Poll: Is Clam Hording Too Good?

[Xietor]

I do not think looking at the hall of fame has any value.

1. You would have to know the size of the map. Clams are not going to be a factor in small-medium games.

2. How many water provinces and races were in the game. It is much easier to clam if you are a water race and are not worried about being attacked early in the game.

3. What is the skill level of your opponents both in the game and the ones neighboring you.

4. Diplomacy. It is hard to say race "x" is better than race "y" because if "x" is feared then he may be ganged up on early out of mutual fear by weaker races "a" "b" and "c," allowing race "y" to win the game even though it is not as strong as "x."

So I think input from players the community respects as knowledgeable players is of more value.

[Reverend Zombie]

Xietor said:
I do not think looking at the hall of fame has any value.

1. You would have to know the size of the map. Clams are not going to be a factor in small-medium games.

2. How many water provinces and races were in the game. It is much easier to clam if you are a water race and are not worried about being attacked early in the game.

3. What is the skill level of your opponents both in the game and the ones neighboring you.

4. Diplomacy. It is hard to say race "x" is better than race "y" because if "x" is feared then he may be ganged up on early out of mutual fear by weaker races "a" "b" and "c," allowing race "y" to win the game even though it is not as strong as "x."

So I think input from players the community respects as knowledgeable players is of more value.

I disagree. If most MP games are not being won by clam-hoarders, we can say that under normal conditions it's not an issue.

If clamming is only an issue on a. large maps b. with clamming water nations c. with player of equal (preumably high) skill d. who nevertheless do not use diplomacy to gang up on the clammer who is "stronger" and would otherwise win, then you are talking about a limited set of circumstances.

The response to a turtling clammer should be to rush (crush?) them, not change the game to eliminate their strategy.

[Velusion]

I do have a big-game mod for use in larger games where gem producing items are increased in cost which I *hope* helps somewhat with large games (Sophistry and Nuance are using them so we'll see).

While you can mod a "fix" for anything the thread is addressing vanilla games.

The real fix would be to somehow scale these to work with larger games and a number of suggestions have been offered (many probably unfeasible). I don't think Dom3 actually scales that great in a number of other areas either (i.e. Arcane Nexus).

That said, I seriously doubt these scaling problems will ever be addressed. For now we just have to use mods to adjust things, which is a perfectly fine secondary option.

[thejeff]

If all of those are needed, sure it isn't a problem.

On the other hand I think the large/small game distinction is important. If, for example, every game on a 200+ province map or every game that lasted past 75 turn was won by a clammer, I think you could safely say it's a problem.

So looking at the HoF could be useful. It should be pretty easy to get size of map, from the game thread if nowhere else. You'd have to ask the winner about clams, though.

[Velusion]

Reverend Zombie said:
The response to a turtling clammer should be to rush (crush?) them, not change the game to eliminate their strategy.

This is an option if it is a land nation. In practice I don't see very many land nations attacking fortified turtled sea nations unless they have no other targets.

Also, since the graphs don't adjust for gem generating items, sometimes it's hard to tell who is really spam clamming.

[Reverend Zombie]

Velusion said:

This is an option if it is a land nation. In practice I don't see very many land nations attacking fortified turtled sea nations unless they have no other targets.

I do see an impressive number of EA wins by R'lyeh in the Victorious Nations thread, and I thought they were perceived as a generally weak position. Clamming could explain that, perhaps, but then any clam nerf would seem to disproportionately hit EA R'lyeh, if that's their main strength.

I don't see disproportionate wins by the other aquatic races listed in that thread.

[Nikolai]

In early age, R'lyeh is unbeatable underwater. They clean other water nations, and no one wants to touch them. They clam, they get astral vortex up, game over. Seen it happen earlier, seeing it in Scorned Land right now.

[Warhammer]

But if that is the case, why are people not ganging up on R'lyeh early?

[Shovah32]

Probably because of their ability to beat(apparently) other water nations - Oceania and atlantis both bordering R'lyeh isn't extremely likely, partially due to the fact that many maps aren't made to support 3 water nations.
Even with a teeam of several people, its hard to dislodge a water-focused nation from its home early on using only indy troops.

[Velusion]

Warhammer said:
But if that is the case, why are people not ganging up on R'lyeh early?

A land nation has to expend many more resources to attack an underwater nation than the underwater nation has to spend to defend itself. As a land nation that means your return on investment in fighting a water nation is much lower than if you picked a fight with a land nation.

This means you really need some sort of alliance to make it worthwhile to go into the sea early and such an alliance is sometimes very difficult to form when there are so many other tempting (and easier) land targets.

The widely accepted MP method for dealing with medium/large underwater nations is to leave them until the very end when the resources you can bring to bear are overwhelming and you crush them with raw force.