@Rasteve: you say you may release a full tech mode for your patch (techical changes would be minimal)?
so how about it? btw nevermind the minimal technical changes but keep the game as is except with both full tech tree with civ bonuses minus weaknesses such as persia's farming penalty and that palmyran vil costing extra should be eliminated but keep their extra work rate and armor. make it optional if you can: full tech tree, no full tech tree or BOTH.
for dm it would be the three toughies: hittite, sumer and mace. hittite cat may say double hp but in reality all siege is double hp making helepolis more terrifying and survivable. sumer cats may fire faster, and their ballista fire like helepolis, HOWEVER their helepolis is somewhat bugged (i guess you cannot really fire 50% faster than 1.5) and their helepolis fires the opposite rate as slow as the former ballista. and finally mace with cheaper full heavy cats and helepolis.
the strongest would be the following.
1.) hittite (double all siege hp)
2.) sumer (potentially #1 as heavy cats fire faster but helepolis is somewhat handicapped as stated above)
3.) mace (cheaper heavy cats and helepolis however, keep in mind even double the amount can still be destroyed at once by one heavy cat)
[This message has been edited by volume (edited 08-10-2009 @ 08:58 AM).]