[Micah]

You have no midgame because you can't use your mages on land, just accept it and skip straight from early game (getting the seas) to late game (clams and huge summons). You need astral magic late game, so if you don't have astral mages your first 50 clammed pearls get to go the empowerment.

And yes, they take a while to pay themselves back, but outside of the queens most of the stuff you can get with water gems isn't that impressive, and it's only 3 nature gems per clam with a hammer.

Or, you could burn a few hundred of them on sea king's courts, those little naid warrior things and winter wolves, take a few provinces on the land, and then get smacked back into the ocean once whoever you're attacking actually bothers to get together a force to take out your army of chaff. That's an investment that will never pay off. Be smart, build clams.