Is it just a different name for the easiest possible difficulty mode? or is there a special quality to it, like A.I. never strives to eliminate you or their victory conditions disabled? Or the ability to tinker with the game's mechanics as the name would imply.

Hi,

It's currently just a name but your intuition is right and we intend to cut most of the agressive AI behavior in this mode (so that you can play with mechanics at your heart's content :)). We didn't plan to disable their pursuit of victory but it's something we could consider, we'll have to discuss it.

Thanks for the response!  I was thinking a true sandbox mode with default-difficulty starting resources would be a great way to get players new to the game into the genre, because a mode you can't lose is effectively a great way to practice some very basic stuff like efficient build orders or the like. The equivalent would be a combo dummy in a fighting game.