I don't take it as argumentative. And yes, it's "my mod" but I don't intend to actually do it. We could just as easily not do your idea as not do my idea, as long as we can agree upon which idea not to do.
Your point of comparison with the Racial traits in SIEV is valid. Although I have in fact argued the same position in the past agaisnt racial specific traits in SIEV. Although there I have been able to tell myself it's something intrinsic because they are in fact different races from different planets. They may in fact have a bioligical differance that allows them to manipulate matter differently than us. The universe is a big place afterall. Even if it's a cultural and not a biological thing, there you are talking about perhaps millions of years on a different cultural track to get to where they are. Not somthing to be overcome easily.
I am suprised that a person with a degree in antropology would be disagreeing with me on this actually. I would think you would be of the opinion that we all are pretty much the same at our root, not intrinsically differant than one another.
Truely it's difficult to equate the variuos empires of history strictly, as they did not develop at exactly the same time. The Romans came to power after the Greeks, and much of their culture was based on Greek culture as you pointed out yourself.
My idea in proposing this mod was not to take the end result of Roman, Greek, or Cartheginian culture and compare them and compete using their various historically accurate strenghts and weaknesses. But to modify the game and place you at the head of an empire early in it's history, before those cultural differances arose, and allow you to choose the path to domination that you feel suits you best. You wouldn't actually be nessecarily controling the Romans agasint the Carteginians yourself. You would simply be running an empire in an alternate universe, that as closely as possible models the choices that were made along the paths of development for those peoples.
So if you wanted to develop your empire as the Roman Empire did, you could. But so could your neighbor.
Geoschmo