Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No, it is not my criteria. In fact I am hoarding clams myslef in my current games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I am doing it because I have to do it to stay competitive in the long run in economic/gem race, but I don't like it. My main criteria as I said before is that I feel that the situation when 99% gem income by the end of the game comes from clams is not exactly what develepers had in mind when they designed this game. I may be wrong here of course, since I can't read developers mind, but based upon the fact that they put so much efforts into designing all these nice gem-prodicing sites and mechanism for searching for them, I don't believe that it was intended mostly for the begining and middle of the game, to jump-start mass clam-production.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How long are your games? Are you playing 4-player games on the World map, or what?

I mean, your initial gem production is 5/turn. Even if it's 5 Water, this means you get to make one Clam every 2 turns, initially. For even, say, 80% of your gem income to be item-produced, assuming your sites produce, say, 10 per turn (rather small), requires 50 gem-producing items. That's 50 turns of using your natural production (assuming it's all of the right types) to turn into items (500 gems), meaning those items will have produced roughly 1200 gems by that time. That's investing your whole production into them, plus 50 turns of a mage, plus (currently) 25 commanders holding the items, which you're not likely to send on the field as random kill-me commanders - which means "lost" upkeep.

Anything faster, means your current return is smaller - because the already-produced items will have produced fewer gems.

If, during those 50 turns, none of your opponents has taken advantage of your sinking gems into slow-return investments, your map is too big. Or maybe your playgroup is too focused on this being the only viable strategy, and isn't otherwise expanding/attacking fast enough.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Another good alternative to this, and easier to program, would be to have map selection come -before- race selection. That way you know how many provinces, how much water, whether there are a recommended number of races, restrictions on which races/nations that are played, etc.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I really cant see this. I tend to create a new game with more of an idea of what nation I want to play than with what map I want to play on. To choose from ALL the maps and then find out that my nation isnt a choice seems less desireable than to choose the nation then find out that all the maps are not available.

Its not that hard anyway to just hit ESC and back up to make a change the way it is now.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I guess this could be interesting but at the moment thats a feature of the map controls. I generate maps daily on my site that randomize the AI opponents.

Re: The next patch
 

Wouldn't it be even easier to simply compile a list of the maps&scenarios along with which nations could play them?

Then you can just consult that during the God creation process. No need for UI changes.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Another good alternative to this, and easier to program, would be to have map selection come -before- race selection. That way you know how many provinces, how much water, whether there are a recommended number of races, restrictions on which races/nations that are played, etc.

An option on the race selection screen to randomize which non-human-controlled races are in the game would be rather nice also, especially with graphs turned off. Let it be a surprise as you come across the nations in the game.

(I guess this would also require the "send message" screen to only show those nations you've made contact with. That actually makes more sense anyway, imo. Unless of course all Pretenders have a divine ability to sense the other beings of power. Still - you can't teleport gems or magic items to commanders who aren't at one of your labs, why would you be able to teleport them to a nation you haven't made contact with?)

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It takes about 50 turns to go from a 5 astral income with no water to having 100 clams, assuming that absolutely no other site searching is done. If any site searching is done, then this number quickly drops to 100 clams by about turn 30-40 or sooner. 100 pearls a turn is a game breaker, since all it takes is 10 wishes for "Armageddon" to wipe out 90% of the entire world's population. Then the person with the massive income just needs to wish for gold and food as needed.

They definetly need some other kind of balancing factor, since they and earth blood stones are currently the only long term production item that doesn't have such a balancing factor. Soul contracts and lifelong protections horror mark the wearer so that he will get eaten before it gets too out of hand. Fever fetishes require you to alchemize with a 4 to 1 loss ratio to both nature and death gems to exploit severely, and earth blood stones require blood slaves, which are not available through alchemy. There should probably be _something_ done to the clams as currrently the best use of water gems and water magic is to convert them all to astral.

Re: The next patch
 

Yes, I agree with the below posters that the biggest imbalance in MP is the low cost of clams. If you raise them to construction 6 and change the cost appropriately they would be much more in balance.

I'm REALLY not one to cry "nerf", but I honestly think that the clams are way out of balance for the power they bring to a player's economy. It is at the point that if you don't horde clams then you can't compete in MP on large maps.

It would be nice to be able to restrict magic items to a specific number per player. Letting each player only use, say 10 clams maximum would help a lot. I'm not aware of anyone bringing up a magic item limit before, but if so what do the devs feel about that? Do they want the game to be decided by whoever hordes the most abusive items?

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Five bucks to the one who kills the hoarders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That would be a viable strategy except that a player with a large astral income can easily afford to cast and replace the various dome spells. There's not much point in trying even a flames from the sky if it only has a 7% chance of affecting the target province. Murdering winter is even worse, since 3 of the races are completely immune to it, and the other 4 heat races are almost always fairly safe.

Hoarding clams can be countered if you can find your opponent's holders before about turn 20-30. After that your chances of success become vanishingly small.

Re: The next patch
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm in a large game (Orania, 17 starters) which is approaching turn 70, and down to 5 active human players. One of those players is Graeme, playing R'lyeh. He has an Arcane Nexus and Strands of Arcane Power in play, so it's a fair bet that he's been exploiting clams and that, by his reckoning, he should now be unstoppable.

If he goes on to win despite being at war with the rest of the world, I'll join the throng declaring that this needs to be fixed, soon.

Re: The next patch
 

Even if he loses in a 4 vs 1 match-up it hardly proves that Clams are fine as they are. If it takes four non-Clam nations to defeat one Clam nation it can hardly be called balanced.