Clams overpowered?

[LintMan]

Originally posted by PvK:
I still like my idea to have clams draw on a limited worldwide supply of pearls - say one per sea province on the map. Once there are more clams than pearls, a random selection equal to the surplus of clams, don't produce pearls that turn.

The problem I see with this is that the hoarder would still get the lion's share of the pearls (since they'd have forged them sooner, before the limit kicked in, and would have a much greater percentage of the total), while "casual clammers" who only forge a few would get beat. So the incentive to hoard them would be diminished but still remain, while at the same time, it would be borked for the occasional clam forger. That would then lead to a "either make a whole ton of them, or don't bother to make any" type philosophy.

If there was going to be a limit on clams, I think it would be better to be per-player rather than overall. This would prevent any player from hoarding them (which is the goal, I think), while still allowing them to be used normally by the non-hoarders.

I think that having a reasonable limit on the number of clams (what that number is, is debatable, of course), combined with some improvements to the water path to add some decent rituals as an attractive alternative use of water gems, would solve the problem.