Quote Originally Posted by Owen Glyndwr View Post
Actually, what a lot of these TW games start to feel like is one of those really predictable novels. You start off weak or wimpy, but you know, that somewhere down the line you are going to win. On the way there are certain "challenges" which you will have to endure on your way to greatness. And frankly, it gets kind of boring after a while. That's the great thing about Civ 4 is, as you say, you don't really gonna know what's gonna happen. Going into a game, you usually have no idea if you're gonna win. You could be the most powerful nation in the game, and still lose to a cheesy cultural win, or AP/UN win. It's frustrating, but it's what keeps people coming back and playing the same games over and over and over again.
Exactly

to put it more eloquently than my first post

ETW is centred around the player losing - not the AI winning