Heres the idea,
Resources:
Work & gold to pay for the work (read shields, but not gotten from landscape)
Wood, iron, sand, stone, marble, food etc. In specific numbers.

To make anything you need a certain amount of each resource. Like to make a granary you might need 30 wood 20 work and 20 gold. To create work you need to assign a population unit to production (instead of getting "work" from the landscape) To get gold you need to assign population units to revenue generator (tax collector, different name though), Science from the scientist specialist. Only physical resources would be received from the landscape. If you cancel any production you get all your physical resources back.

Some resources may be substituted when you get the right tech, like you may eventually be able to make granaries from steel instead of wood. You would need less steel then you would if made of skill in that case.

Resources like iron can run out depending on how much you use. Resources like wood can run out if you use it too much. Players can choose between harvesting a little bit of wood from a square each turn but never running out. Or harvesting alot per turn and running out (that square becomes nonforested) Replanting squares could take many many turns.

This is just a rough draft of an idea, wanted to see what you guys thought.

This in fact would be a little bit like Warcraft where you need gold and wood to build buildings.

For sure it would be far more realistic than only count something called "shields" when you produce something.

On the other hand, it would add a lot of micro-management and I wonder if it would add the same amount of fun.

Maybe the civ team replace all your ressources by the notion of "shield" to let concentrate ourselves to the game rather than micromanaging.

Not really any more micromanaging other then that specialist assignment becomes as important as terrain working. When you make a production choice the city could automatically assign workers to the tiles that would provide max efficiency.

I hate how civ 3 doesn't do shield carry over like AC does, changing tech also means huge loss of progress.

Tiles next to fresh woods tiles could have a chance to turn into woods tiles as well (forest expansion) just as you can use up the forests on a tile.

I like the unique resource management systemn of civ. It has its problems, yes, but almost evry rts game has this. I would die before I bought a turn based version of empire earth 2

I don't want a Civilization/Total war mix, and now we have a Civ/TW/Warcraft idea. NO!

Never played TW, not even close to a "warcraft idea". Lots of games that use resources in the more logical way. But if we made civ use resources in a more logical way it wouldn't make civ any of those other games.

Other then pure fan resistance to any real changes bad or good, can anyone tell me of a disadvantage to the resource system I'm suggesting?

Reasons to do it the way I'm suggesting is, more strategy in how you use the land and what land you have available to you, more strategy in how you use resources and how much you build of each item. Better resource trading.

More strategy in assigning population and in "improving" squares. In short, more game depth.