Are devils worth 7 blood each?

[Huzurdaddi]

guess I must be "astonishingly" competent because, in my Caelum SP game (Orania, 15 nations) at turn 42 my astral site income is 1/turn and 21/turn from clams

Right and 21 per turn does not have the same kind of impact that the frog is talking about. He's talking about the 50-100 astral per turn income which feeds wishing. 21 / turn is nice and you are on the way. In maybe in 10 or 15 turns you will be GTG.

[Arryn]

Huzurdaddi said:
Right and 21 per turn does not have the same kind of impact that the frog is talking about. He's talking about the 50-100 astral per turn income which feeds wishing.

By the time I can have a 50-100 astral/turn income (turn 60-80) I've already effectively won the game (ie: I cannot be stopped), even on a map the size of Orania, and the whole issue of clamhoarding for wishing is thus moot. All wishing does is hasten what will happen anyway. For me that is; YMMV.

The boys at IW have more or less said the same thing re: clams. If you're aggressively expanding and building units, you'll be overrunning the map long before a massive clam-bake will matter. Clam-hoarding only matters if you have a laid-back play style. IMO (which I have said before, as have others), the whole issue of clams is way overblown. Also IMO, those who appear to have the most trouble coping with other's usage of clams have fundamental play style issues and they'll get crushed by opponents regardless, even if clams didn't exist at all. The clams are just adding insult to injury.

[Boron]

Arryn said:

By the time I can have a 50-100 astral/turn income (turn 60-80) I've already effectively won the game (ie: I cannot be stopped), even on a map the size of Orania, and the whole issue of clamhoarding for wishing is thus moot. All wishing does is hasten what will happen anyway. For me that is; YMMV.

You are too optimistic here i think . On a 17 player orania you haven't won already by turn 60-80 . You may have 100 provinces but the map has about 280 provinces .

I think you can't win that quick against 10+ players which are skilled too .
Did you really win once a Mp game on a full house orania on turn 60-80 ? Then congrats .

[Arryn]

Boron, please note the perhaps-too-subtle distinction I made: "won" as defined as "cannot be stopped". There are still many turns to go after such a point before all other players have either been crushed or they've given up. In SP games on Orania I reach that point in the 40s (as the AI is a much weaker adversary), and sometimes as early as the 30s. Just because the map has almost 300 provinces doesn't mean I have to conquer even half of them before I'm certain of a victory. Sometimes all it takes is 10-15% of them. The rest is inevitable.

[Boron]

Arryn said:
Boron, please note the perhaps-too-subtle distinction I made: "won" as defined as "cannot be stopped". There are still many turns to go after such a point before all other players have either been crushed or they've given up. In SP games on Orania I reach that point in the 40s (as the AI is a much weaker adversary), and sometimes as early as the 30s. Just because the map has almost 300 provinces doesn't mean I have to conquer even half of them before I'm certain of a victory. Sometimes all it takes is 10-15% of them. The rest is inevitable.

Sorry but that sounds arrogant . How can you declare you victor in a mp game when you control only 10-15% of orania ? This should quickly lead to an alliance against you and 2-4 allied neighbors should at least weaken you extremely .

You are perhaps the major power in your edge of the world but in the other edge there is probably one who is as strong . So how can you see that you are unstoppable that quick ?
Once you control 40-50% of the map and the other players , especially the 2nd and 3rd biggest have given up you have won but not with only 10-20% of the map .

[Soapyfrog]

I think she was saying thats the case in SP...

[Cohen]

Clams should be given to a mage that has to research!!!
Otherwise someone could have less costy mages that could hide (see Man Bards, or Ryleh Starchild).