[Zapmeister]

Originally posted by PvK:
As has been said before, though, popularity is not a particularly good measure of efficiency. It would be an interesting survey, but I'd trust explanatory arguments why something is good or bad, rather than what people say they use.

Sure, but we've all seen how discussions like that proceed. Agreement is hard to reach, and the discussion tends to descend into a subjective and abusive flamefest. Witness the Vampire Queen debate.

I think my approach would at least lead to a result that could be accepted by the playing community as a whole.

Also, I think any action taken as a result of the survey should usually be in the form of a cost adjustment, rather than any change to functionality, and should be at the complete discretion of the devs. In other words, the survey would simply be a tool to help the devs assess the balance issues.

Even so, not everything should be balanced, both for thematic and sense-making reasons, and also because especially since the steps needed to achieve each thing are frequently complex and different for each nation, each pretender, each situation, and each play style.
PvK

I think if you're only tweaking costs, there's not much danger of destroying thematic elements. Furthermore, if the tweaks mean that elements get used where previously they were not, then the themes that those elements were supposed to promote will actually see the light of day. In other words, I think that balance promotes themes rather than the opposite.