flavour traits

[sabrewolf]

just a few more days, then i'll be getting my c3c

a lucky friend wrote something about flavour traits. something like that you can predefine or at least influence the research direction of AI civs. he said that's used in the AoD conquest where the native american civs research a different path than the european civs.

can anyone give me more detailed information about this? how useful is this feature?
and does it only influence research or also governments, unit building, diplomacy, improvements, etc?

[WarpStorm]

Well if a civ doesn't have the tech for it how will it change governments, build units, build improvements, make treaties, etc.?

The only shortcoming I see is that the flavor techs have to be optional.