@Hydro:
I'd much prefer to make Obsidian an equipment class. My plan for the early eras was to have the following progression for weapons
and for Armor my idea was
I wouldn't get much more detailed than that, as otherwise there would be too much micro. If you can build axemen and you have iron and a blacksmith, I assume they can automatically make iron axes, there isn't any reason to have specific weapons as equipment/resources.
I think there very much is reason to have specific weapons as equipments. But not necessary to have every equipment represented by a particular resource. Tech upgrades and additional bonus access (and perhaps Engineers can build special buildings that can offer master crafted versions of a chosen weapon) can transform previous equipments into more advanced versions of their previous selves. The equipment promos are meant to go fairly micro.
But yeah, they don't require their own special resource necessarily. Fair enough that iron and wood access can be enough for at least common axes, swords, spears, etc... Though they may be BETTER versions with Prime Timber access.
I'm going to go through and develop quite a list of these so I'm certainly not asking you to stress on it too much. One of the reasons for all these extra tags and combat mechanisms in general is to give us enough depth to make such variety in weapons and armors possible without them being repetitive, dull variations in nothing but combat modifiers.
@Thunderbrd
So I was thinking over your ideas of units staying the same but their weapon upgrade. However what about when units split off from a unit? Or what about unique units that upgrade into a unit? For instance the Jaguar Warrior upgrades into a Swordsman but not a Light Swordsman. How can you accomplish this with staying with the same units?
Likewise the Atl-Atl splits off at the Stone Spearman and not the Wooden Spearman. I think we should still keep the units but just have them have some freedom within their unit. Such as a Stone Axeman could have different types of stone axes but not any metal axes. Likewise a Wooden spear can have different types of wooden spears but not any stone spears.
This would allow for progression within the unit but still would not bypass the need to upgrade a unit into the next level of unit.
There would be appropriate times for the unit to split off or join back in from the main unit upgrade chains. The Jaguar would be a good example (and it may be considered to utilize a completely different weapons set than a swordsman anyhow...) I'm not actually suggesting that all unit upgrade chains be vastly broken down here, just that there may be some steps that would be better if they were either re-termed or removed in lieu of being reflected by weapon upgrades instead.
Again, any time you change base weapon form, the unit should upgrade. Any time you change the basic unit strategy, the unit should upgrade. Any time the weapon adjusts in quality or material, it should not be a unit upgrade.
Therefore, you could have the same line you listed on that chart but would fit better with the equipment methods by renaming those units. Thus, you could have a 'Prehistoric Spearman' unit that upgrades into an 'Ancient Spearman' Unit that upgrades into a 'Classical Spearman' Unit to represent the upgrades in war strategies in general. Therefore I wouldn't suggest more than one upgrade per era for a given line that continues its general existence over the course of multiple eras.
The materials/qualities of the weapons they wield would independently be improving along their own lines with tech advancements.
For example, the first spear could be a 'Pointy Stick'. That could advance into a Sharp Branch. That could advance, into a Sharp Rock on Long Stick, which could run parallel on the 'Spear Promotion Line' (an equipment defined line) to a Sharp Horn on Long Stick, which would have slightly altered stats or slightly better stats as it would only be available if you have access to Deer or Ivory (probably somewhat better puncture but a touch less precision), then into Stone Spear (and perhaps continuing the parallel, Antler Spear). And so on within the Short Spear weapon line (the Short Spear Combat Class guiding access to these weapon promos all the way through until Short Spears are no longer useful in the face of new weaponry completely out dating these weapon types entirely.)
It will take a real wild explosion of creativity to really develop out our Equipments nicely.
@AIAndy: So you're basically saying that the whole pay for equipment structure you're suggesting is entirely doable in XML alone with no additional dll modding? Hmm... If these guys understand those methods enough, I'd be happy to see it in action. If not, I can say I'd be lost and would need more direct examples to get us started on getting this set up.
Sounds fine to me.
upgrade to a STR 3 unit that costs 60 
