[Glyn]

The Balance mod takes away an aspect of the game that I find very challenging. Namely exploring and exploiting the unknown terrain.

The fact that there were so few habitable planets in most of the system on my side of the border worked out well when Asmala did invade with a fleet he traveled through two system before looping back into his space probably for fuel and more upgrades. The only thing he got was one medium dome world and two moons.

On the far side of the map there was a sequence of four systems, first one had only one planet colonizable by Asmala, Then next had no planets colonizable by him, Then next was a nebula, and the forth was an asteroid field. Asmala had managed to beat me to the first system (having passed through the other three) and colonize that one world, stopping my expansions into the first two systems for probably 30 turns. Once I did break through, I had to build tankers to supply my ships and build a colony past the dead space to keep my ships supplied. If Asmala had placed a ship with the proper sensor in the orange nebula in the third system, he could have killed my re-supply ships.

You just don’t get those type of challenges with the Balance mod.

Granted, you may get the occasional game were you have a lot to overcome and your opponent is sitting pretty.

In all I think it’s a case for not playing the balance mod.

PS. If someone really feels that they got a bad start, I am open to a restart within the first ten turns. The game is suppose to be a fun challenge for all the players.