Are devils worth 7 blood each?

[Kel]

It's really not fair to assume a hammer on one side (and not even count its cost or design points on a pretender to get one) and alchemy conVersion loss on the other. Imo, the comparison is flawed at it's very base.

- Kel

[Cohen]

I believe it depends on your need.
If you're at peace and plan for a long term game, Soul Contract is better.

But the chance to get 10 devils in 2-3 rounds instead could be useful if you're in immediate need for them in battle.

Not to count the Soul Contract guy get horror marked, and is victim of horrors, that find him even if he's hiding.

[The_Tauren13]

Kel said:
Imo, the comparison is flawed at it's very base.

I couldnt agree more. I see no reason to take into account hammers, as that is a different story all together. I would say 11 turns payback for the soul contract. I also think that astral pearls are worth more than water gems, so taking into account alchemy for payback time is somewhat lame. If anything, the clams have 8 or 9 turn payback because of relative gem worth. Also, your vampire comparison is flawed in that you not only get the 1 vampire/turn, you get a powerful vampire lord.

[baruk]

If the comparison is "how long do they take to pay for themselves", soul contract loses as you cannot alchemise devils into blood slaves for a new soul contract.
Vampire lords may be more expensive than hammer forged soul contracts, though you may be lucky and find a summoning bonus site. Besides which, vampires are immortal, which is quite handy.

[Thufir]

The_Tauren13 said:
...
I also think that astral pearls are worth more than water gems, so taking into account alchemy for payback time is somewhat lame. If anything, the clams have 8 or 9 turn payback because of relative gem worth.

The relative worth of astral vs. water is quite dependent on the nation, but IMO it's clear that for any clamhoarding nation (which is what we're talking about in this case), the water is worth more than the astral.

I expect that anybody that's doing clamhoarding (or at least doing it well) should be running a substantial surplus in astral, and doing a lot of alchemizing from astral to other types, never from non-astral to astral.

[Huzurdaddi]

It's really not fair to assume a hammer on one side (and not even count its cost or design points on a pretender to get one) and alchemy conVersion loss on the other. Imo, the comparison is flawed at it's very base.

Uhm ... the hammers are assumed on both sides. Removing them does not change the ratios which is what this is all about. Soul contracts yeild an effective gem supply which is 150% greater ( given the input ) than the other sources.

Not to count the Soul Contract guy get horror marked, and is victim of horrors, that find him even if he's hiding.

Do they? Not in any game I have played. In games I have played I somewhat commonly get the message "a horror attacked so and so" however I can not watch the battle ( "bad VCR" ) and when I check he is still alive. Perhaps someone has seen a Horror kill a scout with a soul contract before, but I have not.

[Kel]

Uhm ... the hammers are assumed on both sides. Removing them does not change the ratios which is what this is all about. Soul contracts yield an effective gem supply which is 150% greater ( given the input ) than the other sources.

You are adding extra factors to the equation. Barring extraneous factors, clams take 10 turns to pay themselves and soul contracts take ~ 11.5 .

Even that isn't really a great comparison because since there are so many different factors that differ between the two but assuming alchemical losses, the cost of speeding up clams beyond your natural water income, and not taking into account reduced gold, pop and research loss from speeding up blood income makes for a flawed basis of comparison.

Admittedly, it would be difficult to come up with the losses from speeding up blood production so the obvious thing to do is to not take into account rushed production on either side, in which case, clams pay for themselves faster than soul contracts.

- Kel

[Huzurdaddi]

You are adding extra factors to the equation. Barring extraneous factors, clams take 10 turns to pay themselves and soul contracts take ~ 11.5 .

Uhm if you are alchemizing ( note: soul contracts give essentially blood that makes this a totally valid comparison ) and you have no hammers then it takes *20* turns for a clam to pay for itself.

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Uhm if you are alchemizing ( note: soul contracts give essentially blood that makes this a totally valid comparison ) and you have no hammers then it takes *20* turns for a clam to pay for itself.

Clams actually take only 5 turns to pay for themselves with no hammer if you'd rather have astral pearls, or 10 turns if you want something other than than astral or water. It's only 20 turns if you want to convert them back into water gems to make more clams.

[Cainehill]

Thufir said:
The relative worth of astral vs. water is quite dependent on the nation, but IMO it's clear that for any clamhoarding nation (which is what we're talking about in this case), the water is worth more than the astral.

I don't think so. They're making clams _because_ astral gems are more valuable to them. After all - compare to fever fetishes. If you run a surplus of fire gems, but need ... air, you have to convert 4 fire for each air gem. The astral gems are more valuable because they're essentially worth twice as much as any other gem when alchemizing from one to another.

I say this as someone who has clammed, and who has fevered, and who has had at least something like 40 fetishes and 40 clams going in the same game, with a non-fire, non-water, non-astral nation, without ever alchemizing to build the fetishes or clams.