Middle East

"The Royal Court, for starters, is a special building exclusive to the Middle Eastern civilisations. This building, available from Age II, is intrinsically bound to the Age up System of the culture. Given that this will be explained in depth later, this section is just meant to tell that, yes, the Royal Court is a fundamental building in the Middle Eastern Gameplay, having powers that can easily change the outcome of the battles they partake.

The Middle Eastern civilisations have a unique Explorer-esque unit in the Leader, just like the Royal Court, how useful and what roles the Leader does take during the game heavily varies between civilizations but more imporantly it varies depending on which Age up Choices you take. Regardless of this there's various features that are common to all of them.

The Leader of a Middle Eastern civilisation cannot gather treasures, this job being done by Nomads, who'll get explained just after this section. It can be a formidable fighting unit to compensate for this, or a strong economic help, boosted by the very unique age up system this culture possesses.

Nomads are a special type of units only available to Middle Eastern civilisations. They are usable in combat, though they do not normally excel at it, but they are very useful in that they can gather treasures, and get a hefty combat bonus against treasure guardians to complement it.

Unlike the vast majority of civilisations in Wars of Liberty, the Middle Easterners do not actually get a Town Center. Instead, they have access to the Citadel, which trains gatherers and receives Homecity shipments just like a Town Center would, but is also a veritable fortress in its own right, coming with a significant number of hitpoints and a strong attack that doesn't first require the building to be garrisoned. However, the Arabians excepted, Middle Eastern civilisations cannot build any defensive buildings other than the Citadel.

Alongside these units that are a crucial part of the unique gameplay style of the Middle Eastern civilisations, there are also two units that are more regular in their purpose, namely the Servant and the Lashkars. The Servant is the Middle Eastern equivalent of Settlers or Villagers that other civilisations have. It is a reasonably straightforward resource gatherer, and as such is the cornerstone of the economy of Middle Eastern civilisations. The Lashkars, meanwhile, is much like the Minuteman that European civilisations can train, but unlike the Minuteman, it can be levied from multiple places, ranging from Citadels and Docks to various types of ship. It has to be mentioned that the Persians do not have Lashkars, as they have their own unique emergency unit.

The Middle East Civilizations don't have access to Spies, much like Latin American civilizations, but rather they train Hashashins, made famous by a certain franchise that has become popular lately but who were all too real. To help them in their sabotage and subterfuge endeavours is that they also have a building dedicated to their activities: The Hookah Lounge.

Unlike the Latin American Town Hall or the Safehouse for most other civilizations around the Globe, the Hookah Lounge isn't focused just on the training and improvement of Hashashins, but it also doubles as the buildings that gives Middle Eastern civs access to Mercenaries.

The Middle Eastern civilisations have a unique way of aging up; rather than by political affairs, they age up by focusing on Cultural Aspects. These are, as the name suggests, parts of a civilization's culture that dictate its place in the world. To give an example, the Persians can choose between the four Cultural Aspects of Literature, Architecture, Trade and Diplomacy.

Rather than providing the player with units or resources, as the Politicians of other civilisations might, each age-up through a Cultural Aspect provides the following three things:

1. A global bonus to your civilization.
2. An upgrade for your colony's Leader.
3. A Protocol for your Royal Court.

What makes Cultural Aspects doubly special is that they are available for every age, and a single Cultural Aspect can be selected more than once. If, say, a Persian player ages up to Age II using Literature, he will then be at Literature Lvl. 1. When he ages up to Age III, he can then choose any of the four Cultural Aspects available to the Persians, but if he chooses Literature again, he will be at Literature Lvl. 2, giving similar bonuses to what he had when he was still at Lvl. 1, but these bonuses will now be much stronger.

Now to explain the three single aspects of the Age up system.

The first one, being the global bonus, is straightforward enough, to use the example of Persian Literature, each level of "Literature" you possess within your civilization will upgrade the rate at which your technologies develop. A Level 1 Persian Literature will get a modest Bonus, while a Level 4 will research technologies rather automatically.

The Protocols are an aspect that are instrinsically linke to the Royal Court, one of the buildings mentioned earlier. These Protocols take the shape of auras that can be cast on the map to give units in a specific place an extra edge during a short while, when well placed and cast at an appropiate time, they can completely turn the tide of battle.

To give an example, the Persian Cultural Aspect of Literature grants the Healing Protocol that heals units in a particular area. Low level Literature will heal these units at only a moderate rate, but if higher levels of Literature are reached, this healing aura can become a powerful tool that can heal your units at an incredible fashion.

Finally the Leader, or Explorers as they are generically known to all civs, are also affected by the Age up system: To once again take Literature as an example, selecting Literature will give your Leader, Pishva in this case, a slow trickle of coin. As said before, increasing levels of Cultural Aspects give increasingly powerful bonuses, so this coin trickle will be much faster at Literature Lvl. 4 than it is at Literature Lvl. 1.

In all cases however it must be mentioned that, while stacking levels of a singularCultural Aspect will make this one particularly powerful, sometimes it will be more convenient to branch out and instead have multiple, if less powerful, Cultural Aspects to rely on. The choice, as always, is on the player."