The next patch

[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.

[Zapmeister]

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.

Sure, but I'm thinking he will probably win, removing any doubt on the matter.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

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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

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LOL.

Seriously KristofferO, you guys done terrific job in balancing everything in this game. Can't you please do something about clams? As you can see even in this tread many people feel that clam-haording gets way out of hand in long/medium games. And I would bet that many of those who don't feel this way just haven't meet with thier first addicitve clam-hoarder in MP game, or they would feel different.

Really simple and efective solution would be to raise cost and Con level of the clam, making it 20 water geams con 6, or perhaps 10 water and 5 or 10 nature, con 6 (it is a living thing after all, so nature gems used in construction would make good sense).

Or leave it as it is and like sergex suggested limit it to 10 per player. (it would take a little more coding than the first solution, but it can't be too dificult, right? After all you guys already have mechanisms in place to limit number of some items (Artifacts). Clams and fever fetishes could be named "Lesser Artifact" and have limit 10 or so per player.

So could you tell us what is your position about it? If you strongly feel that Clams are perfect the way they are now and should nbot be changed, than persoanlly I'll just drop this topic and will resign to living with current Version of clams, although I'll almsot certanly switch to short MP or SP Dominion2 games from now on. But at least I would stop kicking this horse if it is dead on arrival. I have no intensions on trolling on this board since I love this game dearly. Like other people here I am just trying to point out that I feel is really spoiling the end game for long/medium MP games. And like other said - I am usually the Last person to cry "nerf!", but I just can't think of anything that would fix it... ;(

[ April 02, 2004, 08:37: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Stormbinder]

[quote]Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

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Originally posted by Stormbinder:

Originally posted by Zen:
[qb]

How long are your games? Are you playing 4-player games on the World map, or what?

I mean, your initial gem production is 5/turn. Even if it's 5 Water, this means you get to make one Clam every 2 turns, initially. For even, say, 80% of your gem income to be item-produced, assuming your sites produce, say, 10 per turn (rather small), requires 50 gem-producing items. That's 50 turns of using your natural production (assuming it's all of the right types) to turn into items (500 gems), meaning those items will have produced roughly 1200 gems by that time. That's investing your whole production into them, plus 50 turns of a mage, plus (currently) 25 commanders holding the items, which you're not likely to send on the field as random kill-me commanders - which means "lost" upkeep.

Anything faster, means your current return is smaller - because the already-produced items will have produced fewer gems.


If, during those 50 turns, none of your opponents has taken advantage of your sinking gems into slow-return investments, your map is too big. Or maybe your playgroup is too focused on this being the only viable strategy, and isn't otherwise expanding/attacking fast enough.

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I am sorry but your math is completely wrong PhilD. Just few most obvious examples:

You keep refering to "initail production of 5 gems per turn". What it has to do with clams hoarding? Obviously you are going to search for avalailable water and astral sites _before_ you are going to start real clam hoarding. At can be done with water2/astral1 mages, for 2 and 3 gems, both easely available. And even few clams will will supply you with all astral gems that you'll need for Astral Probe spell, or for Archaic Records later in the game when you are swiming in astrals from your pearls.


The argument about "high upkeep cost" on commanders hoarding clams is even worse. First of all what prevents you from giving clams to your reseachers, as everybody doing in MP? Or to your bloodhunting scouts/whatever? This way you lose nothing on upkeep. But even if you do have to hire special commanders for it later on, what prevents you from hiring 20 gp scouts and give them 2 clams each? Each scout cost 1.3 gp per turn in upkeep, and it'll supply you with 2 astrals per turn. Clearly 1.3 gp is nothing comparable to 2 astrals every turn, so it shouldn't be even seriously considered when deciding if clams are unbalanced.


And I am not even talking about sites bonuses to forging, or having few dwarven hammers used to produce clams every turn. Yes, hammer is not cheap, being 20 earth gems, but it's a long time investment. By themself Hammers are totally fine and cool itme, but when applied to already severely unbalanced 10water gems clams, making them 7 water gems each...

Sure, there is no quarantee that you'll find site with bonus production, but they are not _that_ rare, and they means the return of investent on _all_ your calms is 8 turns now instead of 10, since obviously you are going produce all your clams only on that site now for 8 water gems each. And that's even without Dwarven hammers.

More arguments could be writen, but I think that should be enough.

[ April 02, 2004, 08:25: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Jasper]

IMHO you have not been at all convincing that Clams are broken.

You argument is essentially flawed, in that it assumes that the alternative to massive investment in clams is to do nothing with your water gems and forging mages, and that researching something other than Construction 4 early on has no value.

The true alternative is to use your income aggresively, and seize income and gem sources from your opponents. This gains you income immediately, and deprives them of it as well.

Needing 10 turns to recoup just your initial investment is pretty steep, and if you count oppurtunity cost IMHO it takes more like 15 turns before you begin to see returns. In games I've played half the players are typically out of the running by turn 30... I'd rather use my gems to try to stay in the surviving half, rather than invest them and pray I survive to the end game.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Jasper:
IMHO you have not been at all convincing that Clams are broken.

You argument is essentially flawed, in that it assumes that the alternative to massive investment in clams is to do nothing with your water gems and forging mages, and that researching something other than Construction 4 early on has no value.

The true alternative is to use your income aggresively, and seize income and gem sources from your opponents. This gains you income immediately, and deprives them of it as well.

Needing 10 turns to recoup just your initial investment is pretty steep, and if you count oppurtunity cost IMHO it takes more like 15 turns before you begin to see returns. In games I've played half the players are typically out of the running by turn 30... I'd rather use my gems to try to stay in the surviving half, rather than invest them and pray I survive to the end game.

If you have read my Posts carefully you must have noticed that I was refering to medium/long games- I've said it several times. Obviously clams are not an issue if the game is finished or almost fininshed by turn 30 or so.

That also means that you have no high-level spells, no high level summons in your games, et cetera. There is nothing wrong with such games if it fits your playstyle, it's just entirely different type of game from the ones than me and Graeme, Sergex, Zapmaeser and others were refering to.


What I don't understand is this - why some people are so opposed to it? If clam hoarding is not an issue according to them, than it shouldn't matter to them much if requirements for the clams would raise a little? One of the person (no names here, but he haven't posted on this thread yet ) who is a great player and whom I highly respect as a Dom2 opponent was strongly opposed increasing cost or reqs for Clams - and that despite the fact that he is notorious clam hoarder. (actually more likely not "despite" but "because" )

Now I am not suggesting that everybody who is against Clam-changes is the secret addicted clam hoarder. That would be way too much and I am not a conspiracy freak. But I know from experience that at least some of the most vocal ones are in fact using massive clam-haarding strategy again and again to great success, and they are objecting to any changes to Clams so strongly excactly because it would kill their favorite "I-Won" tactic.

[ April 02, 2004, 08:59: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]