AOE III Home City System

[TurkishMonky]

I just checked out a some AOE 3 News, and learned that each player will have a leveling up home city (back in europe) that will be able to be customized with "Cards" that you'll be able to add to your civ's "Deck" between games, based on the experience points you earned. (not to mention being able to keep your home city through games)
This sounds sweet in an AOE game. As my experience in RTS is mostly based in AOE II, are these things out there already in other RTS games, or is this somthing unique to the genre? and how do you think it will be switching between two cities on different maps while playing (although only battle in the new world)?

BTW, a huge FAQ is up here, for other AOE 3 nerds:

http://thelegionoflight.net/AOE3/community/QA.cgi