Elimnator, the 'load tech trees you pick only' in GAE is 100% functional, with no bugs. Water units are also functional, but they are very complex to use, and currently can't be done so that a unit must be both in water and on land, though silnarm's working on that.
I totally support rotating buildings, as that would be very good. However, not with the MMB. We cannot have a function depend solely on a button only on new mouses (well, maybe not THAT new, anything newer than ten years...). Since some mouses and no laptops have this, it would be more logical to use 'r', or even both.
Along with hidding, I support a similar feature: stealth. Stealth is like hiding, but the unit cannot attack, and is seen by the player, but the CPU won't attack it, and in multiplayer, the model is removed (totally invisible unit) on the other player's screens. We still see our player, and it cannot be attacked. The modder can also add resource requirements and ep requirements. The EP requirements can be used like a timer, as once the person runs out of EP, they lose their stealth. Stealth would be great for units such as bandits, the stealth bomber of military, invisible units, theives, spies, ninjas, etc; It could be a better alternative for invisibility, perhaps easier because it only needs to have the AI not attack it, and not to render the model on other player's screens in multiplayer (so it checks the stealth'd units team, and all human/network controlled players that are not on that player's team will have the model replaced with a none model and the unit size would become 0 (as though they were not there), their units wouldn't automatically attack, and manual attacks wouldn't be possible. The minimap would not show anything with the attribute 'stealth'.
Treaties sound nice, but are probably far off in the future. To go along with them, we should have the ability to 'talk' to allied players. In multiplayer, I could coordinate an attack with my human ally, to ensure that we can attack the AI properly, rather than just throwing units one at a time. However, with a CPU ally, there should be code words that can be chatted using the chat system to tell the ai when to attack. ie: if we say 'attack faction 2', the ai prepares to attack faction 2, although they may need a random time span to prepare. The ai might also respond, such as by saying 'roger, preparing for large scale attack'. Then maybe say, 20 seconds later, they might say 'moving in, attack commencing'. That doesn't need treaties, and would be the first step towards them. By having the AI reply from a list of possible things to say, the ai appears ti be smarter, even though it hasn't changed one bit. It also would give a fun reason to play as a team. Other commands could be 'help' (call the ai to assist your base), 'defend your base' (logical), etc;
Once we get treaties in, there should also be avatars, which are just still images (with a size limit) which can be seen when talking to a player, such as in a trade screen. This avatars would personalize the player a bit. My proposal for the trade screen is something similar to Civ 4, where we have a list of units and resources for each player. Players can trade units or resources (but not upgrades) with players. Even if the player's factions are different, they could still trade, such as magic trading 5 battlemages for 5 guards with tech. This could be far more interesting because it can help players overcome unit weaknesses, however, they still have to be careful of the fact not to anger the people they may want to trade with, since it would be completely optional.
Of course, treaties may be pretty far off, but hopefully within a year or two, especially with the amount of enthusiasm. Seriously, we should go to coding boards and try and interest a few programmers in giving a hand. Even just small things like pausing during lua messages (a must) can be implimented, one at a time, until glest rules the RTS world! Heh, maybe... Still, it seems like a good idea.
