Just was looking around the Civ 5 info center at weplayciv (http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2497), when something caught my eye:

Resources are quantifiable now, with each source only providing enough of a resource for a certain number of units

Resources no longer come in infinite quantities, now every source of a resource only provides you with a certain amount of that resource

Though not confirmed yet (according to the top of the article), this seems the most interesting new feature to me, as it's something I've campaigned for extensively in the past.

I wonder if this means that buildings will produce resources as well, so that you can take in iron and make steel for tanks and battleships?

Supplies might become a real issue if "providing enough of a resource for a certain number of units" means that units require resources in maintenance. Tanks stalling from no oil would indeed be an interesting sight.

I was hoping something like this would be developed! It is silly for one source or iron providing enough iron for your entire army and navy.

It is more realistic for every source to maintain, say, 10 units. That would be more logical for sources like oil. Or maybe every source makes it possible for one city to produce units that need that resource at a time. Three sources of iron? Three cities can build axemen or swordsmen simultaniously.

I also like the idea of buildings (or techs) improving this. More effective ways of mining, storage or transport make the resource more profitable.

One thing about corporations I like in Civ 4 is the strategic decision I need to make to trade of a source of gold for money (and relations) while having Mining Co.

I wonder if they mean capacity for support or if they're dealing with depletion.

I would imagine the buildings can produce resources too. They could in civ4, so why take it away? The only question to me is will they be able to provide a resource only locally (to the city they're in), like corporations do in civ4.

I think it is important that the game considers the different rates of consumptions of resources from varied units, a feature a game like Hearts of Iron is very meticulous about. For example, a battleship should consume huge quantities of steel and oil, which means you should be required to have large reserves of iron and oil to build and maintain a navy. This would mean that resources would be much more important, and historical situations, like Germany running out of oil in the late WW2 or Japan having to attack USA because of oil embargo would be plausible Civ-situations as well.

This sounds very interesting! I think this will add a lot of depth to the gaqme. Plus this really ties into the one unit perhex gameplay. With quantifiable resources you will naturally have less units, therefore making it easier for the one unit per hex idea. I also think this will make the game more manageable. Maybe this will make keeping units around longer easier.

In Civ IV I constantly just deleted old units instead of upgrading them (lack of money). I just replaced them by building newer units. Maybe a new resource will allow an upgrade and not cost money, just the time and effort to mine the resource...

I wonder if they mean capacity for support or if they're dealing with depletion.
If they are dealing with depletion that would be great! It would be a great way to flesh out environmentalism, recyclingplants, and infrastructure in general. But as always we will have to wait and see now won't we:mischief:

The depletion idea is awesome also. Recycling could play a great deal into this...

The depletion idea is awesome also. Recycling could play a great deal into this...

Good post, but we heard and understood you the first time... :p

Edit: ah, I was too late... :p

Depletion would be HORRIBLE. Civ3 pretty much proves it. Nothing sucked worse than resources disappearing arbitrarily out of your realm only to pop up in your enemies. It was infuriating.

I hope they use resources in the production of tile improvements and buildings too. This could help solve the age-old roads and rails on every tile syndrome. Making a road requires a considerable investment in material as well as time, and this has never been reflected properly in previous games.

It would also add another level to warfare -- no longer can you just send in dozens of workers after the enemy has made "Sherman neckties" out of your railroads.

I like the idea of providing a limit, it always struck me as annoying that a single oil resource was enough to run your entire army on. Oil is the ultimate strategic resource.

I hope it isn't a maintenance cost or at stockpile, both of those could get complex and confusing. We want something simple and elegant. And no depletion, depletion is Not Fun for the human player, that's why they removed it.

I hope it is just that any unit or building that "requires resource X" counts towards the limit on the number of new ones you can build (or upgrade to).

So, if I have two iron resources that provide 6 iron each, I can build 12 knight units, or 8 knights and 4 heavy footmen. If I have a single coal resource that gives 4 coal, then I can build 4 factories max, to build a factory in a 5th city I need to get more coal (or somehow improve my existing one). Then, other power plants later (eg hydro plant) might remove the need for my factory to consume coal.

This provides great potential for "elite" units that are superior, but have higher resource requirements. Eg: knights might require both iron *and* horses. So with 1 iron and 1 horse you can field 1 light cavalry (hypothetical, needs horses) and 1 heavy footman (hypothetical, needs iron) OR a single knight (needs both). Or with 1 oil and 1 aluminium I can get 1 manufacturing plant (hypothetical, requires aluminium) and 1 mobile infantry (requires oil) OR 1 Heavy Armor unit(requires aluminium and oil).

