Read the bottom of this post, to get new updates about ideas, work etc.

Right now I am beginning to get a really good grasp on the SDK, at first it really looks messy, but now (after approx. 20 hours of work) the SDK don’t seem that difficult.
And oh my …. The SDK allows for massive changes, uooohhhh I like it.

My first intention is to change more or less the resource system, because it is very simplistic right now, mainly inspired by a thread name supply and demand, and also modelling the importance of oil in our modern societies.

For example, it is unrealistic that 1 luxury resource will make 10 population points equally happy as 1 population point.

And it is also unrealistic that 1 resource of oil give the ability to field an (theoretically) infinite army of panzers. If the Germans under the second world war didn’t have the oil shortage it the late months of the war the war could have lasted longer. Etc.

Oil in our modern societies is so important that any else have ever been (of course there is exceptions, but without oil we don’t have cars, could you imagine a car which run on coal?)

Anyway what do you all think?

I have a few question about the design (if anyone is interested):


Should units have a base oil cost which is deducted from the “oil treasury” each turn
Should the oil only be deducted if the unit moves
A combination
Should units disband if there aint enough oil
Should they just be unable to move… etc.


The AI will be no problem to understand this, it just needs a bit refinement.

Come with more, I am really excited about the possibilities, because they are nearly infinite.


(Lastest) Update to clarify the ideas right now, I have:

An oil treasury like the gold treasury, we have right now.
The oil bonus resource, will give oil units and each turn , and it will be put into the oil treasury. For example if you have 3 oil wells which yield 100 oil/turn each, you get 300 oil units each turn.
Each unit have a oil capacity and an OilCostPerMovementPoint.
Each movement point costs OilCostPerMovementPoint which is deducted from its oil capacity.
Each turn every unit which needs oil will automatically get oil, which will be added to the oil capacity of the unit. Depending on various factors, such as the distance from the borders of the units owner, in enemy territory etc., the amount which will be added vary.
If a unit runs out of oil, because of the owner runs about of oil in the oil treasury or the unit get so deep into enemy territory that the amount it get is 0, the units will only be able to move 1 point at a time, and the units combat score is reduced to half.


Local pools is added. However there is no really such thing as supply lines (which everyone seems to be very intrested in), everything is handled behind the screens, but yes it adds a new thing to check, but not more than you check the hitpoints status of a unit. Like you don't attack with an unit with low hitpoints, unless it is really needed or very beneficial, you shouldn't move an unit to far away into enemy territory or whatever. It should not be something to consider when at peace or moving within own territory, unless you are stupid enough to loss your oil wells.

The consumable resource pool is something that has always been needed in this series. I don't think units should get disbanded if there is no oil and it should be used only if they move if possible.

Also, what about iron, copper, ect? Will you do the same with them? Should 1 iron resource last all game and build hundreds of units? What about concentrations of veins?

Concentration of various resource can be added, but as a true programmer, you first make it work and the add all the nice stuff (which varying concentration of resource really is :) )
Anyway oil is the first and foremost important of them all, so that will be added as the first. My thought was original making all resources consumer able, then again it maybe overkill. Maybe iron because it is very important, and has been, way through history, but something like cobber is important now in computer etc., but there is really no shortage.
But I think making that only if they move oil will be deducted. BUT should something as a power plant also cost something? And what about the just having a modern civ requires oil? Making a calculation on economics and population size and then deduct this also? What do you think?

of course there is exceptions, but without oil we don’t have cars, could you imagine a car which run on coal?

Actually Yes it was done during WWII in Germany. Not coal exactly but with some chemical processes they generated fuel out of coal.

Actually Yes it was done during WWII in Germany. Not coal exactly but with some chemical processes they generated fuel out of coal.

No they made synthetic oil out of coal, which by the way is extremely expensive, and whatever they did it has nothing to do with this so please give me something constructive to work with.

Okay just read the first words of you post, we agree, but it is expensive and not worthwhile, unless you really need it. But please come with ideas I can work with.

I presume you are thinking that every resource will have a certain extraction rate and it will be added to the global pool when it is extracted, right?

IMO, oil should be required for a modern day unit (non-nuclear) to move. Each movement point used up should use 1 point of oil. When a unit runs of out of oil it should lose all it's movement points, and it's combat value should be halved.

Supply lines could be incorperated by giving each unit a certain fuel capacity, which is automatically topped-up fully from the global pool if they are in friendly/neutral land, but is topped up at a lesser rate based on possible supply lines if they are in enemy lines.

As for other resources, I think you could just make it so that the resource is removed from the global pool when the unit is built, and maybe some removed when it repairs.

Okay nice ideas great apple. The only problem I see with the supply lines is if a unit get stuck inside unfriendly land, the we should add a supply unit, which my complicate the entire game, and increase micromanagement, but I will look into it. Thanks.

Anyway I just add a global pool, no local unit pool yet, will be easy to implement when the main functions work as they should.

If a unit get's stuck in unfriendly land then surely it should run out of fuel? The algorithm shouldn't make it that easy to get stuck - the rate of refueling should be based on the distance to the nearest border, avoiding enemy units/cities.

I was thinking supply lines would be passive and internal. Supply units would just overcomplicate things.

When oil is used up per movement point this very much increases micromanagement. I'd make it like someone else (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3931370&postcount=5) has proposed and give a negative modifier to all units using oil, based on the amount of available and used oil.

A option should be added to temporary retire Units. Those loose their ability to move, and their combat strength for the next turns but do not count to the oil consumtion.

EDIT: Added Quote

Great Apple -> True enough, making it a passiv thing is nice, and I see some potential
And Chalid -> can see the point, however I think it will overcomplicate things, so I am think merge yours and Great Apple ideas, into something like this:

First and foremost there will be no local unit pools, but I like the idea and will implement it. So when a unit runs out of oil, it can move only 1 point, and not attack, and a unit is resupplied slowy, based how long there is to the nearst city. So a unit close to own borders is quickly resupply and a unit a long way from home is very slowly resupplied. This gives combat a whole new aspect.

More ideas please... Not only about units and attrition, but also other resources etc.

When oil is used up per movement point this very much increases micromanagement. I'd make it like someone else (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=3931370&postcount=5) has proposed and give a negative modifier to all units using oil, based on the amount of available and used oil.

A option should be added to temporary retire Units. Those loose their ability to move, and their combat strength for the next turns but do not count to the oil consumtion.

EDIT: Added Quote

I don't think that the system proposed by NikG will increase micromanagement. Your only business would be to take care that you don't run out of fuel and to be connected to the supply chain (despite i can not tell you yet how a good supply chain model could work).

My only concern is that AI won't know how to use the whole refuelling thing so that their units will get stuck in the enemy territory when leaving supply lines.

Both yes and no...
Really the AI needs a bit tweaking, but overall, it wouldnt be a problem for the AI.

I absolutely LOVE the idea. The major drawback I see is that not every country in the world has access to oil, yet almost every country in the world uses oil in some capacity. How will you get the trading of oil to work now? Say I am America and I need oil from Saudi Arabia, I am willing to trade them gold per turn for their oil. Can you make it so that the oil is traded similar to gold per turn trading?

-----
Example:
America gives:
(100) Gold Per Turn

Saudi Arabia gives:
(50) Oil Per Turn

Essentially saying that Oil costs 2 gold per turn.
-----

It would make it important for nations to be VERY friendly to nations with a lot of oil to get better prices and to ensure the flow of oil. It could also start more wars over oil (like most of nowadays wars).

The major problem I see is figuring out numbers and how much each resource should convert to the overall pool, and how much it deteriorates by each turn, etc, etc

OK. First of all, I have only skim read these posts. If I am repeating someone elses comments, I appoligise.

Why not have it so that a resources make x number of units period. If you have 2 lots of the resources, you can build 2 times the amount. Once the amout is made, that's it. More of the resource would be needed in order to make more.

I haven't really given it much thought though. I just thought I would jot the idea down and you can do what you want with it. Problems like the AI being able to handle the extra competition, etc immediately come to mind.

Watiggi

First Watiggi -> I have thought on that to, but that is only some extension of how the system works now, and much more easier to implement, I don't fell that this is realistic. Well I am going for more realism, but not realism over playablity, and in the real world you could make 1000 panzers without much oil (only to the machinery). If you dont have much only, the panzers cannot move far, but they are still (some sort of) able to use their guns, and you can continue to make more as long as you have the needed iron.
Whatever, I dismissed that idea, because it was to simplistic, and the current system (as yours) dont favor either defender or attacker. In this system the attack have a disadvantage, becuase when he moves his units it costs oil, and without enough oil... Back luck
Hope it did any meaning :)


Onto pap1723 ->
That is actually what I have in mind, threating oil just like gold. However I have not explored the possiblity for diplomacy changes, and it might be possible or it might not. If not, then it is to bad, and the then current system will just be used.

I would second pap1723's version of this, which is essentially that we use certain resources as currency. (If you think about it, gold supposedly in the game as both a resource and a currency, but not connected).

