The expansionist cultures in the game have on their cards a representation of why they are expansionist, just as other cultures represent on their cards the reason for their affinities. The Assyrians are fighting in their representation, there is a fight scene in the representation of the Romans, the Teutonic are armed knights moving to a fortress, the Ottomans are at war, the Spaniards are invading a foreign land, a british military man and someone who looks like a nobleman or a politician are looking at a map planning their expansion, and the Soviets are making a parade. All these cultures mentioned have their expansionist factor linked to their military power, leaving only three other cultures, the Achaemenid Persians, the Russians and the Americans. I'm not going to try to debate the Achaemenid Persians or the Russians in this post, but I would like to show my opinion on the Americans card image.

Opposing the Soviets as the contemporary expansionists, Americans seem to be being represented more as a scientific culture than anything else. The Soviets have soldiers, a tank and military planes ready to go to war, and at the same time the American “expansionist” representation is people looking at the glorious future and expanding into space through the launch of a rocket. Although both cultures are expansionist, their representations have very different value judgments, and I'm not talking about the subjective perspective that each person can have when seeing an image, but there is clearly an armed and violent expansionist culture and another a friendly and non-violent one. I find the way both cultures are portrayed is cynical because both the Americans and the Soviets have great achievements in the military and space fields.

The Soviets were very important in exploring space, among their achievements are: first man in space; first woman in space; first space stations; first flight to orbit Earth, among other feats. Logically, the Soviets also had expansionist interests in the military sense, proof of this is that they defeated the Nazis on the eastern front.

Just as I'm not saying that Americans don't have space feats, they do have many, but I believe a Soviet-like expansionist representation is more appropriate. Why? The United States has the most powerful army in the world; has the most advanced combat technologies; was the first to develop nuclear weapons; was the first and only one to use nuclear weapons in a war; it has the largest number of military bases spread across other countries, around 800 bases; it is the country that invests the most in the army; is always at war in some eastern country; it uses its influence, mixed with espionage, as Snowden proved, to bring to power governments favorable to them in several countries, which has resulted in many dictatorships in the Americas in the past and in neoliberal governments. What I don't like about the representation of the US in the game is the cynicism as it is represented, being clearly the greatest military power in the world, but being represented only as progressives and space expansionists, whereas with the Soviets there is no such camouflage.

The Americans could very well be a militaristic culture in the game, just like the Soviets, and this is already represented in other games as COD without any strangeness. But if the developers think it would make a bad impression to show the Americans as true expansionists or militarists, I disagree, as this would be a much more attractive element for the game, as it would be a criticism of any country that undertakes contemporary militarization, leading perhaps more media coverage, and it would be far more attractive to other players who seek battles in this type of strategy game. The game would be better remembered and publicized for a more faithful representation of how US expansionist policies behave.

But maybe I got everything wrong about the American representation in the game, if instead of being a rocket it's actually an atomic missile I withdraw my criticisms hahahahahahahahahahaha.

And I have suggestions about the representation of Brazil in the game, and I speak as a Brazilian, that there are certain inconsistencies. Brazil in the game is an agrarian country, and so far it's true, we are big food producers. But the problem revolves around that in the game, food production is entirely intended for the population of our own country, that's why it grows and doesn't go hungry, but that doesn't happen in Brazil. The companies that produce agricultural products in Brazil are private and operate without much control, that is, they sell to those who pay more, which means that most of our production is exported. This often causes food shortages in Brazil, one of the largest food producers is without food when companies decide to feed other countries because of profit. This makes food prices very expensive in Brazil, and the poorest people do not eat well, while we produce food for other countries so they do not go hungry. In the game, the population's feeding is only related to food production, but this is not true in Brazil. So in the game there could be some mechanics of turning food into money, since our food is more focused on the economy than on feeding the population. Or, Brazil's affinity could stop being agrarian and become aesthetic, for example, since we attract many tourists and Brazilian music is being heard more around the world.