Thalatta

Cat units for the Athenians! (There's the crazy story about the Persians releasing cats on the battlefield of Pelusium, knowing the Egyptians wouldn't risk to hurt them with their arrows).

I think this would promote self-destroying things, which I think is an extremely unsightly exploit (that's why AI makes everything collapse), and as someone mentioned, one would want it "not to be too simple and rewarding". That's why other things were proposed, but maybe are a bit harder to implement

I see, but Borremose was "fortified by a moat and an earthen wall", but let's be generous and say earth=stone. Anyway, what seems fishy is that their HP is 1000 to 3000, almost like for the Athenians at 1100 to 3300, while for the Gauls, more known for their stone walls, it's 800 to 2400, although they seem to build them faster. I think earthen walls should be built faster than stone walls (no need to shape big blocks and lift them), but be weaker since they can't be so tall ("HP" is hard to evaluate but the game doesn't allow wall capture, which should be their actual weakness).

I think these, along with Walls, should be removed, like with the Spartans, who actually did end building them in the middle of the Hellenistic period.

It's the same as the cougar, puma concolor in binomial nomenclature

Limiting the amount of repairs seems like a complicated rule. All this was just to justify a Tachunautousa Triērēs as a champion trireme for the Athenians, and maybe redefine the Helepolis as a champion siege tower. For both, garrison prohibition (and high population cost) would work, making them "fully garrisoned" always (although for the Helepolis, eventually units should be able to go through it to take walls, just not be able to stay inside to change its stats). I guess the only problem is catapults, a solution being adding at least one garrison place for them. This is not far-fetched, since catapult operators are always at least two, and I remember catapult crews up to 9 and 11 people for Greek and Romans, respectively. High population cost should be properly balanced to avoid any super siege domination.

Just to mention some iconic South American animals that seem missing (some not very known to outsiders): condor, rhea, capybara, maned wolf, viscacha, guanaco, vicuña, and of course the more known domesticated variants of the last two: llama and alpaca. Also shared with other continents: penguin, flamingo, anteater, armadillo and cougar. I can't remember if elephant seals or sea lions are already in the game.

Yes, there are sources recording they were deployed along cavalry, but since they are never clearly described as fighting as cavalry (as far as I remember), probably they could have sometimes fought like hamippoi (those running alongside horses). This and their "unclear" role (or maybe "varying", across different periods) is what led me to propose in Thoughts on the Spartans for them to be "faster and with larger FOV" to "balance a weak cavalry", and given that Spartan hoplites should be particularly slow, as mentioned a few comments back

@guerringuerrin thanks! Although this part was easy, Part III has been another matter summarising around 18 pages of notes... Although I'm not coding anything, it's meant to historically improve vanilla and inspire other mods with whatever is too much

I strongly recommend the terms I used, I can copy-paste lots of quotes from books using them if needed Hopefully I'll hear more about those! @Grautvornix, maybe a better idea regarding a champion ship and engine restriction: they cannot be garrisoned, and they cost more population. They are assumed to be fully garrisoned always, exactly because they are always meant for top performance (EDIT: although not all engines can be garrisoned... but hopefully champion versions for those can be avoided).

@Vantha I guess I'll make a big PR of names, not to spam with too many PRs. Regarding Ekdromoi and Prodromoi, as mentioned, they are roles, but: -You state there that "the Skiritai's role in battle still unclear to this day. It's not proven they fought as Ekdromoi", but Thucydides in his Peloponnesian War states "Agis afraid of his left being surrounded, and thinking that the Mantineans outflanked it too far, ordered the Sciritae and Brasideans to move out from their place in the ranks and make the line even with the Mantineans". This "move out" and "making the line even" sounds, at least to me, extremely similar to Xenophon's "maintaining a front level with the sallying troops" I previously quoted, with "sallying troops" being what's translated from the ekdromoi word he uses. This is not to say that the Sciritae were in that role always. -The game does have the unit Prodromos (Cavalry Javelineer), for the Athenians at least, but that's clearly not the correct translation. I was going to propose in Part II either Prodromos (Scout) or Hippakontistēs (Cavalry Javelineer). I prefer the second one, people would realise it's what makes sense to be used as a scout. Regarding psilos, I have to disagree, considering I quoted from five different books precisely to show the generality of the term, with Sekunda even stating for certain context that likely "it can be taken to mean non-combatant 'attendants'". Regarding "Athenian slingers for instance are only slingers for gameplay reasons", I guessed this could be a reason (although I was hoping it was random!), and this is the kind of explanation I'd like to hear from people that know since I have no idea, because it's unfortunate that things end being the other way around than explicitly attested , although if gameplay reasons are too strong I do see the difficulty in adjusting everything else for this.

