Preview: Provinces

[Tarkus]

Does your avatar name have anything to do with the classic Emerson Lake and Palmer 20 minute epic, "Tarkus"?

Why yes...yes it does! Good bit of sleuthing there, Iskander. But no such reference to the beast in the epic...although there's that great album cover...
[Edit]...with the manticore! Alas, the great bio-mechanical beast Tarkus is slain by the monster from Persian myth. Indeed, my friend...you beat me at my own game.
Beware the manticore on the rugged plains of Baktria...I shall keep an eye to the horizon.

[B-Wing]

I'm extremely pleased to see that each and every province is going to be receiving so much character! As a geography major, I greatly appreciate any detail that can be added to the regions of the game. And I have one small suggestion to add.

I haven't played EB extensively enough to have seen every Wonder (or other building unique to certain provinces, however they are referred to), but all of them which I have seen provided bonuses to law, happiness, and/or trade. I was thinking that for EB2 it may even be appropriate to apply negative modifiers to specific provinces via the new Province Buildings.

I don't know ancient history enough to suggest many applications of this, but it is my understanding that certain provinces were generally more rebellious than others. Judea/Palestine comes to mind, but I'm sure there are other examples. As an example, I could imagine Jerusalem having a permanent +5 Unrest modifier applied to its Province Building. I'm not sure what the mechanical differences between Happiness, Law, and Unrest are, but it may be appropriate for some provinces to have permanent modifiers to these.

There may already be other ways of designating provincial rebelliousness without using buildings, but I don't know enough about modding the game to know. Just a thought.

[Foot]

Judea was actually quite a peaceful province until someone came along and decided to restrict their religious and self-autonomous freedoms. Then they got angry. However, one of the reasons for these buildings is to give character to each province, including unique units and bonuses to all variety of things.

Foot