What's the best way to use non native gems ?

[The Panther]

The reason I am always low on water gems every game is because I never stop building clams!

I believe clams are one of the most unbalanced artifacts in the game. They ought to require W4 to make for what I believe to be their true value. Or maybe W3S1 or perhaps W2S2.

At least fever fetishs are not so bad since they poison the holder and fire gems are less useful in general than pearls. As for the clams, I bet every MP player tries to get a clam on every researcher and/or scout that they can in most games.

For the fire gems, I find myself making the +6 research lanterns as early as I can. Those make a huge difference in your research speed. They are far better then the +3 air quill pens and are even more cost effective then the +9 death thingies. There is nothing I like better than seeing a pile of sages in my capitol named W1RC or D1RC or whatever since they have both a lantern (R for research) and a clam (C) plus one random school of magic!