Good post, but we heard and understood you the first time... :p

Edit: ah, I was too late... :p

Yeah I caught my mistake. Just a double click error. Haha. Anyways. The buildings changing resources could be great also. Something like a mill or something to change iron to steel or wheat to grain or something. This could add a ton of depth. I am all about micromanaging. I always play on marathon and I would like more to do!

I like the idea of providing a limit, it always struck me as annoying that a single oil resource was enough to run your entire army on. Oil is the ultimate strategic resource.

I hope it isn't a maintenance cost or at stockpile, both of those could get complex and confusing. We want something simple and elegant. And no depletion, depletion is Not Fun for the human player, that's why they removed it.

I hope it is just that any unit or building that "requires resource X" counts towards the limit on the number of new ones you can build (or upgrade to).

So, if I have two iron resources that provide 6 iron each, I can build 12 knight units, or 8 knights and 4 heavy footmen. If I have a single coal resource that gives 4 coal, then I can build 4 factories max, to build a factory in a 5th city I need to get more coal (or somehow improve my existing one). Then, other power plants later (eg hydro plant) might remove the need for my factory to consume coal.

This provides great potential for "elite" units that are superior, but have higher resource requirements. Eg: knights might require both iron *and* horses. So with 1 iron and 1 horse you can field 1 light cavalry (hypothetical, needs horses) and 1 heavy footman (hypothetical, needs iron) OR a single knight (needs both). Or with 1 oil and 1 aluminium I can get 1 manufacturing plant (hypothetical, requires aluminium) and 1 mobile infantry (requires oil) OR 1 Heavy Armor unit(requires aluminium and oil).

Excellent idea! :goodjob:

Let every resource have a consumption cap and if you for example want to have both a navy and an armoured force, you would have yo need several sources of oil to get enough quantities. Also, let it be possible for spies and bombers to damage resources, temporarily limiting the resource cap.

Depletion would be HORRIBLE. Civ3 pretty much proves it. Nothing sucked worse than resources disappearing arbitrarily out of your realm only to pop up in your enemies. It was infuriating.

I don't mean for depletion and then have it pop up somewhere else. More of just putting a cap on the number of units you can build with one source. One thing of iron doesn't supply an entire army.

Add in recycling though and instead of the iron resource allowing only 6 units you can now have 9 units. Maybe it could add half resource availability or something.

I don't mean for depletion and then have it pop up somewhere else. More of just putting a cap on the number of units you can build with one source. One thing of iron doesn't supply an entire army.

Add in recycling though and instead of the iron resource allowing only 6 units you can now have 9 units. Maybe it could add half resource availability or something.

Just to be clear I'd be up for a fixed cap "at a time". I can see tons of cool new gameplay mechanics evolving because of it.
- Raiding resource improvements to reduce an opponent's cap for various units.
- Greater incentive to trade resources, even resources you already have!
- Greater incentive to control territory
- Greater incentive to fight for territory

What I mean by "depletion" is just having resources "go away" after you've created X number of units.

Just to be clear I'd be up for a fixed cap "at a time".

This sounds like my proposal. I hope this is what they have in mind, its the simplest way of implementing this.

I can see tons of cool new gameplay mechanics evolving because of it.
It would also make UUs whose advantage was not to require a particular resource actually *useful*, because they would need fewer resources.

If my faction's Knight unit doesn't require Iron, that means with a given Iron supply I can field more Heavy Footman units (from my example above).

What I mean by "depletion" is just having resources "go away" after you've created X number of units.
That sounds horrible.

Imagine I have two iron resources, proving 12 iron, letting me build 12 heavy footmen. 2 of them die, and I rebuild them. 2 of them die, I rebuild them again. 2 of them die. And now, oh no, one of my iron resources is depleted, I can't build any more heavy footmen until another 5 of them die, and I am below my new cap.

That sounds frustrating, not fun, and I don't really see the point of including it. I get punished enough for losing and rebuilding units by having to devote the resources to rebuilding them. I don't need to get punished again by losing my resource.

Depletion is just not a fun mechanic. Fundamentally, if you divert effort into taking control of a resource, only to find that some random die roll means that you lose it, then you get frustrated and annoyed.

Having resources as a "stock" limiting unit cap sounds much more fun than trying to model a "flow" of a depletable resource.

