I started thinking of extra resources because of a little pet hate of mine (Camel Archers being built with the horse resource.) and I was just wondering if it was worth considering.

Suggestions for making the best mod even better:

Camel Resource: To build a new unit (camels obviously) and Camel Archers. Camels could be a anti-cavalry unit for civilisations lacking copper or Iron. They would be fairly weak but with a good retreat chance, so they be used for harrasing units guerilla style.


Tin: Civs would now need tin and copper to build later military units. (For those that dont know tin and copper are both required to make bronze.)

(Getting sidetracked here but I just want to squeeze this idea in.)
Also combat units have different combat strenths based on what metals they were built with eg: Axeman built with Copper 5, Axeman built with Iron 5 1/2
ect.


Salt: Avaliable around Arabia, essentially another luxury resource. (It would also make the Arabs starting tiles a bit less useless.)


Wood: (Dont laugh yet, I let me finish first.) Cities would need at least one forested tile to build Archer, Early Boat and Seige units.
(Remember that the Incas, Egypt and Babylon do have at least a few plots nearby their spawn points.)


Changed oil rules: Instead of oil running out which has been suggested before, each oil plot would only be able to support a certain number of oil dependant units. Thus making Americas goal relevant and making lethal squabbles over oil more frequent.

Changed Uranium stats: Uranium now causes 1 Unhealthyness. Perhaps certain other resources might also have minor negative effects as well.


Some map niggles I have: There is almost no snow in Scandinavia (As well as for realism the plots are way to good up in the far north.

Ive never played FFH but doesnt it have some sort of weather system? I dont want anything overblown like weather patterns, but a winter/summer system would be interesting in europe
(eg: sudden drop in tile productivity at critical moment, Russia and Germany bracing themselves for winter in 5 turns).
Not sure if it would cause a lot of lag though.

Also in the Amazon why oh why cant the marshes have jungles on top of them?- does this annoy anyone else?

Well I,l just wait now and see how people respond to this.

Crap, I misspelled to the main title. ^%^&$%#$&#!

I started thinking of extra resources because of a little pet hate of mine (Camel Archers being built with the horse resource.) and I was just wondering if it was worth considering.

Suggestions for making the best mod even better:

Camel Resource: To build a new unit (camels obviously) and Camel Archers. Camels could be a anti-cavalry unit for civilisations lacking copper or Iron. They would be fairly weak but with a good retreat chance, so they be used for harrasing units guerilla style.

I don't think a new unit is needed. Having camels as an "alternate" horse resource might be interesting, with UUs specifically requiring the appropriate type. However, I don't find this to be especially appealing, even more so as the camel archer isn't even really historical. The moslems used horses, just like everyone else, and there are and were horses in the middle east. Has no one heard of Arabian Horses - its an actual breed of horse. I think having a knight UU is appropriate, but i'd really rather see something renamed based on historical units than something ridiculous. (Camels were used in N. Africa and the middle east by bedouins and similar peoples, but never as archers. Or at least not that i'm aware. Instead, they used swords before the industrial/modern era - wood was too rare to use for arrows, and materials for bows wouldn't survive nomadic desert conditions for long periods of time). The medieval islamic state was famous for using armored horse archers against the crusaders who were also armed for melee combat with scimitars or (the thing i'm forgetting its actual name but could be referred to as a "draw" sword).


Tin: Civs would now need tin and copper to build later military units. (For those that dont know tin and copper are both required to make bronze.)

Tin is sufficiently common that there's no need for a strategic resource. Everyone has it, basically.


(Getting sidetracked here but I just want to squeeze this idea in.)
Also combat units have different combat strenths based on what metals they were built with eg: Axeman built with Copper 5, Axeman built with Iron 5 1/2
ect.

Eh. This just horribly hoses some civs more than others.


Salt: Avaliable around Arabia, essentially another luxury resource. (It would also make the Arabs starting tiles a bit less useless.)

This would have to be one of those things that went obsolete around Industrialism, which introduced industrial salt-harvesting techniques. Actually, probably with chemistry. Also, salt should be available in Utah (Great Salt Lake?), and likely a few other places I'm not thinking of offhand.


