Speaking of which, I have been meaning to post some discussion/analysis on the actual merits of CSM but havent had a chance (these 2000 word posts take time you know

). I was planning to do this anyway, but I also told tobiasn I would do it when he asked. I am too busy at the moment to do a complete analysis, but here is just one brief point for thought/discussion/FYI whatever.

I will use a point-counter point analysis for this, because I think it makes the argument easier to follow than outline format. For clarity I will give the "sides" names, Maximus and Simplicio (yes I know that's biased but its fun so gimme some leeway OK

)
Simplicio -One of the main arguments against CSM that is constantly raised (in fact I believe that this is the cornerstone/foundation of Lord Parkin's argument against CSM in particular), is that CSM does not "scale with empire size" and is therefore imbalanced. In other words, in order to be balanced, the mission should cost more to use against a larger empire than it does against a small one.
Maximus -Now the most obvious response to this is that no spy mission scales with empire size. All spy mission costs are determined by the perticular modifiers for the city or tile that you are performing the spy mission in. It does not make sense that only one particular mission (CSM)would be governed by an entirely different set of variables than all the other spy missions.
Simplicio -Of course the response to this is that CSM is the one spy mission that affects the whole empire rather than just that particular city or tile. The reason it affects the whole empire is because when you change a country's Religion or Civics, you are changing them for the whole country, not just one city. Therefore since CSM affects all the cities instead of just one, the cost of CSM (in espy points) should "scale" to reflect this. In other words it should cost 500% more to use CSM on an empire with 10 cities than on an empire with 2 cities (assuming equal population in each city), because 10 is 500% as large as 2.
Maximus - Now there are many, many reasons that that is wrong. Here are just two. First, Tech does not scale with empire size. That is to say, that the number of beakers that it takes me to get a tech is constant, regardless of how many cities my empire has. A 10 city empire does not need to raise 500% more beakers to get Currency than a 2 city empire. However, teching Currency has an immediate effect on the entire Empire, not just one city. I get +1 trade routes in every city when I get Currency, no matter whether I have 2 cities or 10. So for generating the exact same amount of beakers a 10 city civ gets +10 trade routes while a 2 city civ only get +2. 500% more trade routes for the spending the exact same amount of beakers.
Now before you raise the red-herring that you don't "spend" beakers, let me nip that in the bud. You do spend them, the only difference is they are spent automatically. You build them up and when you get all the beakers you need they are automatically all "spent" back down to zero to obtain the tech.
Getting back to the point, you will never hear anyone say that Currency is unfair or unbalanced or broken. I will not go into all the reasons for this as it will take too long. But the point is that the idea that something is broken just because it doesent scale with Empire size is a manifestly poor argument. And it is illogical to selectively apply that argument to CSM, when there are so many things about the game that do not scale with Empire size that are considered perfectly fine.
Simplicio - However it is important not to miss that point that tech cost do scale with Empire size. The more cities I have, the more commerce/beakers I can generate and thereby decrease the time it takes me to raise the beakers needed to obtain the tech. Therefore, the larger my empire the faster my tech rate. In other words tech does scale with empire size.
Maximus - This brings up the Second point. Espionage cost (and consequently the cost of CSM) does scale with Empire size, in exactly the same way. First examine it from the perspective of the person using the mission. The more cities he has, the more commerce/espy points he can generate and therefore get enough espy to perform espionage missions faster. So the relative "cost" of the espionage mission gets lower as my Empire gets larger. In that way, the cost of CSM (and all other espy missions) does scale with empire size.
Now examine from the person on the recieving end. The larger his empire, the more cities he has, and thus the more commerce/espy points he can generate. The more espy points he generates the higher it costs to run any espionage mission against him. This is a less known concept about espionage. Every single espy point you generate all game makes the price of all espy missions against you go up. It does not matter whether you spend the points, they never go away in that sense. The game tracks the total espy generation of a civ all game long and gradually, espy mission costs against Civs that generate a lot of espionage go higher and higher. In that way the cost of CSM (and any espionage mission) do scale for empire size in an even greater way than tech does. In fact, ironically, because of the imbedded total-points-generated multiplier, espionage is one of the few things that actually can scale along with empire size.
Also, the more cities he has, the more commerce/espy points he can generate and therefore gmore quickly get enough espy to perform counter-espionage (to increase the cost of spy attacks against him by 200%). So the relative cost of the counter-espionage mission gets lower as his Empire gets larger. In other words, the cost of defending yourself from espionage scales with Empire size in a similar way to how tech does.
I will stop there... Not because I am done, mind you, there are way, way, way more things to say about CSM and espy in general, but I will talk about that stuff later. Thanks for reading
