whats up with the japanese starting techs?

[grappleman]

i just noticed this, japan is militaristic/religious yet they start the wheel and ceremonial burial. whats the deal with that? does anyone know? i checked all other civs and they had warrior code (if they were militaristic of course) but does anyone kwow what the deal is with japan?

[Harovan]

It's just for the diversity's sake. Japan was among the original 16 civs. Since 6 traits can have only (6x5)/(1x2) = 15 combinations, one trait combo had to be duplicated. That happened to be Religious+Militaristic (both Aztecs and Japan). To give them some start diversity anyway, Japan was given The Wheel as starting tech rather than Warrior Code. The Aztecs wouldn't have benefited from this tech, because they can build 10 shield chariots from the start, which don't even need horses and are not wheeled. In PtW, this diversity principle was dropped, since 8 civs but no trait were added, which resulted in more trait duplications.

[grappleman]

yeah the trait duplicate thing is seriously annoying but at least it will be fixed with the two new traits in conquests

[Harovan]

No it won't. 8 traits give (8x7)/(1x2) = 28 combinations, but there will be 31 civs.

[grappleman]

true but it will be better than having 24 civs and nearly every single one of them a duplicate

[Flight]

and of course the aztecs never invented the wheel

[pedrojedi]

That's not true, they played a game that involved balls (that will not sound good) and wheels; it was something like a much more difficult basketball, and the losers also lost their heads (or were the winners...?). Well, they never used the wheel to make war chariots, I think...

[Shogun Gunner]

The Aztecs will just have to "reinvent the wheel"