What does the 'Scientist' mean?
Is it sort of like in Civ 4 there were traits like Aggressive or Commercial ?
Okay, Commencing Speculation:
I suspect that since the Traits so far are all related to aspects of Game Play: Science, Food (Agrarian), Expansion(ist), Military (Militaristic) that each will give some kind of a bonus towards that aspect of the game. And, I believe they said that aspects of the Faction you choose would 'carry over' into the future Eras, so playing Greeks in the Classical Era could give you some sort of Science-oriented Boost for the rest of the game.
On the other hand, I'd bet that playing a Scientific Faction in, say, the Modern Era would give a much more concentrated boost to your science production than just the 'ancestral' science boost from having been Greeks 2000 years earlier.
And, I can't resist commenting: they still think, along with the rest of the modern world, that the 'Phalanx' was a formation of some kind. Actually, the word simply meant "army" or 'host' and represented everybody you brought to the battlefield. The confusion arises from the fact that in the early Greek city states, the most important part of the Phalanx were the Hoplites: the success or failure of the Hoplites decided the battle and nobody else really counted.
And finally, I see no problem with Athens as a 'capital' of Greece, especially as they are indicated as Science-oriented: while the Natural Philosophers came from all over Greece (except Sparta, who produced neither philosophers nor playwrights nor poets) the Institutions of Science, like the
Lyceum of Aristotle and
Academy of Plato, were both in Athens (or, specifically for the Academy, right outside the walls in a wooded grove)
