Balance without a Mod? A Discussion (Long)

[Velusion]

KissBlade said:
The ability to have a strong early game is absolutely essential to a competitive nation. Faster expansion always snowballs into a BIG advantage regardless of what most people think. Take Patala for example, their expansion ability is ridiculously sluggish and despite their good late game potential will never rise to the same status as say LA Mictlan. Also MA Ermor and MA Ryleh doesn't have a bad early game at all. Ermor has reanimation + recruitable ethereal units for their turbo expansion while Ryleh has very good gold sink troops in the form of crab hybrids/lobo guards and armored slave troopers for resources to allow a very smooth early game themselves. MA Argatha on the other hand ...

I agree that early advantage translates often into late advantage. Momentum is huge. Thats why I dismissed victory conditions as a bidding currency and think something that has an immediate effect like Pretender Points is a better choice. I'm sure there is point that point were early momentum is superceded by long-term strategies, but I'm also sure almost everyone will disagree when that actually is - hence the bidding!