[WraithLord]

My gripe with equalized balance has nothing to do with difficulty. It has to do with boredom. Lets take the example of AOW-SM,
1. All races has same structures, temple, barracks etc.
2. All races has the same units tier structure, lvl1 with a melee unit, ranged unit < lvl2 < lvl3 < lvl4.
3. All races share the same economy model (gold). Most ridiculously even the undead do.

These are but a few that come to mind after three years I've stopped playing AOW-SM. I recall at the time discussing those issues at length and in much more detail at the AOW heaven forums.

Warcraft II and most RTS are also a good example. 2-4 races, if one race gets a flyer then all the rest must have a flyer, doesn't matter if its thematic or not. Same for stealth units, extra powerful thugs and so on.

I actually kind of like balance, but of a different kind - balance in which races that have different mechanics and concepts match a bit differently according to settings of the conflict. One in which race overall strength is non transitive, meaning race A is considered more powerful than race B, race B is considered more powerful the race C, however race C may be considered to be more powerful the race A because, say, it inherently contains many counters to race A.

I think balance is dominions is more akin to the concepts of balance that I like.