Exactly, that's one of the secrets of Athenian ships speed: rowers from the thetes (lowest citizen class) training all their life to get a place as oarsmen. Champions are supposed to be the full-time troops, the elite. But it's also about the machines themselves, strict specifications is what made certain triremes fast, and the best were given a top rating (coming in Part II). I'm more inclined to give them restrictions (like organic champions). I mentioned going back to the Dock or Arsenal because specialised tools and materials would be needed to properly repair these fine-tuned machines. As you say, this would be more accurate for ships than for siege engines. For engines there were "depots" back in their city-states: the arsenals (there are surviving storage lists). One cannot really build most catapults in the field, they are built in workshops, transported by parts, and assembled close to where they are going to be used. Smaller engines would then need proper replacement parts, and while armies would be carrying them, one can also think they'd eventually run out of them (and if close to one's territory, one can "emulate" proper supply lines by building an Arsenal there, which would just represent where the engineers are making the proper adjustments). Bigger engines were indeed built in situ, but they would be destroyed or abandoned (and/or salvaged, pending implementation), they should be extremely slow and make any further marching after repairs unviable (that is, I wasn't expecting players to return those all the way to an Arsenal from enemy territory in the first place). All this means that with imperfect but simple rules (same for ships and engines) one could end up emulating more realistic situations than expected. Hopefully

Sure, I guess after I finish with the coming two parts for the Athenians I'll gather all my hopefully non-controversial naming improvements (and icon proposals?) and do that.

Yes, for sure you would already have Perioeci hoplites, so it's ok if you leave the javelineers just as helots (like in vanilla!).

For Sparta, helot slingers seem fine, for javelineers being Perioeci instead would be possible, but maybe you wanted to keep them as weak as possible. Mercenary Cretan archers later on are also a possibility, which could balance what should be their weak cavalry and very slow infantry, but fast when forming up. For Athens, as proposed, just substitute slingers with archers, which is very important considering the literature quoted (in particular that archers "were usually mercenaries, often from Crete, but Athens was an exception. The Athenians had native foot-archers"). In Part II I'll mention I think they should be a somewhat "fast" civ early on (for Greek standards), in contraposition to Sparta.

First, champions is quite a misnomer. One would be hard pressed to find elite troops being called like that in any serious source. They are usually called, well, "elite". There's of course the issue that ranks are "Basic", "Advanced" and "Elite", the first two again terms that one will basically never find to describe how experienced units are. I think better would be "Recruit", "Seasoned" and "Veteran", all terms I've come across multiple times in sources. Second, what about ships and engines being able to be "champions"? One could make use of elite triremes for Athens for example, instead of making up things that weren't characteristic for them. I guess the main point of champions is to indicate that organic units do not work, but I think there's also a "good unit" implication being made that could be useful for a few inorganic units (they could also have some particular restriction or characteristic, like auto repair? Repair only at Dock/Arsenal? No repair? Whatever is balanced).

@Emacz you can always launch a missile more ineffectively. But what is it that you are thinking, exactly? What would be your Spartan and Athenian ranged units roster? The helots you are talking about are already psiloi, while trained Athenian "archers (toxotai) and lightly armed troops, generically called psiloi" (Dahm). Some sources (like Elliott and Rawlings) make a distinction between psiloi and peltasts, probably because of the latter's shield.

This is a very valid point. After all, in the game, it's mainly tech trees and how they look like what differentiates the various civs. This is material culture, not so much geographical origin or ethnolinguistic classification. Of course, since that is quite important and one wants to be accurate, the situation should be noted somewhere, and if eventually a progression through different civs is made, that tree should be determined by their apparent origins, and both things would come into play.

