Sure, but then there is the question why advise is needed in the first place. For me the biggest difference is research costs. Below Sid 4 turns per tech is reached far too easy far too early. Any further improvement in research output goes essentialy into waste. That frustrates me.
There is. You simply need to make it via the editor. That does not take long as Bamspeedy has proven. Playing at such levels however takes some time. Actually regular Sid usually proves to be challenge enough. For a more casual gameplay Deity is sufficiently easy. There is quite a portion of players how manage Deity at some ease. Becoming one of those players is a realistic goal. One should not be too afraid of losing, though. Winning usualy comes at the price of occasionally losing aswell. If it does not difficulty is too low.
Well, I guess people are "different". Let me give you an example: assume you are a chess grandmaster and the only opponents you ever get to play with are beginners who just barely know how to push the pieces. You win all your games, but it is no fun at all for you, because all you have to do is just "collect the pieces they are dropping left and right", so it does not give you any satisfaction, since it is no achievement at all. It's just boring.
But if you get another grandmaster as opponent, it's a real challenge. Now if you want to win, you have to think up some deep strategy, find some brilliant moves, calculate a 10 move deep winning combination, etc. It's a huge effort, but when you win, you feel great, because it's been a real achievement!
Same for civilization players like me or justanick: playing on Regent is so boring, because it is no challenge at all. You can play as stupidly as you want to - the outcome will never be in doubt. And what is the fun of playing a game, if you know right from the start that you're going win, no matter what you do.... It doesn't feel great, because it's no achievement. Nothing to feel proud about. When playing Deity/Sid, you will lose a game occasionally ("no risk, no fun"...
I accept, that there are people who just like to play around a bit, relax and have fun. That's fine, it's a free country. But you must also accept, that other people enjoy solving difficult intellectual challenges. I think it's not fair of you to call them spock-like, epileptic, masochistic or what not. Or do you also ridicule chess grandmasters who spend years studying all the fine nuances of chess strategy, because that is what they love to do? Or scientists who spend their life on trying to understand all the nooks and crannies of molecular biology, so they can eventually find a cure for Cancer, Ebola, AIDS, etc? Everybody is free to pursue their interests as they like it best. (As long as it doesn't interfere with the freedom of others.) No need to ridicule anybody.
Well, here we are on the same page. The HoF also isn't for me... Re-rolling (or even using a program that generates thousands of maps and checks them for enough cows) until you get the perfect starting conditions, is not my cup of tea. If I start a game, I finish it, even if it ends in a loss.
(But once I started a game, I still try to press the maximum out of the given start conditions by any means I have learned, including what you might call "cheese mechanics" or "roflstomp exploits"...
So did i. Therefore i copied this discussion so we can continue it in civilised manner without flooding the 'Newbie' Questions thread with it.
That was much harder than the "Demigod" 
