[RedRover]

One thing has been bothering me a bit about "Norse myth" and "oriental" themes and mods. This is the tendency modders have had to stack these onto a base nation with a similar cultural theme.

It seems to me that it might be better to use a base nation with a similar magic profile or tactical approach instead of a similar culture. For example, when working on the Grey Elves, I started by looking at flight + air magic and picking the base nation that most closely matched the magic.

If, for example, Niflheim, Muspelheim, Helheim, Utgard, Midgard, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, the Aesir, and all the other potential Norse mythology nation variants are stacked into Jotunheim, then how can we ever put together a Ragnorok-theme scenario? Wouldn't it make more sense to (for example) replace Abysia with Muspelheim?

Likewise, if Barbarian Kings mod represents Mongols, and the Ashikaga Shogunate and Tang mods also overwrite T'ien Ch'i, don't we lose the opportunity to put together an all-oriental-theme game? Wouldn't we be better off spreading the cultural variations across the national bases to encourage the creation of themed scenarios?