will submit to HOF and hope for mercy but if not, I have learned my lesson and improved my playing skills at the cost of a mere 94 hours of my life
Use of the C3X (Flintlock) mod isn't listed as acceptable in the HoF rulebook. It's not a utility program, and not just a bunch of bug fixes or quality of life improvements. Though, it happily has some of those! Using it may make winning by a certain date easier.
I've
tried to advocate for some sort of official version of the Flintlock mod which we could agree as acceptable for use in HoF games, and thus have at least a consensus or official Flintlock patch. But that may not come to pass. Though one could hope otherwise.
Having a #1 spot under threat with an unofficial version doesn't sit right with me for anyone who cares about their number 1 spot as being number 1. The AIs building more artillery units ends up less expensive for them, and may consequently make them researching less of a challenge to overcome, or they can't trade technology as easily (or for the human player, there's not as much gold that can get obtained). More captured artillery units also likely implies culture built sooner via disbanding as one possibility. That may not change finish date, or only by a turn or three, but if it does or did, it could be enough.
Perhaps you had artillery type units set to '0' when you started this game Ruin, but can anyone on staff check that? Or any of the other possible settings that the C3X mod allows for?
It also doesn't sit right with me to have any table with 10 entries with any of their entries ending up off of the table due to the use of an unofficial version. Though maybe it wouldn't matter, since the 10 people who made those entries wouldn't mind at all at losing their spots.
It also wouldn't sit right with me if use of an unofficial version demotivates anyone using an official version. Though, I believe it implausible that such would happen these days.
Personally, I don't see why I would feel upset at losing any of my spots if someone got a better finish date or higher score with use of the C3X mod, but I could understand why someone else would feel like such was unfair. Someone gets a better finish date on one of my spaceship launches? Well, the lack of a scientific golden age in 1.22F is not a feature, but rather a bug!
@superslug I'm pinging you just in case you haven't seen this thread.