[Sombre]

The topic of taking away hammers in this thread is really about reducing micro, not rebalancing.

I also think your logic is a bit weird. Taking away hammers has the greatest impact on a nation that does a lot of forging and that would previously have used a lot of hammers. Since you say astral, death, nature and earth get the best gear, nations with access to these strong paths would arguably lose out more than others with no hammers, because they're the ones doing the most forging. This seems particularly true of earth powers, who can forge a bunch of hammers rather than having to trade for them or take the points hit on their pretender build.

I also don't really see how hammers help nations that need to diversify more than those who are already have access to the stronger paths. You say it allows lesser amounts of gems in those off paths to be used more effectively, but since it equally allows S/D/N/E to be used more efficiently when they're your main gem income, which in terms of raw gems is going to be far more of an impact,... I don't get it. Clearly it does help forge that N booster to try and bootstrap into nature, but it helps an equal amount (proportionately) with an N powerhouse forging the best N gear.