they didn't but there was in game term links between them.
the Chines fought the Persians who fought the Bizants who fought the turkes... etc... who fought the british.
in AOM the big reasonable idea is that the norse battle the greeks who battle the egyptions.
yes you can play norse agains egypt and china against the british but that is your choice.
besides, belive it or not but the norse RELIGION actualy did fought the egyption one:
the 3 religions intraduced to us today are just the final version of the 3 very different religions. in the bronze age there was constant movings of tribes each with his very own religion connected to ancient kings. their many many small gods and religions finally came into 4 major religions- Greek , norse, egyption and mesopotamian.
the mixing proccess though continued and in the classical time (around 700- 500 BC) we find Amon-Zeus which is zeus mixed with ra. and we find the Druid religion mixed from norse and tribel religions, etc.
some reserchers claim that the mesopotamian god Baal comes originaly from the norse god Odin, for example.
i think AOM is like a metaphor on the ancient religions fighting for influence.
so according to ES's Age games tradition this game is also historacly trustee.
[This message has been edited by talos (edited 07-14-2002 @ 10:29 AM).]