Tanks could use up 1 oil maintenance just as generic units use up 1 gold maintenance. (It would be important for civic choices NOT to affect this, unless Environmentalism reduced oil maintenance or something like that).

Given that such mechanisms are already in the game, this would probably be a lot easier to implement, model, and have the AI "understand" than more radical changes like supply lines. To truly model this, I think you would have to treat each of these resources as a "yield," like food, hammers, commerce. This would also provide you with the concept of a "proven reserve," which I might model as follows:

Terrain: Desert
Improvement: Oil Well
Yield: 0 food, 0 hammer, 1 commerce, 10 oil

To borrow a concept from my "strip mine" mod (forthcoming :) ), the Oil Well behaves like a reverse cottage: it "upgrades" to 8 oil, 6 oil, 4 oil, etc. To prevent exploitation of this (pillage the well and rebuild it), (a) when pillaged, the well goes UP (down in value), and (b) the first time you build the well, you "terraform" the tile into a tile on which you CAN'T build more wells. This is a hack, of course; I'm sure using the SDK or even just Python you can simply keep a variable on each tile that tells you how "old" each well is so you can set the correct amount when you rebuild after a pillage.

(I don't know if the AI stops working farms and mines and works cottages when it runs low on cash; I think it only pulls down the research slider. Maybe there could be an "oil" slider too).

I might pull together developments from these two threads: Supply and Demand for Luxuries (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=167163) and 4th yield: magic (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=167044) for ideas.

Now the real question is: If properly modeled can we start using Civ4 for educational purposes?

It should be noted that this is intended as a major overhaul. Already I have implemented the main function for the above oil using units. Now it only details left, ie. how the algorithm for resupplying units should work (okay it is not details, but when this is finished, it will be close to functioning)

I would second pap1723's version of this, which is essentially that we use certain resources as currency. (If you think about it, gold supposedly in the game as both a resource and a currency, but not connected).

Tanks could use up 1 oil maintenance just as generic units use up 1 gold maintenance. (It would be important for civic choices NOT to affect this, unless Environmentalism reduced oil maintenance or something like that).

Given that such mechanisms are already in the game, this would probably be a lot easier to implement, model, and have the AI "understand" than more radical changes like supply lines.

The supply lines are not something to understand really. It is passiv and underlying, and there is no active player interaction with the supply lines. Each unit will get supplied each turn based on how far they are from the nearest friendly city. Of course the AI should understand this, and it is very possible to add this, it only requires a small tweak so if the total amount of oil reaches a certain threshold it will either not move the unit or move it closer to friendly cities.

To truly model this, I think you would have to treat each of these resources as a "yield," like food, hammers, commerce. This would also provide you with the concept of a "proven reserve," which I might model as follows:

Terrain: Desert
Improvement: Oil Well
Yield: 0 food, 0 hammer, 1 commerce, 10 oil

No not at all! There will be no 4 yield for oil. Oil is still a normal resource, and you will x amount of oil if you control a oil well. The 4th yield magic was just an example, and more simplistic in its essens. (Not saying that it wasnt helpful) If oil should be a yield, then iron should to etc. and suddenly we have 100 different yields, which will be overkill!! The 4th yield magic is nice, becuase it models excately how it was in Master of Magic and in MoM magic was as natural as food. Oil is natural, but not as natural like food (read "the lands fertility"), and unless I find something really nice to add as a 4th yield I will stick to the original 3.

To borrow a concept from my "strip mine" mod (forthcoming :) ), the Oil Well behaves like a reverse cottage: it "upgrades" to 8 oil, 6 oil, 4 oil, etc. To prevent exploitation of this (pillage the well and rebuild it), (a) when pillaged, the well goes UP (down in value), and (b) the first time you build the well, you "terraform" the tile into a tile on which you CAN'T build more wells. This is a hack, of course; I'm sure using the SDK or even just Python you can simply keep a variable on each tile that tells you how "old" each well is so you can set the correct amount when you rebuild after a pillage.

It is a very nice addition I must say. But I dont understand how you would added new variables without the SDK

Now the real question is: If properly modeled can we start using Civ4 for educational purposes?
Yes indeed Civ4 could turn into an educational game... :D

Reading Padmewan's, I quite like that idea.

Look forward to giving it a go one day :)

If oil should be a yield, then iron should to etc. and suddenly we have 100 different yields, which will be overkill!!
Well, this depends quite a bit on how many of these resources you want to model, and why. For example, for each era you could simply decide that there's one or two key "strategic resources" and so have a yield that works like "magic" in the thread I referenced: in the first three eras iron provides that 4th yield; in the next one, saltpeter; etc... Each resource and its corresponding improvement then goes obsolete, so that by the next era that resource no longer generates the "strategic yield."

You had written that oil should be treated like gold, and in the real world it is. The Roman armies didn't need to keep its Legions supplied with iron the way we need to supply ours with oil (gasoline), right? So what other resource works like oil in terms of upkeep and supply?

Each unit will get supplied each turn based on how far they are from the nearest friendly city. Of course the AI should understand this, and it is very possible to add this, it only requires a small tweak so if the total amount of oil reaches a certain threshold it will either not move the unit or move it closer to friendly cities.

I agree with this; at the same time, there is a value to simplicity and abstracting concepts to be playable. Perhaps the easiest way to model what you're describing is simply to add another upkeep model: currently there are two, flat upkeep and upkeep outside of home borders. A third should be upkeep in hostile territory. This keeps it nice and simple, but still captures the idea you are suggesting.

I think having units suddenly stop being able to move, fight, etc. is not that fun. Abstracting the upkeep model like this would capture your idea by making wars more expensive without adding micromanagement to the players or AI.

Well Padmewan I see you point at first. But still have different yield at different periode of time and different improvement for these will be awful complicated, the AI should be tweaked rather heavily.
The Roman armies didn't need to keep its Legions supplied with iron the way we need to supply ours with oil (gasoline), right? So what other resource works like oil in terms of upkeep and supply?
No the ancient units shouldnt be supplied with iron, seems silly, they should be supplied with food actually, but right now I will jump over this, and just get the oil working and maybe implement addiotional supply support costs. Oil was just what first sprung into my mind, becuase without oil a modern society can NOT AND WILL NOT WORK, and even wars cant be fought without oil, so it was the first. We could add a saltpeter also for pre-modern units, I dont know. I want ideas, it what I have asked for, so please supply me :)


I agree with this; at the same time, there is a value to simplicity and abstracting concepts to be playable. Perhaps the easiest way to model what you're describing is simply to add another upkeep model: currently there are two, flat upkeep and upkeep outside of home borders. A third should be upkeep in hostile territory. This keeps it nice and simple, but still captures the idea you are suggesting.
Good idea, but still this is simple as it can be! What I am suggesting is still NO OIL = NO MODERN SOCIETY, and especially no wars either. I feel "just" having gold as a upkeep model was to simplistic, so I decided to add more.

I think having units suddenly stop being able to move, fight, etc. is not that fun. Abstracting the upkeep model like this would capture your idea by making wars more expensive without adding micromanagement to the players or AI.
Well I decided that units will still be able to move when having no fuel, but at a reduced rate. Goddamit read what I have written! The idea is just that you cannot travel all the way around the world without fuel, so you have to take this into account when planning to move. And there is no micromanagement really it will be passive. Units will be resupplied automaticly, and no attack is just to show that like the real world, the longer your supply lines are, the lesser condition your soldiers and their equiment will be in. That is the reason why Napolean nor Hitler managed to conquer Russia.

Please reconsider your supply system, simply basing it off distance from friendly cities is not only unrealistic, it will ruin gameplay and cripple the AI.

Things should be keept as simple as possible, the changes to resorce output is already a BIG change which will need a lot of AI adjustment. Player will grasp the concept quickly enough but the supply ideas ontop of this is a lot.

If you absolutly must have it make it a quantity or units that are "active" consume Oil, the player can set units to "inactive/reserves" to decreese consumption. Reserves cant move/attack and get -50% as mentioned earlier. They also cost less maintance. If desired you could charge double if a unit is outside its own territory.

That would be simple and straitforward enough for players to get without any heavy micro-managment like a distance based system would entail. It would also be about a 100 times simpler for the AI to deside what should be active/reserves. It also removes the nessesity of having every single unit have its own "supply" quantity which would be horrible to manage.

Its also vastly more realistic, Naval units have been sailing around the world for hundreds of years, armies have operated thousands of miles from their homelands since the time of Alexander the Great. True their are situations ware armies were weakened due to lack of resorces (Romel in North Africa being a classic Example) but these were situations ware supplies were activly being cut off by enemy action, not simply "distance" from Germany.

Lastly, if were going to have oil used to supply modern units then some equivilent is needed in earlier eras, Anchient Units would be Food based (all your Grains and Meats could be lumped together as Food or some thing along these lines like grain for Cavalry, meat for Infantry). Early Gunpowder units might need Saltpeter as their supply. In any case the supply resorce can be different then the build resorce even in early ages.

