I played Rhye's and Fall of Civilization: Europe today and it gave me some ideas...
Anyway, as Orbis brought back Spearmen, I was thinking that they deserve their own unitclass, "Polearms" (thus like in RFC:E). They should be cheap units, weaker than base Melee units and powerful in cities (?) and against cavalry. Base melee units should have a advantage over Polearms units.
That would lead to some other changes, especially in the Polearm line...
Warriors would lose their +25% city bonus if we take in Early Lancers who would take it.
I think Polearms should be tweaked as a name. Polearms are used by Spearmen already.
Also, "Melee units" would become pointless and should be renamed something like Heavy Infantry. Polearms/Archers/Gunners would be light infantry.
(RFC:E also has a Light/Heavy cavalry distinction which is nifty but I don't want to make everybody overheat)
I like it. I think there should be more unit types in the game anyway, unless I suppose it makes the game more unstable with larger file sizes or something. Polearms are a class of weapons
mounted on poles...anything ranging from a spear to a pike to a voulge or halberd; pikes and halberds were used up until the early age of personal firearms to protect the arquebusiers as they slowly reloaded.
Pikes were used to impale charging horses (they were very long and would be planted with butts in the ground and points way out in front) while halberds were used against the riders rather than the horses, to pull knights from the saddle and engage them beyond sword range. Pikes were fairly useless in melee combat - too long to be easily employed against a mobile opponent and useful only for thrusting; a halberd's more manageable length, axe-head, hook and spike made it more versatile. However, both would typically be discarded in favor of smaller sidearms if it came to serious melee combat with mobile opponents (i.e. not heavily armored, dismounted knights).
In-game you might want to give revamped pikemen a large bonus against mounted units and a small penalty against melee/infantry units, while halberdiers would get a smaller bonus against mounted units and no penalty against melee/infantry units.
As for melee vs. infantry, basically the main distinction is the type of weapon they fight with. Melee range is face-to-face combat with hand-held weapons such as swords or maces (or even spears) while infantry, in the modern sense at least, use guns. However, in this game, gun combat (even for the Mechanos, I think) is basically Napoleonic-era in nature, at best: massed infantry firing at other massed infantry in ranks, slow reloading (two to three shots a minute if you're good), a few shots got off at best before fixing bayonets and pretending your gun is a rather unwieldy spear.

Adequately, if not perfectly, represented by first and defensive strikes.
Last but not least, cavalry! A light and heavy distinction would be great. Currently the early horse units (horsemen and horse archers) represent light cavalry while the late horse units such as knights represent heavy cavalry. Maybe an intermediate form of light cavalry (mounted skirmishers? light lancers?) would be in order, and maybe an earlier form of heavy cavalry could be developed (heavy lancers?). The Hippus, naturally, would be best served by a bunch of specialized cavalry units.
A third type of cavalry unit is the dragoon, or mounted infantry, whose name was eventually changed to just "cavalry". This is actually the last type of cavalry used in our history, from the mid-1800s (U.S. Civil War era) to its last gasp in World War I. They started out as regular melee units transported on horseback but evolved into mounted riflemen. Since even a well-trained horse's tolerance for having a gun fired by its rider from its back is limited, they would often fight dismounted. Just for more fun, dragoons also had light and heavy distinctions!

The Mechanos would be a prime candidate for expanded dragoon use (beyond the Dragoon horse archer UU they currently have).
I think Caminus Aureus shouldn't give Mithril. It's supposed to be a super rare resource, not one you can gain with a wonder. The free Weaponsmiths are enough I think.
While I love building the CA (for the mithril!) I do tend to agree with you. Maybe it could just give iron, since it's not so rare (though I have found myself more than once without any iron by mid to late game). However...
BTW, I think I'll add some more wonders. Effects I thought of: more "free [building] in all cities" (Hunting Lodges, Monuments?, Market); +X

