[Chris Byler]

BTW, whoever posted that a nature-1 water-1 clam would be beyond the reach of any national mage without a lucky random pick was wrong: he reckoned without the Marshmaster (Miasma C'tis) and the Master of Five Elements (Spring&Autumn T'ien Ch'i). Both have fixed water and nature magic. So those two nations would become the new favored clam hoarders - but hey, at least they can be easily attacked, having most of their powerbase on land. (Of course, jade priestesses would also be able to forge clams, and any nation with water *or* nature and random picks would be a potential clam hoarder - so add Pangaea, Man, and IIRC Machaka to the list.)

Even before clam hoarding was introduced, I'd already decided not to play any MP game with the graphs off. So that doesn't affect me. I still wouldn't mind seeing the clam raised to Water-3 though, if it really is a problem. It already takes 20 clam-turns to pay for a clam; raising it to 40 would pretty much eliminate clams as anything other than a slow form of alchemy for "excess" water gems. (I don't see how your water gems can be excess unless your *only* opponents are Caelum and Jotunheim and you're playing on a map with no seas, and even then you can probably find some use.)