Lastly a strong market system needs to exist so you dont get resorce screwed, their should be some resorces avalible (at high price) even when no other player in the game is selling (think of it as smuggling).

EDIT: Seems you and I were posting at the same time and had the same idea when it comes to Food and Saltpeter, ok well as for Micro-managment. You say your idea for distance resupply requires no Micro-managment because its dont automaticaly. This is a major misconseption, Micro-managment is anything which takes up the players mental energy. If units are in danger of running out of supplies then the player must constantly CHECK THEIR STATUS and deside when to draw each individual unit back towards friendly territory. Then the player will constantly recheck and deside if the units are ready to go back into enemy territory. That constitutes a HUGE amount of micro-managment, simpley because the supplies were delivered "automaticaly" dose not mean theirs no Micro-managment, the more checking and desison making the player has to do the more micro-managment their is. Under a centralized system the player just needs to know that their Consumption vs their Reserves and Production. Only when theirs an imbalace would further action be needed and it would be much faster to pick a few units to deactivate then to check statuses of possibly all your units.

Impaler[WrG] first of I dont think you know what I have proposed. But I will comment your post anyway.

Please reconsider your supply system, simply basing it off distance from friendly cities is not only unrealistic, it will ruin gameplay and cripple the AI.
No I will not recosider it, and it will not ruin gameplay, and no it would not cripple the AI. If you have looked at the SDK then you would know it will be possible to make it as efficient and streamlined as possible.

Things should be keept as simple as possible, the changes to resorce output is already a BIG change which will need a lot of AI adjustment. Player will grasp the concept quickly enough but the supply ideas ontop of this is a lot.
No it is not that big, and it is a MAJOR overhaul of the system, becuase it is unrealistic to have one oil well supplying an entire civilization and it army, only small AI adjustments is needed.

If you absolutly must have it make it a quantity or units that are "active" consume Oil, the player can set units to "inactive/reserves" to decreese consumption. Reserves cant move/attack and get -50% as mentioned earlier. They also cost less maintance. If desired you could charge double if a unit is outside its own territory.
No this will get extremely complicated to make, and would add alot of micromanagement.

That would be simple and straitforward enough for players to get without any heavy micro-managment like a distance based system would entail. It would also be about a 100 times simpler for the AI to deside what should be active/reserves. It also removes the nessesity of having every single unit have its own "supply" quantity which would be horrible to manage.
No becuase the you have to push a button to "make reserve" and to "wake up". That would require enormous micromanagment. And it would not be simpler for the AI.

Its also vastly more realistic, Naval units have been sailing around the world for hundreds of years, armies have operated thousands of miles from their homelands since the time of Alexander the Great. True their are situations ware armies were weakened due to lack of resorces (Romel in North Africa being a classic Example) but these were situations ware supplies were activly being cut off by enemy action, not simply "distance" from Germany.
It is true, and it will be possible for a unit to have a capacity of oil for example. And it will be used up when moving. The distance is more or less a cost for supplying the MODERN units. If you are 1000 miles from home it will cost oil to transport the oil to the unit that needs the oil, and so I got a knew idea thanks for that, but I might make some tweak to my model, but it isnt changing radically, unless someone comes up with so really good reasons why.

Lastly, if were going to have oil used to supply modern units then some equivilent is needed in earlier eras, Anchient Units would be Food based (all your Grains and Meats could be lumped together as Food or some thing along these lines like grain for Cavalry, meat for Infantry). Early Gunpowder units might need Saltpeter as their supply. In any case the supply resorce can be different then the build resorce even in early ages.
I have already thought about that, and might implement it, but I am still on the oil thing.

Lastly a strong market system needs to exist so you dont get resorce screwed, their should be some resorces avalible (at high price) even when no other player in the game is selling (think of it as smuggling).
That needs more consideration. However as it is now, you cannot build some modern units without oil. And I have a few ideas about this and if you have any please post them. But I dont really see why we need a strong market system. You have an oil bonus and you extract x amount of oil a turn, use y each turn becuase you are a modern civ, and when moving a modern units which needs oil you use z oil, this unit will get supplied automatically with w oil. After the turn is finished (without getting to technical) you have Oilnew = Oiloriginal + x - y - w(for each unit).
For each unit the amount of oil is: Oilnew = Oiloriginal - z + w

EDIT: Seems you and I were posting at the same time and had the same idea when it comes to Food and Saltpeter, ok well as for Micro-managment. You say your idea for distance resupply requires no Micro-managment because its dont automaticaly. This is a major misconseption, Micro-managment is anything which takes up the players mental energy. If units are in danger of running out of supplies then the player must constantly CHECK THEIR STATUS and deside when to draw each individual unit back towards friendly territory. Then the player will constantly recheck and deside if the units are ready to go back into enemy territory. That constitutes a HUGE amount of micro-managment, simpley because the supplies were delivered "automaticaly" dose not mean theirs no Micro-managment, the more checking and desison making the player has to do the more micro-managment their is. Under a centralized system the player just needs to know that their Consumption vs their Reserves and Production. Only when theirs an imbalace would further action be needed and it would be much faster to pick a few units to deactivate then to check statuses of possibly all your units.
Okay this I read last, so there are some abundant info here...
But the idea is not having a system which should keep the player occupied. The player should not think about the supply, because it happens automatically ... okay I seem that extreme players will look at this, but the idea is just, "Don't move to deep into enemy territory, or else you units will get reduced movement rates." The AI already dont move to deep into the another civs territory, and humans shouldnt think at the supply for each unit.

'] You say your idea for distance resupply requires no Micro-managment because its dont automaticaly. This is a major misconseption, Micro-managment is anything which takes up the players mental energy. If units are in danger of running out of supplies then the player must constantly CHECK THEIR STATUS and deside when to draw each individual unit back towards friendly territory. Then the player will constantly recheck and deside if the units are ready to go back into enemy territory. That constitutes a HUGE amount of micro-managment, simpley because the supplies were delivered "automaticaly" dose not mean theirs no Micro-managment, the more checking and desison making the player has to do the more micro-managment their is. Under a centralized system the player just needs to know that their Consumption vs their Reserves and Production. Only when theirs an imbalace would further action be needed and it would be much faster to pick a few units to deactivate then to check statuses of possibly all your units.
I guess NikG doesn't want to have "local" pools for every single unit. All units that are situated at the same distance from home territory would have the same amount of fuel available so the player does not need to check every single unit separately but can see its status right away.

I have a proposal on how to avoid resource pools for every single unit but still beeing close to reality:
1/ units do consume oil (or/and food) only when moving
2/ units that require oil can move only within supply lines, units outside supply lines can move only to the extent of their movement rate, but only in the first turn! Next turn they become immobile and can only defend (with some penalty).
3/ units that do NOT need oil, can move freely even outside supply lines
4/ units outside supply lines (more than 1 tile) lose health, no matter how far from home territory they are

Now, what the heck are the supply lines?
1/ primarily roads (even in home territory - so that units can be cut off resources even in their own country)
2/ supply chain, which is in fact almost the same as a road, but all units have the ability of building it. It would take a few turns to build it, just like the roads (but not cumulative - fixed amount of turns independent on units building it - unlike workers). Supply chain is automatically destroyed when an enemy unit steps on it.

This feature given, early exploration would be very limited as unit would need to build supply chain first or else they would die.

Okay to clarify the ideas right now, I have:

An oil treasury like the gold treasury, we have right now.
The oil bonus resource, will give oil units and each turn , and it will be put into the oil treasury. For example if you have 3 oil wells which yield 100 oil/turn each, you get 300 oil units each turn.
Each unit have a oil capacity and an OilCostPerMovementPoint.
Each movement point costs OilCostPerMovementPoint which is deducted from its oil capacity.
Each turn every unit which needs oil will automatically get oil, which will be added to the oil capacity of the unit. Depending on various factors, such as the distance from the borders of the units owner, in enemy territory etc., the amount which will be added vary.
If a unit runs out of oil, because of the owner runs about of oil in the oil treasury or the unit get so deep into enemy territory that the amount it get is 0, the units will only be able to move 1 point at a time, and the units combat score is reduced to half.

Hope it clarifies it.

I guess NikG doesn't want to have "local" pools for every single unit. All units that are situated at the same distance from home territory would have the same amount of fuel available so the player does not need to check every single unit separately but can see its status right away.
...


Actually that is what I want. Local pools is added. However there is no really such thing as supply lines, everything is handled behind the screens, but yes it adds a new thing to check, but not more than you check the hitpoints status of a unit. Like you don't attack with an unit with low hitpoints, unless it is really needed or very beneficial, you shouldn't move an unit to far away into enemy territory or whatever. It should not be something to consider when at peace or moving within own territory, unless you are stupid enough to loss your oil wells.

