First, if you say you hate "these same sort of worn-out, ad hominem accusations", why do you spit them out with the repetitiveness of an MG? Second, your claim that I "reject any empirical measures of in-game success" is false. Go clean out your own stables Augeas Othniel before you accuse mine of not being spotless! Or even better, remove the beam from thy eye.
I knew my post was going to be flamebait. It directly singled out two forum members and had a lot of sarcasm. Still, I stand by my opinion with only some slight modifications (see below). I would not have stated my opinions on a public forum if I did not feel them strongly.
Perhaps it is unfair of me to single out forum members. Perhaps I'm being sanctimonious, doing a mod's job when I just an ordinary community member. But perhaps I'm also the only one who sees a difference between calling out someone for making insulting, ad hominem arguments and
being the person making insulting, ad hominem arguments.
Some examples:
meisen said:
What...Is...Wrong...With...You?
Pyrrhos said:
By all means, let us do! And from here on, I'll put no more than one sentence per paragraph so that it does not become too difficult to understand nor to follow:
Don't forget that--for better or worse--I singled meisen out for criticism also. These quotes are taken from just this thread, but there are quite a number of similar comments made over the last few months.
Now, are you two the only ones making what are IMHO unecessarily insulting comments? By no means! Why then am I singling out you two? Because again in IMO you guys have been making a LOT of these types of comments.
Again, I'm no forum policeman and I really, really don't want to be one. But I do feel that a community needs to "police" itself to some degree; always calling on an authority to resolve things is often spineless and often ineffective. What I'm saying here, is that as a fellow community member, I'd like to politely ask that the insulting comments stop. As we all know well, Civ is a game and the acrimonious post are just unnecessary, even when we feel our opponent in a debate is just being blockheaded. I'm making this a public request because my PM discussion with you, Pyrrhos, a little while back seems to have been fruitless.
I'm not personally claiming perfection nor am I trying to be completely "right". Trying to make everyone think I'm completely in the right would be stupid. That said, when you, Pyrrhos, say that I have been myself "spitting them [ad hominem statements] out with the repetitiveness of an MG", I am a bit mystified. I have mostly stayed away from the many venomous threads (perpetuated by many people) that have permeated the forum over the last few months. If I insulted you in our PM discussion, I apologize. And of course, if I ask you to stop making insulting comments, I better hold myself to the same standard!
I realize that my request for you both to stop making "rude comments" is in itself somewhat insulting. But I think the request is fair and I do not intend it to be demeaning. And, in case it needs to be said, I'm not judging you. I'm asking that a public, visible
behavior be stopped. Your motives are your own business.
As for the scant substance of your ad-hominem attack on me; my alleged refusal to acknowledge "any empirical measures of in-game success such as score or game date at time of victory". I do not refuse to accept it as a measure of success, but rather as the measure of success.
You are right, my substance was lacking on that comment. And my comment was a little too strong, although I disagree that it was ad hominem. This is the part of my opinion that I would slightly amend.
My belief that you at least largely reject the conventional score and victory date measures is based, fair or not, on many posts of yours over the last few months. I failed to hunt them down and quote them in my previous post.
However, when you say here, "I do not refuse to accept it as
a measure of success, but rather as
the measure of success", I think you make my point for me.
To reject score and game date is to reject both empirical measures of success in Civ. All you have left is how you
felt about your success.
Civ can be played in so many different ways, but it favours a certain style of play and way of doing things to the point where it is well-nigh impossible to have success at the highest levels unless you adopt this one way. Before you leap at me - again - let me remind you that it is not I who said that in the first place but a very well-respected member.
I would disagree with this "well-respected member's" opinion. I don't think that high difficulty levels dictate your style of play, I think they
refine your style of play.
Above all, though, it is a game, a simulation of reality. We should expect certain styles of play to be rewarded--however the game records rewards--above other styles of play. It's just inherent in the nature of gameplaying. Actually, real life functions in this way too.
As far as I am concerned, there is only one measure of success that most people will eventually agree upon, irrespective if they play on chieftain or Sid - to improve your game and do better than you did the last time.
And how do you propose they measure their improvement? Again, Civ measures success in
game score and
victory date. Apart from those two empirical measuring sticks, all you have left is how you felt about your improvement.
More importantly, unless people agree on the ways to measure success, debating what strategies are better is absolutely, totally, completely pointless.
units than that, and the military I have built in my size 12 cities has time and again proven sufficient to fight off the invaders. 
