by alextfish
Is it me, or is the monument that rewards you for maxing out tech tracks really quite overpowered?It costs 1xWood 1xStone 3xGold, which is fairly cheap as monuments go.
It rewards you for doing something you want to do, but of course so do most monuments.
But the typical return on this monument is 33VP! That's just massive!
Compare it with the other monuments:
* The monument to re-score your temples (costing 4xStone 3xGold) has an absolute theoretical maximum of 31, if you manage to get to the top of every temple, which seems crazily difficult.
* The other tech tracks monument, that gives 3VP per tech bump (costing 2xWood 1xStone 3xGold), theoretically could give 36, but seems more likely to give about 27-30. In particular, the same conditions that give 33VP with the maxed-track monument will just give 27 with this one.
* The Crystal Skulls monument (costing 4xGold 1xSkull) maxes out at 27, but that 27 seems quite likely to be hit in many games.
* The monument for built monuments by anyone (costing 2xWood 2xStone 2xGold) maxes out at 24 or 25 VP.
* The monument to get 3VP per step up your highest temple (costing 3xStone 3xGold) maxes out at 21 VP, though it's not that hard to get to the top of the gold temple if you focus on it.
* The workers monument (costing 3xWood 3xGold) maxes out at 18 VP.
* The corn tile and wood tile monuments (costing 1xWood 4xGold plus in one case 1xStone) have a very high theoretical maximum, but seem to typically give 20-24 VP.
* The monuments giving points for blue/brown/green buildings again have a high theoretical maximum but seem likely to get 20-24 VP.
Getting 33 VP for a fairly easily achievable feat (maxing out 3 tech tracks) and a cheap cost (just 5 resources including just 3 gold) seems way out of balance. And certainly in all the games I've seen that include it, whoever's built this monument has won.
What do others think? Is this monument unbalanced? Should the payout for 3 tech tracks on this monument be lower? (I'm fine with 33VP for all 4 tech tracks because that's a lot harder to get.)