A couple of things regarding Champions.

[Thalatta]

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).

[Grautvornix]

Just some very basic consideration (non historical of course): My first reaction was "Anorganic entities like ships or siege engines actually cannot learn, which is the basic conditions to move upwards on the elite training ladder", but the crews operating them can and these are in our case part of the virtual anorganic unit. Like, a good artillery or sailing/rowing crew can move quicker and aim and hit targets much better than newbies.

Therefore it does make sense.

I believe, auto repair (self-healing) is something that would realistically be feasible only ashore for ships, e.g. at a shipyard at best - and it does cost resources (wood and metal). For siege engines there were no depots, instead I guess they were built near the battlefield. So repair is done by other units.

[Thalatta]

14 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

a good artillery or sailing/rowing crew can move quicker

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).

 

14 minutes ago, Grautvornix said:

I believe, auto repair (self-healing) is something that would realistically be feasible only ashore for ships, e.g. at a shipyard at best - and it does cost resources (wood and metal). For siege engines there were no depots, instead I guess they were built near the battlefield. So repair is done by other units.

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