Nargott
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I would rephrase it differently – it immediately becomes clear who plays a strategy game and who plays an exploratory adventure game.
The goal of a strategy game is to defeat the player by outplaying them (and the interest lies in countering the opponent).
The goal of an exploratory game is to perform the maximum amount of effective actions, regardless of the time spent, in other words, to clear the entire map.
Therefore, the concept of "development" also differs. For a strategist, development means reaching the planned composition of troops or technologies. In the 2nd week, it is possible to reach any final technology, from tier 7 units to level 5 mage guild units. It is possible to seize half the map, even up to 10 secondary cities, with a massive expansion. Is this not enough for the concept of "development"? Is it also necessary to have dragons in every captured city? Well, all of this is technically possible already in the 1st month of the game.
"Not having time to do anything" also differs significantly. Not having time to clear the map? Yes. But having time to reach level 15-20 in the 3rd week, reaching the final upgrade, conducting 10-20 battles, including for major bonuses like the Dragon Utopia, would be strange to call "doing nothing."
The maps that Dyrman writes about, which take 3 months to play, are, of course, of a more closed type and for the dynamics of the original game, but the difference with WGE is only 2, and for particularly single-player games, 3 times.
In reality, nothing prevents you from agreeing with your opponent or the AI not to touch them and playing for a whole year. But I don't think that 20% artillery will suddenly become a real imbalance in this case. A little stronger than usual perks – yes. But given that ballista and tents are multiplied by 0 at such a late stage, and engineering will most likely have to be upgraded to the maximum, resulting in 6 perks spent, and besides the 20% troop kill, nothing useful remains by the time of the endgame.
Why I don't play exploratory games, the answer is B – balance. In an exploratory game, it would be necessary to forget about strategic balance.
For example, tier 7. One player has 2-3 dragons at the endgame because he wanted to come early. In another game, another player has 20-30 dragons at the endgame because he played to clear the map. And how do you balance this at the same time? The "Deadly Cold" perk is on the verge of being imbalanced in the first case, and useless in the second, only killing summoned phoenixes, which are killed in one hit by troops at such a late stage anyway. And there are many such examples. For a strategy game, it is generally characteristic that different things play differently at different stages. A rough balance can be built, for example, like this: the perk is designed for the 3rd week, came earlier – well done, the perk played a little stronger, came later – missed it, the perk played a little weaker. But it played! And did not become completely useless, as when the game is dragged out to 1 year.
From a strategic point of view, a player who sits on the map for a whole year is a whim. In tactics, the analogy is – an elven archer suddenly starts fighting in melee – also a whim. Because there are ways to use archers much more effectively. Even if the player wants to run around and explore the battlefield. It's strange to complain that elven archers are such useless and weak creatures, when their swordsmen kill them so easily. Although, honestly, it would be fair to make them fight equally in melee, specifically for such a play style.
This is not to say that exploring the map is bad. It's good to play in any style, but balance cannot take into account all whims. In a strategy game, the one who effectively uses their opportunities wins, but not all opportunities are effective, precisely from a strategic point of view.
The exploratory motive is a very cool element, but you can completely devour the entire tree with all its insides, or you can examine the entire tree and selectively eat the most delicious fruits, each time different ones. And I believe that the second aspect, with strategy, can coexist. Specifically, on the maps in WGE, this will be expressed by maximum freedom of exploration, as I already wrote, opening the entire map takes only a few weeks.