Wood: (Dont laugh yet, I let me finish first.) Cities would need at least one forested tile to build Archer, Early Boat and Seige units.
(Remember that the Incas, Egypt and Babylon do have at least a few plots nearby their spawn points.)

Ew.


Changed oil rules: Instead of oil running out which has been suggested before, each oil plot would only be able to support a certain number of oil dependant units. Thus making Americas goal relevant and making lethal squabbles over oil more frequent.

I agree something should be done to make oil squabbled over more. I'm not sure this is it.


Changed Uranium stats: Uranium now causes 1 Unhealthyness. Perhaps certain other resources might also have minor negative effects as well.

Um... why? Unhealthiness from nuclear power is caused by meltdowns at present, which accurately represents the situation. A well-maintained reactor causes no pollution and has little waste (especially newer breeder reactors). Chernobyl was caused by poor maintenance and no oversight, not because nuclear power plants inherently pollute. And the effect of small exposure from the presence of fissible materials is totally negligible. With the exception of Radon, no one has gotten radioactive poisoning from naturally occurring materials in natural densities.


Some map niggles I have: There is almost no snow in Scandinavia (As well as for realism the plots are way to good up in the far north.

Ive never played FFH but doesnt it have some sort of weather system? I dont want anything overblown like weather patterns, but a winter/summer system would be interesting in europe
(eg: sudden drop in tile productivity at critical moment, Russia and Germany bracing themselves for winter in 5 turns).
Not sure if it would cause a lot of lag though.

Also in the Amazon why oh why cant the marshes have jungles on top of them?- does this annoy anyone else?

Well I,l just wait now and see how people respond to this.

Eh, really most of them should be floodplains with jungle on them, not marshes. Its just no one has gotten around to clearing them in the real world. (And in fact, there's a lot of opposition to anything even resembling clearing them, for ecological reasons).

There is a MOD out there that gives a bonus to units if civs have copper or iron. Historicly this is correct. The jews didn't have iron working jet when the Filistians did. An iron wapon can cut a bronze one in two like a knife does with butter, but it might upset the balance in the game to much. Copper was also used in combination with other metals, so, don't add tin.

About the camels: camel archer don't need horses. So, no camels please.

about the salt: this is the most important recource ever in human history. Before refrigeration it provided us with a way to preserve food. But bringing it in civ will be hard. You can get salt form land and sea. I saw a MOD once that had salt and it gave +10% food to your cities.

The oil idea is real nice. In CIV III oil disappeared a lot in the game. But the same thing aplies to copper and iron. Currently the copper prices are very high. Because of the great economical expansion of China, metals are very wanted on the market. If you want a lot of railroads, new buiding and factories you are gonna need a lot of building materials and iron is one of them. Bigger populations mean more recources are needed. So, you'll need to aply these ideas an all recources.

Tabacco would be nice to add too.

Camels are okay. Ummmmm........ duh! Have what they so called "common sense"! Tell me if a horse and a camel are alike and I hope your answer yes because if no........ I'll provide you a picture of it.

Coffee is nice too.

Yeah Tobbaco would make the Carribean much more strategicly important with more squabbles as in real life.

About Salt going obselete I believe there are many other resources that become practically obselete by industrial times eg: Iron, Copper, Dye. Besides the AI Arabs need a boost.

About the Mayan UP what about changing it too- The Power of Chimpanas Swamps can be improved with farms, Jungles do not cause unhealthiness. But i guess it makes the UHV impossible.

Also with Ethiopia there were no European colonies in east and subequatorial africa until at least the 1800s which makes UHV rather silly doesnt it?

Well anyway thanks for the feedback.

The name of the resource will come first, with the improvement required in parentheses. resources that can only be grown in a certain region will have the region in brackets.

Coffee (plantation)
Tobacco (plantation)
Barely (winery)
Natural Gas (well/ocean platform)
Tea (plantation)
Potatoes (farm)
Cocoa (plantation)
Citrus (plantation) [tropical]
Pineapple (plantation) [tropical]
Fruit (plantation) [temperate]
Nuts (farm)
Beans (plantation)
Cotton (plantation)
Olive (plantation) [temperate shore]
Petroleum - renamed oil
Poultry (pasture)
Honey (plantation)
Hemp (plantation)
Sulfur (mine)
Granite (mine)
Limestone (mine)
Salt (mine)

for terrain. not many suggestions.
Plateau - higher than a hill, flat like a plain, barren like a desert, and located near a large mountain range (i.e. Tibet, Ozark, etc.)
Depression - an abnormally lowered area of land that is not covered with water, not always a desert. (i.e. Mohave, Gobi, etc.)
Volcanic - normally mountainous or hilly regions, occassionally erupting, killing most forests and adding more land. it can change the landscape from ice to tundra, or from desert to plain
Rifts - mountainous regions that have plains and lakes in them.

