[rdonj]

I agree that CBM is not balanced. I don't even think it should strive for perfect balance, as to me that would make the game much less interesting. It is the great variety of things you can do in this game that has kept me interested in it. That said, vanilla is much less balanced to the point where a lot of things are very boring and overdone, and unless you want to RPG in a competetive MP setting, just not avoidable as options. Of course you can do anything you want in SP, but in SP balance doesn't matter at all.

So to me, the benefits are that CBM improves the number of effective and flavorful strategies that can be employed in competitive games, removes clams, and allows you to use pretenders that are just not effective at anything in vanilla. Making some of the most powerful nations less overpowered is a nice bonus too. Obviously this part could still use some work, as there are certain nations that are still regularly banned in MP for just being plain unfun to fight against. And there are certain nations that could use some boosts, which hopefully some of will occur in the next version of CBM. We can only hope, in any case. QM has resisted some of them probably due to a theme element, but with the removal of gem gens some spells are just plain overpriced and could use some price cuts.

Anyway, CBM has a very significant place, and that place IMO is to keep dominions interesting in the MP arena. Even if you are not a competitive player (I am definitely not) CBM helps keep things fresh and fun, and has done a lot to enhance my gameplay experience.



Edit: But seriously, why are we having this discussion here? An MP thread is a really dumb place for such conversations.