in regards to our criticisms

[The Q-Meister]

well, I do think that vanilla BtS is harder than RFC, and that might actually be a reason for not finishing BtS games

Really? Interesting I always thought the opposite: No Stability, no plagues, no spawning civs to worry about that take your land or automatically are more advanced than you, no penalties for land grabbing, can settle anywhere you want to, large empires are not penalized as much, can have Representation the whole game without an issue.

Knowing the map is obviously a major advantage but that's now offset by RAND.

 

[onedreamer]

heh, I wish it was as easy as you picture it... civs don't spawn subsequently but this also means that you cannot settle anywhere since "anywhere" is already settled
BtS AI is not as "guided" as RFC, it does a good job in expanding, it has good (for an AI) diplomatic and espionage skills, and its military capabilities are very good, you will hardly see this potential in action in RFC for a number of reasons.

 

[The Q-Meister]

I see. So you seem more focused on fewer AI constraints while I was more focused on player constraints. I think that vanilla games are far more predictable in the sense that by 0AD it's pretty obvious who has a chance of winning the game. Often it's clear who exactly will win as there isn't a chance of a civ collapsing, a new civ spawning and there is very little keeping a civ who is already ahead in the game from maintaining if not expanding their lead.

Case in point my recent Carthage game: I had N Africa, Italy and Greece. Was ahead in techs, points and the most powerful civ. Had this game been in regular vanilla civ it would have been a pretty smooth road to the finish but with Rhye's stability I was on Unstable for most of the time, lost Rome because of it and when I had the conquistador event happen and took land in Central America (which would be a good thing in vanilla civ) it lowered my stability even more and I collapsed.

Had these events occur in vanilla civ I would have grown even more powerful but in Rhye's the bigger you are the harder it is to maintain stability whereas in vanilla the bigger you are the easier it gets.