Apology accepted and also my apologies because my post was also a bit harsh i think .
Just a few answers to your viewpoints from my 180 degree turned viewpoints : Ultimate horder vs. Ultimate warmonger + rusher
:
I think for taking all the hoarding micro pain i would have deserved a win also . I probably invested about the same time in my hoarding + "ultimate" lategame armies planning then you in your SC equpipping + warmongering .
That you like the earlygame so much and that i like the lategame so much is probably a bit biased also by our nation selections + god designs . While i normally design everything according to good hoarding you seem to rather design for rushing . Both are legitime strats and alexti often said on the board that if you rush quick enough you can win vs. hoarders also .
Greame and other veterans agreed to those statements .
I have probably a rather high micromanagement pain tolerance also . Long trained by playing Euopa universalis 2 , master of orion 2 , Victoria and Hoi
One additional thing with clams : Aku's clams where overpowered , mine weren't ( as much ) .
The reasons for this are that no artillery spells work underwater and he as a water nation has incredible advantages to defend underwater .
I had everything stationed in my capitol and 1 astral dome and 3-4 air domes .
So each artillery spell would have 10% chance to break through .
Flames from the sky are not very expensive , 20 fire gems . And you can cast them as abysia really easy .
So if you would have saved fire gems and attacked my capitol with 20 flames from the sky in 1 turn a few would have gotten through and probably eliminated lots of my clam stockpiles . At least if you had dispelled my GoH before .
At least with a joint effort with the other nations you could have probably rather easily achieved the 20 flames on my capitol in one turn even without much hoarding from your side .
If i instead spread my hoarders doming all those provinces is very expensive .
Since i massively hoard i normally aim for at least 500 clams . If i spread them then to 10 provinces there are in each 50 clams then , still good flame targets .
Since for firegems there is not much need expect for a few special items and the flames even without hoarding you can save your firegems for a few turns and then do a clam destruction artillery .
Once the nation can hoard in the water + well defend it like Aku this problem has gone and he can stock all his clams in his capitol and guard them well .
So hoarding water nations are unfair , but as long as the clams are hoarded on the continent they are not such a big problem at all especially since most horders aren't that big in territory .