[elmokki]

I for one would also like to note how gem generators are a retarded mechanic that deserved to be removed. The hammers I'm not as sure about, but I do agree that they were important enough for about any nation design to consider a way to get them so they obscured strategies other.

But about gemgens. Along with the absolutely horrible micromanagement the biggest issue for me is that the gemgen income was next to impossible to stop. Blood income can be stopped with (good enough) raiding or advancing armies as can site based gem income. Globals can also be dispelled or replaced. Gold income stops as provicnes are lost or unrest is high enough. Gem generators you can have on a horde of scouts hiding somewhere and in general very safe from any threat.

If gemgens were fairly fragile and easily spottable and not very mobile things you had to spread around your lands (like let's say they'd each improve output of a magical site with diminishing mariginal returns or some non-gem income related reason) they would be fine. Blood hunting is fine since it requires peaceful provinces, continuous mage turns and bringing your mages in the open to risk death or building forts everywhere. As a bonus even if the forts are everywhere they are stopped from getting slaves by sieging the forts. Gemgens in vanilla are not even nearly comparable to blood hunting in vanilla due to this.

I do also prefer gameplay that doesn't reward turtling as much as gemgens did. I mean, even after the removal some nations and strategies are still fine with rather passive playing.

I suppose everyone is entitled to an opinion on the gemgens, but I personally find them as implemented in Dominions 3 a horrible mechanic that deserved to be removed (or well, items made unique). I cannot understand anyone who thinks they are an universally good thing for the game (multiplayer anyway) and I have yet to see an argument for the gemgens that doesn't make the writer seem dumb in my eyes.