/

/

from

buildings; +100% trade route yield; +100% war weariness for the enemies.
If you want to nerf Caminus Aureus, here's an idea: World Wonders (or rituals) that provide resources, up to and including mithril. Make them appropriately expensive and maybe require particular resource combos, like maybe a Mithril Transmutation wonder would require enchantment mana and silver; perhaps (if it could be done) an archmage with Enchantment III (or dwarven druid with Earth III, if Khazad) would need to be sacrificed in the city (presumed to be employed enchanting/transmuting silver into mithril full-time). Or simply requires the Guild of Transmuters (or even its HQ) to be present in the city (which would make the guild more useful).
I also tend to think that Summer & Winter palaces should get fancier names and vastly different effects. Maybe they should be of the same class so that you can only build one. Or make one national and the other world? Maybe it's already the case?
The Summer Palace currently requires eight cities to build, the Winter Palace requires 12. This should be amended to read, "or must be on a different continent than the capitol or the other palace". BTW, both are national wonders. I think they work well as the concept of a "regional capitol" or regional administration center of a far-flung empire - like the investment of Byzantium as the capitol of the Eastern Roman Empire. A name change would be good, though (see below).
Actually...I've always thought that the instant recreation of a civ's capitol (fully functional) in some other city when the current capitol is conquered is kind of silly. Perhaps instant relocation could only be done to the location of a regional capitol. If no regional capitol exists the palace would have to be rebuilt with

. If the original capitol was recaptured it could either revert to being the capitol or become a regional capitol.
I would also like to give fancy names to each civilization's palace. I'm tired of the Bannor Palace, Malakim Palace, etc. The "Gardens of Splendor" are the Elohim Palace in FF. Such a name! So beautiful I want to hug it.
Nice, flavorful idea, though "Gardens of Splendor" sounds almost more like something the Ljosalfar would come up with. IMHO the palace name should reflect something about the civ either lorewise or as per their outlook/gameplay. Here are some ideas:
Amurites: Seat of Kylorin
Balseraphs: The Big Top
Bannor: Sabathiel's Redoubt
Calabim: Throne of Blood and Souls
Clan of Embers: Bhall's Furnace
Doviello: The Great Longhouse
Elohim: Sanctum of the Guardians
Grigori: Cassiel's Retreat
Hippus: The Horselords' Throne
Illians: Frozen Crypt of Mulcarn
Infernal: The Gates of Hell
Khazad: The Great Vault
Kuriotates: Eurabatres' Rebirth
Lanun: Corsairs' Cove
Ljosalfar: The Summer Palace (name change needed for the national wonder currently bearing that name).
Luchiurp: Tinkers' Damn

... actual idea: Graoin's Hall
Malakim: Eye of the Desert
Mazatl: Jungle's Heart
Mechanos: Halls of Industry
Mercurians: Basium's Wrath
Ngomele: No idea. You're the one who thinks of words for this civ.

Scions of Patria: Grand Palace of Patria Reborn
Sheaim: Seed of Armageddon
Sidar: Haven of the Grey
Svartalfar: The Winter Palace (name change needed for the national wonder currently bearing that name).
Then I also think guilds should compete more. Or if they don't, there should be more guilds and they should compete more.
I think the Order of Arches and the Prospectors' Guild should compete. They don't seem to like each other, after all. Having at least two opposing guilds of each type would be good: OoA vs. PG, Circle of Eight vs. Circle of Transmuters, etc.
Another idea would be to allow some, or all, guilds to be created by hammers as well as by great people. This would allow civs that don't always spawn the "right" great person to found a guild to get it first, by brute force - or to snatch the guild out from under the nose of a competitor by popping the right great person. The Guild of the Nine could be founded by a Great Commander/General in addition to being built, for example, and the Guild of Endeavors could be founded by a Great Engineer (and maybe given guild mechanics instead of WW mechanics - which might require some rethinking).
Some effects like Hansa's would be cool too. I don't think all should have the +xp or the free promotion thingie (seeing that some guilds give you some rare resource is good enough). But some, except the yields, are a bit plain (3-Field, Prospectors). I know they have unique mechanics with their units but I don't like them

They make my world fall apart. If you don't have a resource, then you don't have it. That's all
I can see where this could be considered OP. Maybe do it this way: The name of the Farmer's ability is "breed new goods", right? Not "discover new goods". Only let them breed resources the civ already has access to! So if they have Cows they can breed new Cow resources (increasing the guild bonuses and/or giving more resources for trade) but if they have no Sheep they can't breed any.
As for the Prospector, one or more of these ideas might work: reduce their chance of "finding" (creating) a resource, increase the casting time of the ability, consume the unit upon completion of the ability (whether successful or not) and only let them prospect a particular tile once (create an invisible marker indicating the tile has been prospected).
Actually, this gives me an idea for a guild to compete with the Three-Field Order: the Agriculturalists' Guild. Their ability would be "discover new goods" subject to the limitations listed above for the Prospector. Unlike the Farmer, they could find new organic resources, but only one of these guilds could be present per city.
Okay, back to actually playing now. I'm trying the Ngomele; don't know how far I'll get before the game becomes unplayable due to increasingly frequent CTDs from patch C

but if I think of anything I'll let you know in the Ngomele thread.