Recycling also doesn't seem like that big a deal. Its probably more interesting to have techs or improvements that increase the amount of iron I get from a particular tile with iron resource than it is to try to model "recycling". The overall impact on recycling on human history is approximately nil. The overall impact of technologies that increase yields is vast.

Just to be clear I'd be up for a fixed cap "at a time". I can see tons of cool new gameplay mechanics evolving because of it.
- Raiding resource improvements to reduce an opponent's cap for various units.
- Greater incentive to trade resources, even resources you already have!
- Greater incentive to control territory
- Greater incentive to fight for territory

What I mean by "depletion" is just having resources "go away" after you've created X number of units.

Yeah I don't want resources to just up and disappear. That would suck. Fighting over resources will be a lot of fun though!

I just had a thought what about "renewables" like wheat and horses etc. would their caps be higher or would they simply "depleter" (for lack of a better word) more slowly? I'm just a little confused on those? And if I'm askin for too much realism just tell me.

I hope they implement this mechanic the way it's been described here. It would add a bit more strategy to resource acquisition (via settling or warfare). I could see it spiraling out of control though. It would be difficult for a nation with one iron resource to defend against another with 3, but hopefully the one unit per hex idea will keep that under control somewhat (you'd still want there to be an advantage for the player with 3 iron resources).

I would think non-random depletion would be a bit unrealistic and boring. By that I mean, if one iron source allowed you to build 6 swordsmen, once you build 6 swordsmen you no longer have that iron resource.

The more I think about this, the more I get my hopes up. :)

I think depletion could work depending on how it's implemented. Depletion, the way I think of it is not at all random. A certain source gives you certain amount of say Iron. Each source is different - so one may give 2 units of Iron while another gives 4 units of Iron. You can build as many military units you want as long as you have the resource. So say you build a bunch of swordsman that use the iron resource and they die. You dont get that Iron back later to build tanks. You are left with whatever Iron is left in your source. This could make things interesting if there are locations in the world that have massive reserves of a resource. You want to befriend or conquer the civ that controls that reserve. Diplomacy would inherently have more value. Of course it would have to balanced properly so that if you dont start out with a certain resource (like iron) then you can still build a formidable military.

I'm also not opposed to implementing a cap rather than depletion. But it would also have to be balanced to prevent the situation that septimusoctopus describes

I already gave my opinion elsewhere in this forum about this.... but let me resume my position:

If all the units need resources, you are basically screwing people that had a bad start even more than they are because of the terrain. It will also make grabbing the early military resources even more important than it is in any of the previous civ games ...

If you try to avoid that by putting some resourceless units in the mix to give a fair chance to people that don't start with early military resources, you are diluting the whole concept: people will obviously try to shield the precious resource constricted units with resourceless units ( especially if there is not a strong enough upper limit for them ... but if you put one of this you are probably screwing smaller civs again ) and/or will be afraid of using them unless in fights with high odds ( like people do with Civ IV GG atached units )...

I have some hope that Firaxis get some middle ground that avoids most of the more extreme consequences of this two, but it will be probably hard to keep things minimally consistent, especially in settings/maps out of what the devs will consider standart.

I completely disagree, rolo. I think that the whole point of limiting what you get from a resource makes resources less of a game-breaking deal than they were before.

Recall: In previous Civs, if you don't have a resource, you can't build the unit at all. This is about as punishing as it gets. And we have seen in the evolution of the series, that they have moved more toward giving maps TONS of resources to avoid setting players up without having them. Well, that's just a band-aid, because now you are taking away the significance of having them at all (kind of like what you said).

But with this system, you are still making resources strategically useful, but now it's about quantities rather than a simple "have vs. have not" system. So now they can spread them around a lot, but you are going to have the few players who maybe get just a few more iron than the other guy. But hey, that's okay that he can build more swordsman because he doesn't maybe have as horses as the other guy. Or maybe he doesn't have horses at all and he really needs to trade his extra iron to the guy who has extra horses. I think it's a more elegant way of toning down the harshness of the pire "have vs have" not rather than what they did before.

I have hope it can be awesome.

I think depletion could work depending on how it's implemented

From your example: why do you think that losing your swordsmen unit is not punishment enough? Why must you also permanently lose the iron used to build the units? That doesn't sound fair, that sounds like a slippery slope mechanic, where the more you start losing, the worse it gets. How is this fun?

people will obviously try to shield the precious resource constricted units with resourceless units
Why is this a problem? Defending resources is good strategy.

and/or will be afraid of using them unless in fights with high odds ( like people do with Civ IV GG atached units )

As long as the resources aren't depletable, why would they be afraid of using them? If my Heavy Footman that uses Iron dies, I that frees up space for me to build another.

