[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

CBM has addressed many of the problems and continues to address them, but as a matter of philosophy will not make some changes no matter how necessary (no new spells, for example). The real point is that they apply to any MP game. The discussion is in this thread because the belief was expressed vanilla is balanced (its not).

Well I dont agree that CBM applies to any MP game. Some of the changes play up the player-vs-player at the detriment of some of the more fun aspects.

As to the reason for this conversation I believe it was:

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

I still cling (perhaps niavely) to the assumption that the developers believed that every nation, properly helmed, had an equal chance of winning.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Sept, the developers not only failed to balance the game, they weren't trying to.

But I think its not that they didnt. I know for a fact that they put alot of work into it. But much of it would be in parts of the game that encourage alliances and role playing and variations beyond dueling. The perfect dueling balance is chess (everything matches except color of pieces and even the effects of that are arguable).

A sufficiently large map addresses early game concerns

Which could be said as "small maps create a balance problem".

And since everyone is going to tart farm, the person who can do it best wins.

I havent really seen that in my games.

Also, 50 provinces/player is *insane*. How many games like that have you seen start? Actually end? Without rampant quitting and general unhappiness about the game?

Many. Obviously small games are more numerous than large ones but thats part of the definition. Small equals fast and large equals long.

I am only convinced team games address issues if the people choosing nations for a team do so wisely.

Very good. Teams and alliances are ways for nations to balance their imperfections.

Obviously what nations are desirable are somewhat different in a team game environment, and depend on what nations are already on your team, but there are still winning and losing combinations, and winner/loser nations.

Exactly. And if those were fixed, it would tend to impact on the games that others prefer.

Balance should also concern itself with default settings. Unusual settings are obviously going to not necessarily be balanced - and that's more ok. But the defaults should offer something resembling reasonable balance.

And we again are in agreement.

So with 60+ nations in the game over 3 eras offering a huge wealth of different strategies it seems that some are weak and some are strong but everything has a response. Doesnt this seem abit different than "the developers not only failed to balance the game, they weren't trying to"? I understand that you are mad that the devs didnt balance your game but they did at least provide the means for that which is more than many developers do.