[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zen:


Just because you think something is 'out of balance' doesn't mean it is. And if you are still even learning the game what is your perspective of balance going to be? Someone uses something against you and you can't for some reason defeat it, suddenly it's imbalanced? If that is the criteria of balance then I'd much rather have the developers deciding balance.

No, it is not my criteria. In fact I am hoarding clams myslef in my current games. 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.

Just as the "Clam" debate. Some feel it is overpowered, others do not, you have to take the full impact of what it does. What nations rely on the Clams before a 'hoarding' phase and if they are taken or switched, will they be 'in balance' as they were. Atlantis is a good example of this.

Sure, some nations are relying on clams more than others, but I've noticed that almost any nation once they get semi-decent water or astral income as soon as they able to start making as much clams as they can, using alchemy if they have too. At least this was the case in all MP games that I've played so far. I am sure you have seen it more than me, so I don't really have to tell you this.

Just because I feel the developers have a pretty savvy grasp on the balance because they got it to this point doesn't make me any more of a fanboi, it does however stand to reason that if they see it pointed out enough they might have reason to look at it more.

I agree. That's what I am trying to do here - to politely point out to the issue of massive clam hoarding, which I think is a bit unbalanced as of now, and expalining why I think so. To do something about it or not is of course for the developers to decide, based upon thier own judgement.