Actually that is what I want. Local pools is added. However there is no really such thing as supply lines, everything is handled behind the screens, but yes it adds a new thing to check, but not more than you check the hitpoints status of a unit. Like you don't attack with an unit with low hitpoints, unless it is really needed or very beneficial, you shouldn't move an unit to far away into enemy territory or whatever. It should not be something to consider when at peace or moving within own territory, unless you are stupid enough to loss your oil wells.

Well it is more complicated than I think it's necessary but as long as you are the one to create this mod it's up to you only. ;) Just wanted to share my ideas.

What I don't like about your system is that units get resources automatically wherever they are. I think supply lines should be implemented somehow (my proposal is in my previous post).

NikG, I think your ideas are great; I would personally appreciate it if you would be a little friendlier if you are looking for feedback or help. Attacking people who have legitimate questions and who are interested in working with you doesn't seem like a good way to get us to want to help with or promote this project.

Your proposal is not that different from what I had proposed earlier, with the sole change being that you don't treat oil as a "yield."

Good luck with this project.

Well I am sorry to all, but it just seemed to me people were not reading the post and just wrote something. So sorry again, it wasnt my intention to be unfriendly. My native language is not english, so I have a hard time to determine if a particular sentence sounds less friendly than intented.

Well I am sorry to all, but it just seemed to me people were not reading the post and just wrote something. So sorry again, it wasnt my intention to be unfriendly. My native language is not english, so I have a hard time to determine if a particular sentence sounds less friendly than intented.

Goddamit read what I have written!

I guess this sounds the same in all languages. But no hard feelings ;)

I guess this sounds the same in all languages. But no hard feelings


Okay, I just got a little upset, because it really seemed that people just came with ideas outside the context of this SDK change. But okay doesnt matter anymore, if someone still has ideas (any, I wont get upset now :mad: :mad: ) ;)

(if any have been offending then I am sorry.)

Padweman mentioned (very briefly) a forth yield, and while reading the thread I had a beautiful idea for a forth yield that could apply to not one, not two, but ALL resources. Concentration. Basically, on its own this yield does nothing, but when applied to a tile with a resource on it, controls how much is extracted per turn and how long you can extract it from. From the introductory course I took on C++ a year ago I think it would be a simple matter to make a 'years mined' variable, increment it every turn, and every, I don't know, 100th turn have it decrease Concentration by 1 until Concentration was 0, at which point the resource is exhausted and no longer usable. This would however not remove the resource from the map, and then with further tech advances (discover new mining machinery) or a random event your miners might 'Find a new Vein of Iron' or something along that lines, which could increase the Concentration yield by a random amount, up to maybe 6 or something along those lines, I would advise against going higher than 6, but ultimately it depends only on what scale you might wish to use to turn ‘concentration’ into ‘oil per turn’ or some such like that.

This could also, if the Concentration can be modified in perhaps the World Builder, allow for even more realistic maps, especially world maps. After all, the soil in Europe is, generally speaking, more fertile than the soil in Africa, and currently this is modeled only by Africa's lack of food resources and being plains. With the ability to set the level of concentration we could make Africa or whatever landmass in a random map or whatever, have variable levels of ‘fertility’ as it might be. It would also be nice if we could make Concentration random initially, to allow for greater variety and the desire to gain 'high quality' resources.

For supply lines, I would suggest simply needing to have an open path between your units and your cities. This means that if you get a single unit, or even a stack completely surrounded by enemy units they will run out of supplies and likely be overwhelmed and slaughtered, thus making surrounding your opponent's forces a viable strategy for what I believe to be the first time in any cIV game, for a reason other than simply not letting them move. This would also encourage that people not go too far into enemy terrain, as it would become increasingly easier to be cut off from supplies, (essentially one of the many problems that faced Hitler’s forces in Russia, that and Generals January and February, and trying to fight a war on four fronts against three people simultaneously.)

NikG, no offense taken, just be a little more open to new ideas rather than assume that people are not reading or attacking you. Sometimes we are reading, but have an idea that may be a little different -- that's the whole point of having a public thread, right? :cool:
Basically, on its own this yield does nothing, but when applied to a tile with a resource on it, controls how much is extracted per turn and how long you can extract it from. ...This would however not remove the resource from the map, and then with further tech advances (discover new mining machinery) or a random event your miners might 'Find a new Vein of Iron' or something along that lines...
This is in line with what I've suggested re: "Proven Reserves." I'm not sure that this variable ought not be attached to the bonus itself, rather than to the tile -- after all, it is bonus- rather than tile-specific.

Civ3 vaguely implemented this by having resources disappear and reappear around the map. I would suggest that, if this were implemented, the bonus WOULD disappear upon "tapping out" that reserve, and that either a new technology makes more resources appear, or new resource automatically pop up somewhere else when one taps out (abstracting the idea of a technology advance). Often new reserves are not discovered in old mines but in new locations, e.g. the oil sands of Canada.

This could also, if the Concentration can be modified in perhaps the World Builder, allow for even more realistic maps, especially world maps. After all, the soil in Europe is, generally speaking, more fertile than the soil in Africa, and currently this is modeled only by Africa's lack of food resources and being plains.
Well, there is a difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. If you wanted to keep things simple, the above mechanism would only apply to non-renewable resources. If you want to make it more complex (and use Civ4 as a resource management sim), you could have renewable resources replenish at a certain rate, and then give players the choice to use an improvement that exploits that resource quickly but depletes it, or an improvement that exploits it slowly but sustainably. I imagine this would only be usable by human players unless serious AI coding was done...

Vishaing-> see that is a very nice adjustment regarding a 4th yield which in game terms is actually all resources combined into one. It could be implemented, but I first would like to see the ideas I have right now in action. If it turns out that this is good, then I may implement yours.

For you ideas on supply lines, I like it ... very much indeed, and it is much more simplictic compared to what I have in mind. However I feel that it will be an overhelming task to program the AI to understand how to encircle its opponents, but then again I might look into the AI units moving routine later, and determine if it could be done.

Thanks Vishaing for some nice ideas.

Hello, i really like some of these ideas, and i just wanted to see if this will possibly help you. I was thinking That maybe if you have one oil resouce at your disposal you should be only able to support 5 tanks or any oil useing unit. this idea came to me because i hated when the AI had like 80 more tanks than me while on one oil resouce available to him, while i had around20 tanks and about 7 oil resouces under my control. If you added a limit to unit useage with every oil resouce you were in control of, would greatly ad realism to CIV IV.

Killamike718 -> this is actually what it is going to be, to take your example, if the AI has 80 tanks and 1 oil resource and you have 20 tanks and 7 oil resources, you would have no problem with supplying your tanks, and they will function without problems. However the AI will have some problems, becuase 80 tanks take 4 times the amount of oil than 20 tanks, and so the AI will not be able to use some of his tanks, or put directly: He can you his tanks, but most of the will lack fuel and can only move slowly and in addition to his, the tanks lacking fuel will have their fighting capability crippled, 50% less combat strength.

OO im soo sorry. forgive me i only read the top of the first post sorry. Great idea by the way, more elaborate than mine.

No need to apologize. It is okay.

Wow, I really love this idea NikG. I think that one of the great benefits of it is that modern armies won't be entirely composed of tanks anymore, which has always struck me as extremely unrealistic. If infantry don't require oil they will gain a great new use in the game which should be much closer to their real life one.

About supply lines, I think some type of in depth simulation of suppy lines should be made at some point (not necessarily by you). For now, however, the model you have now is good and should work adequately. Once you get the main idea working well I think it would then be good to branch off onto a new area.

OK NikG, I do have to say that idea is excellent-for a scenario-especially if the turns of this scenario measured days, weeks or months. For the more Epic game, though, I would like to put forward the following model:

1) Each resource plot has a 'Size' rating-1 for Small, 2 for Average and 3 for Large (possible a 4 for extra large). The total number and size of these resource deposits gives you the total 'Pool' for that resource. e.g. say I have 3 lots of iron-each of size 2, then my total Iron pool is 6 units.

2) Now, this resource pool is divided by a combination of (your number of cities+total number of resource dependant units)*100-to give you a percentage.

3) Depending on what direction you take, this % could either be multiplied by a 'resouce scarcity factor' (horses less scarce than Iron, Iron less scarce than Oil etc), to give you a chance of a single resource deposit disappearing each turn.

4) Another way to do it is to have the % (again possibly modified by a scarcity factor) applied to unit and improvement building times, # of happy faces produced (in the case of luxuries) or the growth rate/health of cities (in the case of food resources). It will also be applied to the combat strength of units dependant on that resource.

5) Obviously units traded away do not count for the purpose of calculating this %.

6) Certain techs will either multiply or divide the resource pool for the purposes of calculating the %. For instance, combustion will multiply the 'horse' pool, as the demand for horses by the domestic economy has dropped.

7) On a seperate, yet related track, units in foreign territory must be within X squares of 'home territory' in order to fight at full strength-otherwise they are considered 'Out of Supply'. Such units have a lowered combat strength and a slower healing time. Resource-dependant units (like Tanks) are impacted even worse by being out of supply. 'Home Territory', for this purpose, are forts, captured cities or your own borders.