Now all there is do is just wait for Rhyes response.

Camels were used in warfare during the classical and medieval eras. They were an effective fighting force against enemies that used horses, because camels scared horses and quickly spread fear through enemy ranks.

moslems used horses, just like everyone else, and there are and were horses in the middle east.
And in game they use horses as well. They made extensive use of camels alongside horses. Heck, the British had a Camel Corps created during WWI, and you can't say they didn't have horses, camels were just plain superior for long distance travels in the desert. And camel archers were just as common as horse archers. The mount doesn't matter all that much, if you can fire an arrow from a horse, it is not that much of a strecth to fire from a camel (though actually riding one may be different, I don't know). And the Arabs probably used camels more extensively than any other civ in the game, for all purposes.

As for your arguement about archers: if the arabs couldn't use camel archers due to not having wood and bows that deteriorated to quickly.....how were foot and horse archers any more viable, which you say they were famous for using?

Salt, I agree would be great to have somehow, due to its immense importance throughout history. It could boost happiness (it was often a luxury), health or food (better preserved food), or commerce (cities were built entirely to trade salt). With its importance up unitl the modern age, it would be nice to see, but not that important.

Ok what the stats be (Camels) lets hear some suggestions.

And in game they use horses as well. They made extensive use of camels alongside horses. Heck, the British had a Camel Corps created during WWI, and you can't say they didn't have horses, camels were just plain superior for long distance travels in the desert. And camel archers were just as common as horse archers. The mount doesn't matter all that much, if you can fire an arrow from a horse, it is not that much of a strecth to fire from a camel (though actually riding one may be different, I don't know). And the Arabs probably used camels more extensively than any other civ in the game, for all purposes.

As for your arguement about archers: if the arabs couldn't use camel archers due to not having wood and bows that deteriorated to quickly.....how were foot and horse archers any more viable, which you say they were famous for using?

There's regional differentiation here. Camels were common on the arabian peninsula and in North Africa as mounts, but not in the middle east. Camels were not fielded in large numbers, and possibly not at all, during the crusades (the wars which made the arabian horse archers famous). Further, camels are great mounts in sandy deserts (like the Sahara), but much worse than horses on most other terrain in terms of mobility and speed.

Something else that bears mentioning is bow technology, which was far more advanced in the east than it was in europe. Typically, sinew was used to provide power, which allowed for a far more compact bow (thus allowing it to be fired from horseback - there are reasons europe had no horse archers) and a more accurate bow. However, this same technology made it extremely susceptible to dessication, which meant it saw little use on the arabian peninsula itself, nor in N. Africa, but it saw extensive use in mesopotamia.

Something else to remember is that "Arabia" (by which i mean the islamic religious "empire") was not historically unified for long periods of time. N. Africa west of Egypt was often under tribal control, and while nominally "ruled" by the Caliph the real situation was more one of religious respect. The Caliph couldn't collect taxes from them, couldn't enforce laws amongst them, but as they were both islamic the tribes generally paid respect to visiting emissaries and often worked as mercenaries. However, they developed a distinct military system based on camel heavy cavalry, not light cavalry. The preferred ranged weapon before the rifle was introduced (much later) was probably the sling, although i can't swear to that. Similarly, the nomadic tribes of the arabian peninsula were probably in a similar relationship with cities under direct command of the Caliph, though my knowledge there is far from perfect.

Basically, in an "empire" the size islam achieved, expecting a uniformity of military practice and equipment is setting oneself up for disappointment. Especially since the environmental extremes traversed by this empire were gigantic - from the Sahara to SE Asia - different military equipment was used as was suitable to the environments at hand.