I completely disagree, rolo. I think that the whole point of limiting what you get from a resource makes resources <i>less</i> of a game-breaking deal than they were before.

Agreed. The cap system we are talking about *reduces* the advantage of someone with 1 copy of the resource over someone with zero copies. In civ4, the guy with 1 horse can build unlimited chariots, and the guy with 0 horses can build none. In Civ5 the guy with 1 horse can build only a limited number of chariots, whereas the guy with 0 can build none.

Clearly there would still need to be "core" units without a resource requirement, but thats how it works in Civ3 and Civ4 too.

I think it's a more elegant way of toning down the harshness of the pire "have vs have" not rather than what they did before.

Precisely.

Some of you guys have already alluded to this, but I would prefer the relationship between resources and units to not be direct. Instead I prefer that a specific resource produces a set amount of that resource that your civ can then consume in many different ways. It also gets away from the unit being the smallest common denominator and ending up with a tank using the same amount of oil as a battleship.

Here is how I would ideally see it working:

Each resource would produce a set number of “resource units” like barrels (oil), ingots (metal), etc. per turn. The total amount of “resource units” available to you would then be used to maintain your units and, potentially, buildings.

In the case of oil, a battleship would use 3 barrels per turn, while a destroyer would use 2. Note that the numbers are just for explanation purposes, not suggestions on what a battle ship should “cost” relative to a destroyer.

A typical oil well would produce 10 barrels per turn allowing you to build and maintain 3 battleships or 5 destroyers (or some combination of the two).

The more wells you have, the more barrels you have at your disposal to build units or other items that require that resource.

This would then open up additional possibilities in diplomacy because you would be able to trade X number of barrels to another civ for something in return. It doesn’t have to be the whole resource.

It would also be cool if all resources were not created equal. Some iron resources might produce 10 ingots of iron per turn, while another might produce 15. This would add a whole new element to the strategic game play over which resources are really important, and which may be less so.

Additionally, it would be nice if as you advance technologically, you could upgrade your mines or wells to have them produce more per turn.

I completely disagree, rolo. I think that the whole point of limiting what you get from a resource makes resources less of a game-breaking deal than they were before.

Recall: In previous Civs, if you don't have a resource, you can't build the unit at all. This is about as punishing as it gets. And we have seen in the evolution of the series, that they have moved more toward giving maps TONS of resources to avoid setting players up without having them. Well, that's just a band-aid, because now you are taking away the significance of having them at all (kind of like what you said).

But with this system, you are still making resources strategically useful, but now it's about quantities rather than a simple "have vs. have not" system. So now they can spread them around a lot, but you are going to have the few players who maybe get just a few more iron than the other guy. But hey, that's okay that he can build more swordsman because he doesn't maybe have as horses as the other guy. Or maybe he doesn't have horses at all and he really needs to trade his extra iron to the guy who has extra horses. I think it's a more elegant way of toning down the harshness of the pire "have vs have" not rather than what they did before.

I have hope it can be awesome.
I also hope ( better, :please: ) that it can be awesome ;) But...

My problem is that spreading the resources will not make much of diference in this regard. It will be simply a change between having 4 units vs 0 units of the bad lucked civ to having 32 units vs having 12. The bad luck civ will still get pwned, especially if we are talking of the earliest resources ( say, the equivalent to copper and horses in Civ IV ).

I think this will also create a run for those early resources just to avoid the other civs of creating those units in threathning numbers ( even if you don't have the means of using the whole plafond of units , that will be most likely the way the civ devs will try to control this ). Pretty much like those big teams go get good players to weaker teams just to put them on the bench carrying the water bottles ...

The only ways of avoiding that run would be a drastic increase of the equivalent of civ IV civic maintenance or carpeting the map with city-states ( said in other way, making early grab of military resources expensive ) and both would force a OCC for quite a while ( not mentioning that this would still not help that poor guy that started with little military resources ) and the devs have little to none reason for that and some reasons to not do that ;) or alternatively, make the units that need resources not-so-hot in terms of warfare ability for being less rewarding pursuing those units, hence less rewarding getting the resource sources ( that would be equivalent to :suicide: the concept )

To be honest, I don't see a way of this working in a solid fashion ... hopefully the devs can see better than me :D

TBH – I don’t really see the problem with some civs being in a poorer position than others as it relates to geography/resources. That is a completely realistic situation.