Now, here is a possible working example: Say you have the 6 units of Iron I mentioned before. You have 8 cities and no iron dependant units at present. This means that all you build times for units and buildings are (6/8)*100 or 75% of their normal level. So those 20 hammers per turn will now be more like 15. This could make larger empires very inefficient if they are low in several different resources-which in turn will drive the trade aspect of the game.

The point, though, is that if it is easy to do in SDK, then the system shouldn't add too much micromanagement for the player IF it is well represented in the Resource/Trade table. 'Depleted' resources could be in Red, whilst Excess/Surplus resources could be in Green.

Anyway, hope this makes sense, and I look forward to hearing what you think of this model.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

First of, wow, thank for the input, really need some ideas, however I am not totally clear on certain points:



1) Each resource plot has a 'Size' rating-1 for Small, 2 for Average and 3 for Large (possible a 4 for extra large). The total number and size of these resource deposits gives you the total 'Pool' for that resource. e.g. say I have 3 lots of iron-each of size 2, then my total Iron pool is 6 units.
Ok, nice and simple, and aint hard to understand, even for the AI... :)

2) Now, this resource pool is divided by a combination of (your number of cities+total number of resource dependant units)*100-to give you a percentage.
Likewise

3) Depending on what direction you take, this % could either be multiplied by a 'resouce scarcity factor' (horses less scarce than Iron, Iron less scarce than Oil etc), to give you a chance of a single resource deposit disappearing each turn.
Here I begin to have problems... Why should it be based on the initial pool? Maybe you what to mimic if we have few resource deposits and alot of resource are being used, the change of a deposit disapperaing is increasing, am I right? The problem is just that few deposits and many "resource using entities" will give a very small percentage, which is not right, or have I miss something :scan:

4) Another way to do it is to have the % (again possibly modified by a scarcity factor) applied to unit and improvement building times, # of happy faces produced (in the case of luxuries) or the growth rate/health of cities (in the case of food resources). It will also be applied to the combat strength of units dependant on that resource.

5) Obviously units traded away do not count for the purpose of calculating this %.

6) Certain techs will either multiply or divide the resource pool for the purposes of calculating the %. For instance, combustion will multiply the 'horse' pool, as the demand for horses by the domestic economy has dropped.

Can you get in more detail maybe...


7) On a seperate, yet related track, units in foreign territory must be within X squares of 'home territory' in order to fight at full strength-otherwise they are considered 'Out of Supply'. Such units have a lowered combat strength and a slower healing time. Resource-dependant units (like Tanks) are impacted even worse by being out of supply. 'Home Territory', for this purpose, are forts, captured cities or your own borders.
Yes something like this, but I have already plenty of ideas racing through my head, so I dont know what to say yet.

Now, here is a possible working example: Say you have the 6 units of Iron I mentioned before. You have 8 cities and no iron dependant units at present. This means that all you build times for units and buildings are (6/8)*100 or 75% of their normal level. So those 20 hammers per turn will now be more like 15. This could make larger empires very inefficient if they are low in several different resources-which in turn will drive the trade aspect of the game. Okay as I understand it, the 20 hammers per turn that should be used to build this unit, is decreased to 15. Or is it literally that the build time for the unit/building is decreased to 75%? I mean if you suddenly get 8 more cities we have this calculation: (6/16) * 100 = 37.5%. If it should be taken literally, this will mean the opposite of what you have written, that large empires are inefficient. Or is it just me, that cant read today?

The point, though, is that if it is easy to do in SDK, then the system shouldn't add too much micromanagement for the player IF it is well represented in the Resource/Trade table. 'Depleted' resources could be in Red, whilst Excess/Surplus resources could be in Green.
Easy and easy ... :eek: It will take sometime, but it is certainly possible... :D

Really nice and potent ideas... Keep it coming!

Was reading this thread.. and the ideas I thought of differs slightly from what has been written so far...

Basically..:
- make every resource give a yield... say an oil well produce 50 oil per turn (could go up with new techs or down over time).. all the oil that is not consumed going into a civwide pool of oil like another currency... this stored oil could be sold to other civs, or traded for other resources.. eg you can sell 10 units of oil for 100gold and 30 units of gems.

- some construction would take up a certain number of units to make.. say a swordman costs 1 iron to make.. while a battleship costs either 10 uranium and 100 iron to build or it costs 2 oil to run per turn and 100 iron to build (if built with uranium it would never need fuel)

- tanks would cost some iron to build, and would cost 1 oil every turn it moves in friendly territory.. or 2 oil every turn it moves in enemy territory (the unit supplying them would need oil) (exception would be if moved by rails.. then it could cost 1 coal instead, or if they are located on an enemy oil field)

- coal plants would use a certain amount of coal per turn

- cities would use max 1 unit of each type of lux to stay happy (use as many luxes as available untill it is no longer unhappy)

- every unit would eat 1 food unit every turn unless it is on an enemy food resource/farm (takes their food instead.. and they get no yield that turn) (This means food rich civs could sell extra food from resources and farms to other civs forth other needed resources)

- could also make 10 turn trade deals for say 10 oil per turn for 20 food per turn

Got some new ideas thanks Gyathaar. Will return later, but now it is sleeping time.

Well, here is a REALLY radical suggestion-one which could be applied either to replace, or as an addendum to, my original suggestion.

We all know that Inflation is currently a bit of a 'Black Box' factor in your Economic Advisor Screen. So, how about we make it more 'real'? We start by calculating inflation on the basis of the size of your nation, coupled with technology effects, then divide the inflation rate by 'resource scarcity'. So for instance, in my example city from above-which has 6 iron to supply 8 cities-if it had a starting inflation rate of 5%, then its paucity of iron resources would raise this to 6.5%. Given that this inflation rate is applied to research costs, as well as city and unit maintainance cost, this would make resource scarcity very financially draining-particularly on larger nations.
Anyway, just a thought.

Aussie_Lurker.

I love this whole line of thought. Of course, I'm more interested in what's real than what's easy to implement, so feel free to ignore me, but I've been thinking about this since my first game of Civ 3.

A handful of resources should definitely be pooled into a central bankroll, like oil. To make it more real, you might limit the maximum amount of a resource you can have in 'storage' based on number of cities, certain improvements, etc. Other resources might make more sense to only take what you need, but that would make being cut off instantly fatal to the economy - which is scary, but too over the top to be either fun or realistic. Some resources, though, wouldn't make much sense at all to keep a cumulative total of - I don't know any food product that keeps for 500 years.

The issue of making resource deposits finite is way above my pay grade in terms of implementing it, but I'm all for trying it.

NIckG, I was in full understanding of your planned system of supply and I stand by every word of my earlier post. I re-iterate the system will consume too much of the players time in Micro Managment, will be extreamly detrimental to the AI's ability to intelligently fight a war and is not even remotly realistic. Gyathaar is on the right track with the simplified system sililar to what I sugjested earlier. Distance baseded resupply and individual unit stockpiles will not be fun or practical. I beg you to reconsider before wasting considerable effect coding these features.

I agree with some of the posts that say that this should not increase micro management. If you make it too complicated, it can detract from the fun of the game. I think that there is a much simpler way to make oil important in modern times while not making it overly complex.

Why not make mechanical units like tanks and planes require not only access to oil, but a defined oil supply. Each oil resource could provide the necessary upkeep for a defined number of units. For example, each worked oil tile may support ten units. If a civ has seven oil resources, they can suppot seventy units. If there are more units, they will disband. More advanced units might require more upkeep than older basic units. Tech advances could improve fuel efficiency offseting the cost of new units.

Oil could also provide civic benefits to cities if there is excess over what is required to meet the demands of the military. This would create a trade off...do I want to support a large military or provide my oil resources for cival development?

This would make oil very valuable and worth going to war over in the late game. Instrad of having a stockpile displayed, the loss of an oil resource could have a delayed effect (say ten turns) in which time a player would have to retake it, take another resource, or lose the unsupported units. This would simulated dwindling reserves without creating a complicated system.

What's wrong with complexity if it stays mostly under the surface? No one's suggesting that the player should have to micromanage who gets supplied with what, unless they really want to for some reason. With the SDK giving access to the inner workings of the AI, it will hopefully be possible to teach the game to handle almost anything with exactly as much or as little imput as the player wants to give.

One suggestion I have to keep complexity down and realism up is to restrict the scope of this mod's intended design to modern times. If it turns out later basic concepts can be repurposed to earlier times, great, but one problem with Civ as a series is that its model works well for Ancient through Rennaissance and then starts falling apart as it hits the Industrial / Modern era. City size being restricted to what food is in its immediate area is no longer a problem of modern life.

Likewise, the importance of oil to modern life, as NikG pointed out early on, is not properly modeled either. A mod built entirely on modern economic and logistical/distribution systems will be more satisfying in capturing the-world-as-we-know-it but would likely fail in ancient times, just as a model built for ancient times is not satisfying for modern simulation.