There is a MOD out there that gives a bonus to units if civs have copper or iron. Historicly this is correct. The jews didn't have iron working jet when the Filistians did. An iron wapon can cut a bronze one in two like a knife does with butter, but it might upset the balance in the game to much. Copper was also used in combination with other metals, so, don't add tin.
.

Bronze weapons ar much harder and stronger then iron weapons. (at least in the iron age) the switch to iron weapons was made, not because iron weapons where better, but because it was more available and easier to work. while copper was getting scarcer and more difficult to obtain.

^^^^
Cast iron is stronger then bronze, it is a form of steel (iron carbon alloy)
Wrought iron is indeed weaker than bronze, but a blacksmith could make the cast iron. This technology as found in the early iron age.

The name of the resource will come first, with the improvement required in parentheses. resources that can only be grown in a certain region will have the region in brackets.

Coffee (plantation)
Tobacco (plantation)
Barely (winery)
Natural Gas (well/ocean platform)
Tea (plantation)
Potatoes (farm)
Cocoa (plantation)
Citrus (plantation) [tropical]
Pineapple (plantation) [tropical]
Fruit (plantation) [temperate]
Nuts (farm)
Beans (plantation)
Cotton (plantation)
Olive (plantation) [temperate shore]
Petroleum - renamed oil
Poultry (pasture)
Honey (plantation)
Hemp (plantation)
Sulfur (mine)
Granite (mine)
Limestone (mine)
Salt (mine)


I think to much recources would realy mess up the gamepaly. Some recources could be used as a bonus recource like in civ III. They could give extra food, hammers or gold on the map but don't give hapiness or health and cant be traded (Potatoes (food), olives(food) ,beans(food), natural gas(hammers and gold) honey (gold), granite(hammers) and limestone(hammers) could be a nice example for that)

The name of the resource will come first, with the improvement required in parentheses. resources that can only be grown in a certain region will have the region in brackets.

Coffee (plantation)
Tobacco (plantation)
Barely (winery)
Natural Gas (well/ocean platform)
Tea (plantation)
Potatoes (farm)
Cocoa (plantation)
Citrus (plantation) [tropical]
Pineapple (plantation) [tropical]
Fruit (plantation) [temperate]
Nuts (farm)
Beans (plantation)
Cotton (plantation)
Olive (plantation) [temperate shore]
Petroleum - renamed oil
Poultry (pasture)
Honey (plantation)
Hemp (plantation)
Sulfur (mine)
Granite (mine)
Limestone (mine)
Salt (mine)

It won't screw gameplay but instead, it will make it unfair for other players that don't have rhye's mod. If these resources will even be implemented, I think, it's gonna be only on rhye's mod because someone posted here that we'll wait for rhye's response.

My opinion is that firaxis should decide this or if agreed, put it inside the next patch of BTS like in CIV 4, the latest patch has a lot of new maps.

How about chicken? (for eggs) and that cow provide two resources depending on the improvement.
Cow+pasture= cow
Cow+barn= milk
Chicken+barn=eggs

How about opium? It was important enough in RL to fight a war over, anyway.

You have a point but opium is an addictive drug.

Further, camels are great mounts in sandy deserts (like the Sahara), but much worse than horses on most other terrain in terms of mobility and speed.
They were still extremely hardy mounts, and had the advatage of having a bad effect on horses. If they are so useless outside of the deep deserts, how come they have a history of being used throughout the Middle-East, India, and Europe (the Romans even took camels to fight in England)?

As for a specific historic example, I can't give you one of the Arabs, as I generally focus on more modern history, so I can give a more modern one to show their use in the holy land.
The British army used camel troops during their campaigns in Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine (including the assault on Jerusalem itself), though they normally fought dismounted (like the horse cavalry) they were used as mounted troops when the situation presented itself. And the British had enough horses that these units could have been converted to cavalry (and most of them origionally were regular cavalry, and were eventually converted back so it would not be difficult). And I am not even thinking of the Arabs under Lawrence.

I think most of you need to go buy a copy of Civ3, and play some Rhye's of Civ. And those of you who already have need to realize that this is not Civ3.

There is only so much space on the map.

Few if any civs are terribly want for happiness (which is why there aren't all that many wars fought over luxuries).

