Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Hi to all,

I am playing Niefelheim with a N10S4 emprisoned monolith and a dominion of 9 I think.

I have a few large armies of giants, mainly with my prophet and one with a Niefel Jarl equipped with a few items like wraith sword...
I am at war with a few nations, namely Agartha, Atlantis, C'tis and Sauromatia. Well, almost everyone actually.

My problem is that, althoug I have done a lot of Arcane probing, I have ony found 3 astras sites, and only one yields perls. Furthermore, I have lost the said province. Hence, I don't have any astral gems at all.
Since my pretender is immobile and knows astral magic I need some perls at least to teleport it (I could also try faerie trod...).
So my question is: should I empower a few mages with N1 since they have W2?
I have cast Mother Oak so that I have a good income of Nature perls, i.e. 18 per turn.

Also, I am a bit clueless as to what to do/research next. I have forged a few skull mentor for my research, and I now have a D5 mage thanks to 2 items so I can forge wraith sword, wraith crown...
The thing is, there are so many possibilities, I don't know on what to focus. I would like to equip my jarls, maybe with
robe of shadows, amulet of anti-magic and the like.

Thanks for any suggestions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

The value is always relative. First thing to ask yourself is whether you have anything else to be spending those nature gems on.
Secondly, how long are you likely to be without a pearl income? Empowering for the clams is going to be a long term thing (if you gain pearl generating sites you'll have a higher astral income of course), while in the short term it would be cheaper (purely from a gem expenditure perspective) to use alchemy to cover emergencies.

In other words, if you're looking for a cheap short term solution then use alchemy if you need pearls, and concentrate on taking back that site. If you want a higher pearl income, and you don't mind waiting a while for the payoff, then empower.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

How many Clams could you forge roughly? 1 per turn for quite some rounds? Then it might be a reasonable thing to do. If you only have minimal Water Gems, then it's not going to pay off.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

I try to only empower only one unit and only once. Thats just to get to the level needed to create a level-boosting item for the others.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

I do not think it's worth empowering. If I remember correctly, you have a chance
to roll a mage who can forge them out of the box. The chances may be minimal,
but I know I got one both times I played them in MP. Unless you have a huge
stash of water gems sitting in your lab, I'd say just recruit enough... Skratti?

---------

Yes, I just checked it. Any Jarl can forge a +1 water robe, and Skratti with
a nature pick are common. Empowering would be a hell of a waste of gems.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Neifelheim afaik cannot get a nature random on a water mage. I'm pretty sure gygjor don't have a chance for water either.

One empowerment, followed by a clam a turn for the rest of the game, would break even in... fiftyish turns?
Probably not worth it.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Gygjor don't get water.

I don't think long term stuff like this is usually worth it. Clam spamming is also incredibly boring and is the kind of stuff that makes people just quit the game and say 'fine you win' if you actually pull it off. Not something I'd ever feel like doing.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

1 clam a turn would break even a lot sooner than 50ish turns. After 10 turns you'd have produced 55 pearls, which covers the cost of the empowerment. And each clam covers its own cost fairly quickly.

I reckon after 25 turns you've probably pretty much covered your costs, and you're raking in a fortune from then on.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

A Skratti has a chance for a Nature random. Then all you need is a water bracelet to start clamming.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Ok, thanks for the infos. I will check my skrattis, but I do not think I have one with N1.

Anyhow, I agree that clamming is a lot of micromanagement, but, what else should I do to get astral pearls???

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

> A Skratti has a chance for a Nature random. Then all you need is a water bracelet to start clamming.

Water Bracelet is level 6. Better to make Jarl forge Water 3 robe - costs more, but you can start forging.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

There's also the fact that pearls are so much more useful than water gems (except for a modest supply for the cheap water items...quickness items, FR items, and frost brands...only 5-10 gems for all or almost all of them). The only big water expenditure I'd really consider are the Queens. So if you've got a significant water income Clamming makes a lot of sense.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

It's probably more efficient just to alchemise.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

I would not mind seeing clams removed from the game. Micromanaging is bad.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Lets not remove anything from the game.

Dominions is about variety.

No one is forcing anybody to clam, its entirely optional.

I believe clams etc were already nerfed from Dom2 to Dom3, by increasing the gem cost. I think clams, fetishes and blood stones are okay as they are.

This is from someone who as never seriously clammed in any game I have played.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Maybe so. But I get tired of seeing "clammers" post on the big game thread for the game to end at turn 70 etc because they cannot handle the micromanagement that goes along with clamming late game in a big game.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

They're really NOT optional in big games, is the thing. I had over 100 gems/turn coming in from items in a game as shinuyama by turn 75. Given how important astral magic is in the late-game I can't see how a non-clamming nation would be able to keep up, since all they'd have is a pile of water gems. IIRC I was getting around 40-50 gems of each type that far into the game (with maybe 100 provinces or so) so the clams represented a large amount of extra gems every turn.

