What to do with astral gems?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
really? I've always found that spell so wasteful! I mean 25 gems... yokies.

Yeah, but consider the cost of general probing: 16 assorted gems, plus you haven't searched holy/unholy.

Given that most nations do not HAVE assorted gems, they will probably have to alchemize, which drives up costs. Furthermore, no remote searches for holy and unholy sites exist.

Yes, AR is hardly efficient, especially on already well-searched provinces, but it's definitely a nice clean-sweep spell.

It may be wasteful, but it also bears mentioning that astral pearls are currently the most easily available gem type, via conVersion from the otherwise limited in utility water gems through clams.

[Chazar]

Alchemy, Alchemy and Alchemy...

(Yes, I dont have access to astral magic and I feel great... )

[archaeolept]

Well, but 25 astral pearls gets you the search-power of about 20 specific gems (2 of each),

the cost of general probing: 16 assorted gems

tsk tsk. that's 15 gems and 2 blood slaves.

[Master Shake]

It depends on when and where you cast your AR. On turn 17, on a reasonable size map, in a swamp or wasteland province, AR is always a good bet. Swamps and wastelands have lots of sites, and since you cast it on turn 17 you will likely have many turns of gem income from the newly found sites.

On turn 50, in a plain or farm land province, when you already have good gem income, then AR is probably a waste of gems.

Some nice items for astral gems include Ethereal cloak,
Crown of command (great for letting your warriors command magical beings), Pendant of Luck (every mage should have one), and some of the others you mentioned.

[Cainehill]

Don't forget saving them up to use for "Abusive" wishes. ( I wish for ... abuse! )

Armor of Virtue takes astral, I think; those lances everyone always wants for going against Ermor; some ... old banged up beer stein with a "Monty Python was Here" scratched on it.

And don't forget to save enough for Christmas, when every new born unit wants a nice Dispel to get get of the Curse of Time and other unpleasant global enchantments that make someone else think they're God or something.

Honestly, I never thought I'd see someone asking for things to do with Astral Gems. After all - there's always alchemizing into earth to sell for gold, or turning into water gems to make clams to generate .... more astral gems!

(Seriously though - don't alchemize into earth. It's better to alchemize into nature or some such, because Nature lets you sell Wine Skins to the local drunks.)

[Gateway103]

Just to clarify, if you want to alchemize astral for gold, you should alchemize to fire gems instead of earth gems. Fire gems worth more than Earth gems when converted to gold.

-Gateway103

[Maltrease]

Silly CaineHill...

If you don't like the idea of selling wine (made many a person rich over the years)

Of course you could offer to sell the Astral pearls for 10 gold each, which would be more than the 7.5 you would make from a fire gem conVersion.

I know I would happily buy them!