The next patch

[Tricon]

Originally posted by PvK:

As for the clams, how about this idea:

The clams generate astral pearls from the astral aether of the world, which there is only so much of each month. The clams of the world draw from this pool, at most one per month, but when there are more clams than the pool, only some of the clams grow pearls that month. Say the pool is 30 pearls per month. Someone could forge 30 clams, but would only get 30 pearls if no one else forged any. If other nations forged a total of 60 clams, they would get about 2/3 of the world's 30 pearls, and the 30-clam nation would get 1/3 (about 10 pearls). The 30-pearl pool could be more or less, and/or something that can be set in the map, an option, or perhaps best: based on the number of provinces in the map. Maybe it should simply be equal to the number of salt water provinces on the map! That would make good sense, set a nice low limit, and result in clams being a good investment at first, but not once people start over-producing clams.

PvK

Like this idea. Probably needs some ironing but sounds good and feasable.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
That means, that if you have enough gem supplies (look at Peter's tables below) you can forge 35 clams every turn by now. And that's without any use of national mages.

There's no way that you will have built 700 clams by turn 35, which is what is required if you want to build 35 clams per turn. To get to 100 clams, you never need more than 5-7 mages, and that's only for the very Last turns of the progression.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
There's no way that you will have built 700 clams by turn 35, which is what is required if you want to build 35 clams per turn. To get to 100 clams, you never need more than 5-7 mages, and that's only for the very Last turns of the progression.

That's probably right, and I've said in my post that you'll use them for clam forging only as much as you have gems for them. But you would stlll likely to build 1 priestess each turn, if for no other reason than because they are such great and cheap reseachers, much better than almost all national mages, save few nations. (from cost/efficence point of view). So you just use whanever priestess are not forging clams for your reseach. And later, when your clam production will be catching up, you'll be switching more priestess to forging, leaving rest at reseach. At some point not too down the road (but later than turn 40, agreed) your claim production is bound to outrun your pristess production, since clams grow is geometrical and priestess can only be recruited one per turn. Than you'll have to start using your national ones, but up until than your pristess will take care of all your forging for you. However at that time you'll have such a massive gem income, than game is likely to be won anyway.


You have to remeber that the discussion with Zap started that with him saying that since R'leh, and other nations have 2 water national mages available, than changing clams to nature 5 water 5 would solve clam-hording problem. I disagreed, saying that it would not, and in fact could be counterproductive in some cases. So you are actually adding weight to my argument, that priestesses, who could be relatively easy recruited from forest provinces with minimal luck and some scouting, will be more than enough to handle all your clams forging for you up to mid game at least, and at reduced cost.

[ April 05, 2004, 20:44: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Zapmeister]

At the moment, 4 nations have national mages that can forge clams. If they were nature-1,water-1, no-one would have national mages that could do it, but if jade amazons (not any old amazon will do) are found, then it can be done on a much lower maintenance bill.

At that point, I'm done with this topic. I fear, because there's been so much disagreement, that there's no hope of getting any fix at all. I was plugging for a smaller fix mostly because I thought it was the only proposal that had any chance of getting past the devs.

I guess we're gonna have to learn to live with clam-hoarders

[licker]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
At the moment, 4 nations have national mages that can forge clams. If they were nature-1,water-1, no-one would have national mages that could do it, but if jade amazons (not any old amazon will do) are found, then it can be done on a much lower maintenance bill.

At that point, I'm done with this topic. I fear, because there's been so much disagreement, that there's no hope of getting any fix at all. I was plugging for a smaller fix mostly because I thought it was the only proposal that had any chance of getting past the devs.

I guess we're gonna have to learn to live with clam-hoarders

Better check your themes before you start on with the 'noone' bit... then again who plays Miasma anyway?

Still this seems like a problem that is better addressed by the players (like using house rules?) than addressed by some kind of nerf. I fall firmly in the 'who cares' camp on this one

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
I fear, because there's been so much disagreement, that there's no hope of getting any fix at all. I was plugging for a smaller fix mostly because I thought it was the only proposal that had any chance of getting past the devs.

I guess we're gonna have to learn to live with clam-hoarders

Well most of the disageement recently (on the Last page at lest) come from the issue what would be the best solution for the clam hoarding, but the posters in general tend to agree that the problem exist and require fixing. Personaly despite my personal opinion on this matter I would be very happy with practically any solution endorsed by developers, as long as it would make massive clam hoarding less attractive as it is now. Even if it wouldn't go as far as it as I would wanted it to, any step in right direction is much better than no steps.

Unfortunatly since I haven't seen any developers posting in this thread their opinion, and considering the fact that they are quite active on this forum in general, I can't help but think that they have already considered the matter and dicided that they are indiffernt toward this whole clam thing. But they don't want to post it since they know that some people feel strongly about clams, and being nice guys that they are they don't want to hurt other people feelings. That's pure specualtion on my part of course, since I can't speak for the developers. But if it is so than it is quite sad.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
Unfortunatly since I haven't seen any developers posting in this thread their opinion, and considering the fact that they are quite active on this forum in general, I can't help but think that they have already considered the matter and dicided that they are indiffernt toward this whole clam thing.

They've already posted to this thread.