Just my 2 cents.

sarcastinator, nice written.. It wouldnt be to hard to implement AI logic to cope with nearly everything.

Padmewan -> true, the idea first was just to get going on the SDK, learn it and the best way to learn is pratice, so I decided to implement something I thought should be in. But I see you point. Really this isnt a mod really, if it gets working well, we could get change the older eras. Padmewan the potential of the SDK is immense! Really, it not just python (which is powerfull, but awfull complicated, and un efficient), we could make any changes to (nearly) anything.

The question is do we want to expand such mechanisms into the past and i don't think it is needed. The Assymetry between the Eras is what makes the game Interesting.

But to come back to the oil. thinking on the matter i came to the following conclusions.
Not only units should use up your oil reserves but especially the civilization needs oil for civilian purposes. The military aspect of oil for units might be relatively week. But consider what would happen in our time if suddenly we would nit have any more oil. No mor Cars for a while, no more plastics ans do on.

Considering this i would not hinder the Units when lack of oil appears but greatly reduce production in cities and the happiness. The main Oil consumtion should be a function of the population and not of units or unitmovement.

So no oil -> low production and low happiness.

This would lead to the situation that civs witout oil have to make war for it, and not the other way round that civs without oil cannot make war for oil as they cannot support advanced units....

Edit: The concept of a kind of supply for units would be more adequate for the ancient times, when your small band of warriors goes around the world... thats quite unrealistic... they should be forced to come back ;)

Edit: The concept of a kind of supply for units would be more adequate for the ancient times, when your small band of warriors goes around the world... thats quite unrealistic... they should be forced to come back ;)
Chalid, you are just making trouble ;)
The question is do we want to expand such mechanisms into the past and i don't think it is needed. The Assymetry between the Eras is what makes the game Interesting.
I agree. In fact, when you hit the Industrial era the system of food should radically change, but that's just me. (I also think culture should take big hits on era changes, too, like the way Monastaries hit science, but that's another story).
Not only units should use up your oil reserves but especially the civilization needs oil for civilian purposes. The military aspect of oil for units might be relatively week. But consider what would happen in our time if suddenly we would nit have any more oil. No mor Cars for a while, no more plastics ans do on.
Someone been paying attention to the markets recently? :eek:

An alternative would be that each power plant uses a certain amount of a resource (coal, oil), and that the % boost of production that plant allows is linked to how much oil is available. Then we're moving from Civ to SimCity, but worth at least chewing on.

So no oil -> ... low happiness.
Not for environmentalists :D

This would lead to the situation that civs witout oil have to make war for it, and not the other way round that civs without oil cannot make war for oil as they cannot support advanced units....


Assuming there is enough oil for everyone, the question is not who has got oil and who doesn't - you can always buy some oil if you don't have wells in your garden. The question is for how much :)


I'm starting to spend a lot of time here on the forums, I should give myself a break!:)

[qoute]Someone been paying attention to the markets recently? [/quote]

Yes and i have the feeling that we are just seeing the beginning of the end of the worlds oil....
That brings me to another idea.. each oil well should hold a limited oil supply and you can decide via improvements how long it lasts...

That brings me to another idea.. each oil well should hold a limited oil supply and you can decide via improvements how long it lasts...
Well, I've suggested the idea of a "proven reserve" earlier in this thread.

Jouda: Actually one problem of this model, and what OPEC faces (according at least to the sources I read), is that oil has become a fungible commodity and that because of world markets it's no longer possible to cut nations off from oil, just make oil more expensive for everyone. In that respect, the idea of oil as a component of your economy may best be abstracted back into Gold/Money.

... which leads me to the idea that there could be another slider sometime in industrial times in which you can redirect all your money not into research or culture but rather production. An idea like this was briefly floated in the Catapult thread.

... which is to say that perhaps restricting this mod to unit supply is even more realistic, after all!

Wait, that actually gives me a brilliant and completely unrelated idea. Once you hit industrial times (i'd say it should come with "Corporation" tech) you get the additional option of buying and selling resources on the open market instead of through direct deals.

It should be noted that this is intended as a major overhaul. Already I have implemented the main function for the above oil using units. Now it only details left, ie. how the algorithm for resupplying units should work (okay it is not details, but when this is finished, it will be close to functioning)


If you are finished then wouldn't it be "fully functioning"

Wait, that actually gives me a brilliant and completely unrelated idea. Once you hit industrial times (i'd say it should come with "Corporation" tech) you get the additional option of buying and selling resources on the open market instead of through direct deals.

Great idea! The in-game bilateral deals just suck.

I like this idea in general but think you can go one step further by adding a resource/supply component to units in pre-modern ages. Napoleon Bonaparte stated that an “army marches on its stomach”. I think you can easily simulate that with your Fuel Reserve system. Instead of fuel (you call it oil but I prefer the term fuel) you have food stores.

If you use the food store some units namely the Scout and Explorer would have to be tweaked. To do this I would add new promotions. Units with the promotion "Self-Sufficient I" do not need to be supplied. Self-Sufficient II allows the Scout and Explorer to supply food for one non-mechanized unit in that stack.

I also as your 1st post states think you need some kind of line of supply or supply transport network.

-NetNomad

Each unit have a oil capacity and an OilCostPerMovementPoint.
Each movement point costs OilCostPerMovementPoint which is deducted from its oil capacity.
Each turn every unit which needs oil will automatically get oil, which will be added to the oil capacity of the unit. Depending on various factors, such as the distance from the borders of the units owner, in enemy territory etc., the amount which will be added vary.
If a unit runs out of oil, because of the owner runs about of oil in the oil treasury or the unit get so deep into enemy territory that the amount it get is 0, the units will only be able to move 1 point at a time, and the units combat score is reduced to half.

Unit capacity could also be used to reflect how far ships can sail out of ports into the unkwown, thus limiting exploration. The capacity could increase as your technology progresses. :goodjob:

I think it would be smarter to take baby steps. Absolute realism is a nice goal, but it might not be fun, and might take way more effort to balance for gameplay than it's worth.

The best way to simulate resource scarcity, IMO, is to allow each resource of oil to support X number of units/buildings. Kind of like how farms in a game like warcraft don't generate food, but give you the ability to support X additional units.

It might not have the ideal amount of realism, but it wouldn't lead to excessive amounts of micromanagement (hmm, how can I save just 6 more oil points?), and wouldn't require a serious overhaul of the AI (what the heck is an oil treasury?) or the game balance.

You see, not to be biased, but that is why I like my system so much. It balances Real with Abstract-whilst at the same time not forcing players to become accountants (so long as the interface is user-friendly enough). Just a quick check of a 'Resources' Screen and you can see what Resources you have and don't have-and which of them are scarce or abundant. A similar mechanism could be used for what resources a foreign power has-both how much and how abundant.
Now, all I have to figure out is how to code it!!!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

I really like this idea when it comes to supply lines :
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=166898

Aussie, I replied off the first page of the thread and missed your suggestion. Reading it over, I like some aspects of it -- like the fact that not all resource tiles are created equal. But when you start playing with percentages and fuzzy math, you start to get into unneeded complexity, IMO. (Especially in the case of a % chance of a resource disappearing, players absolutely HATE that kind of risk -- I know we can't stop people from reloading their game after every little thing, but if someone's oil spontaneously dried up you can damn well bet they'd reload until their luck turned around.)

I once read that the game of Civilization is a series of simple systems that interact to make a complex game. Food is simple: tiles generate food, once you hit a threshold you grow. Research is simple: trade is generated in cities, some of which is converted to beakers, and once you hit a threshold you discover a new tech. These are things you can sum up in one or two LINES, forget paragraphs. This makes them extremely easy to implement, and understand, and make game balance less cumbersome (which can take months for one small thing, trust me).

There are few games that show any flair for simplification. 'Sid Meier’s Civilization' is one; Sid was so brutal in his simplification of history that I sometimes wince at the game's inaccuracies. Yet the result of Sid's design parsimony was one of the greatest computer games of all time. A lesser designer would have succumbed to the temptation to pile it on.

I think straight up hard limits would be better. You DO get this two line summary: each resource tile increases the number of units and buildings you can maintain at that time.

E.G.: I have one tile of iron which increases my Iron Capacity to 20. A swordsman requires 1 iron, meaning that you can support 20 Swordsmen. I have an oil tile that increases my Oil Capacity to 25. Tankers require 1 oil. ... but there's no reason you couldn't extend this to factories (factories require oil), or even population in the modern era (2 cars for 4 people!). It all depends on the gameplay you want to create.

In that sense, it's like 'gold upkeep', except the 'per turn' is implicit. It's extremely easy to implement and understand, and way more balancable without too many complex hidden equations. It's pretty much one line of code! (One line per resource, I suppose...)

