Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread

[Finalgenesis]

Having just started CBM 3 days ago, I didn't see all too much that I need to adjust to (though I played vanilla for 2 weeks only before that).

Seens to be mostly cost change for unit and spells, spells moving up and down spell lvl charts and artifact cost / lvl, maybe some unit cap-only status change I haven't seen yet. Maybe I haven't tried long enough to note any significant changes, but I don't see any thematic difference so far, the race I played still have their theme intact, only a lot more spells/artifact become viable and making sense cost/lvl wise, all in all seems good so far.

[rdonj]

QM has tried very hard to keep the theme of the game intact for CBM. There are a lot of changes, but the nations still *feel* like the nations they're supposed to be. There have been a few that do alter that a bit (the biggest one I think being the UW breathing item change, to make getting underwater less painful for land nations).

Personally I was resistant at first to playing CBM, thinking it would require a lot of relearning. Then I got into a game that required it and realized that anything that worked in vanilla would work under CBM, too. The biggest initial draw for me was the pretenders. Many vanilla pretenders are overpriced for what they do, which really cuts down on which ones you can justify using. There have been a few changes in CBM that I question a bit, but overall I feel its had a very positive effect on the game, and especially the state of multiplayer.