Clamming & piles of commanders -- how about a different approach?

[AreaOfEffect]

Most of the time I don't find clamming to be a lot of micromanagement. I generally have commanders doing nothing but researching anyhow. They are always by a laboratory and so they always can drop off their gems and store away the clams whenever I want them to.

I suppose its a "pain" if I have nothing left to research and you want your casters out in the field, but the upkeep cost of one scout more then outweighs the two astral gems they can generate by hiding in my capitol. I don't really see any issues here.

I seriously hope your not individually depositing the astral gems. That would be crazy as all you need to do is press F7 and pool the gem type you want taken off commanders at laboratories.