Edit: I don't see how clamming is particularly mm-intensive though...every 5-10 turns if your water income is growing you build a few items or summon up a clammer. Other than that just group them up push F and then click misc item/clam, then right click a researcher somewhere and plop a clam on him. Hit "Pool gems" each turn. Done...maybe a minute of work/turn. I'd save a massively larger amount of time on my turns if orders weren't reset on commanders by removing items that don't impact the order, or if there was a way to retarget a ritual without having to go back through the different menus.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

hah. you made my point for me.

Saying micromanagement is not optional if you want to keep up with the Joneses. To win you must do it. But if it is a pain in the arse to do, and people whine they do not want games to go past a certain turn because it is micromanagement hell, then why not remove the items from the game and let players PLAY the game and have fun.

Clam production is a race to the bottom. You win, but it is not FUN to play the game. And the purpose of the game is? To have fun.

The Plaintiff rests his case, Your Honor.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Micromanagement isn't the issue, clamming doesn't require that much.

Have 1-3 mages set up for clams, re-forge, find an empty castle dweller, done. Once you want to harvest, note any units that have/need gems, hit pool gems, go back to those units and restock them if they were over a lab.

I usually ctrl-group the clammers, ctrl-F and done for the annoying lack of re-forge.

Mind you, the micro wasn't bad with 60-70 clams, I'm not sure how bad it would be if you had like 10-20 clammers going a turn, etc.

I treat it as an investment, but just as a side strategy. I let them accumulate till I need some rings or a heavy spell.

It would be cool to have them cost progressively more.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Xietor: Go back and read my edit (which I put up after your post, so I'm not trying to flame you for not reading or anything lame like that, I'm just pointing it out)

Clams themselves aren't the problem, it's the income they generate. I've found that once I hit about 100 provinces there's too much management (micro and macro) and the game starts to be a grind. There's just too much to worry about, too many boosters to shuffle, too many contingencies to plan. Since gold isn't terribly important by that stage of the game the gem items become essentially extra provinces, since they generate income just like them, with the corresponding increase in the amount of summons and whatnot that you have running around that you have to manage. It's just like playing on a bigger map though, and some people are into that.

I just don't personally enjoy the ever-increasing amount of gems that nations gain access to, regardless of territory, as the game wears on. I think a bounded economy is a good thing, generally speaking, and that the game would be better if it was always played with province-based income, not item-based income. So I don't like them, but not because they require excessive intrinsic management. I was playing a much smaller game and had a sizable amount of income from clams (probably a third of my total income) and they didn't really register as any sort of mm-concern. It's just when you add them in on top of administering 100 provinces that it's a problem for me. Maybe that just means I should play smaller maps.

That being said, I play to win and clam-horde like a little *****, cuz it's obviously the way to go.

Edit again: And that's the other reason I don't like them. Mandatory strategies just aren't much fun. If everyone is following the same dominant strategy (especially a passive one like clamming) then everyone's pretty much on an even playing field, so it could just as easily be removed. Obviously some nations benefit from them more by being able to access them easier/earlier, but when it's a worthwhile investment to empower/summon critters just to star clamming it's probably a sign that it's too much of a dominant strat. The main problem that arises is balancing the hit that natural clamming nations would take if they were removed, since it would weaken them significantly. So the issue gets even more complex if we talk about removing them...

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

I think the problem about gem producing items is that if you seriously forge them, you begin to become stronger on an exponentionally curve. But clams need other paths to forge than the gems that they produce, so they are not as stron.

Blood stones on the other hand only cost 7 earth gems, so they begin to pay for themselves really fast, maybe it would be a good idea to make them more expensive.

But i think that gem producing items give non blood nations some ability to get stronger like the blood ones (as you can hunt about as many blood slaves as you want).

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

If possible, I think the best way to deal with the gem-creating items would be to put a limit of ten or so of each item per nation or game. Basically just adding a few lines of code to the clams and other items, so that before they create a gem they check an integer value, if it is not below the maximum number nothing happens, otherwise it is increased by one and the item does what it usually does. (My programming knowledge is limited to a bit of Java, so this probably won't be as simple as I think, but I like to pretend that I know stuff.)

A thematic reason to add a limit to the amount of gem generating items could be that they absorb ambient magical energy from the world like the arcane nexus spell, and that there's a limit to how much of this it is possible to capture in a single month.

Hadrian_II has a point about this issue "balancing" with how blood nations can get more magical resources than the others, but isn't blood hunting pretty useless in provinces with high unrest? I think it's easier to damage blood income than it is to take out hordes of clam carrying researchers hiding beneath two or three domes and an army.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

I do not like clams/fetishes/blood gems, but whenever it is not too much trouble, I
craft them. They are a damn useful thing to have on a scout sneaking along a
conquering army. And if the game looks like a long one, they're a good strategy.

