5. More is worse in a strategy game. Every new object has a cost, not just in what it takes to create, test and manage, but the player has to keep track of it as well. In general we should only add items because they offer a significant improvement to some aspect of the game, and not just to have, more units, more resources, etc.
I'm not completely sure that this is true (more is worse).
In my humble opinion as a player - not a designer of games - I was always very excited, when I saw any game, that offered more options, more spells, more possibilities.
The counter argument to excitement is of course strategy. You have a point if you say that chess for example has lived for about 3000 years now - unchanged with only 6 different "units". Even though it's simplified for the max, and even though you can make new strategies even today 3000 years later -> in my opinion it gets boring.
Maybe I don't see the inherit strength of chess like people who play this every day, but after half an hour most often it get's like "oh please get my king" - at least for me.
What's so impressing with FFH2 is the neverending stream of possibilities. You can play as Elohim with 7 different choices religion wise (ok 2 of them make no sense, but: so what?) you can have different mages with different spell spheres every time you play - AND if you're through with it, you just can start the same procedure on another map type or with another civilization.
This is great. Because it means: choices.
Sure enough for a designer who wants to produce a stable product, that dosn't have to much uber units and kind of a logic with the research/goodie-ratio diversity also makes for unearthly long procedures of play testing.
This argument, (imho), is not so strong, because there are now thousands of players, who contribute sometime more, sometimes less on the forum, what they think about new options. Maybe the discussion about rage is a bad example - but I think it's a good example, becaue it shows, that people really care. Sure, we're not playtesters who do reports like in the industries, but regarding post 1 of this thread I think what all the addicted reported for the last 4 years was good by itself, to (further) help the team to produce the most amazing, diverse and logical computer game, ever produced.
This makes me wonder, if point 5 isn't just, well, kind of a myth, to produce thousands of generic games that really are *simple*. FFH2 offers much more options as Civ4, immense more options than Spore (meh), even more than Master of Magic which was till nowadays one of the rulers in this genre. (though in MoM there was more magic I think). This makes it strong.
this is not meant as an offense. It's only some thoughts of a gamer - not a developer, not a playtester (officially
), not a designer, just my thoughts about games in general and strategy games in detail.
I think Fall Further and Orbi Mod show that more is not merely worse, it's just - more. that said I'm completely happy with FFH2's complexity. There IS Fall Further and Orbi and maybe one day Magisters mod for people like me. And the "main game" shall be stable and "complete" (one day
). It makes it easier for new players and mod-modders. But, I think FFH2 should be the standard for the industry. Every strategy game should be compared to FFH2 regarding complexity.
And I hope one day someone with money in his pockets takes the liscence of MoM and gives it to Kael and his team to create MoM 2.
We ended up cutting some features because there's just no way the AI would understand it. We tried to find systems and mechanics that we thought the AI would have a reasonable chance to deal with.
It's only the question, if it is nescessary to teach the AI everything. You could argue that it's cheating by the player if it can't do the same things. But If there is a popular spell, who really enhances the feeling of the game, should it be cut, only because the AI can't use it? Why not make a spell two-sided: normal effect for the human player and another effect (like a summoned unit or something like that) for the AI. This would balance it, but increase diversity for the human. Don't think the AI cares that much about it.
And we talk about 12 years here, with all the great classics. Of course i was a civ-fan before ffh2 (play since civII), but i never got so crazy about it as with ffh2. 
