DD n°15: Sumer from Sargon to the Kassites

For the historical part of this dev diary, here the link:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=147816104348795&id=10947340484...

From the date of 2200 BC, the Sumerian factions will no longer compete to become Sumer. Instead, the faction controlling the majority of Sumer will become it, much like the Egyptians when Egypt breaks up. Otherwise their gameplay will not really change.

The Akkadians and Babylonians will have fairly similar gameplay. What they will have in common is Royal Temples similar to the Sumerians, and advanced Royal Palaces with stronger and more varied room effects.

The Akkadians will be represented with a Warmonger mechanic that automatically gains Militarist alignment no matter what they do. They will also have a morale bonus for their armies when campaigning against factions of different cultures.

The Babylonians will be different in that they will be a more stable version of the Akkadians, not having their morale bonus to troops, but not gaining Militarist alignment automatically. This will make them both less militarily strong, but also more stable than the Akkadians who can only play in total war mode.

Moreover, the periods starting after Akkad will show much more narrative variety than those before, with the rise of Sargon, the fall of Akkad, the fall of Ur III, the era of the Amorite warlords, the reign of Babylon, the raid on Babylon by the Hittites and finally the Kassite era.

But we cannot move on to the rest of Mesopotamia without mentioning the update planned after the one on Lower Mesopotamia, which will deal with the hereditary enemies of the Sumerians and then Babylonians: Elam. And this is what we will see next week.