Nerf

[LDiCesare]

Gem gens like clams are so much of a pain. I even stopped using them in some games where I have a lot of these, because forging a pair of these every turn and clicking the button to store 50 more astral gems in your vault each turn while reassigning manually the gems to the 3 or 4 mages who are in a lab but must have S gems handy each turn is a chore.

[Redeyes]

Don't play with the CBM.

Play with a version you like.

[DeadlyShoe]

Every AI ever is susceptible to rush tactics and gaming the system, that's not new. So, um, if you want to have fun, don't do that.

Wrong.

How not? Please note that balance != gameplay you don't like. I hate gem gens.

[Quitti]

Originally Posted by DeadlyShoe

How not? Please note that balance != gameplay you don't like. I hate gem gens.

Other nations get more w/n income or constr site, they win. Unless you meant by "equal access" that every single nation got exactly the same w+n income and mages, in which case yes, you are right.


Which I doubt.

[iRFNA]

Even that isn't necessarily balanced because choices for each nation have to be balanced internally. Giving every nation the same cheap super unit, for instance, still would not be balanced.

[DeadlyShoe]

...

You can build a balanced game with gem generators, as long as everyone has in some form equal access to them. I don't mean every nation automatically gets Clam of Pearls spam, just that it's theoretically possible to balance it. ;p

That, of course, in no way discusses the negative impact of gem generators on gameplay particularly as pertains to map control, gold, and risk/reward.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by krpeters

So, the secret to SP play seems to be antinerfing. I find the following game startup works well:
Sites: 75%
Money: 50%
Resource: 50%
Research: easy
Clam forging: essential

Once you're drowning in gems (relative to cash), you can start truly playing around. Slashing the number of troops on the board also vastly improves the effectiveness of thugs and SCs.

Your AI opponents are not able to hoard gem generators such as clams which provides you an unfair advantage. Why don't you try a game where you don't use any gem generators and provide a distant AI opponent with a dozen or more SCs of his own.

It's too bad more intelligence wasn't provided for AI opponents.

[DeadlyShoe]

The AI in this game is actually pretty good given its complexity and the wildly varying capabilities of nations. However, complex systems like this are very vulnerable to munchkin behavior which players understand and the AI does not.

A lot of the recent CBM changes are clearly aimed at eliminating munchkin strategies; exponential gemgens and universal hammers are both examples of extreme optimization. So, actually, CBM will provide a better SP experience.

[Squirrelloid]

gem gens were specifically removed because they led to annoying gameplay. Namely, it strongly encouraged turtling *and* it made gem income both invisible and unassailable. Since gems were the real currency of the realm, as it were, this means there was no way to destroy the real economy of the opposition (since they could hide all their units with gem gens under 25 domes in their capital, making them impossible to assail, and generally speaking these would also be hiding scouts, so you couldn't assassinate them). This meant games went on much longer than they should have as no meaningful victories were possible.

[OmikronWarrior]

I've had a lot of luck achieving a more balanced game by controlling the start conditions and having "kill" rules to end the game at a certain point or time.