[Wendigo]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
But you can do both.

If you can do both then you are swimming in gems & have a comfortable lead.

I didn't have that kind of surplus. I had an income of about 5 water gems per turn and 10 astral per turn. From turn 20 when I started, I had my 100 clams by turn 55.
...
I'm not sinking 750-1000 gems into the clams. I'm sinking about 150 water gems (useless for anything else), and about 300 astral pearls from site income.

450 gems, 300 of them being astrals is still a substantial amount. Just checked your numbers & they only seem to match if those gems are used from the very start (ie, you start with 30 clams in turn 21-22), so you are likely to have spent much more than your estimation.

Your experience seems to differ also from mine. By turn 20 I am often already at war or planning to, and form then on do not stop fighting until the end of the game.

From an outsider PoV Atlantis seems to have been particularly passive in your game, same with Ermor. By turn 20+ a number of land nations should also have developed the means to at least be able to raid seas, if not hold on them.

The rest of the gems are produced by the clams themselves. There's really nothing else that's worthwhile for a nation like R'lyeh to do with its water gems.

Debatable. Early on Voice of Tiamat gives better returns that clams. Later on Murdering winter, Wolven winter + a number of good summons are also an option. And that without considering battlefield usage.

I am also far from convinced that spending 15-20 astrals to start getting the returns 10 turns later is a good move.

I wasn't aware that a game that's in turn ~60 was a long game.

We obviously have different tastes on this.

edit- typo

[ April 02, 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: Wendigo ]