[AdmiralZhao]

I just finished playing a large game with Hard Research, and even with those settings bless nations have a huge advantage in the early game. I was playing with triple blessed jaguars, and the non-bless nations that I steamrolled in the first 2 years of the game did not have much of a chance or very much fun. I think that if with we play with Very Hard Research, we will see an initial phase of the game where all the non-bless nations are scoured from the face of the earth, and then a second phase of the game where the bless nations grudgingly turn to research in order to deal with their similarly blessed neighbors.

In an ideal world, I would like to see the research costs for levels 1-5 set to normal, and then after that have the costs scale far more quickly. That would give non-bless nations more of fighting chance, while still saving some spells for the late game.