[Stavis_L]

@Zeldor - this is probably a good deal too late to save this thread, but if the intent is to generate a list of frequently applied house rules in one place for convenience sake, it might have been politically expedient not to use the term "exploit" even if some of them do apply to practices some consider to be so.

SO, here is a list of commonly applied "house rules" and settings in no particular order that someone starting a new game might wish to consider, as a starting point:

Settings
1) Use 'X' mod(s)
2) Use 'Y' map
3) Modified Hall of Fame limit
4) Modified resource/gold/supplies/site frequency/research settings
5) Commander Renaming on
6) Score graphs disabled
7) Victory conditions other than default
8) Turn timing

House Rules
1) Ban diplomacy
2) Random nation assignment
3) Ban commander trading or selling (via mutually agreed upon charm/hellbind/etc. swaps)
4) Ban item/gem/gold/other trading
5) Ban "sickle farming"
6) Ban particular nation(s), (Ashdod, Hinnom, LA Ermor, LA R'yleh commonly)
7) Ban water nations
8) NAPs - disallowed
9) NAPs - all players bound by implied NAP for start X turns
10) Use of Bogus and Co.'s default scripts disallowed.
11) Use of Bogus and Co.'s default scripts only allowed for Bogus and Co. (no copying)
12) No "mass sharing" of Armor of Virtue just to apply Returning
13) No blood magic / blood hunting

I'm sure there are others, but I feel this might be more helpful than continuing to debate whether such-and-such practice is an "exploit" or not.