Are Clams worth empowering for?

[Micah]

They're really NOT optional in big games, is the thing. I had over 100 gems/turn coming in from items in a game as shinuyama by turn 75. Given how important astral magic is in the late-game I can't see how a non-clamming nation would be able to keep up, since all they'd have is a pile of water gems. IIRC I was getting around 40-50 gems of each type that far into the game (with maybe 100 provinces or so) so the clams represented a large amount of extra gems every turn.

Edit: I don't see how clamming is particularly mm-intensive though...every 5-10 turns if your water income is growing you build a few items or summon up a clammer. Other than that just group them up push F and then click misc item/clam, then right click a researcher somewhere and plop a clam on him. Hit "Pool gems" each turn. Done...maybe a minute of work/turn. I'd save a massively larger amount of time on my turns if orders weren't reset on commanders by removing items that don't impact the order, or if there was a way to retarget a ritual without having to go back through the different menus.

[Xietor]

hah. you made my point for me.

Saying micromanagement is not optional if you want to keep up with the Joneses. To win you must do it. But if it is a pain in the arse to do, and people whine they do not want games to go past a certain turn because it is micromanagement hell, then why not remove the items from the game and let players PLAY the game and have fun.

Clam production is a race to the bottom. You win, but it is not FUN to play the game. And the purpose of the game is? To have fun.

The Plaintiff rests his case, Your Honor.

[jutetrea]

Micromanagement isn't the issue, clamming doesn't require that much.

Have 1-3 mages set up for clams, re-forge, find an empty castle dweller, done. Once you want to harvest, note any units that have/need gems, hit pool gems, go back to those units and restock them if they were over a lab.

I usually ctrl-group the clammers, ctrl-F and done for the annoying lack of re-forge.

Mind you, the micro wasn't bad with 60-70 clams, I'm not sure how bad it would be if you had like 10-20 clammers going a turn, etc.

I treat it as an investment, but just as a side strategy. I let them accumulate till I need some rings or a heavy spell.

It would be cool to have them cost progressively more.

[Micah]

Xietor: Go back and read my edit (which I put up after your post, so I'm not trying to flame you for not reading or anything lame like that, I'm just pointing it out)

Clams themselves aren't the problem, it's the income they generate. I've found that once I hit about 100 provinces there's too much management (micro and macro) and the game starts to be a grind. There's just too much to worry about, too many boosters to shuffle, too many contingencies to plan. Since gold isn't terribly important by that stage of the game the gem items become essentially extra provinces, since they generate income just like them, with the corresponding increase in the amount of summons and whatnot that you have running around that you have to manage. It's just like playing on a bigger map though, and some people are into that.

I just don't personally enjoy the ever-increasing amount of gems that nations gain access to, regardless of territory, as the game wears on. I think a bounded economy is a good thing, generally speaking, and that the game would be better if it was always played with province-based income, not item-based income. So I don't like them, but not because they require excessive intrinsic management. I was playing a much smaller game and had a sizable amount of income from clams (probably a third of my total income) and they didn't really register as any sort of mm-concern. It's just when you add them in on top of administering 100 provinces that it's a problem for me. Maybe that just means I should play smaller maps.

That being said, I play to win and clam-horde like a little *****, cuz it's obviously the way to go.

Edit again: And that's the other reason I don't like them. Mandatory strategies just aren't much fun. If everyone is following the same dominant strategy (especially a passive one like clamming) then everyone's pretty much on an even playing field, so it could just as easily be removed. Obviously some nations benefit from them more by being able to access them easier/earlier, but when it's a worthwhile investment to empower/summon critters just to star clamming it's probably a sign that it's too much of a dominant strat. The main problem that arises is balancing the hit that natural clamming nations would take if they were removed, since it would weaken them significantly. So the issue gets even more complex if we talk about removing them...

[Hadrian_II]

I think the problem about gem producing items is that if you seriously forge them, you begin to become stronger on an exponentionally curve. But clams need other paths to forge than the gems that they produce, so they are not as stron.

Blood stones on the other hand only cost 7 earth gems, so they begin to pay for themselves really fast, maybe it would be a good idea to make them more expensive.

But i think that gem producing items give non blood nations some ability to get stronger like the blood ones (as you can hunt about as many blood slaves as you want).

[DenStoreFrelser]

If possible, I think the best way to deal with the gem-creating items would be to put a limit of ten or so of each item per nation or game. Basically just adding a few lines of code to the clams and other items, so that before they create a gem they check an integer value, if it is not below the maximum number nothing happens, otherwise it is increased by one and the item does what it usually does. (My programming knowledge is limited to a bit of Java, so this probably won't be as simple as I think, but I like to pretend that I know stuff.)

A thematic reason to add a limit to the amount of gem generating items could be that they absorb ambient magical energy from the world like the arcane nexus spell, and that there's a limit to how much of this it is possible to capture in a single month.

Hadrian_II has a point about this issue "balancing" with how blood nations can get more magical resources than the others, but isn't blood hunting pretty useless in provinces with high unrest? I think it's easier to damage blood income than it is to take out hordes of clam carrying researchers hiding beneath two or three domes and an army.

[Tuidjy]

I do not like clams/fetishes/blood gems, but whenever it is not too much trouble, I
craft them. They are a damn useful thing to have on a scout sneaking along a
conquering army. And if the game looks like a long one, they're a good strategy.

If it were up to me, I would make the probability of each item generating a gem on
any particular turn be

numberOfProvincesOnMap / (5 * numberOfItemsOfThisType)

Rounded down to one, of course. I dislike putting a hard limit on items, as
this gives a very solid advantage to the first player to craft them.

[DrPraetorious]

It would be interesting to have their efficiency decline as more are crafted, but I think the net effect would be that no-one would make them ever.

Personally, I'd like it if they produced 5 (say) gems/combat which vanish at the end of combat if not spent.

Then you would actually use them to keep combat mages supplied with spells, as they are intended to be used. This would actually *reduce* micromanagement, see.