[Arkcon]

In addition to what everyone else said, SE4 Gold also allows more varied mount types, and special damage types. These are not used in SE4 Gold, just available to modders.

You have to try and figure out ... how you want to play (that is which mods you must try) and who you're playing against (what sort of PBW, PBEM games are you in, what Version do they have, and how dense the pre-Gold games are on PBW)

Like a lot I other people, I went for Gold, just to support Malfador and Shrapnel. And because I never want to be without a bugfix for any program.

That said, the game is just as much fun either way, and I don't think the bug fixes convert from non-Gold = constant lockups and crashes to Gold = flawless running. The game program is very stable, at least for me.