More Unique Civs: What can we do?

[Perzival12]

So, after playing for a few months now (almost a year), and through my work on Hyrule Conquest and experience playing games such as Halo Wars and Warcraft, I've been thinking: the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique. Most civilizations are statistically and gameplay wise almost the exact same, with differences between them being almost purely aesthetic, both in names and actual art. While I know we can't get the races as varied as in a fantasy RTS (with flying races, aliens, monsters, magic, etc.) I feel like the varying ways each race operated in history is not used almost at all. So, using my knowledge of history I've composed a small list of things that could be changed to the few races I actively know about:

Athenians: Strong navy & walls, more techs

Britains: Faster units and stronger/more dogs

Gauls: Fiercer units (more damage and RoF)

Germans: Mobile dropsites and houses

Romans: Defensive units (more resistance) and formation focused

Spartans: Offensive units (more damage & health)

This list is incomplete, I ask everyone who reads this to post some thoughts about the other civs and I'll edit this list to fit those ideas.

[Grautvornix]

You are certainly right - there could be more civ character diversity. However, balancing appears to be a MAJOR task and I remember loooong and excited discussions and changes back and forth to arrive at the current more or less stable state.

Possibly, with your modding experience, do you think you could generate a few  of your proposed test changes and let players look at the resulting balances?

[Perzival12]

3 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

Possibly, with your modding experience, do you think you could generate a few  of your proposed test changes and let players look at the resulting balances?

For sure, I’ll make a short mod and post it here showing off some of my balancing ideas as soon as I have time.

[Deicide4u]

1 hour ago, Perzival12 said:

the civilizations in 0 A.D. aren't really that unique

They are much more unique now than they used to be, the exception being maybe in A23 and before.

Some civilization have more unit variety, others have stronger upgrades for fewer units. Analogies being Kushites for the variety and Spartans for stronger, but fewer unit types.  Balance is a hard thing to master, so this game tries to offload uniqueness onto civ-specific upgrades and bonuses.

If you think civilizations are mostly the same in 0 A.D., then you must believe that civilizations in AoE2 are almost identical.

[Perzival12]

2 minutes ago, Deicide4u said:

If you think civilizations are mostly the same in 0 A.D., then you must believe that civilizations in AoE2 are almost identical.

I’ve never played AoE, so I wouldn’t know…