Poll: Is Clam Hording Too Good?

[Evilhomer]

You really cannot expect to have the forge up when clamming. With a hammer the price is 11 water 3 nature (and takes one turn to equip since it appears in the lab) - i.e 15 turns for payoff (provided you value gems equally, but thats another discussion)..

[Jazzepi]

I'm not saying you're always going to have the forge up. But a discount of the hammer is quite good.

Actually for some reason I thought the normal cost of the clams was 15 gems total, so when people were making comments on it I thought they were not including the hammer reduction.

I blame the anestetics.

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

My point is that if the cost was raised a bit more i think the problem would be solved. No one hoards sea kings, even when they can get a reduction from a magic site.

[Jazzepi]

I think you're still missing the point Cor. You can't summon sea kings without summoning a huge mess of trolls who are all very expensive in their gold upkeep. I think they're *great* units as shock troops with lots of hitpoints, armor on some and good regen, but you simply can't sustain the same amount of production there as you can with clams.

Also anyone who wants to horde a gem producing item, and not just clams, can reduce the cost with hammers which are easily accessible. Maigical sites that reduce the summoning cost, are not. I think most of them range in the 20% range.

Though, in all fairness, one summoning site can be used by as many mages.

Jazzepi

[Cheezeninja]

I think clams are fine as they are, but I wouldn't mind seeing some anti-clam/gem producer spells just to add another layer of tactical complexity.

Maybe a global that stops all clam (maybe fetish and stones too) production while it's up. Or paradoxically makes them only function outside of a water province. A global that destroys 5% of them every turn it's up would be nice too, without, I think, being overpowering since any clam producer worth his salt has tons of astral gems for dispel.

Or maybe a province targeting spell that would shatter a certain % of items in a specific province, with lower cost items being more vulnerable and items over a certain gem cost being immune. A spell like this would not only add a clam-counter, but would be tactically useful elsewhere and limited by your ability to scout.

I also think clam income should be added to the graph.

[Cor2]

Sombody mentioned destroy all clams wish. that would be fun.

As for the problem of the sea troll upkeeps. Yeah it sucks to have to pay all those troops as you use them to destroy your opponents.

[Baalz]

Well, seems to me that if the consensus is that the real problem with clamming is related to scaling then the solution should also be scalable - otherwise you're just adjusting the window of efficiency (if you adjust the cost for example). Something like each clam being more expensive than the one before it would work, but would probably be difficult with the game engine since nothing else is done that way. An expensive anti clam spell would work to, combined with the gems showing in the score graph (though having it dispellable seems a poor way to make it a counter to overwhelming clams). It might be interesting (if not terribly thematic) if clams had a chance to horror mark each person in the province - spread out too much and they become more vulnerable like blood hunters, concentrate them too much and your rate of return gets shot to hell as horrors keep eating them.

[Chris_Byler]

I like Cheezeninja's idea of a shatter spell targeted at a province. Items could be affected based on their construction level or something (very low/no chance of destroying an artifact, but cons-2 clams would be quite vulnerable). The spell wouldn't be that destructive if there were only a few items in the province (although if you nail a few of a SC's items right before he goes into battle it could still hurt), but if there were a lot, it could destroy items that add up to many times its own cost.

If you don't want only one path to have this type of countermeasure, there could be several anti-item spells: one that shatters items, one that causes them to burst into flame possibly killing their wielders, one that summons a swarm of thieving magpies that steal magic items (most items stolen are kept by the magpies, but a few may be brought back to the caster), one that horror marks anyone in the province with an item and *greatly* increases the chance of horror attacks on item-holders in that province that turn, etc. Those spells in turn could be blocked by domes, but that adds to the cost (and domes have their own weaknesses depending on the type of dome being used; retaliation domes couldn't prevent the destruction of 50 clams, just kill the mage who did it.)

How effective are ordinary army blasters (Flames from the Sky, Murdering Winter, etc.) against a province full of clamholders? Magical assassinations (Earth Attack etc.)? Hiding under the sea will protect you from some of those spells (maybe a few too many), but not all.

[thejeff]

Province targeted item destruction spell is way too abusable. SCs and Thugs would get trashed. Worst use: target air/water breathing items.

Clams would be the least of it's effects.

[Meglobob]

Well I am against nerfing of clams, I do like the idea of the introduction of anti-clamming spells. So you have a counter strategy to clams.

A global that destroys 10%/per turn of all gem producing items in the world, would stop gem spamming abuse.

You could balance the introduction of such a global by reducing the cost of the gem producing magic items back to what they where in Dom2.

So the gem producing items where useful early on but not a effective long term strategy because there was a counter in the form of a global.

The global would after be relatively cheap, 40-60 gems so could be recast over and over to avoid it being just dispelled too easily.

The clams, blood stones and fever fetishes would still be useful as a mirco-management saving tool. Instead of giving a scout a pile of gems to refill your mages when they use there gems in battle. Just give him a clam or bloodstone or fever fetish to produce them on the way.