[Norfleet]

Originally posted by rabelais:
Killing two phoenixes with one hand grenade, I think what we might do is let water gems have a low/med level pop renewal effect. This would create a different kind of problem (pop farming?) but I'm confident our thanatonic devs would keep it from being *unseemily* profitable

If there was a water gem-consuming ritual or global that had a greatly enhancing effect on population growth, particularly in synergy with growth scale, I would DEFINITELY be seriously considering this as an alternative to clamming or a living nation. As it stands, however, even if you do not backfeed(transmute astral back to water for more clams), you will want to produce clams using just your natural water gem income simply because water gems are more or less otherwise useless except for forging some items, but these are desirable only in limited quantity.

And if you just produce clams using natural water income, and have decent water income, you WILL be able to compete with somebody playing a clamhoard strategy: Astral Pearls are utilized very inefficiently. Ever notice how most Astral spells cost way more than their actual effective value? Ether Gate is 90 astral gems. Angelic Hosts are 50. Neither of these pack the killing power, say, an Ice Devil, which carries a price tag of about 50 blood slaves (blood slaves can be viewed as having an exchange rate no worse than 2.5:1 slaves:astral), which means an Ice Devil, pre-equipment, carries a price tag comparable to 20S, possibly less. Even equipping expenses won't make their cost equal to that of an Ether Gate, which is not as impressive. Astral gems can only be utilized inefficiently. It is the complete worthlessness of water gems that promotes their use in such a manner. I don't even always "clamhoard", in the sense of transmuting astrals back to waters: In many games, I've just produced them with available water income, transmuting only to make an even production run(no more than one clam is paid for by more than 50% transmutated gems per turn). I mean, what ELSE do you do with water gems? I don't need THAT many boots of quickness.