[Dimaz]

The Conway, first of all, thanks for you offer to edit CBM to suit my needs. I'm not a modding guru myself and while I can probably revert mod changes myself if I need it, I will keep your offer in mind. However the problem here, as was stated during gemgen removal, is that most of this (sharapnel + dom3mods) community is attached to CBM and follow it's changes, so I don't think it will be possible to find enough people to play modded CBM game. Besides, many of the 1.8 changes were definitely made to compensate for 1.7 ones, while others are different (machaka ones for example). So deciding what to keep and what to throw is not that easy. That's why I'm going to stay with 1.6 for the time being as it's the most balanced variant imo.
Regarding hammer removal, I think the main reason was that they were no-brainers and so on, while my argument was that they are an important part as an investment tool. In one of my current games I have mediocre e income and good income of other gems and good research, so I reached con8 with only 2 hammers and possibility to forge 20 or so different uniques, including top-tier ones. I had to make tough decisions about spending the gems most economically while also trying to capture most of the arts as somebody else reached con8 a turn or two before me. So I fail to see hammers as no-brainers while they definitely increased the choices I had to make - without hammers I'd just forge everything I can with all the gems I have and that's all.