The Furor Teutonicus thread got me thinking about something I had already pondered: many of the mechanics of Civs in this game encourage them to be played in a manner consistent with their history. For example:
Rome
-Early expansion facilitated by powerful UUs.
-UA encourages development and expansion after early aggression.
-UUs are very strong compared to contemporaries, but gain nothing from upgrading, encouraging player to sit on the UUs as long as they can get away with; Rome's lack of military modernization was one of the historical reasons for its downfall.
Germany
-Early game focused on barbarian-hunting; i.e. pulling together disparate tribes into a force to be used against other major civs.
-Mid-game with cheap defensive units encourages a defensive posture around what would be the time of the Holy Roman Empire.
-Late-game strong UU encourages a late-game aggressive push.
England
-UUs and UA encourage player to use a highly mobile fleet coupled with a few extremely strong ranged units to defend territory or make aggressive pushes.
I think this design aspect is really cool. Some of the civs are designed just with flavor or gameplay in mind (I'm looking at you, Huns) but some of the more oddball abilities like Furor Teutonicus or the decision not to let Legions keep their terrain improvement powers when they upgrade actually do have some thought behind them in creating immersive gameplay. Anyone else notice anything like this?
Rome
-Early expansion facilitated by powerful UUs.
-UA encourages development and expansion after early aggression.
-UUs are very strong compared to contemporaries, but gain nothing from upgrading, encouraging player to sit on the UUs as long as they can get away with; Rome's lack of military modernization was one of the historical reasons for its downfall.
Germany
-Early game focused on barbarian-hunting; i.e. pulling together disparate tribes into a force to be used against other major civs.
-Mid-game with cheap defensive units encourages a defensive posture around what would be the time of the Holy Roman Empire.
-Late-game strong UU encourages a late-game aggressive push.
England
-UUs and UA encourage player to use a highly mobile fleet coupled with a few extremely strong ranged units to defend territory or make aggressive pushes.
I think this design aspect is really cool. Some of the civs are designed just with flavor or gameplay in mind (I'm looking at you, Huns) but some of the more oddball abilities like Furor Teutonicus or the decision not to let Legions keep their terrain improvement powers when they upgrade actually do have some thought behind them in creating immersive gameplay. Anyone else notice anything like this?