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I disagree with the leap you're making here. Again, I think a lot of this is due to fixating on one type of game. The large games make hammers much more important. In a smaller game, hammers are much less important. The mage time in making more hammers over the first have a decreasing rate of return. I am currently playing a small 55 province map against two opponents, and I am crafting all I can afford to do with two hammers. I have too many more important things for my pretender to do (only one with a lot of earth). I took the earth for the bless, not for the hammer forging.

Now, if we were playing a larger game, I would need more hammers. I would have more time, so any turn spent crafting hammers has a lower opportunity cost and a higher payoff. So I would consider trading for hammers or taking a pretender with earth.

I mean is anyone calling for a nerf of Niefelheim because they win duels against Marverni on a map like Dogfight? No.

The other side of the coin is games where you don't get high earth income? I've played games where I needed something and didn't get it. Are we going to ramp up gems just because I got an unlucky draw? No we accept that. Again, I feel this falls into the same category.

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Also, I would like to second the thought that it is due to the excellent work on CBM in the past that has led to the spirited debate here during the last week.

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It is probably true, the smaller the game less likely it is hammers will play a significant role. But the very same thing is true of gem gens, and in a similar way I don't see that small games are harmed by the larger scale fix.

I'm not quite sure what point you are making with being unlucky finding e gems in some games, it's not pity for people who lose games due to not having the right gems for hammers that is driving the change, though I suppose it could be argued it's an added bonus.

On tartarians: I do agree they are in great need of tweaking. I know lots of people are in favor of direct cost increase, but that has some unwanted side effects in terms of making their use as troops unfeasible and giving those that can heal the feebled tarts (owners of GoH/Chalice) a crazy advantage. At the moment I'm toying with the idea of removing their default magic in favor of 'potential' magic. They would have no magic when you summon them but 50 gems empowerment of the appropriate type would get you direct to level 4 in a path (thematically speaking, it's just a different way of representing the feebled mind, but in a way that anyone could heal them, not just the GoH/Chalice). This way, with the right investment they could well surpass most EDM summons, but they wouldn't have the huge diversity advantages.

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That's an interesting idea, kind of a "build your own tart." Just to clarify something: when you say anyone could heal them (which I think is the way to go - eliminate the need for Chalice/GoH) do you plan on breaking them into individual summons or repurposing another spell that summons from a group? The problem I ran into is that the Tartarian Gate spell applies the afflictions so the only way I could summon a random, affliction-free, tart is by using one of the other spells that summons from a group. But since CBM has to cover all nations/eras that doesn't seem like an option.

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Yes, I think the only way to remove afflictions would be to swap out the summoning spell, which has side effects I'd rather avoid. I think having plenty feebled would still be OK though- it's true GoH/Chalice is great now but the concern with the direct raising prices was that it would make them better- this would just leave them at about their current power. After all, how many tarts can you really empower? At 10 gems each you should easily have plenty of healthy empowerment candidates. Also, under this tart scheme GoR could probably get cheaper and they could be used with whatever afflictions as thugs (I actually think seeing some still feebled tarts used in battle would be quite cool).

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Ok, I see. I really like this idea, it seems to cover all the bases. Thanks for the info.

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I've been thinking about this idea and a potential loophole occurred to me: empower in astral and if you've managed to get either the Dimensional Rod or the Forbidden Light you could Wish for magic power and then the boost would apply to all the paths you just gained.

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It's true, but honestly if you have paid 150s, plus other misc expenses, I think you've earned it. It is in some sense the ultimate magic diversifier but I think one tart with 4 in everything is actually far less useful than a half dozen tarts with an assortment of paths.

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Hmm, maybe so. I see your point about one very powerful unit being a bottleneck - only able to forge one item, be in one place at a time, etc. And I really like the idea of seeing magicless, possibly afflicted, tarts on the battlefield as troops and thugs. But I'm always wary of loopholes.

Another thing I was wondering about is which paths would be likely to be empowered. The main one that comes to mind is astral, not just because of the possibility of wishing for magic power but also because it would be the only way to get an S4 summon and strong astral is such a useful late game path. Maybe also air, earth and fire and blood (because it's so cheap to do so). Water, nature and death don't seem likely choices since there's other, cheaper, options.

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For me the problem with using feebleminded tarts as units/thugs is low MR/high hp combo which makes them the target for all the mr resistable spells which means they don't stay long enough to be useful.