TBH – I don’t really see the problem with some civs being in a poorer position than others as it relates to geography/resources. That is a completely realistic situation.
True, but it there is no need to make a bad position ( poor terrain/ starting on a position that doesn't allow expansion ) even worse my putting a unit cap for resource that it will resume to coumpound the initial disavantage even further...

Would a system like I outlined above make it easier for a civ in a crappy position to make due?

Maybe the strategy for a player that is in that position is to think differently. Lack of resources would make military expansion/protection much harder, so diplomacy may be much more important (or technological advancement).

Tanks stalling from no oil would indeed be an interesting sight.

i wonder if they have a tech which will let your vehicle run on biofuels?so you would not need to invade another state to get your oil.

I like the gameplay elements that would come up with a supply capped resource system. With a limit of resources (or excess) you could have a sudo-economic model that could be created.

Although the one thing with making resources limited (either finite or supply limited), there may be the need to increase the amount of resources present on the map. This may also increase the frustration level of playing a game through and discovering every useful resource isn't present in your area, only giving the impression that the game was more of a diceroll than player skill determined.

A potential solution to the "no resource access = no units of type X" problem would be to make unit cost (rather than availability) a function of resource access. So if you have no linkages to coal in your empire, it doesn't mean you won't be making steel. It just means your coal will be WAY more expensive because you're buying it on the black market.

So you can make the same Y number of X unit as another Civ, but at 5 times the cost.

This still makes it suck to start off with poor resource positioning (as it should) but doesn't completely take you out of the game.

@Ahriman ( sorry I missed your post completely )

My point in the parts you quoted from me was between the balance between resource-less and resource-enabled units ( suposing the existance of both and resources number capping the numbers of units you can make from them ). If the resource-enabled units are good compared with the resource-less ones, you will surely want to protect them the most, because they are rare and you can't summon them at will, atleast compared with some more less constricted resourceless units ( and this even if you can replace them: a lost armoured swordsman would need to be created in a city of yours and transported to the front, most likely with some cover of other units ( created for that propose in most of the cases ). In between you would definitely be in a disavantage, so you would want to avoid that if possible ). That is a similar situation to what happens to the Civ IV GG attached units, that a lot of people shun to use in direct battle exactly because of their comparative rarety ...

@BSmith1068

I had proposed something in similar, but not equal lines elsewhere, because i would also give the player the choice between making units with a good resource backup and fully operational or more units with little resource backup ( worse quality metal/ less metal in the weapons, oil rationing and/or worse quality fuels ( like Germany in the end of WW II ) ... ) and decreased efficiency. I think that is a aceptable compromise between the two aproaches on capping the units per resource and is more realistical than both :D

This is whole concept is a great idea. I really hope this is the direction. Having limited units really makes military tactics more important.

Having wars over resources would now be very fun and realistic. Indeed, I hope the AI becomes smart enough to target a resource they want to "acquire" and go to war to get it.

It would also be cool if all resources were not created equal. Some iron resources might produce 10 ingots of iron per turn, while another might produce 15. This would add a whole new element to the strategic game play over which resources are really important, and which may be less so.


I sure hope they do this. If not, somebody will have to mod it.

I'm ok with a resources suddently being depleted via minor random chance. And no, it should not magically appear somewhere else on the map - It just goes away. It would be fun because the player would then be required to rethink their entire strategy for the game. This should imply though that resources could also be "discovered". Perhaps a later technology could raise the change of this occuring - something like "deep mining".

Also, I would not pursue a model where a resource can build only X number of units then the resource is depleted. This would not be fun.

No resource depletion. It not a fun concept just like dark ages which were considered for Civ 3 but canned because they weren't fun at all. Perhaps a random event that occurs every once in a blue moon would be acceptable.

If a nation is resource deprived to an extent then they will have all the more reason to ally with other players. If they can gain a tech advantage through joint research then they could potentially overcome this problem.

I am liking the idea. I just hope they have a wide variety of resources. Did I mention I would like Peat to make a comeback? ;)

Another thing that I have though of for while would be forest conservation. There should be more bigger penalties and much harsher consequences for chopping down all of your forests.

Studies have shown that if you chop down all the forests near the ocean then the number of fish dramatically reduces. Also, with no forests nearby, soil erosion happens much more quickly as there are no windbreaks.

Ever since Civ 1 where you got penalized for actually having forests (forests gave 2 production and more production meant more pollution) :crazyeye: , they've never really got it right. National parks were a step in the right direction but the bonuses just weren't good enough.

It'd be nice to be able to replant forests as well.

