I have been asked time and again, and I have been challenged on my theories, to provide some concrete evidence.

Now, I'm going to ask you gentlemen the same thing. You provide me with some concrete, empirical evidence. How, you ask?

Well, for starters, use the first 20 moves in its sanitized format, if you prefer, and add up the relative strength that your own faction needs to conquer to win the game. Consider every single other faction as your eventual enemies -- which, of course, they will be -- add up their armor and arms bonuses, balancing pikement against cavalry, elephants against flaming arrows etc. And you tell ME how much of a differential you can find that is created by those first 20 moves, with or without a save/load. Mathematically. Numerically. Emperically. Prove this to me

Any takers?