I've been on this board for exactly a year now, and its come to my attention that there are two main camps when it comes to Civ modding. Namely, Kal-el's and Rhye's.

First, I'll start by examining Kal-el's

In DyP, and now, Rise and Rule, the prinicple behind the mod seems to be flavor units, an extremely detailed progression threw the ages, and plenty of buildings. Namely, Kal-el wants realism, so that if you true and build all the buildings, you will lose(buildings have stragetic value and purposes far beyond the main game's in Rise in Rule)

The philociphy behind these mods seems to be: Civ3 is a good game, but we shall go far beyond this to create the most realistic experience possible. Let us change everything you think you know about civ, and take you where no other Civ mod has gone before.

Then theres Rhye's

In Rhye's mod, he focuses on leaving the game the way it is for the most part. Simplicity seems to be his focus, along with speed. In Rhyes of Civ, the mod seeks to take civ, and just iron out the bad parts (Time boredom starting in the Industrial Age).

The philociphy of Rhye's mod seems to be: Civ3 is a good game, if its not broken don't fix it. Fun is more important than realism, and quality is more important than quantity.

Which philociphy is the better one? Or do they both have pluses and minus? Which one do you agree with? Any thoughts?

Philosophy three would be to make it an entirely new game altogether - like Master of Myrror, Mystara, WH2.

Both Rhye and Kal-el have done superb jobs, there's no doubting that. Many people going down either route seem to end up with a kind of "Civ3 + X" mod, which isn't always great; sometimes you have a 80MB download, in which you discover you've 3 era-specific leaderheads you had before, a dozen units you've already downloaded and very little else in terms of modification.

My personal preference is for something that doesn't just add something to the existing set-up, but creates something different, or is focused on one time period. The Rood and the Dragon, by Plotinus, is a perfect example of what I prefer. Not just a collection of units and leaderheads, it is a challenge based on a historical era I'm interested in.

I can't take this seriosuly, becuase you spelled 'philosophies' wrong.

If you've posed the question which is better so that you can decide which route to take your own mod, then I'd say go with whichever suits you best. If you create your mod how you want it to be, then first of all (and most importantly) you'll get more out of playing it; secondly, you'll be more likely to finish it and give it your all. Whichever way you do it, there'll be people who like it and people who don't like it!!

I'd say there are more philosophies than that, and I'm not sure thats a good division. Edit: on second thought, I just basically restated what R8XFT said, in slightly different words. So I'm just being more wordy about it, really.
I'd divide them like nyau:

Differentiated Techs mods - Such as Warhammer, Pentagenesis. which rely on the unique techs, tech preferences, or unit availability of each race to make for a varied game which encourages a player to try different civs, and is generally set in the same pattern, quality, and quantity as the normal epic game, albeit with a completely redone tech tree, graphics, etc.

Cram-it mods - Such as RAR or Paths of Glory, Whereby the goal is to put so many possibilities and choices available for any civ that any given game is almost certain to be a bit different, albeit only slightly altered by the chosen civ.

Detailed mods - Such as Rhye's, or TAM, which seek to provide an 'accurate' and descriptive mod with the goal of putting things together as logically as possible, and which generally have more quantity in techs, units, and the like than the epic game as a side effect of trying to be detailed, rather than a goal.

As far as the two specific mods themselves: Rhye's mod plays out completely different from a normal civ game, between the NONE-era techs, unit choices, and slow expansion; and indeed, Rhye's mod is fairly open about being far more realistic than other mods: even on random maps, the game progresses through the eras during relatively appropriate years. RAR, on the other hand, feels like Civ with more units, buildings, and the like, which happens to have more elaborate upgrade paths. Expansion and progression still happen at the same pace, though, and aside from the plethora of units, techs, and buildings, nothing has changed in terms of game mechanics from the epic game; era advances can and do still happen at ridiculous times, and most of the buildings and units, it could be argued, are so minute or silly that they have no worth in a game of 'epic' scale.
The various fantasy/scifi mods are the way they are mainly because it is necessitated; you can't be building elven units with an orc resource, nor should a dwarven race be building hobgoblins.

Double Edit: As for which one is the best...the Differentiated Tech mods are the way they are because thats the best way to do it. If you like the scifi/fantasy atmosphere, thats what they provide. But for choosing between detailed mods and dump-everything-in mods, I say detailed. I'd rather have a single silver pocketwatch than a room full of digital alarm clocks.

I can't take this seriosuly, becuase you spelled 'philosophies' wrong.

If we are going to be a stickler for spelling Goldflash, they I'd point out that you mispelled both 'seriously' and 'because'. :p Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone..hehe

Well, I can certainly see where both Rhye and Kal-el have their strengths. I like the concept of the Epic game, in that its a journey threw the ages. However, I do enjoy Rise and Rule's idea of having elaborate upgrade paths. On the other hand, some of the ideas in Rise and Rule are repitive. The "Marketplace" improvement covers all things such as Restaurants, Supermarkets and the like, in fact, if you look at the building artwork, you'll notice that in the modern era, the Marketplace looks pretty much like Walmart and its surrounding parking lots.

What I'd try to do is trim repetive things like that for example. I'd like to see Kal-el and Rhye enter into this discussion themselves though, to discuss why they made things as they are.

I like better Kal-el's way of modding, it just gives more interesting gameplay, imho :)

The problem is that it's not always easy to think up new kinds of improvements. You can have a basic "marketplace" improvement that increases tax, a basic "library" improvement that increases science, a basic "temple" improvement that makes people happy, a basic "factory" improvement that increases production... and then pretty much everything is a weaker or stronger version of these. There's not an enormous amount of scope for variation. It seems to me that a successful mod or scenario is generally going to pretty much copy the epic game one way or another, but with different names and graphics. At least that's my experience - maybe I'm just not imaginative enough!

I agree that both mods have their strengths. I enjoy both though they play out very differently. I do like the complex tech tree of Rise and Rule and the idea that you can't have everything. Real life is like that, and it helps to address one of the major problems Civ has always had - namely that all civs are basically the same with the exception of their UU. The world's civilizations varied quite widely and Civ did not model this very accurately. In defense of the duplication of building functions (for example, workers housing and forge) they allow flexibility in decision making. I like having choices. I do not like thinking "ok, now I have to develop this perfectly useless tech when what I really need is...." Sometimes simple is better; sometimes simple is simply simplistic.

You could say I prefer both. Mystara is crammed with flavor, and it has around 250 ormore buildings and wonders, and you can't build everything because 75% of them are civ-specific. Same goes with units and some resources in the mod. I think it depends on the type of mod. My personal mod is more like Rhye's or actually like Far Horizons, where it starts at the normal beginning and goes further into the future, with minimal flavor and plenty of civ diversity. Think I need a nap, I don't even know if this post makes any sense or has a point, but I'll leave it just in case it does. :sleep: