Poll: Is Clam Hording Too Good?

[Evilhomer]

EA Oceania dominates EA Rlyeh and EA atlantis in a head to head conflict - just amazingly strong (water only) blessables.

[Frostmourne27]

Can we keep the discussion to clams please. The balance of EA Rlyeh, although somewhat related to clams, is not the issue at hand. If EA Rlyeh is boosted overmuch by clams, and a clam nerf makes them useless, we can buff them in other areas.

[Valandil]

I have voted that clams are fine as is, although I lean towards caution in the areas of Very Late Game, Alteration Bonus, and Nexus, having too little experiance in large-scale no-holds-barred multiplayer. I play Patala, and can say that they have enough weaknesses (S1 on a 400something gold mage? AAH!) in any case. Given the difficulty of forging them, I believe that Clams are NOT overpowered.

[Warhammer]

I think it is telling that there are only 4 people who have responded that say that clams are always overpowered.

[Valandil]

I don't, really. Clams are a late game strat, and if they are overpowered, its only going to be apparent late game. Also, some o the no-votes are from maily SPers like myself. I have thus far forged two clams in MP games.

[jutetrea]

Limited experience caveat, few late game appearances:

In a mid-sized game (9-12? opponents, 15 prov/per) playing EA TC I had about 60-70 clams by turn 80. They weren't a main part of my strategy (considering I didn't have one), but every turn I'd forge 1 or 2 gems/hammers permitting. By about the same point I had about 15 fetishes and 30-40 stones as well.

EA TC has pretty easy access, the occasional natural forger and usually an easy +1W buff (robe, ring) to get to 3W1N.

Due to the inexperience, I threw up nexus at one point, made tons of astral gear, and had a wish going about every other turn. Somehow my pretender got insanity, so the wishes were a bit erratic. I usually wished for more gems, and occasionally slaves which fueled my other summons pretty handily.

In general I don't think the producers were the reason for my good position, but they didn't hurt either. I pooled the gems every few turns and used them instead of bulking them up for monster casts.

Like someone mentioned earlier, there are very few "investment" opportunities, and by late game they really start to tell.

I'm in favor of large game specific modification of gem producers. I like the disease/insanity/horror mark ideas if applicable.

[Evilhomer]

I like the disease/insanity/horror mark ideas if applicable

This will just mean that you have to move your clams around, i.e just more micromanagement involved. I prefer a cost-nerf instead of one that increases the dullness of handling these items.