You can still have stuff like an open market for your surplus, and it would be much easier to implement too. If I'm running the free market civic, and I'm using only 20 out of 25 of my Oil Capacity, the last 5 would be available for purchase at a rate automatically determined by the total global surplus. (Definitely not under Mercantilism. State Property -- well, you would have manual control over who you sell to. And this could finally make for an interesting environmentalism civic -- "resources are twice as efficient" for example.)

Aussie, I replied off the first page of the thread and missed your suggestion. Reading it over, I like some aspects of it -- like the fact that not all resource tiles are created equal. But when you start playing with percentages and fuzzy math, you start to get into unneeded complexity, IMO. (Especially in the case of a % chance of a resource disappearing, players absolutely HATE that kind of risk -- I know we can't stop people from reloading their game after every little thing, but if someone's oil spontaneously dried up you can damn well bet they'd reload until their luck turned around.)

I once read that the game of Civilization is a series of simple systems that interact to make a complex game. Food is simple: tiles generate food, once you hit a threshold you grow. Research is simple: trade is generated in cities, some of which is converted to beakers, and once you hit a threshold you discover a new tech. These are things you can sum up in one or two LINES, forget paragraphs. This makes them extremely easy to implement, and understand, and make game balance less cumbersome (which can take months for one small thing, trust me).
(Where did the OP go?)

It's for this reason that I posited Oil as a 4th resource -- transparency and all that. Each Oil bonus would have a number attached to it, and the improvement you build draws against that number until you run out. The "reserve" amount would also be knowable. Not too different from your proposal, really, except that between "Yield" and "Resource." Mechanically it'd amount to the same result.

Is a 4th yield desirable or helpful? Probably not. Personally I think the unit support via gold is good enough, and I've suggested here and elsewhere that the least complex thing that could be done quite simply would be to increase upkeep costs for units that are stationed in enemy or occupied (rioting) territories.

Actually DH_Epic, I was only putting the % chance of disappearing thing there as an 'option'-I personally don't support that anymore myself. Instead I am all for 'resource scarcity'. No real fuzzy maths-just X units of a resource can support X+Y cities and units. If you exceed this limit, then you can have 1 of 2 things happen-either your costs start to increase (i.e. you get a flat multiplication of your Inflation) or the resources themselves become less efficient (make fewer cities happy/healthy, increased build times etc). To me, this isn't very complicated-especially if you have an easy to read interface which tells you IF a resource is abundant or scarce AND the degree of abundance/scarcity.

Aussie_Lurker.

Padmewan, I've always been wary of having resource treasuries. Having to measure an additional 9 strategic resources that all behave like gold would not just be a nightmare to play for the player, but a nightmare to balance. Moreover, you'd have to ask yourself what kind of gameplay you're trying to create. At the end of the day, if there are 9 resources treasuries, you're going to reward the player for micromanaging and microcalculating so they stay roughly around the zero mark... plus the nightmares involved in some kind of international trade mechanism on top of that -- having to decide how much to put on the open market and so on.

I know you're responding to the original poster... so pardon me if I'm being presumptuous that you're supporting a 'treasury'.

Having it work as capacity (like farms in warcraft) would be simpler. No pools means no microcalculation. A resource tile can support X+Y cities and units, and if you exceed that -- well, there are many ways to handle that.

Capacity, not treasury. My new slogan.

I like where Aussie has gone. (Aussie, I'm glad you've dropped the % chance of disappearance). Flat multiplication of your inflation sounds a little obscure and confusing -- probably because I know very little economic theory. Much more appealing, to me, would be a flat multiplication of your building times. Kind of like wonders -- with a resource you can build it at a certain speed, but without it you build it much more slowly.

Hi DH_Epic. The Inflation I was referring to was that the one in your economics screen. My original point was that at the moment Inflation (in-game) is such a 'Black-Box' concept, so why not go in and reconstruct it to make it more transparent. Have inflation be a based on fixed factors like Income, Population and Techs-then have resource scarcity (and abundance for that matter) drive your base inflation rate up or down. As Inflation already alters the costs of unit and city maintainance, then having resource scarcity will clearly-though indirectly-increase the cost of your nation.
Hope that made more sense.

Aussie_Lurker.

Nice idea :)
I think it should be made like this:
* supply and demand
* Units have a base oil cost which is deducted from the “oil treasury” each turn and also when moving (combination)
* If you run out of oil (oil capacity) they just be unable to move… etc.
* Resources should be discovered more offten (not every bonuses should appear after discovering scientific methods, some could be discovered randomly - similliar to discover bonuses after building mines) and should be exhausted after longer term of using them)
* Oil should be also used by civilians (in way you discribed it)
* You can make:
- some technologies (adding or changing): Advanced chemistry (giving possibility to build rafineries, installations changing carbon into oil, producing chemical warfare? and giving some bonus to the food production), and Ecology (new option added - decrease demand of oil and some other resources ;)
- national wonder : rafineries (increases production of oil by 25%) and installations changing carbon into oil (50 coal units will be changed into 25 units oil)

It would be much more realistic than option in game :) nad many mods should have implemented that :)

good luck

Aussie,

Truthfully, I don't understand the current mechanism for inflation either. Truth be told, as long as you didn't do any worse than the current mechanism, having scarcity affect your inflation rate would work. I'm a slightly bigger fan of the building times, though.

More than anything: capacity, not treasury.

does the entire oil supply get used up, then what no moore oil on planet?!?!? not fun as all other resources will get depleted..and in 3000 C.E. archer vs. warriors
then more number oil and other resources will be needed and then less room for other improvements as map is entirely covered with resources

maybe there should be a certain amount of extraction 10 units of oil every 5 turns or something? this can be stored but the resource provides unlimited amount of oil and then you can trade AI certain amounts of oil but every resource provides unlimited amount but a certain amount every few turns.

i think ithis is easier and is effective enough then haaving resources randomly spawn...

two oil resources provide more. 20 units or whatever

This is exactly why I DON'T support an outright resource depletion system. The idea is that, when the oil 'runs out', you WILL be able to find other sources of fuel-they will just be much more expensive. By tying resource scarcity to the in-game inflation system, then this fact can be reflected through increased unit costs. Hope that makes sense.

Aussie_Lurker

oh i get it thats what this discussion was about inflation... i didnt exacly read through all of it....:rolleyes:

does the entire oil supply get used up, then what no moore oil on planet?!?!? not fun as all other resources will get depleted..and in 3000 C.E. archer vs. warriors
then more number oil and other resources will be needed and then less room for other improvements as map is entirely covered with resources

maybe there should be a certain amount of extraction 10 units of oil every 5 turns or something? this can be stored but the resource provides unlimited amount of oil and then you can trade AI certain amounts of oil but every resource provides unlimited amount but a certain amount every few turns.

i think ithis is easier and is effective enough then haaving resources randomly spawn...

two oil resources provide more. 20 units or whatever

There are many solutions to the situation when resources are depleted. What i have in mind is adding a new technology - "Energy storage". This tech would enable building of "Battery cell factory" which would provide you with "battery cell" resource which could be used instead of oil, coal, whatever.

Another option, which seems to be what has happened throughout modern oil history, is that when one source is depleted, a new one appears. Heightened demand drives up prices, leading to previously non-viable sources suddenly becoming viable (with new tech, which we can abstract away). Of course, at some point of the oil is REALLY gone, but don't tell W. that.

Another option, which seems to be what has happened throughout modern oil history, is that when one source is depleted, a new one appears. Heightened demand drives up prices, leading to previously non-viable sources suddenly becoming viable (with new tech, which we can abstract away). Of course, at some point of the oil is REALLY gone, but don't tell W. that.
(bold & italics added)
Then why not abstract away the whole thing and leave it as it is? All you've added is additional detail without changing the game.

Then why not abstract away the whole thing and leave it as it is? All you've added is additional detail without changing the game.
Heh... just responding to the OP. :D

One reason to have resources disappear and reappear -- not randomly but at a knowable time (at least on in the case of disappearance) -- is that it gives more dynamism to the game map and has some correlation to our historical experience. If Saudi Arabia's oil reserves tap out, then Canada's oil sands become relevant, not because they were suddenly "discovered," but because they are now worth pursuing. This inevitably has an impact on the balance of power among nations.

The BIGGEST problem you guys face with this type of system is not how to implement it, not how to do supply, etc, but quite simply how does a civ that doesn't have an oil resource get it? Can't fight for it, cuz your army will stink without oil.

I think a resouce supply/demand system is too complex a system for Civ. Go play Victoria if you want that.

All I want to see is cartels and > 2-party trade deals.

Dale

Which is why I support my scarcity system so strongly. i.e. greater resources=greater efficiency and vice versa. This way being short of a resource won't be the be-all and end-all, but having more will always be better than having less.

Aussie_Lurker.

Reminds me of my NoResorceScrewage xml based Mod, I doubled the cost of everything that requires a Bonus and changed the Bonus requirement to a 100% ProductionModifier when you have the Bonus. Net effect is you pay double when you dont have a resorce but you can always build any Unit.