If it were up to me, I would make the probability of each item generating a gem on
any particular turn be

numberOfProvincesOnMap / (5 * numberOfItemsOfThisType)

Rounded down to one, of course. I dislike putting a hard limit on items, as
this gives a very solid advantage to the first player to craft them.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

It would be interesting to have their efficiency decline as more are crafted, but I think the net effect would be that no-one would make them ever.

Personally, I'd like it if they produced 5 (say) gems/combat which vanish at the end of combat if not spent.

Then you would actually use them to keep combat mages supplied with spells, as they are intended to be used. This would actually *reduce* micromanagement, see.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Oooh! I like that Idea Dr. P.

Are there any current parallels in the game? Almost seems like it would be possible to change the stone bird into say a blood slave (possibly a bloodthirsty blood slave), have it multiplied by 10 and somehow work out the transition from blood slave usage to gem usage.

Slave ina box!

What game was it that used ammo carts? Carry them around almost like a packmule and it doubles your ammo. Heroes?

While it would reduce micromanagement in general to have a central/army gem distributor (one guy with a bunch of gems, mages take as they need) - the AI wouldn't play nicely with it.

Which goes back to Dr. P's idea, which I still like!

I do disagree that folks wouldn't maket them if they had diminishing returns though. Instead of the whole "clam hoarding" idea, its still nice to have 10-12 just to increase your base astral income.

If codeable i'd still like increasing costs (and/or path req, possibly up to 3W3N so the naied can still forge):
Clams 1-3
5W5N
Clams 4-10
10W5N
Clams 11-20
15W5N
Clams 21-30
20W10N
etc

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Waouh, it seems that, for once, I have started an interesting discussion, albeit quite involuntarily.

I have to concur with some opinions that clamming adds a bit of micro-management to a game already plagued by micro. I say plagued, because for me, the main deterrent to playing the game really is the micro associated with late games.
It is a bit of a problem since I also love waging big wars and using costly spells. But there are just so many things that could be automated or done more convenient (like being able to give move orders for more than the next turn, or yeah, auto-forging...)

As to the clams issue: I have played a lot of collectible card games, and usually, when a strategy becomes prevalent/too powerful, the card is either nerfed or banned, or some new cards are created in the next set that counterbalance this strategy. I agree that a strategy that is used by every single nation in the game as a way to be competitive should not exist.

Finally, thanks, I had never thought about Ctrl-choosing my forgers. The problem is, I think they are not located in the same province. But I only have three for the moment, so that's ok.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

They have infact already been nerfed so far they are hardly recognizable, originally they took 2w and 10 gems, now it's 20 gems and 3w1n. The only times I have ever forge clams in dom3 is in the few cases where I have mage with the combo, and need astral so badly that I would otherwise end up alchimizing for it.

It's probably possible to eventually get a decent clam income going, but any game that is not perpetuality style is quite unlikely to still be in doubt past turn 100. And further, if I was going to be worried about a hoarding item, the blood stone is far deadlier as things stand.

So, I think the current nerf was probably a good thing, but people are paraniod to still be seriously afaid of clamming in 99% of cases, considering even at the crazy dom2 settings it was hardly unbeatable.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

By turn 60 in 1 game I am in, the clam production already is over 100 per turn.

Blood stones also need addressed.

The Alpaca game, is on turn 100 and the outcome is still in doubt, playing on Edi's fixed cradle of dominions map. It would be easy to have a wish a turn income by turn 100.

Gem producing items completely undermine the value of global spells designed to boost gem income.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Some people might like to cast 1 wish per turn by turn 100.

If they have managed to survive and achieve that position, good luck to them. At least they should bring a end to game soon, something I sometimes wish for by that stage!

The globals get cast turns 30'ish to 60, so they are not affected at all really. Also you can only have 5 globals, so only 5 players (if that) are allowed extra gems? A bit unfair.

Blood hunting by a blood nation makes clamming/blood stones/fetish farming all look rubbish. By turn 50 a blood nation can have a blood slave income of 300 - 400 plus per turn.

They are all viable strategies, people may not like them, others do, ban them on a individual game basis but don't ask for them to be nerfed more or banned.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Gem globals are some of the most popular globals there are, I'd say at least half of those that get cast are gem globals. Playing on past turn 100 is certainly possible, but out of the ~25 longterm dominions games I've played, I've seen it happen once.

EDIT: And is the 100 clams by turn 60 with or without forge of the ancients?

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

Forge hammer, but no forge.

Re: Are Clams worth empowering for?
 

In Dom2 clams featured a dominant role in many games on large maps. I remember a game when the limiting factor was the size of the magic item treasury in terms of clams/turn.

I think that the changes in Dom3 were for the better and they are close to balanced now. I have yet to see a game where they are decisive.

Heck, there are very few nations with mages which can forge them. Oceania and Jot are the only two that come to mind.