The next patch

[GavinWheeler]

Wouldn't it be even easier to simply compile a list of the maps&scenarios along with which nations could play them?

Then you can just consult that during the God creation process. No need for UI changes.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by PhilD:
How long are your games? Are you playing 4-player games on the World map, or what?

It takes about 50 turns to go from a 5 astral income with no water to having 100 clams, assuming that absolutely no other site searching is done. If any site searching is done, then this number quickly drops to 100 clams by about turn 30-40 or sooner. 100 pearls a turn is a game breaker, since all it takes is 10 wishes for "Armageddon" to wipe out 90% of the entire world's population. Then the person with the massive income just needs to wish for gold and food as needed.

They definetly need some other kind of balancing factor, since they and earth blood stones are currently the only long term production item that doesn't have such a balancing factor. Soul contracts and lifelong protections horror mark the wearer so that he will get eaten before it gets too out of hand. Fever fetishes require you to alchemize with a 4 to 1 loss ratio to both nature and death gems to exploit severely, and earth blood stones require blood slaves, which are not available through alchemy. There should probably be _something_ done to the clams as currrently the best use of water gems and water magic is to convert them all to astral.

[sergex]

Yes, I agree with the below posters that the biggest imbalance in MP is the low cost of clams. If you raise them to construction 6 and change the cost appropriately they would be much more in balance.

I'm REALLY not one to cry "nerf", but I honestly think that the clams are way out of balance for the power they bring to a player's economy. It is at the point that if you don't horde clams then you can't compete in MP on large maps.

It would be nice to be able to restrict magic items to a specific number per player. Letting each player only use, say 10 clams maximum would help a lot. I'm not aware of anyone bringing up a magic item limit before, but if so what do the devs feel about that? Do they want the game to be decided by whoever hordes the most abusive items?

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by sergex:
Do they want the game to be decided by whoever hordes the most abusive items?

Five bucks to the one who kills the hoarders

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Five bucks to the one who kills the hoarders

That would be a viable strategy except that a player with a large astral income can easily afford to cast and replace the various dome spells. There's not much point in trying even a flames from the sky if it only has a 7% chance of affecting the target province. Murdering winter is even worse, since 3 of the races are completely immune to it, and the other 4 heat races are almost always fairly safe.

Hoarding clams can be countered if you can find your opponent's holders before about turn 20-30. After that your chances of success become vanishingly small.

[Zapmeister]

Hoarding clams can be countered if you can find your opponent's holders before about turn 20-30. After that your chances of success become vanishingly small.

I'm in a large game (Orania, 17 starters) which is approaching turn 70, and down to 5 active human players. One of those players is Graeme, playing R'lyeh. He has an Arcane Nexus and Strands of Arcane Power in play, so it's a fair bet that he's been exploiting clams and that, by his reckoning, he should now be unstoppable.

If he goes on to win despite being at war with the rest of the world, I'll join the throng declaring that this needs to be fixed, soon.

[Teraswaerto]

Even if he loses in a 4 vs 1 match-up it hardly proves that Clams are fine as they are. If it takes four non-Clam nations to defeat one Clam nation it can hardly be called balanced.