I did see that perhaps tiles will be partly forested. That could be a step in the right direction as you could farm part of the hex and leave the rest forested.

Anyway, I hope they finally do the right thing.

That is a similar situation to what happens to the Civ IV GG attached units, that a lot of people shun to use in direct battle exactly because of their comparative rarety ...

The analogy doesn't work. GG generals are precious because they're rare, if you lose it then you can't replace it, because you have a finite supply of great generals. Under my interpretation of the resource design, if you lose a Heavy Footman unit, that just frees up some iron for you so you can immediately replace it with another.

So there's no reason not to use your resource-units; in fact there's (at the margin) *more* of a reason to use them. If I use my Heavy Footman and lose him, that frees up an iron slot for me, and the next unit I build can be an iron-requiring unit. If I use my resourceless unit and lose it, then I gain nothing, and the next unit I build cannot be an iron-requiring unit (assuming I was at cap).

Resource units would be replaceable, great generals are not.

* * *
Another thing that I have though of for while would be forest conservation. There should be more bigger penalties and much harsher consequences for chopping down all of your forests.

This is a history game, not an ecology sim. Throughout history, the developing powers chopped all their forests down. We want to encourage players to do this in Civ too. Conservation is a very recent phenomenon.

IMO Civ4 got it about right on this.

The analogy doesn't work. GG generals are precious because they're rare, if you lose it then you can't replace it, because you have a finite supply of great generals. Under my interpretation of the resource design, if you lose a Heavy Footman unit, that just frees up some iron for you so you can immediately replace it with another.

So there's no reason not to use your resource-units; in fact there's (at the margin) *more* of a reason to use them. If I use my Heavy Footman and lose him, that frees up an iron slot for me, and the next unit I build can be an iron-requiring unit. If I use my resourceless unit and lose it, then I gain nothing, and the next unit I build cannot be an iron-requiring unit (assuming I was at cap).

Resource units would be replaceable, great generals are not.

* * *


This is a history game, not an ecology sim. Throughout history, the developing powers chopped all their forests down. We want to encourage players to do this in Civ too. Conservation is a very recent phenomenon.

IMO Civ4 got it about right on this.

It has nothing to do with being an ecology sim. It would actually make the map look a lot more realistic to see some forests, marshes and jungles still left. Perhaps more positive events happening if you left them undisturbed. Leaving a marsh would mean there was more waterfowl or leaving a jungle would mean that you had a greater chance of discovering a rare medicinal plant.

At the very worst, give bonuses to leaving these areas untouched in order to make the choices less obvious to just chop all the forests down and drain every swamp or slash and burn down every jungle.

The Japanese started practicing forest conservation around 1700 as they started to notice what a negative impact it was having on their environment.

An excellent book to read on the subject would be Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

In the prologue, Diamond summarizes Collapse in one paragraph, as follows.
“ This book employs the comparative method to understand societal collapses to which environmental problems contribute. My previous book (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies), had applied the comparative method to the opposite problem: the differing rates of buildup of human societies on different continents over the last 13,000 years. In the present book focusing on collapses rather than buildups, I compare many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility, relations with neighbors, political institutions, and other "input" variables postulated to influence a society's stability. The "output" variables that I examine are collapse or survival, and form of the collapse if collapse does occur. By relating output variables to input variables, I aim to tease out the influence of possible input variables on collapses. ”

—page 18

Diamond lists eight factors which have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:

1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
3. Water management problems
4. Overhunting
5. Overfishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Overpopulation
8. Increased per-capita impact of people

Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies:

1. Human-caused climate change
2. Buildup of toxins in the environment
3. Energy shortages
4. Full human utilization of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_%28book%29

It would actually make the map look a lot more realistic to see some forests left

Realistic? Hardly. How much forest cover is left in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, easern seaboard USA, China, India?
Very little - and nearly all in inaccessible hilly regions. Flatland forests are just *gone*, except for small stands, the densest jungles (Amazon, Congo, Indonesia) and those in the arctic taiga.

The Japanese started practicing forest conservation around 1700 as they started to notice what a negative impact it was having on their environment.

Yes, and Japan is literally the only exception. Every other country has massively depleted their forest resources.

An excellent book to read on the subject would be Jared Diamond's Collapse
I've read it.

I don't disagree that resource exploitation and deforestation have negative environmental consequences. I'm an environmental economist...

I'm saying that, throughout history, people have ignored this (or not known) and gone ahead and chopped anyway.
The game should have incentives that drive you that way. The short-term economic benefits of chopping the trees down far exceeded the long-term costs in nearly every case.

