As far as Deity +1, +2, +3 goes, I admit I've only played the game on a PC a few times (with that on), I just didn't notice anything significant between doing it that way and tuning the unrest factor in the editor. Maybe the computers are just so easy to beat at this point that I can no longer make a distinction between "easy" and "hard", because "hard" is easy as well.
While you seem to be understanding where I'm coming from, I might elaborate a bit more. You say that "he changes the game to suit his strategies" - but this isn't quite accurate. I know how to deal with City Walls, there's many ways, but it would be odd to say that - if my changes weren't made - that using catapults to take out city walls is "my strategy". Rather, what I'm suggesting is what should be a strategy. And still, nobody has bothered to mention why Cannons or even Artillery are in the game. Without an additional ability, Cavalry and Armor outright outclass them, at roughly the same class level. Cannons and Artillery may as well be removed if they cannot crack City Walls because there's no other purpose to them (and, while I won't pull back from this contention, if someone were to argue to me that this change was sufficient to make my City Walls production cost increase overkill, I'd be willing to back away from it without argument. Rather, nobody's really commented at all on the cost increase or the idea of making the 3 siege units City Wall-penetrable, people have simply been suggesting to me ways of beating City Walls which I am perfectly aware of).
Regarding scenarios, I've played some, but there's plenty in number of them that I've hardly had a chance to play them all. After playing a number of them, though, I often come to the conclusion that I like the normal game best, it just needs some changes - and I don't see what's wrong with that.
And, you're right, nobody seems to be arguing against my changes to terrain resources, rather the argument used against me is that people tend not to change their terrains. But that argument doesn't invalidate what I'm talking about. To analogize, it would be like saying "if the P-bomb (the P-bomb is a non-existent weapon I've made up for this analogy) were used in war, it would cause too much damage to ourselves, and therefore its yield should be decreased so that the blast doesn't reach our shores", where the counter-argument is "P-bombs aren't generally used in war".
Ace claims that I'm here to start a flame war, and other than making the fairly obvious comment that if I wanted to start a flame war I wouldn't have used 14+ pages of typing to do it, the fact of the matter is that all of my responses so far have been in order to clarify my position so that someone can give a response to IT, and not things on the side, namely...
1. I claim that Catapults, Cannons, and Artillery should ignore City Walls, and perhaps City Walls need a cost increase.
A. And the response to me is that there's ways to beat City Walls like massing units or bribing, both of which I'm aware of and know full well how to do. Or that in general people don't build City Walls, and neither do I unless it's tactically valuable (against a computer it basically never is because they're morons, but against a human I know when the right time is to build one to make myself the biggest pain in the arse). But neither of these responses have anything to do with my suggestion to change the unit abilities or the wall cost.
2. I claim that certain terrains need changing so you can't maximize their power outright.
B. But the response is that people don't always change their terrain. But this has nothing to do with the power of the terrains when they are changed.
3. Finally, regarding terrain again, my claim for grasslands never having a production point at any point in the game has a very specific impact for the early part of the game, and not just the late game where everyone seems to be commenting as though it all has to do with engineer transformation. The setup of this suggestion in fact has it implied that there is no changing of terrain, and my goal in bringing it up in the first place is that there should be a motivation to change terrain (unless you're happy with lots of grasslands and no production, you'll need to make a few forests).
C. But everyone has focused on the idea of 2. and nobody has even commented on 3. at all.
You might think I'm trying to be argumentative, Ace, but the fact of the matter is that nobody has even replied to any of the arguments I've made. I've been trying to tell you that what you're saying to me isn't what I'm talking about. You say to me that CivII is not stale as I claim it is, yet your form of argumentation seems duly repetitive and unchanging, and hence so must be my replies. This can only be reflective of the reality of the game, and I'm even more convinced of it now than I was before - or you would have been reading what I was saying more objectively and not placing a subjective sticker on my words.
Nostalgia and the desire never to make change are indeed powerful allies. And I perfectly sympathize with you, Mercator, when you say you like to stick to the standard rules, it makes sense. If you enjoy that, I won't say that I should take that away from you. It's merely a thought you might like if you put it into practice - although it's real feel works best when put to the test against other humans. Don't think that I'm not an "unchanger" myself, it takes quite alot to get me to turn tail on original design and condemn it invalid. (Indeed, I'm the one fighting against my mother in her desire to purchase a brand new kitchen because it's an old house and among other things, the floor tiles are falling apart, just because it'll look different, and broken tiles are OK as long as they keep us from falling through the floor.)
And finally, an added note, and this seems strangely universally applicable to games when I've made the observation. No matter how outrageous a game may be, even if it's based in fantasy or sci-fi, while you can't have it all, it appears that the more a game is realistic and the things therein are believable as themselves by an audience so long as the realism does not make the gameplay aesthetically uninteresting, being realistic in a game always adds positively to it. (For example, it would be stupid to say that we should be realistic in Escape Velocity such that there is no sound in the game because there is no sound in space. Everyone would, rightfully, hate that. And while people might find it fun to ignore the laws of physics in, say, a game of Tank Wars, a game of Tank Wars where the laws of physics are properly taken into account would be far more strategically challenging and intellectually stimulating.)
