BtS' Poisoning Water Supply - Fair or Broken?

[quinalla]

The poison water and unhappy faces is fairly balanced in the later game (on standard speed, marathon & epic are broken IMO in the way they work), but in the early game it is overpowered and I have yet to see the AI use spies in the early game, but they certainly use them in the late game.

I think both of those need to be adjusted in the early eras. 8 yuck and/or 8 unhappy is too massive of a hit on early cities for a very low cost. Especially if you can pop a great spy from the Great Wall (but even if not) you can cripple your neighbor with a few cheap spies and some gold.

I think in general spy costs need some tweaking, but overall it is a cool system. Just suffering some from being new.

[Shrapnel12]

Originally posted by ayronis
I do not play anything slower than Normal speed but I think it is just right on that setting and I would prefer it remain the way it is.

To me, it feels like the right level of effect for the amount of invested resources and inherent risks associated with it. I have used it and I have been attacked with it several times now, and I think it has added nice variety and strategic options to my game.

I agree with this statement. In fact I was disappointed when I poisoned an enemies water supply and they didn't even lose 1 population. They were starving but had enough food saved up to survive. Of course I was also pleased when one of my cities was poisoned and I only had a -2 food penalty. I will probably use poison water supply very little from now on and the other options more. Oh btw, the AI is cruel. The civ that poisoned me was Isabella's Spain and the city she poisoned was her own that I had just previously conquered. "If I can't have it, no one will!"