[Septimius Severus]

Chris and Squirrel and anyone else who may have an issue with the path based teams/themes as proposed, the important thing to remember here is that these teams/themes are what you the players chose! They are the WINNERS!

For those of you who may not know or remember, there were 2 polls conducted on our team forums where I gave players 20 possible options for team groupings and themes. Some included giants, some were based on animal only nations, etc. Players were also encouraged to add any ideas they had.

There were 52 votes received in total. Guess which teams/themes got the most votes?

The Arboreans and the Sanguinarium got 6 votes each.
The Supplicants and Usurpers got 5 votes each.

People voted down most of the non-path based options and no one bothered to put forth any other suggestions.

So my friends, you see, I am simply following through on the will of the players here and implementing their most popular choices.

Teams will still have their ranked lists (which is why I tend to resist pre-set nations) and can meet the theme via nation or pretender choice. So they've got choice and options. You also have your choice of which team to join.

The whole idea is foster a common identity and get people into character and a team mind set. So this therefore is the most important reason why I am doing this the way I am, because you chose it. It'd be nice if players really get into this and have fun with it, instead of playing games that are more of just the same, that follow that ultra competitive, narrow minded, mindset. I want each team to have their own exclusive "toolkit", there own path to victory. But the option is there for teams to tailor things as they see fit, if they don't wish to role play.

As for the AI team, well you ignore the AI team and the advantage their territory can give your team at your own peril. People didn't ignore their importance this game, and I don't think people will do so next game. Their theme and nations, if Gandalf wishes to find one for them, will be chosen as usual from the dregs.