OK heres my 2 cents,this is going to be vast so i'll break it down.
resorces-this should be a simlpe shield set up tiles would read 10 shields ,20 shields ,30 shields all variable but in incraments of ten to keep it simple, these are raw goods,oil ,grain,silk,etc.. and finshed goods ,food, armor,ammo,cloth etc..there are 3 basic types of these resorce/shields.
1-growth.should include high capacity grain ex-wheat.low copacity grain. ex-corn .high cappacity meat, ex-cows ,wild meats-game,low capacity fish-exe-crab,medium capacity fish exe-shellfish,domesticated fish exe-fish
2production-should be broken down into 3 catagorys-building material,ie clay,stone,hard wood,steel and aluminium.building capacity,this should be population shields and beast of burden shields.ie horses and cow.supply shields,food ,iron,oil,coal and uranium.
3luxurie this is the simplest of all.
how to collect these resorces is this,everything should be in shield form including population, say 10 shields for every population ,these shields along with beast of burden shields carry out the grunt work for the civ,building improvements, collecting resorces, building , supplieing millitary and so on .In collecting of resorces every resorce shield should require a population shield or beast of burden to collect it ,this could be an automatic thing in much the same way it is now,but the shields are neccesary( i'll explain down the road). To increase the amoant of a resorce that is being collected you should have improvements that you can continue to add to each improvemaent adding a 10% increase in collection.ex-A tile outside of city A has 10 shields of iron .you would have to allocate 10 population shields to harvest all 10 shileds ,now you add a mine .the amount of required population shields to collect the iron decrease to 9 .add another mine and it decreases again to 8 and so on.of course to make it ballanced your going to have to have a maintanance cost on every improvement,thats the job of cottages and towns.

to move the resorces the road network and trade needs to change.first i think that you should have more than just a road that connects to be able to collect that resorce,there should be stages of road ,each increasing the amount of resorce that can be moved.back to city A: your collecting 10 shields of iron from your iron tile and the city is connected by a levl 1 road (each level should be able to move 10 shields per turn)city A also has 2 other iron tiles ,each with 10 shields .they are also connected to the city with a level one road. now you have 30 iron shields in city A.to move these shields in total to your capitol would require a level 3 ( for 30 shields) road.obviosly to be able to trade with other nations, is going to require building up of a road network or trade network..to handle trade on coastal cities, ports should handle this and should be treated as the same as roads .each port you build in a city increases your export/import capacity by 10,there is a point i want to make about supply on this but later.
how to use the resorces-first of all tiles that dont have resorces should have 3 basic shields :clay for grassland and plains, hard woods for forest/jungle and stone for hills .All improvements should require a raw good and a prodution amount (raw goods would be building matreial shields and production would be population shields)ex. a foundry should require 5 stone shields or 5 hard wood shields and 15 production shields. outside of building basic millitary,science,and gold, all improvemnts should be for increasing the capacity of shields.ex.city A has 30 iron in the city ,build a foundry and now you icrease your capacity by 50% ,now CityA is producing 45 shields of iron.
back to building the foundry,you have 3 population in your city(30 shields)cityB is collecting 20 stone and is connected to the capitol by level 2 road. that means you have accass to 20 stone in city A(every resorce should use the road indapently ,all resorces go into a general slush fund and roads are the limits on how much a city can import/ export)each iron tile has 3 mines on it (keep in mind that every improvement decreases your population needs by 10%) which would only require 7 of the 10 population shields to collect the resorce ,meaning there are 3 population shields left over on each tile .those shields go back to the city and become your production shields or hammers as we know them in civ 4,meaning that the 9 production shields(3 from each mine) will take 2 turns to build the foundry that requires 15 shields ,with 3 shields left over for the next turn.
for units this should require x amount of population shields and x amount of building material shields. Most units should have a supply shiled attached to them and used every turn ex. legions should have a food shield that they need to be supplied with that is automaticly taken out of the slush at the begining of the turn,rather than stopping the unit if supply is cut it should have collateral damage applied to it every turn. some units having higher % of collateral than others.units that run on fuel should have the highest% ,while foot units the lowest.the amount that that can be supplied depends on the road the unit it is traveling on ,a level 1 road can supply up to 10 shields,because units that require fuel along with food will require more supply shields ,you wont be able to move large amounts of armor in enemy terratory unless thier trade network is built up .as for navy ,your ports should determine when your navy is out of supply ,this should aslo work for trade,each port level should grant one tile of supply . in other words a level 3 port would mean that your gally can move 3 tiles out from the city before it begins to recieve collateral damage .as for trade it should be 3 tiles for every level of the port.this is the base level and as techs increase the amaont of tiles for port level would increase.


I have much more than this but ill put this out for now.

ok i missed a couple of things mostly growth shields.
in general, grasslands ,plains and hills should have 1 food shield respectavly,farms and techs would increase this of course but for the most part they are low yeild. flood plains would have 2 shields,untill cultivation .This tech would allow the first civ and only the first to see the wheat resorce, once you begin to farm wheat you can use a wheat shield to grow new fields ex. civA researches cultivation and has a wheat icon pop up in one of thiere tiles ,with a shield of ten,they place ten pop shields to harvest. ten shields of wheat go to the city,they take one shield of wheat and place it on a empty flood plain tile and another wheat icon pops up in that tile ,this should be ten shields no matter what .that civ can also trades the wheat shield to other civs and the wheat shield should also act like religion in that it would naturally grow to their civs along trade routes,now to grow beasts of burden would require grain shields,if you discover domestication and you can grow wheat ,you should be able to take a horse shield and a wheat shield to create new horse resorces in an empty tile
live stock shields should also break down like this ;horse shields should be used for millitary,and production.cows should break down to food and production. you should be able to "grow"cows and horses in any terrain.pigs are only for food,sheep are for luxery and food. pigs can grow only in plains and grassland ,sheep in hill tiles.
corn,rice and wheat would have also have limmits on where they can be grown.

as i said all improvements outside of science and gold are for improving your collection amount or turning raw goods into finished product.
In building of units,simple defensives units should be able to build inside your city but offensive units should require something eles,military bases either army,navy or airforse. these should function similer to cities but you can only build units in them.resorces neccesary for the building of units should be allocated here,in your cities you should be building the capacity for millitary might but not the millitary. this would not include ancient times but i think once you get to the bronze age it should come into play.to make a legion would require a weapons factory improvement. in city A this factory takes x amount of iron shields and turns that into x amount of weapons ,these shields go into a slush fund that incompases your intire empire, and when you go to your army base it gives you options to build units depending on what shields you have available in the fund .these shields can be traded to other civs.ie the iran contra affair.

Hehe. Reminds me of the idea I had to always make oil appear in the 'minor civilizations', so the major civilizations have to figure out how to feed their dependency. Diplomacy? War? It would definitely add some excitement to the modern era. :)

Hehe. Reminds me of the idea I had to always make oil appear in the 'minor civilizations', so the major civilizations have to figure out how to feed their dependency. Diplomacy? War? It would definitely add some excitement to the modern era. :)

By minor civilizations do you mean that in game terms? Because if so, there's no way to negotiate with the minor civs since they're just barbarian cities.

On the other hand, if you mean: could there be a way to ensure that smaller, weaker civs get the majority of the oil... it could theoretically be possible to mod that.

Yeah, this was more of a pie in the sky idea, assuming that there would be more minor factions to provide diplomatic flavor to the game.

I posted on a nother string about minor nations,make certain resorces neccesary for techs A good example would be needing wheet for agriculture tech in this way withuot certain techs the growth of empires would be stemed and relate this to whats up top and allocate oil into desert and tundra both lacking in food and you can see how minor civs could possbly controle stratigic resorces.

Is this mod component ready?

this has been a dead string for a while ,dont worry somebody eles picked it uphttp://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=172182

Excuse me, back on page two of this thread did somebody say you could use the SDK to add a fourth yield? It would be a really nice mod component if somebody could make something that could do just that, and leave it so we can make up all about this yield in XML. So you can use fourth yield functionality without knowing SDK. I need this for my sci fi mod.

It can be done, but what would you do with this fourth yield outside of the SDK? Plus I'm also concerned about the extra memory it consumes - arrays of length NUM_YIELD_TYPES are all over the SDK. Nevertheless if you want this the code is in CvEnums.h and CyEnumsInterface.cpp. I've tried doing this but it screwed up all of the icons in the game - the symbol for science became aluminium, etc. so you'd have to work that one out for yourself.

Thanks anyway. What I needed it for was to represent an alternate kind of food, as for aliens or robots that don't eat the same kind of food that people do. I guess that will just have to wait for a 3.0 version of my mod. (1.0 will be XML based, 2.0 will be python based, etc...as a I learn). In the meantime food will just represent power (which is much more local to a city than food is in a post modern world anyway) and anything involving humans will simply require a food "bonus."

Why not have hidden techs or buildings that increase/decrease food yield from certain tiles?

Intresting discussion. I will probably implement some in my Resource Construction Mod