Well, your games are streamlined and you never do a thing which is not necessary. By consequent, you have short, fast pace games that does not allow you to see too much things. I mean, you end them early.
As I understood it, Moshelevi is not the kind of guy who streamline his games.
I guess that his games stretch so much that he always end up in modern era with plenty units, particularly on the AI side. He may also uncheck the time victory, what would make this state of facts more true yet.
I think you misunderstand the kind of player I am
. I WISH it were true that I never did anything unnecessary...if any player can make such a claim for civ IV and not lie, they're the best player in the world. Sadly, that's not me
.
I
play quickly, but the range of dates on the finishes I see are quite varied (example: LHC genghis khan ended in 1948 AD for me, also at immortal but very late...as late as that difficulty can go really. I won UN 6 turns before an AI ship landed). There were...a LOT of units in that game, and some AIs that are on the higher end of unitprobs (two that have unitprobs identical to that of Bismark, who I'm assuming moshlevi meant because it's even less plausible with freddy). Even there, no 150 unit stack on a very late finish. A couple AIs had 50 unit stacks though. On the flip side, I played out a monarch game this past week where I won a continents conquest ~ 1675 AD. Very mixed bag of experience...and a LOT of games played! That's why I'm somewhat confident in what I'm saying here.
I can see a high difficulty marathon game with a trapped warmonger throwing 150 unit stacks around. I guess if you don't do anything and disable time victories and nobody manages a win, you might see some big stacks in the 2000's+, so while it is possible it just isn't PLAUSIBLE that some noble AI was just sitting pretty with 150 units in one city. But even if all that were true to the letter, it doesn't change my point.
There are lots of easy ways to shred 150 units with a tech lead, and once you factor in WW and diplo it's not clear that nukes are better in the role than arty, cannons, bombers, etc. Early war prevents even seeing 150 units, too.
Also, playing streamlined vs not is a very real consideration. There is an opportunity cost for delaying the game, and that opportunity might be winning or achieving a winning position sooner. If a player does choose to pass that window up, he has no business arguing that nukes (or any one unit) were his only way out. By the time he used them, that was probably so, but that's only due to his previous choices forcing it that way.
A good barometer can be seen from the aggregate community though. *some* players use nukes. Mirthradir is a deity player and he will use them to win. He used them in the same game I spoilered here, on the same difficulty and speed AND victory condition, and he did beat my finish about 10-20 turns faster. But my estimate is that most of those 10-20 turns is explained by the fact that he is a DEITY player, not by his unit choice
.
If nukes were really so overpowering, we'd see more of them in standard forum games, especially from players who are struggling to win any kind of victory they can scrape after they move up. However, as the host of several series I can say that I have rarely, if ever, seen nukes used in that context. If anything, the #1 most common difficulty-jump unit is either the cannon or some tool of an early rush from what I've seen. Aside from mirth I've not seen a high level player (other than myself a few times) use a nuke in a long time (though obsolete used to fire them off in forum games a ton too, and maybe he did recently, not sure). Not in the deity challenges, not in immortal university, not in monarch student, not in nobles club, not in lonely hearts club, etc. The most convincing wins in the recent deity domination challenge (which I lost) were either infantry or cavalry. I don't think a single player, win or lose, even fired a nuke there.
There's just no body of evidence suggesting they're as strong as moshlevi lets on here. There's a ton behind what I'm saying -----> other options are not only viable, but *usually* stronger as well.