hero ability" idea): he disappears and is recruited again if HP drops below a certain value, but after this, the probability he will suddenly die increases with time, or something similar if this is hard to implement ("Lord T’eng was struck by his words and saw that he had a brave appearance, and so he did not execute him but set him free". "When he returned to Lo-yang he pardoned Han Hsin and made him marquis of Huai-yin". "Han Hsin, the marquis of Huai-yin, began to plot a rebellion in the area within the Pass. Empress Lü followed Hsiao Ho’s advice and executed Han Hsin"). Back to "The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han": Banishment (possible civ tech, didn't search for these, but there could be ideas in these books): reduce recruitment times, more so if quantity over quality is the idea ("In the centuries following the Qin conquest, the gradual demilitarization of both peasant and urban populations and the delegation of military service to marginal elements of society reversed an earlier trend among the competing states which had extended military service throughout the peasantry. In 31 a.d. universal military service was formally abolished, not to reappear until after the end of the last empire in 1911. In place of a mobilized peasantry, military service was provided by non-Chinese tribesmen, who were particularly skilled in the forms of warfare used at the frontier, and by convicts or other violent elements of the population, who were transported from the interior to the major zones of military action at the outskirts of the empire", "during the last century b.c. the Chinese army began to shift away from peasant levies to an army based on professionals, nomads, and criminals").

Indeed this should not happen, but I also think siege towers should be used for what they were actually used. Then, some other things would need to be changed, like making siege towers extremely slow and expensive.

Yes, I also was thinking this, considering that the snowballing increase and formation depreciation are good arguments against the whole idea. Still, I'm somewhat in favour of it, more as to set in place the mechanism (for mods to tinker with), and because it's good that new players realise there are things going on besides what's obvious in most RTS. I was thinking then that: -All penalties should be minor, and apply only for very low HP (thus present gameplay is not that drastically changed). -Lowering attack speed (or/and damage) first, and later movement speed (something like at 30% and 15% of HP, or whatever makes sense). -That wouldn't "make hunting overly easy", but it has also been proposed to make animals faster (and weaker), which would work hand in hand. -It would indeed work hand in hand with my proposal of "use an area as target", which was intended to be applied also to many other things. -Would make healers more useful and retreats possible (except for those who are too wounded... understandably). -Penalised units should be sent to the back of formations, whose speed should not be affected by them (they should struggle to keep up instead). -In conclusion, things would mostly "behave as expected", except on extreme circumstances, which is useful for some variation in tactics. That issue has the worse consequence of making some things really funky, but I don't think penalising a bit very hurt units is such an over-realistic game-averse concept as many other concept would be.

I'm not sure if this refers to the variant you made, or vanilla.

Hi @Caroby, indeed I feel hotkeys for certain things like the ones you mentioned are needed (and indicated with button tooltips or whatever), I have it written down for my future suggestions. Since there are some I've always used in AoE and StarCraft, I have to constantly remind myself that in 0 A.D. pressing H won't cycle between Civic Centres (nor could I find a key that does this yet).

I'm not sure what you mean, since all water seems to behave basically the same. What I mean is what could be done at different water levels. On a post some months ago I mentioned that water could be: -Shallow: for the transit of most land units (except siege for example) and small boats. Now I'd also add land unit coastal fishing (mentioned many times and done in the first AoE already), and possibly mining (as I just mentioned). -Moderate: for small and normal boats, but not the largest ones. Now I'd also add swimming for some like Iberians, and possibly deeper mining for a few (since the link mentioned 3.6 m deep). -Deep: for all boats. Maybe eventual bridges should not be built over it (except for the Persians, who could have also bridges made of ships). Now I'd also add that by that I mean placing a pier on it, a small hanging section over it would be ok. Now I'd also add Oceanic to differentiate sea and ocean going vessels, which was a big difference between many ancient Mediterranean and northern European ships, as recently mentioned. Of course this (and possibly other things just mentioned) might be too complicated for vanilla, but just to open the possibilities for some mod.

Although a straightforward fix should be possible, an idea could be to combine this with the concept of having multiple water depths, and to have workers wade into shallow waters to do some stuff, after all underwater mining was a thing in some places: https://www.turkiyetoday.com/culture/could-aristotles-divers-copper-have-come-from-istanbuls-waters-new-evidence-points-to-3210058?s=1 I also thought that, if something like this were to be implemented, Iberian units could wade in more than others, given that Livy in his History of Rome states: "There, having felled some timber, they [Hannibal's army] quickly built rafts on which to carry across the horses, men, and other baggage. The Spanish, without hesitating, stuffed their clothing into skin bags, put their shields above, and lying on top of them swam across the river on their own".

I’m not sure what do you mean exactly, but in principle I see that it says Tessarakonteres (Juggernauts), which doesn't make any historical sense, since that means forty-rowed, and only one was built, as a showpiece, since it was too unwieldy to be used in any practical sense. I'll expand on ships in my future post on the Athenians.

Sadly, right now a "DawsonKiboult" posted his first message, full of nonsensical spam. A solution I'm thinking of is if posts that are flagged as spam by a certain number of people (3?) could become hidden, for the mods (the only ones able to see them) then to decide what to do with them (as a way to keep things clean faster, help mods, but not give definitive power to non-mods, and of course any abuse of the actual purpose of this should be penalised).

Indeed, in this example, Liu Hu accepted straight away both neutrality and alliance, Antiochus rejected everything, and Ptolemy accepted neutrality but required a tribute for an alliance: It took me like 10 tries to get such a varied output, so there are some random starting parameters in this. The tribute asked was always 1000 Wood. I wonder if there's a way to display messages again after they disappear, I had to do all that a bit fast (but not so much for the order not to get messed up, since they take a second to answer). So, the game is quite good at describing things, but it would be nice if, when they don't accept, they mention that more trade would be needed if that's the case, or whatever is, although some friendliness indicator would be ideal.

But can this be deactivated? Or does the original species targeted have a priority? It's much harder to hunt gazelles than butcher sheep. Besides, I guess it shouldn't be "same stance", but "more passive stances than", because I'd think @Vrayer wanted to hunt passive animals as well after targeting an aggressive one (unless the point is to exterminate the aggressive ones first, which could be useful). To use the Target Area idea also for hunting (and the other things mentioned) would seem a less problematic and more encompassing solution to me.

When I'm concise, I'm misinterpreted, so I have to end writing more… The last couple of ideas were just alternatives for if people prefer them. Personally, I think I prefer the Target Area idea, which is what is described in your link, but only for fighting. My proposal generalises that idea to resource gathering (including hunting), garrisoning, boarding, and even repair, along whatever I can't think of right now.

A couple of different possibilities inspired by that, which might need refinement to condense on one useful thing: -Target types: if one queues this with a sheep and a gazelle, the hunter would hunt all sheep and gazelles he has around. This could be also used for chopping all trees, garrisoning certain buildings, and boarding certain ships, as long as they are nearby. In case of troops, maybe it could work as cavalry targeting archers, while pikemen cavalry, and so on. -Action stances: similar as before, but the target doesn't really need to be specified. One could hunt all non-aggressive animals (or also aggressive ones if that was selected) as mentioned, but could also work with things like "repair all", "board all", etc, as long as they are nearby.