While all that vanillas produced by the big firms for the emediate commercial success is poor and uninspiring and are made mostly for wimps, the true mods made by (and for) devoted fans must bring a tones of authors creativity:
- Own unique atmosphere: skins, maps, artwork, music etc.
- Rich (and again unique) unit list that makes army building and warfare much more exciting.
- Own interesting concept and historical background as a result of serious research.

Compare, for example, unfinished EB with semy-fantasy 2,5 unit types on little map vanilla megabestseller.