Some resources, it could be said, are inherently represented in the properties of the tiles. The actual resources are just representations of overabundance, or ideal locations.

The Opium Wars were not fought in order to gain access to opium. Britain was smuggling opium into China, China didn't like that, Britain had military superiority, China became Britain's *vassal*. (basically)

They were still extremely hardy mounts, and had the advatage of having a bad effect on horses. If they are so useless outside of the deep deserts, how come they have a history of being used throughout the Middle-East, India, and Europe (the Romans even took camels to fight in England)?

As for a specific historic example, I can't give you one of the Arabs, as I generally focus on more modern history, so I can give a more modern one to show their use in the holy land.
The British army used camel troops during their campaigns in Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine (including the assault on Jerusalem itself), though they normally fought dismounted (like the horse cavalry) they were used as mounted troops when the situation presented itself. And the British had enough horses that these units could have been converted to cavalry (and most of them origionally were regular cavalry, and were eventually converted back so it would not be difficult). And I am not even thinking of the Arabs under Lawrence.

The first thing to keep in mind is that mesopotamia has been getting drier since the middle ages, meaning that camels were actually better suited to fighting around Jerusalem in 1900 than in 1200. Further, the collapse of the tigris-euphrates irrigation system meant that much of mesopotamia is now desert that wasn't then.

Camels were certainly not a major part of the Roman military effort, as mounted troops in general were neglected by the Romans. At best, they were Roman auxillaries, and even more likely they were hired mercenaries. The strength of the Roman army was its heavy infantry. (This, of course, is the reason they got massacred by the Parthians, who fielded primarily light cavalry).

The wikipaedia article on camel cavalry mentions taking the camels to Britain, but no other reference to the use of camels in Europe is to be found. It also mentions their use in the crusades, but without citations it'll be hard to check their assertion that they were used to great effect. (Having read a couple of well-researched accounts of the crusades in which the impact of camel cavalry was *never* mentioned, i find the assertions in the wikipaedia article hard to believe without citations). The wikipaedia article does specifically mention that modern camel cavalry was fielded to patrol *desert* regions, which is entirely in-line with what I claimed. I can also find no mention of the use of camel cavalry in India (though India does have desert regions in the NW).

A good source on the crusades is Dungeon, Fire, and Sword for a general account of the first crusade through the dissolution of the Knights Templar.

Camels differ from horses. Camels are used by the roman army to scare horses.

Frederick: "Saladin, I'll trade you one camel recource for one iron recource"
Saladin: "Nice!"

This is something I don't want to see, so, no camels please.

You have a point but opium is an addictive drug.

And wine isn't?

Wine is addictive in large doses but in opium, once you get the hang of it, you can't stop yourself.

Frederick: "Saladin, I'll trade you one camel recource for one iron recource"
Saladin: "Nice!"

This is something I don't want to see, so, no camels please.

What the heck? No camel? Camel is fine instead of:

Asoka: "Pacal, you little rascal you, give me your tobacco."
Pacal: "Whatever man, just give me your salt."

This, I don't wanna see.

So you want to see German Camels. I hate it when they got war elephants. Now you want to give me medieval Europian wars with camel archers.

And what's wrong trading tabacco for salt? Salt is a histroical currency (salary is derived from it). It's not stranger then trading sheep for iron.

I just don't want to see camels traded to Europian civs. Medieval wars in Europe had the knight on horse as mounted unit. It's annoying enough to sometimes see elephants.

Of coarse not. The thing is that there must be some camels on the map, near the peninsula of Saudi Arabia.

AI trading camels are unavoidable. Well, this can be a substitute of horse when you're unlucky in Multiplayer.

This is just a game.

i think the map is far too crowded of resources (compared to normal maps) anyway.

Camels would be interesting but require the Arabian UU to be replaced with something else (like in civ3 Rhye's of Civ)

IMO there are far more important resources to worry about than camels.

For instance, copper should be replaced by tin. Copper may be the major componnet of bronze - by weight - but it's not the most important component, which is the much rarer tin. Copper was relatively speaking much more easy to get hold of - the bronze age trading networks were dominated by the need to find tin to alloy it with. That's why the west, and Britain inparticular had such importance to the early Mediterranean. (And we can ditch the silly double speed of the internet with copper while we are at it...)

