Neuro said:I don't see that as a problem. Sure, some of us will probably tweak their games (oh cool! let's make innovativeness give +100% to research ), but in very limited ways. And also, if one is smart enough to modify a game, he'd propably modify it as a "mod" of some sort, so reverting back to the "original" will be painless and won't humper online game.
Instead of doing little tweaks here and there, the mod scene will propably focus on major overhauls. So instead of having new scenarios and event chains, we'll have new games. Maybe something like the CounterStrike mod scene?
Look around at the "my-country in EUIII" threads. The only players from some of those countries who will play online will have to play with others from their country. And even then only with ones who can agree on each others mod.
Most of this though is assuming that the map will be easily moddable.