by vakEirn79 on Wed Apr 18, 2007 9:11 pm
Thematically, the armies you deploy each turn are "trained" in between turns. The bonus armies you get from owning cards are still trained, they just don't get a choice of where to deploy (sort of like being trained as reserve troops first, then assigned to the front lines as needed). You can fortify and deploy on allied territories because you're sending them qualified soldiers to use. It doesn't make sense for you to train your troops on your allies territories. Cards putting bonus armies on ally territories would be like country A recruiting a group of civilians for the national army, sending them to allied country B for basic training, then halfway through B's training program, A tells B that those soldiers are ready to be deployed as reserve troops for B's national army...I highly doubt that any competent military alliance has operated that way.
EDIT: The above might be a bit unclear. I had a long explanation for what I consider cards to represent, but I got tired of trying to clarify that and ended up just cutting it. I think by doing so, it removed the reasoning for why I don't think the bonus armys from cards should be considered as having been trained by country A. A shorter explanation of that is basically owning a card is akin to knowing more about some special militaristic value of the territory, so if you have a card for your own territory, you train troops more efficiently on it. But even if you know details of your ally's country, he doesn't, and you shouldn't be sending him your recruits to train. If trading cards were allowed between partners, then that fits in very well, because you give him the info on his country for him so he can train his own extra soldiers.
Gameplay-wise, I think it's just because it doesn't matter. Nobody has an advantage or disadvantage in the current system, it's just overall slightly slower than if allies got bonuses from each other's cards.