We want a history-flavored game, not a modern-environmentalist game. They did that, its SMAC.

@ Ahriman

It seemes you read only the last sentence of that paragraph you quoted from me :D Look again:
My point in the parts you quoted from me was between the balance between resource-less and resource-enabled units ( suposing the existance of both and resources number capping the numbers of units you can make from them ). If the resource-enabled units are good compared with the resource-less ones, you will surely want to protect them the most, because they are rare and you can't summon them at will, atleast compared with some more less constricted resourceless units ( and this even if you can replace them: a lost armoured swordsman would need to be created in a city of yours and transported to the front, most likely with some cover of other units ( created for that propose in most of the cases ). In between you would definitely be in a disavantage, so you would want to avoid that if possible ). That is a similar situation to what happens to the Civ IV GG attached units, that a lot of people shun to use in direct battle exactly because of their comparative rarety ...

P.S My point was that even if you still had the slot you would be in a military disavantage if you lost the unit in the time it would be needed to make other brand new and bring it to the field unscratched, and that time is necessarily bigger than for a equivalent unit in a non-cap system ( because you need the start the unit from scratch and bring it to the war ). So you would prefer to minimize this situation and use this resource capped units in battles you have few chances of losing, not unlike people do with the GG atached units in civ IV....

Realistic? Hardly. How much forest cover is left in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, easern seaboard USA, China, India?
Very little - and nearly all in inaccessible hilly regions. Flatland forests are just *gone*, except for small stands, the densest jungles (Amazon, Congo, Indonesia) and those in the arctic taiga.



Yes, and Japan is literally the only exception. Every other country has massively depleted their forest resources.


I've read it.

I don't disagree that resource exploitation and deforestation have negative environmental consequences. I'm an environmental economist...

I'm saying that, throughout history, people have ignored this (or not known) and gone ahead and chopped anyway.
The game should have incentives that drive you that way. The short-term economic benefits of chopping the trees down far exceeded the long-term costs in nearly every case.

We want a history-flavored game, not a modern-environmentalist game. They did that, its SMAC.

It'll still be history flavoured. However, the Civ series is also about historical what ifs.
It'd be nice to have it in the game. Not beat your head over it of course but subtly.

I realize that in modern times there has been massive deforestation. Thailand for example was 90% covered by jungles and forests in 1900 but only 20% now.
Usually in Civ games I play I hardly see any forests by 1500.

I agree with the idea of incentives. Hopefully they can work something out.

If it's not included, I won't be too upset though.

This resource cap is a good Idea with one resource supplying 10x units of it, I want to be able to trade 2 to one guy 3 to another and keep the remaining under this

Stockpiling resources would be interesting... Say, an iron mine provides 1 iron per turn, and you need 5 to build a knight, 4 to build heavy footmen, 3 to build swordsmen, etc? :p

It would also make resource-trading more... I don't quite know what word I should use here, so 'interesting' will have to suffice.

Can we pretty please have the seals from Civ 1 back as a resource? It would make those snow/tundra-regions a little more interesting and manageable...

Can we pretty please have the seals from Civ 1 back as a resource? It would make those snow/tundra-regions a little more interesting and manageable...

You could start a club.

You could start a club.

Badoom pcchhh.

So then there would be ways to improve resource gathering, and once one ran out you'd have to expand more or trade...

Here is an illustration of how I'd like to see resource caps work in the game (note these numbers are for illustrative purposes only, & any actual numbers would depend on in-game balance issues ;)!

-Say you have Oil. You have 3 sources of size 4 each (out of a maximum of size 5), this gives your empire a maximum of 12 oil units.

-Assuming you have no oil-requiring units, your 12 oil units grant a total economic benefit of +6 production & +3 gold.

-If you have 6 cities, then this will grant you +1 production & +0.5 gold per city.

-Now, lets say you start building tanks. Theoretically your oil can support a total of 12 tanks, but before you ever reach that limit, it will start to impact on the bonuses your civilian economy reaps from these resources.

-You can field more than 12 tanks, but this will lead to an equivalent *penalty* to your civilian economy (think rationing).

So what would be the benefits of the above system?

(a) its relatively simple-not much more complicated than the benefits accrued from Corporations in BtS.

(b) it places further constraints on the "bigger is better" foundation of previous Civ games (a foundation which Civ4 definitely helped to break!)

(c) it makes resource acquisition a much bigger part of war & diplomatic relations!

(d) it forces players into making difficult decisions-build numerous units for a war that might never come? Or build a small army so that you can reap maximum economic benefit from your resources?

