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

[DeathDaemon]

Sometimes it seems my rainbow searcher finds a lot of gems that only he can use. It almost always ends up that my god summons magic commanders to use the gems. Most games I eventually use sages, amazons, or druids, but for the most part it seems like I'm wasting gems for empowerment/path boosters. Am I overestimating the value of earning gems in paths difficult for a nation to achieve? Should i stick with the remote site searching spells for the paths readily available for my nation and go with a cheaper more dedicated pretender?

[Boron]

Hm imo you can't have enough gems .

With deathgems it is extremely easy cause you get good death casters with a lot of other magics :
Nature : summon lamia queen
Blood : Vampire lord
Astral : Ether gate
With deathboosters you can then summon a demilich and with 3 boosters the demilich can even summon tartarians .

Air is at least of use for the AQs , for boots of flying , SR items and staff of storms for every nation .

Water = Clams and boots of quickness , maybe waterqueens .

Astral you need a lot for items : Starshine skullcap , lucky coin , Amulet of Antimagic , luck pendant etc. for SCs , Ring of sorcery / wizardy for path boosting .
Lategame maybe wish .

Nature i find especially lamia queens useful and there is GoH . If you setup a wish/tartarian factory you need as well GoR .

Earth = Dwarfen hammers etc. . Good summons for special purposes . Forge of Ancients .

Fire : lategame flames from the sky , maybe lightless lanters for research speed up , gold , fever fetishes , flamebeaus . Imo the gems with the fewest uses .

Blood you can never have enough .


Imo good site searching , no matter if by accashic record , rainbow mage or single path search spells pays always off in the medium/long run .

Death , Nature , Earth and Water are imo the most important gems .

[DeathDaemon]

I know what each gem can do, but my question is how to effectively use them. By mid game i sometimes have a gem income that needs 2-5 multiple lvl empowered and path boosted sages (for each gem type) casting rituals. Thats a lot of wasted gems. Its not that the gems are valuable, i'm looking to find a more effective use. as i mentioned, I find I end up using all my god's time to summon magic commanders to use the gems. I'd rather he do other things, or not even be rainbow at all.

[Yossar]

What kind of gem income are we talking about? I rarely get that many gems of a type I don't have mages for, but I also don't use my pretender to search much. If you don't have the mages to use the gems, you don't have the mages to use the gems, but there are a few items that can help you get there. Ring of sorcery/wizardry and staff of elemental mastery help you get points in magic types that you are weak in. Then it's easy to blow through those gems. At worst you can trade the gems with someone who needs them more than you do (unless we're talking about single player).

[Arryn]

Boron left out Wind Ride as a major use for air gems. Another excellent use for Nature gems is to crank out Ivy Kings which in turn can crank out hordes of upkeep-free Vine Ogres. Fairy Queens are another good use for Nature. Flames from the Sky alone justify fire gems, but another great use is to create Sceptres of Authority in the mid game and Rods of the Phoenix later on. And you can always alchemize them for gold or other gems. Fire gems have more uses than Boron may think. And I don't understand how Boron can mention all the handy items that require Astral, plus Acashic record, and various globals, nevermind Wish and then not include Astral in his list of "most important" gems. Boron, though, is absolutely correct in saying that you can never have enough gems.

[deccan]

Astrals are also always good for dispelling globals...

[Tuna]

DeathDaemon said:
I know what each gem can do, but my question is how to effectively use them. By mid game i sometimes have a gem income that needs 2-5 multiple lvl empowered and path boosted sages (for each gem type) casting rituals. Thats a lot of wasted gems. Its not that the gems are valuable, i'm looking to find a more effective use. as i mentioned, I find I end up using all my god's time to summon magic commanders to use the gems. I'd rather he do other things, or not even be rainbow at all.

Make a more specialised god, use the searching spells for searching and instead of devoting so much time on getting gems you cannot use anyway spend your efforts on taking some land from the closest neighbour.

[Endoperez]

Boosters. If you go for a rainbow, check out the boosters.


Maximum skill level national mages of Machaka (FFEED? and FDNN?) can achieve with boosters they and FWWAASS pretender can forge if boosters are used to make more items...

2F? +3 Fire = 6F
? +3 Air= 4A (5A with pretender)
? +3 Water = 4W (5W with pretender)
2E? +2 Earth = 5E
? +2 Astral= 3S (4S with pretender)
2N?+3 Nature= 6N
D?+2 Death=4D
? + 0 Blood = 1

They can summon Mound Fiend (they have 3D, right?) which can further summon Wraith Lords and Demiliches, so they can also get powerful mages of Death.

This is without counting in unique items or Rings of Sorcery/Wizardry, which help a lot. There is an excel file that lists all the boosters, you might want to hunt that down if you are interested...


EDIT: Forgot 2Air from the pretender...

[Vynd]

I'm all for using the gems to summon casters that can use them, if your own mages cannot. But let's not forget alchemy! If you can't use your Fire gems, turn them into gold, or into even more gems that you can use.

[Boron]

Arryn said:
And I don't understand how Boron can mention all the handy items that require Astral, plus Acashic record, and various globals, nevermind Wish and then not include Astral in his list of "most important" gems.

I didn't list them because once you start clamming you should have no astral shortage anymore . At least astrals should be your biggest or second biggest ( after blood ) gem income then .

If you play a game with houserule no clams or 10 clams or similiar then astral gems become one of the most important gems too imo

But as long as you have water + death at least from midgame on you can cope the astral shortage with every nation by starting to forge clams with spectres .


Imo the biggest shortage i always have in :
1. Deathgems
2. Watergems
3. Earthgems