I think there would be more active trading of luxuires if each culture group had their own kind of resource for example the Asian group having silks and dyes, the Mid-east having ivory and spices? and europe with wines and so on.This way there would be more economic trading and it would be more challenging to make you're citizens happy.

I don't so much agree with the 'civ-specific' idea. But I DO feel that luxuries should be more....'regional'. For instance, I think that spices, ivory and sugar should be much more tropical/equatorial; silks and dyes should be in much cooler latitudes (extreme norths or souths); and wines, wools, tobacco and incence should be primarily from the more temperate regions (between the two previous extremes). I guess this would mean that actual latitude might effect the overall appearance chance of the different luxury types!

Also, as I have said in a previous post, it would also be nice if luxury appearance were also tied, to some degree, to technologies!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

With Aussie Lurker's Proposal, trade would become more interesting as a civ's developed a monopoly of certain goods. This could force trading, which always makes games more interesting.

What I don't like is the current system for finding resources. You can only see them with certain advances. So the logic here is that you can only find something if you know what to do with it. Seems a little wrong to me. I'm sure people saw horses before they knew how to ride them.

I would say have something like seeing the resource becomes enabled when you learn the pre-requisite to the tech that currently gives you the ability to see it. Or something better than that.

Actually Spatula, in my Civ3 games I've moved all of the resource appearances back on the tech tree to help better simulate the fact that often the resources were known about LONG before people knew exactly how to use them!
I have previously suggested for civ4 that rather than simply having resources magically 'appear' you have to look for them. The way it worked was that you invested 'public works' points or workers into 'prospecting' for resources. The chance of finding a resource in a square would depend on its scarcity, whether or not the square was in your city radius or you national borders, its size and how far you were away from discovering the tech-prerequisite for that resource. What it essentially meant was that it would give you a chance of finding advanced resources BEFORE you had the tech to use them-though it would be more likely to find resources that you DID know how to use!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Actually Spatula, in my Civ3 games I've moved all of the resource appearances back on the tech tree to help better simulate the fact that often the resources were known about LONG before people knew exactly how to use them!
I have previously suggested for civ4 that rather than simply having resources magically 'appear' you have to look for them. The way it worked was that you invested 'public works' points or workers into 'prospecting' for resources. The chance of finding a resource in a square would depend on its scarcity, whether or not the square was in your city radius or you national borders, its size and how far you were away from discovering the tech-prerequisite for that resource. What it essentially meant was that it would give you a chance of finding advanced resources BEFORE you had the tech to use them-though it would be more likely to find resources that you DID know how to use!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

4 different sliders?

Before - Luxury, Taxes, Science
After - Luxury, Taxes, City improvement, Science

I don't so much agree with the 'civ-specific' idea. But I DO feel that luxuries should be more....'regional'. For instance, I think that spices, ivory and sugar should be much more tropical/equatorial; silks and dyes should be in much cooler latitudes (extreme norths or souths); and wines, wools, tobacco and incence should be primarily from the more temperate regions (between the two previous extremes). I guess this would mean that actual latitude might effect the overall appearance chance of the different luxury types!

Also, as I have said in a previous post, it would also be nice if luxury appearance were also tied, to some degree, to technologies!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

Very nice idea.

I have previously suggested for civ4 that rather than simply having resources magically 'appear' you have to look for them. The way it worked was that you invested 'public works' points or workers into 'prospecting' for resources. The chance of finding a resource in a square would depend on its scarcity, whether or not the square was in your city radius or you national borders, its size and how far you were away from discovering the tech-prerequisite for that resource.



That's pretty much exactly the system they use in Imperialism and it's not as complex as you might think. Here's how it works in that game.

The resources are predetermined as to location, just like in Civ, but most of them aren't visible at the beginning of the game - only a few things that are more or less like bonus resources in Civ (sheep, cattle, forests, that sort of thing).

You have a unit called a Prospector. They work in sort of a PW kind of way, that is they can move to any square on the map that isn't owned by another colonial power. If you have the right tech, you'll spot any resource that happens to be in that square. If there is a resource there and you don't have the tech, it will appear when you get the tech. Whenever you have a prospector selected, all the tiles that have already been searched are marked.

It's a system that could in some ways be adapted for Civ, with some modifications. Likely you couldn't have predetermined resources if they were hidden in Civ because there would be too many tiles to search (so you'd have to have that random chance of finding them you mention).

Great game for ideas btw ... sort of like Colonialism updated, alot more streamlined and much better graphics.