Quote:
Originally Posted by Torgon
I've actually only played CBM games. In general I'm somewhat in favor of it for several reasons.
1. It's fairly standard. I just don't see many games (at least on the this forum or the z7 forum) that don't use it in some way. If you're going to learn, you might as well learn what everyone else is using. Why learn how to spam gem gens when you're never going to spam gem gens outside of this game?
2. Except for a couple big things, its not that dramatic of a departure from vanilla. Most of the changes are balance tweaks to cost, spell requirements, a couple extra units or unit buffs here or there.
3. The big changes that it does make, removal of gem gens and removal of hammers, are good changes.
4. It makes some significant improvements to some nations that just aren't viable choices in Vanilla. There are a few that may be a little over the top now (Argatha and MA Ulm seem to be good examples), but they're the exceptions.
5. Its not like vanilla is any easier to learn than CBM. i.e. its not that much better documented (lets be honest, the manual as a reference is pretty bad). We could just as easily say that learning CBM prepares you for playing a vanilla game. So given 1, 2, 3, and 4 I'd prefer going for CBM, but that's just me.
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I mostly agree, except that I think CBM *does* make big differences, and good ones. I think that the point at which magic starts making a big difference comes much earlier in the game. So there's more flavor early on. CBM also adjusted the infantry/archery/cavalry balance so archery is not overwhelming in large armies. Finally, the scales are better balanced, particularly Order/Misfortune vs. Turmoil/Luck.
Although not without flaws, CBM is a substantial improvement over vanilla at all stages of the game. At the same time, there's enough to the game that it will take you a long time to to exhaust the variety. So go ahead, enjoy the good stuff, there's plenty of it.