Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I dont see a need to "fix" every way of winning the game as long as its not an automatic obvious choice. It kills a game for me to discover that there is strategy which will always win.

Which leaves me still undecided on this subject. On the one hand, game settings can make it not such a major deal which makes it not a major fix need IMHO. On the other hand it sounds as though its killer enough to make one type of games in Dom2, a rather popular type of games, to be less chosen or a fairly easy win. So it sounds like some sort of change might be good. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's exactly my point.

Kristoffer is right, it is clear that some people do not have problem with clams, and some people do. I think it is mostly due to the different types of games people like to play (plus some of the people who say that they don't have problem with the clams perhaps just haven't meet their first dedicated clam-hoarder in thier game yet. But still mostly it is due to different game types).

But if clams would be changed by making them a bit harder to make (like 10 water 5 nature, or one of the many other suggestions on this thread), than the first group of people would not be affected much. But for the 2nd group of people, who liek to play differnt game types and for whom clams are a big issue, this type of fix would be extremely beneficial.


And btw, I mostly play not-blitz games, and in some of them (usually in long and some medium ones) clam abuse is a real game spoiler. So from my experience it is definetly not blitz-only problem. Although there is certanly some truth in the argument that in Blitz game clam hoarder could be easer to overlook. Unfotunatly with graphs disabled (as most people play their MP) there is no way of knowing if the person is hording the clams or not. And killing every nation with astral and water income in the begining of the game is not a good answer to clam-abusing strategy.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">empahsis mine

Presumably that Astral bonus applies to paralyze resistance as well?

That would explain why my astrally strong Void Lord in an MP game was able to wipe out an Arco army that had several mages spamming paralyze and soul slays...

I'm curious as to what exactly happened (I thought he was toast), but the replay bug... c'est la vie.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Except that this is not, as you suggest, making astral clams "a bit harder" to make - it is making them much, much, harder to make for most nations due to lacking paths and increasing their cost by 50% - and making them take 7.5/15/30 (depends on how you count) rounds rather than 5/10/20 to pay off (sans dwarven hammer). In such a situation they would not really be worth making except if you were basing your strategy around them and the acquisition on WWN mages, rather than the situation now where they can be used (but not necessarily abused) by players for whom they are not the focus of the playing strategy.

I dislike the idea that the "solution" to what I perceive as a playing-style issue (players not attacking each other ruthlessly enough allowing nations to allocate resources to go clam-crazy with dire results in very long games) should be to make the clams all but useless in general.

Re: The next patch
 

Perhaps something as simple as removing the ability to alchemize astral gems to water gems could work, or increasing the ratio to 4 or 5 to 1 or something.

This would allow people to still create clams with their natural water gem income, and help curb the abuse of hoarding clams in the ways explained here.

Re: The next patch
 

Limiting the amount of Clams that can exist in the world at the same time would stop excessive hoarding while still leaving Clams useful.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, it would merely impose an artificial restraint causing people to race for clams before somebody else cornered the market on a scarce resource. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: The next patch
 

What's "artificial" in this context? If the limit was high enough it wouldn't be an issue unless someone was attempting the kind of hoarding that makes Clams problematic.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">(uh-oh, more water into mill, but...) You sure the gems from clams or fewer fetishes shows on graphs? I'm in a MP where I've got a moderate amount of clams and the main benefit imho has been that income from them hasn't appeared in the graphs, which are on for some reason. Same as your blood income, as it doesn't go directly to the treasury but to individual commanders, it doesn't show.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought the early killing of every nation heavy on astral was one of the main points of long-term survival, clams or no clams... ;p

Re: The next patch
 

It all comes down to Wish.

Clam hoarding to the extent that people seem to be concerned about has a huge oppurtunity (as well as material) cost.

The only way that it makes sense in a strategic sense is if you are racing to chain cast wish... otherwise the impact is not significant enough to justify the cost.

Without wish as the light at the end of tunnel, I don't think there is anyway that a person solely focused on getting 100 clams by turn 70 or whatever is going to win a competative MP game. If they can get away with it, then they were already gonna win... and could have won sooner if they would have refoucsed the materials dedicated to clam forging to research/casting more immediately useful rituals.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's not turn 70, it's turn 60 or sooner. Most likely by turn 40 if the person has good water income.

Like I've already said, there's really no use for water gems. You don't need dozens of quickness boots if your mages already have water magic, murdering winter is useful, but only against a limited subset of your opponent's armies, and the water summons are fairly pathetic. Sea trolls have horrendous attack and defense stats. Now your astral gems on the other hand are going to be useful to you, but by spending only your water gems and those astral gems from the clams, you will have built your 100 clams by turn 38 of the progression. That means that you've given up 380 water gems, but it will have more than paid for itself just 8 turns later.