Reason for the new race-creation setup ?

[Hugh Manatee]

Mainly I like the roundness of it, I want a sart race, I pick "smart", I want a dumb race, I pick "dumb", and it's either + or -500. I remember MoO2 having like 10 race points going either way, with a score bonus if you didn't spend them all.

Perhaps with a mod you could put in varying degrees of racial bonuses, from 20 to -20, like in MoO2.

Also, now you have the cultural techs, so if you want any given attribute boosted, you just research it as you play, working towards it.