I was reading the thread and thinking to myself " how much posts will take until someone compares civ to chess?"
Said that, read above.... and add that chess terrain is isotopical and that the number of units does not increase with time ever. I remember doing a small back of envelope calc about this ... found it . The complexity of Civ IV is atleast a dozen times of order of magnitude higher that chess in t0 ( things get worse as turns go by in general )...
@Ignorant Teacher
The AI never had and does not have a strategy to win by space ( besides Better AI mod ). It simply techs normally and picks the SS parts to build more or less by luck. Worse, it is actually coded to not launch a SS if there is one in the air that can get there faster ( like if it was impossible that certain earth-bound event make the SS derail ) ...
@Psyringe
I've seen that line of argument somewhere else not long ago by the mouth of Sid What is wrong with the people that make games nowadays? Do they think they are the only enlightenend ones , a special breed that can understand alone and by themselfes odds and fairness while all the others don't ? Bah ... In the end this will only create a circular reasoning: if you reward stupid behaviour by making a unfair system, expect people behaving stupidly ( it is rational to be stupid when the system rewards stupidity ). That reinforces the designers perception that people are stupid, so they make ... ad aeternum
The kickassest post in this whole thread. Great link in there by the way, another entertaining read