[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Er, what?

My point was qm does downgrade units with the goal of within nation unit balance. Which he did in the case of Jomonese Longbows. Whether or not you agree with that change is immaterial. It just goes to show fault in the logic that 'downgrade to unit = qm nation balancing not unit balancing'.

Its only unit balancing if it actually looks even remotely like balancing units. It doesn't, it made their worst unit even worse still, which is mostly inexplicable. Which does nothing to demonstrate any particular balancing agenda, since it has no (positive) effect on balance, nation or unit.

Further, as the change happened many iterations ago, its hardly relevant to my claim that *CBM 1.6* is more about between-nation balancing. I will happily stipulate earlier CBMs were entirely about unit balancing if you insist, regardless of the factual value of that statement (although it is plausibly true, I don't care to review them all), because its irrelevant to my claim. So the only relevant examples come from CBM 1.6.

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So, looking at the CBM 1.6 changes:
-obviously most of the item and spell changes are not nation changes, and therefore not relevant one way or the other. Despite this, there are some examples of nation balancing even here.
--Naiad warriors cost reduction, despite being a spell change, is specifically called out as a nation balance change.
--Burnsaber's UWGIM item changes are very clearly nation balance changes, as they were done specifically to make it easier to traverse the land-sea divide by nations that had a hard time doing so. Burnsaber is quite explicit about this in the UWGIM thread.
--The umbral change is clearly an attempt to make Agartha more competitive again.

-Specific national changes:
--MA Agartha's change log does nothing to increase play of lesser used options, and is more about adding new options and increasing the capabilities of old options to make them more competitive. (ie, the old options that were improved were already the ones people were playing with. The new options obviously don't balance units within the existing nation).
--EA Agartha's cheaper oracles do nothing towards unit balance, as you would buy an oracle per turn every turn as soon as you could before the reduction. Thus, it is clearly a between-nation balance change.
--Similarly the change to Pans, Panic Apostles, Capricorns, et al.
--Similarly the other MA Oceania changes.
--Androphag archers price was increased because of the bug, ie, because they were too effective *against other nations* for their cost. Clearly a nation balance change.
--EA Atlantis changes are all about making it more competitive. Same for changes in price/effectiveness for Marveni and Man top tier mages, and the same for Kailasa as well.
--Giant SC cost increases are certainly because they were too effective against other nations, not because of internal nation dynamics (you will always recruit your best cap-only every turn if the option is available, so its not like increasing their cost causes you to consider buying something else if you can afford them).

Now, the rest of the changes are arguable either way, but by and large improved units belong to *weaker* nations, suggesting that between-nation balance was a motivating concern. If unit balance within a nation was the only concern, you'd see a more even distribution of improved units across nations regardless of power. If you really want I can do the statistics on it, but I guarantee the effect is highly significant.

So, to conclude, to pretend CBM 1.6 is not heavily invested in nation balance would suggest you haven't actually reviewed the changelog.