[Darkwind]

I thought the idea of having nations "evolve" over time into later-era counterparts would be interesting, maybe with harder-than-normal research so it didn't seem like either the eras were flying by or by the time you got to the late age, the heavier troops were useless because you were already well into the late game. It would be especially interesting with dramatic changes, such as R'lyeh EA->MA or Sauromatia->Pythium, Marverni->Man (I assume that's what Marverni turns into), etc.

I also thought it might be interesting to have one's era change by the season. So as R'lyeh, one season you could be happily playing with your Aboleths, and the next they could all be insane and trying to summon Cthulhu. The next, you could be summoning non-insane Illithids (or still stuck tryingn to summon Cthulhu). Come to think of it, what if every season (or six months, or year) players were randomly assigned to different nations? You could be happily elephant-rushing as Caelum and the next turn you could be Kailasa, on the opposite end of said rush. Or someone in a completely different area, even. All sorts of things could vary by the season, actually. Your order-3 society could turn into an effective turmoil-3 nation at the whim of the seasons. Do they even have to have the same effects? Your drain-3 could one day grant you +5% resources, +15% supplies and -14% gold. Not that randomly changing values would be a good idea . . . perhaps increasing/decreasing effect based on season? Say, in winter, growth 3 would be effectively growth 1, but order 3 would be effectively order 4.

Am I even making any sense?