Clams?
 

This is probably a silly question but I just need to know.
Who or what are clams? And what is this "clam-hording" I've been hearing so much about?
Maybe it's in the manual, I haven't read that thing in quite some time now.

Re: Clams?
 

I think they are called Clam of Pearls. An magic item that produce an astral gem each turn.

Re: Clams?
 

Clam of Pearls, a Water/Nature item that produces 1 Astral gem per turn. They'll pay for themselves after two-three dozen turns or so, depending on if you would have used the gems as nature/water gems or alhemized them into astral. They're a slow strategy, and won't pay off if you get killed, but will give you tremendous advantage if you manage to pull it off and stay in the game.

It can also be done with Blood Stones (Blood/Earth, earth gems). It produces the same kind of gems you need to forge more of them, and you'll have easier access to Dwarven Hammers (which are essential any way, but you don't have to rely on trade), and it's relatively easy to get Blood even if you don't find any mages with it, but Astral gems have more uses than Earth.

It also used to be possible to produce ever-growing army with Soul Contracts (blood/fire, produce one devil/turn). One devil costs 7 slaves, so the 80 or whatever slaves for one Contract will pay off in about dozen turns, or much faster with Dwarven Hammers/forge bonus. I'm not sure if that's used as much nowadays.

Both items have been doubled in price since DomII, where these kinds of strategies were much more effective.

Re: Clams?
 

Forge bonus does not help with contracts. The devils do not accept an smaller amount of blood just because you have a pretty hammer.

Re: Clams?
 

And it also doesn't help with magic hearts...

Re: Clams?
 

One thing not mentioned yet is that clam hoarding is only a useful strategy if you have astral.

Re: Clams?
 

There are people who take a S9 pretender with oceania for clam hoarding. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Clams?
 

Clams used to require only W2, so only only knowledge of one magic path and just 10 water gems, which could be further reduced by forge bonus equipment. Most of guides from Dom2 you'll find will mention that you should forge them whenever possible - they were the primary gem generator, much better than gem generating globals. Now they take W3N1, so two separate paths which makes it harder to forge and double the gems.

Re: Clams?
 

W3N1 also gets contact naiad, who are able to clam spam further.

I had the best luck clam spamming as LA R'lyeh... IIRC the right slave mage random picks will be able to bootstrap to contact naiad, and it's exceptionally useful to have a massive astral income when playing the Dreamlands. There's tons of nature and water sites underwater to fund clam spam, and given what an incredible pain it is to go after Dreamlands in the water, they can usually hold out long enough for the strategy to pay off. Once that's accomplished, it's really only a matter of time until the world is gibbering, squamous, and non-euclidean.

But then again, I always say that.