With all of these features it seems silly to have any more, but I guess I’m
wrong because one cool though not very functional (except to the scenario crowd)
feature is to be able to set daytime/nighttime conditions before you start
the game; it sets a certain mood to kill massive hordes of enemies under the
setting sun, kinda romantic if I do say so myself.
Let me fill all you 1337 guys out there in on the territories, you think Rise
of Nations territories but they are nothing like RoN borders at all. EE2’s
territories are there as a way to secure resources, limit turtling, and give
you something more to fight over. As time goes by you’ll be visited by
the geology fairy she takes away
the need for old nasty resources and adds new yummy resources for newer more
powerful units. Well let’s say you
have 3 territories and none have oil, what do you do? Do
you sit around constantly buying oil from the market or do you take that territory
and corner the market on oil. Territories don’t stop you from building
in them, you can build barracks right next to your enemies capitol city (if
he/she’s blind enough to let that happen, if so perhaps he would need
PIP much more than I do) the only bad thing that will come of you building
in a territory other than your own is slower build times, but having your troops
being built where you are instead of traveling the whole map length, is a more
than acceptable trade off. There are some buildings you can’t build in
territories besides your own, those buildings (like universities and temples)
need to be built in a territory with your city in it, that is about as close
to RoN style as it gets. Your troops will take no attrition damage or don’t
have any penalties in enemy territories, but certain things like houses, which
provide moral bonuses to their home troops, will leave you hurting if you’re
trying to invade without strong units or military leaders.
I like the territory system in EE2 better than RoN’s borders because
they don’t really inhibit aggressive gameplay but it still gives you
a visual representation of where a person’s attention could be focused.
The more territory you have the more places you can be attacked. And don’t
think you’ll use many natural borders as a means of protection because
rivers can be bridged (yes you can build bridges) and mountains can be flown
over and parachuted over (yes there are paratroopers). There are many strategies
to implement, many things can happen over the ages so keep your thinking cap
on!
