[Squirrelloid]

So, for example, remembering what constr level and path levels all the forgings require is something that is inconvenient to look up. Its also relatively stable across CBM versions (a few change, but those are generally noted on the first post releasing the new version). Since research strategy and forging strategy are important elements of playing the game, going from normal to CBM could really screw you up and you wouldn't even know until you completed the necessary research (or what you thought was the necessary research!). Further, you wouldn't necessarily think to check beforehand for many items.

The most obvious change is gem gens, probably the single most important change for game balance CBM has made, and one where if you plan your strategy around them based on SP experience, and didn't think to check if they were moved in CBM, your entire plan would fall apart. But there are numerous others where knowing something was easier or harder to get would radically change your planning and possibly even pretender design.

At least Cleveland has provided a forging guide that includes Vanilla and CBM, so its at least plausible to check forging. But heaven help you if the *function* of an item changed, as I can't think of a single good way to check that quickly.

If the game had an excellent in-game manual (Civilopedia style) and the developers had made the mechanics more transparent (don't get me started on how much existing spell descriptions annoy me), then I'd say that switching back and forth is sufficiently easy to not be an issue. But many things are hard to reference, and oftentimes its not clear from a description what the heck something actually does. So the only way to know what 50% (or more) of the spell list and a large variety of items do is to try them out - meaning changing the rules set you're using with any frequency is rather obnoxious.

Now, given that the vanilla game is horribly balanced (gem gens for starters, but there are also issues with scales, unit pricing, pretender chassis costs, spell research, gem, and path requirements, etc...), and CBM fixes many of these issues, and is also played vastly more often in MP situations, it would seem to be the best available 'standard' to learn and play under.

(Further, sure there are new versions of CBM, but the base game at least used to get patched regularly, and made sometimes major changes to things like dominion powers for Rlyeh/Ermor, so certainly new versions is not an issue only with CBM. One should argue that CBM's continuing to get updated is an advantage).

When i get a new car, it comes with a manual that actually explains what everything does and tells me the technical specs. If I really care, there are experts who can explain what all the technical specs mean, how exactly the specific engine/fuel injector/whatever works. This makes it a lot easier to switch cars, because it has adequate documentation for *everything*. Also, if the car manual is actively wrong, it gets recalled and I get a new one. The game manual is actively wrong on every remotely technical explanation of mechanics.