Options when defending a settlement

[screwtype]

I don't understand why you think you shouldn't be able to use another factions' buildings

Because the game is too easy, and if you weren't able to capture all that juicy infrastructure it would be harder.

it's not like it's Starcraft or something where the different factions use wildly different technology. A blacksmith is a blacksmith, and a practice range is a practice range, no matter who is using the building. There might be slight variations in amenities and architecture, but the basics are the same.

What I'm saying is that all these different buildings for training different troop types is not realistic. All you need to train troops is a barracks for them to live, some open space for them to practice fighting, and some experienced soldiers to do the training. All these different buildings really only exist to add interest to the game. I mean, take the Romans in RTW. First you can build hastati, then after a few upgrades you can get principes, and after a few more you get triarii. How does this simulate reality? It doesn't. The Romans didn't field armies of hastati, only later adding some principes and after that triari and so on. All the different troops types were available to be trained from the outset, the only cap on availability was cost and equipment availability and so on.

So the building tree is really only there to maintain interest, oh gee, I'm only a few more building upgrades from getting some triarii and I really want to see how good they are and what I can do with them. It has very little if anything to do with the way armies were actually raised.

And therefore there is no reason at all that capturing a foreign city might suddenly allow you to build a bunch of units you couldn't build before, just because it has some buildings that supposedly allow you to do this. I think that is just an absurd mechanic.

[Bob the Insane]

RTR has a nice mechanisim in which barracks are replaced/enhanced as culture and political integration buildings (to abstract the control and eventual domination of the conquroring culture)...

So factions of the same culture can use each other's buildings but when the Romans turn up (for instance) they have to start building up their own infrastructure, government and administration. The first level of building gives you a law boost, the second level gives you some access to the cheapest and lightest local troops and so on... You have to progress to the 4th level before you have Romanized the place sufficiently to build Roman style troops there, but once you do you get to build them all (as long as you have the Stables and Archery ranges to support those troop types).

[Polemists]

This sounds pretty good. I mean yes a blacksmith is a blacksmith. However don't expect the archery range in Antioch to know how to train english longbowmen haha :)