codswallop
Member
My experience was travelling the region for a month, not local takeaway (though there's quite a bit locally). Not a huge amount of experience, sure, but it was enough for me to get my half-baked impression.
I'd say Greece had the larger amount of diversity (especially with things like pastitsio having no Turkish/Serbian/Bosnian equivalent), but there are heaps of things that are virtually the same, with only minor differences between regions (e.g. spanakopita may as well just be burek, a plate of meat with bread is pretty much the same with some minor spice differences, similar foods wrapped in vine leaves, and so on).
One of the great joys of travelling for me is regional foods and after a month travelling through that area I barely felt like I'd experienced much variety because it was all so similar. Sure there are minor differences (like you say, more/less spicy), but to me it was close enough to be negligible.
If I was going to be making equally bad comparisons I'd be saying Thai and Cambodian (and probably Myanmar-ese), not Japanese and Thai.
If no one else answers regarding Civ 5 in the next few hours, I'll grab it thanks. I assume if someone else butts in before, say, 5pm, they want it more than I do.
