The ancient different armies from 1977 or so are as balanced as they could
be with the knowledge and technology available at the time. It was the
failures of these armies that caused me to go into a shell for twenty
years, and come out only when I had a workable (though sketchy and
primitive) theory of piece values.
The Clobberers and the Rookies are amazingly well balanced despite the
fact that they are extremely extreme. Why did I start with such
difficult-to-balance armies? In retrospect, it seems foolish; but I do
love these two armies.
Without a theory of values, the only way to balance an army would be by
trial and error, with thousands of hours of playtesting per army.
I do not have Zillions. I will not buy it, and I will not accept it as a
gift from anyone but its makers. If SUSE can send me their linux for free,
zillions can send me their product. Therefore I cannot comment on these
games because I cannot read them.