0 A.D.'s implementation of royal stoas and their mercenary champions is historically rather problematic, as has been pointed out numerous times on the forums. A quick selection (there are more):
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/28464-can-we-give-macedonians-some-love/
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/28099-thracian-mercenaries/
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/28002-royal-stoa/
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/27997-macemen/
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/25504-special-units-and-so-on/
- https://wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?/topic/25503-special-buildings-and-so-on/
This patch therefore makes makes some long overdue changes to 0 A.D.'s so-called ‘royal stoas’ :
- Removed stoas from the athen and spart building lists (mace couldn't build it anyway). In the future they could get a different purpose and be reintroduced (ptol and sele need stoa actors too).
- Removed the 10 population line of the stoa (belongs to house).
- Removed the mercenary champions from the stoa production queue.
- Removed the ConquestCritical class, since they can no longer train units.
- Kept the merc_black_cloak.xml, merc_thorakites.xml, and merc_thureophoros.xml units but deleted their {civ}_* children. Like other mercenary champions (gladiators, legionaries, Samnites, Thebans, Thespians), they (i.e. merc_*) are used in specific scenarios.
- Deleted the now obsolete Stoa gui loading screen tip.