My idea was basically centered around the upkeep. If having 10 clams cost you 500 gold per turn it will never be a competitive strategy on it´s own.
Then it would still be available for those nations where a little gem boost could open up their national summons like Ma Agartha or Bandar log, but you´d still never get to the absurd 100:eds of gems per turn. 100 clams would be an upkeep of 5000.
Just an idea somewhere in between. I still like gemgens myself, but maybe I just need some more late game nightmares to set me straight
