What's the best way to use non native gems ?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
If you play a game with houserule no clams or 10 clams or similiar then astral gems become one of the most important gems too imo

I'll never understand your logic. If you forge clams like mad when you're allowed to do so, it's obviously because astral gems are _very_ important to you, and water much less so.

[Cainehill]

I think it's great to find sources of gems that your nation isn't strong in. They taste great, and can be used to make great hot sauces.

It is somewhat frustrating to get huge incomes of some gem type that dwarfs what your nation is _supposed_ to have. Water nations that can't find any water, Astral nations who can't find astral, etc - those are the two which have the best chance of finding "alien" gem income, what with Voice of Tiamat and Akashic Record.

Still - path boosters and/or empowerment, or summonings, can really let you take advantage of those gems (especially via Spectres, Lamia Queens, and Couatls).

And, they do make great hot sauce. Nothing like a little Nature in your Picante Verde, and Astral gives a very nice citrus sparkle to the flavors even if it doesn't have the habanero heat of Fire or Death.

[Boron]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

I'll never understand your logic. If you forge clams like mad when you're allowed to do so, it's obviously because astral gems are _very_ important to you, and water much less so.

But since clams are forged from water gems to start the hoarding water is more valuable then astral .
Astral itself is not so valuable for me cause i normally convert my huge clam astral income in water for further gems and either wish for blood or convert it to death mostly .

So water is more valuable then astral cause it is the input while astral is only the output .

[The Panther]

The reason I am always low on water gems every game is because I never stop building clams!

I believe clams are one of the most unbalanced artifacts in the game. They ought to require W4 to make for what I believe to be their true value. Or maybe W3S1 or perhaps W2S2.

At least fever fetishs are not so bad since they poison the holder and fire gems are less useful in general than pearls. As for the clams, I bet every MP player tries to get a clam on every researcher and/or scout that they can in most games.

For the fire gems, I find myself making the +6 research lanterns as early as I can. Those make a huge difference in your research speed. They are far better then the +3 air quill pens and are even more cost effective then the +9 death thingies. There is nothing I like better than seeing a pile of sages in my capitol named W1RC or D1RC or whatever since they have both a lantern (R for research) and a clam (C) plus one random school of magic!

[Kel]

The Panther said:
I bet every MP player tries to get a clam on every researcher and/or scout that they can in most games.

I believe you would be quite wrong. For many people, clams are often used only because there is nothing better to do with water gems and isn't an integral part of their strategy.

- Kel

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Boron said:
But since clams are forged from water gems to start the hoarding water is more valuable then astral .

No. That's equivalent to say "when I alchemize X to Y, X is more valuable to me than Y". Or "when I convert raw materials to cars, the materials are more valuable than the cars". You NEED materials to make cars, but it's the cars that are IMPORTANT to you.

So water is more valuable then astral cause it is the input while astral is only the output .

When input is more important than output, it's a sure sign the conVersion is inneficient. Err, never mind, just send me ten dollars and I'll teach how to earn five!

[Boron]

I see it this way :

For forging a clam you either need 10 water or 20 astral gems converted to 10 water .

So when starting to clamhoard 1 water gem is as valuable as 2 astral gems .

So earlygame 1 water gem has twice the value of a pearl .

Lategame the pearls are more valuable because you can convert them to every kind of gem . But since your main income will be astral pearls from clams it is not as scarce as the other gems .
And if you have 20 natural water income this is better then having 20 natural astral income because you can forge twice as many clams from the water income then from the astral income .

So water is earlygame damn important because it helps you a lot starting to hoard earlier + benefit earlier from it .

[DeathDaemon]

So i guess the answer to my question is that I should continue to be wasting a lot of gems on path boosters and empowerment. And that my rainbow pretender, although he spends a little too much time in the lab, is worthwhile such that your nation can have a different and maybe unexpected avenue to take our your opponents. Only one person said that the rainbow was not exactly the best use of nation points.

[Arryn]

Daemon, why do you consider the expense of path boosters a "waste" of gems? As for rainbow pretenders, it all depends on what nation you are playing and what your particular play style/strategies are. If you are an aggressive expansionist, a rainbow is obviously not an optimal choice, especially if you have good national mages. OTOH, if you think you'll have the luxury of slow, methodical expansion and site searching, then a rainbow might well be a good choice (as having one will help your research and gem income quite a bit). You also haven't said whether you play SP or MP, and that makes a huge difference.

You seem to be looking for a one-size-fits-all answer, and this isn't the sort of game where that applies.

[Boron]

Arryn said:
You seem to be looking for a one-size-fits-all answer, and this isn't the sort of game where that applies.

Exactly .
Only if you want to play ermor then you can almost get this with a rainbow GK SC pretender .

But ermor is the only nation which can do this .


A GK almost fits the niche of a lowlevel rainbow + ok SC for some other nations too though .
If you play Pythium you maybe don't need to care about any site searching abilities though cause there accashicing for searching is viable .