Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..

[Alneyan]

My main concern on the matter of clams is the impact of their removal (or at least, their nerfing) on the nations for which clams are the saving grace. For example, while Arcoscephale or Pythium are likely good enough without clams, what about T'ien Ch'i? The Celestial Empire isn't exactly regarded as being the most powerful nation around, and reducing their access to clams will probably have a negative consequence on them.

It would be even worse for Spring and Autumn T'ien Ch'i, and possibly other nations/themes (R'lyeh? Atlantis? Pythium Serpent Cult? I am not a scholar on these). Magic sites remain a solution, but T'ien Ch'i is probably not among the nations with the means to lead the expansion race on its own, and its jack-of-all-trade mages are almost begging for these hefty items boosting their magic paths; since such items are quite expensive, clams are more than welcome here. And of course, Astral pearls provide these versatile mages with a more varied source of gems through alchemy; it isn't so good to have access to all the magic paths if you do not have a steady income to actually use all your nice spells.

[Gandalf Parker]

Alneyan said:
My main concern on the matter of clams is the impact of their removal (or at least, their nerfing) on the nations for which clams are the saving grace. For example, while Arcoscephale or Pythium are likely good enough without clams, what about T'ien Ch'i? The Celestial Empire isn't exactly regarded as being the most powerful nation around, and reducing their access to clams will probably have a negative consequence on them.

The devs have specificaly mentioned Atlantis as a nation where clams are a basic part of the strategy. And that any clam-nerfing would have to be considered for what it would do to them. They dont have alot going for them now.

[baruk]

Gandalf Parker said:

The devs have specificaly mentioned Atlantis as a nation where clams are a basic part of the strategy. And that any clam-nerfing would have to be considered for what it would do to them. They dont have alot going for them now.

I would be against a change that reduced access to clams (by increasing their cost) or that made them almost useless(a suggestion I read to no longer allow transfer of gems from commanders to the lab). I'm not wild about horror marking the poor clam holders either.

I hope my suggestion was in the same spirit as Illwinter's recent change, limiting gem generators to one per commander (my suggestion was limiting numbers of each productive generator to dominion strength + magic rating per province, minimum value of 1). Putting an upper limit on the generators (per province) is not too harsh a change, and under my system, a potential hoarder such as Atlantis could tailor nation design toward hoarding, with high magic rating and dominion strength. My idea would probably be more for dominions 3 or a mod, as it would have a devastating effect on current games.

I don't think Atlantis is too weak a nation, anyway, they just seem to be going through a phase of unpopularity. I can remember a dominions 1 discussion about R'lyeh's inferiority to Atlantis, based on their vulnerability to massed war lobster assaults. It amuses me to see the argument come full circle when not a lot has changed since then. Just the void gate, which has made R'lyeh a bit more fun (mental image of squidheads throwing around a beachball, heh).