If you want a new strategic resouce, I suggest a generic "industrial metals", to cover such important things as platinum, manganese, etc. And stick two in South Africa... These would be required for some modern military units (don't need aluminium for anything that doesn't fly - and not even then). Or alternatively, nitrates, which would be required for industrial (but not modern) units. With two in Chile...

IMO, there is no need for dyes to exist in the game, once modern chemistry arrives... they should diassapear, and, if required, be replaced by some other luxury resource (say, tobacco, which could give a negative health :-)), alternatively, not by a luxury recource at all.

Cheers, Luke

Bronze wasn't the only copper alloy used. So let's keep copper. Copper is used alot in electronics too (hence the dubble speed for internet).

I do agree on you dye statement. A lot of chemical concerns got big on chemical dyes (ex. BASF = Bayerischen Soda und Aniline Fabrik, aniline was used to make dyes and soda to fixate them on fabrics ). So when chemistry is discovered it could go obselite like fur and whale. BUT...dyes were very important during the Ancient and Classical time. So you can't get ride of it.

Tabacco was important during the colonial age in America, but as Rhye said, there are already so much recources there. Although I would still like to see it overthere (and in Cuba too)

Tea would be a nice alternative. It doesn't give unhealth. It was traded all over the world (remember the Boston Tea Party). Tea recource could be in India, China, maybe Indonesia(I'm not sure) and maybe later on in some other parts of the world.

Industrial metals as you call them are often catalysts to speed up chemical reactions. They aren't often used to build stuff with them because they are to expensive. The A10-A Thunderbold (a US ground assault plane) has a titanium cocpit to protect the pilotes. But Aluminium is more in use to build aircrafts. Composites can replace them, but other metals will probably not.

Bronze was the only copper alloy used of any importance, especially if you consider arsenic bronzes as "bronze" in addition to the much more usual tin ones (I'm a chemist...). However, arsenic ones were accidental, unlike tin ones. It was tin that was strategic component in the Civ sense. The trade links revolved around tin.

And I think your definition of "build" wrt to metals is very limited. Sure the main structural components of modern aircraft are made (mostly) of aluminium. However, they are not the critical parts (after all, aluminium is extremely cheap and readily available, given enough electricity. The US doesn't lack for it, yet doesn't make anywhere near the top 10 in terms of aluminium sources in the world, so in Civ speak shouldn't have any resources in its territory at all...) Critical materials for moderm aircraft are things like boron and manganese to alloy turbine blades, that sort of thing. And while you don't build things from platinum, platinum is vital in making so many things necessary to build such complicated machines.

Nobody has ever gone to war over an aluminium supply. But look how many people have died in the last decade in the Congo as a consequence of tantalum being in hot demaned for use in mobile phones. And yet most people have never even heard of the element.

Cheers, Luke

I stand corrected (BTW I'm a chemist too), but, in CIV I haven't build a lot of mobile phones, I build armor and planes and supermarkets.
If you should use "industrial metals", I would give it a productionbonus to factories because of catalist (AlCl3, Pt,...) and indeed specialised parts of machinery and better alloys. (My knowlage of metallury isn't very big at the moment, but it will improve soon).
I like the idea of the metals, but not taking away aluminium.

Trees should be treated as a resource because early people use them in every aspect of their life. Maybe having them in your cultural borders will suffice. Tree resource will ran out 15-20 turns later.

Trees should be included in the requirements to build early ships.

Trees should be treated as a resource because early people use them in every aspect of their life. Maybe having them in your cultural borders will suffice. Tree resource will ran out 15-20 turns later.

Trees should be included in the requirements to build early ships.

Trees shouldn't be a resource because they're readily available, unless you happen to be the Easter Island civ (and that's only because they chopped them all). Now, trees suitable for masts are rarer, but by the time that was a problem in Europe it would only be 100-200 years before they'd stop making navies with masted ships anyway.

Not having a forest the size of a civ tile doesn't mean you don't have forests at all, it just means you don't have massive amounts of forest.

How about rubber?

Why didnt I think of that! That should definitely be in.

I think jungle should provide some hammer like forest, but maybe half amount. Also, you should be able to build forest (plant seed, then becomes a new forest 20 turns later) like in civ 3.