@ThePoshBarbarian to be ekdromos (one that runs out) is a role, like is to be prodromos (one that runs ahead). Light infantry (the skiritai being a common example) could work as ekdromoi, to be ordered to break formation during certain points in a battle to perform some more auxiliary task, like skirmishing. Light cavalry would usually work as prodromoi, that is, scouts, and could include skirmishing (something normal for those who are running about!). For example, take this small fragment from Xenophon's Hellenica 4.5.16 (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0032.tlg001.perseus-grc1:4.5.16): "οὐ γὰρ ἕως ἀπέκτεινάν τινας αὐτῶν ἐδίωξαν, ἀλλὰ σὺν τοῖς ἐκδρόμοις ἰσομέτωποι καὶ ἐδίωκον καὶ ἐπέστρεφον", which in the English version is "for they did not chase the enemy until they had killed some of them, but both in the pursuit and in the turning backward kept an even front with the hoplites", somewhat missing the literal meaning, which Google Translate keeps a bit better: "for they did not pursue them merely until they had killed some of their number; rather, maintaining a front level with the sallying troops, they both pursued and wheeled about". Thus, they should not be considered an actual unit. There's a "Prodromos" unit which is wrongly translated, I'll mention that in my Part II.

@ThePoshBarbarian, thanks for taking part in the discussion. I'm going to try to answer your main observations, with relevant quotes and their sources hidden: "Psīlós" is a term too general to use for any unit in particular, and applies to all city-states. They were indeed light troops, but basically means skirmisher (and more), those throwing rocks with their hands would even be included. They have then to be ignored, because are usually already considered (javelineers, etc). Euzonoi seems to be a similar generic term, I can't find anything in army oriented sources, besides the term itself in that lexicon. I'd remove Athenian slingers (while maybe having Rhodian ones as mercenaries), from the sources archers and javelineers seem to have been more associated with Athens. Maybe it'd require more reading and decision making, but I'd give non-mercenary slingers to the more northern pastoral Macedonians and Thebans (when they are added). Sometimes it's difficult to identify if peltasts are mercenaries or not, usually they are. Sparta and Athens hired them, and even if one reads "Athenian peltast", other information reveals that they are probably mercenaries (like those under Iphicrates). Still, many state that Athens did organise native peltasts. Macedonians also seem to have non-mercenary peltasts, with Agrianian javelinmen considered allies. This is portrayed in the game, although not sure if their elite status is (not being champions).

Nothing accurate apparently, since "the first appearance of the 'Northern Army' in historical records of the Han Dynasty was after the death of Emperor Hui" (https://www.lsdlyj.com.cn/CN/abstract/abstract46386.shtml), and Emperor Hui died in 188 BC, while Han Xin died around 8 years earlier, in 196 BC. Being generous, maybe because he won many victories for the Emperor, maintaining the "Mandate of Heaven" (many loses could be interpreted as illegitimacy). But I agree that this, and many other things you mentioned, could be improved. I could eventually do for Liu Bang and Wei Qing what I did here for Han Xin:

And I have indeed many times contrasted the views of different experts and given my own thoughts, of course based on properly acquired knowledge, and even experience (as was with Sasanian archery, it's easy for me to notice details as a practitioner of the sport), so, as usual, what you say falls pathetically flat. But to plainly state what you should have learned in elementary school: if you don't read, you end up being an ignoramus that writes things like "ideaology" and lacking the mental equipment to properly think, producing just biased, uninformed, and irrelevant personal opinions. Advice: stop embarrassing yourself.

Who knows, maybe he wants them more naked, more muscular, and more oiled

This would look goofy as hell :P. I think (hopefully) the engine can be modified to deal with these things properly, considering there's the Immortal air-walking exploit around right now, units walking on top of buildings shouldn't be impossible to implement, unless I'm missing something. In any case, and as I've mentioned before: prohibiting the positioning of pillars in deep water should be enough constraint (this allows a very short bridge over deep water). Going a bit chronologically, rafts pulled by a rope would have come quite early (a much later version of this was apparently used by Hannibal to ferry his elephants across the Rhône). Wooden walkways in shallow water were made from at least the Neolithic. In the Bronze Age, stone bridges would be made to deal with uneven terrain (Arkadiko Bridge). Workers should be able to build all these things. To build pillars (from wood, later stone) on medium water, fishing boats would be too small and unrelated for the task, if anything I'd prefer the use of merchantmen, which were (obviously) cargo oriented, and were historically used for a variety of things (even warfare when needed). They could also be used for earlier Pontoon bridges. If a bridge was meant to be permanent, there were ways to allow navigation: either movable (pontoon) parts, or maybe simple enough for the game, enough clearance, since masts were removable and most ships were at most around 3 m above water, not counting later huge cargo ships, but soon enough the Romans would have mastered great arches.