Aussie.

I think what the resource's limit's effect is should depend upon the resource. For example, a metal resource should have a limited number of units that can be built using the resource. But an oil resource should have a limited number of units for which it can provide supply, and that only for so long. The key with depletion is to let you know in advance what the limit is (or provide you with a minimum value and then randomize the actual depletion after that), so that it isn't just disappearing without you being able to plan for that occurrence.

Most other strategy games put a limit on the amount of a resource that a site has, and that limits the amount of the resource you can 'mine' from it. Think Age of Empires, or the Anno series, for example. I would expect it is this type of realism they are trying to implement.

I'm happy to see limited throughput of resources, but would rather not see depletion... even if the depletion occurrences are regulated from their use rather than random. The former can help form strategic directions, but the later may restrict you too much and make the game all about managing your limited resources rather than anything else.

Some of you guys have already alluded to this, but I would prefer the relationship between resources and units to not be direct. Instead I prefer that a specific resource produces a set amount of that resource that your civ can then consume in many different ways. It also gets away from the unit being the smallest common denominator and ending up with a tank using the same amount of oil as a battleship.

Here is how I would ideally see it working:

Each resource would produce a set number of “resource units” like barrels (oil), ingots (metal), etc. per turn. The total amount of “resource units” available to you would then be used to maintain your units and, potentially, buildings.

In the case of oil, a battleship would use 3 barrels per turn, while a destroyer would use 2. Note that the numbers are just for explanation purposes, not suggestions on what a battle ship should “cost” relative to a destroyer.

A typical oil well would produce 10 barrels per turn allowing you to build and maintain 3 battleships or 5 destroyers (or some combination of the two).

The more wells you have, the more barrels you have at your disposal to build units or other items that require that resource.

This would then open up additional possibilities in diplomacy because you would be able to trade X number of barrels to another civ for something in return. It doesn’t have to be the whole resource.

It would also be cool if all resources were not created equal. Some iron resources might produce 10 ingots of iron per turn, while another might produce 15. This would add a whole new element to the strategic game play over which resources are really important, and which may be less so.

Additionally, it would be nice if as you advance technologically, you could upgrade your mines or wells to have them produce more per turn.

Stockpiling resources would be interesting... Say, an iron mine provides 1 iron per turn, and you need 5 to build a knight, 4 to build heavy footmen, 3 to build swordsmen, etc? :p

It would also make resource-trading more... I don't quite know what word I should use here, so 'interesting' will have to suffice.

I also hope for stockpilable resources. I would like them to stockpile in a warehouse, where you can use the stock in various ways: to build units, to maintain units, to trade.

Units should depend on resources for building and/or maintenance. Say you want a Battleship: you'd need a large amount of steel (converted from iron in a building) to build it. Once built, it would consume a set amount of oil per turn for maintenance.
An Archer or Swordsman would need wood or iron, but cost no maintenance.

Your strategy and tactics would depend to a large extent on the resources available to you in a particular game, whether through ownership or diplomacy, with different requirements depending on your technology - as it was supposed to be in previous Civ versions, but never quite clicked.

I don't want random depletion of resource sources. If depletion at all, it should be plannable (like a certain amount of resources prognosticated for a mine or oil well, with maybe a bit of a random factor to the actual depletion) and you would need some way of finding new resources, maybe with advanced techs. I think this is too much complexity though - better not to deplete the sources at all, unless with a rare special event.

The way I would see it, "Renewable resources" ie Horse, Elephants

1. Could be required to Build a unit but not to "Have a unit" so with one unit of Horses you can only build one Knight at a time. But you can Have as many Knights as you want.

2. Could allow you to build sources (ie Having Horses allows you to build a Stables that increases your number of Horses)

Or no resources could be renewable and all work like Oil, Iron, etc. The number on the tile=number of units you can have. (like Supply in Star Craft.. but all units only require 1 'supply' of each of the 'types of supply' they have)

This for me really revitalizes the tech tree and city improvements. Imagine building a refinery that raises your oil cap from 10 to 16. Or a wonder that allows you to build X units without counting against your resource cap. Or a technology that allows for more efficient iron working so your units cost less. Or a UU that does not require something like horse (think camel archer) allowing you to use the horses in other units (like the hypothetical light cavalry).

This game mechanic sounds more profound then hexes.

Hi everyone!

Don't know if my idea was covered in a previous post (not as far as I could see), but I'd like to see a mixture of building and maintenance costs for units in the game.

Take - for example - horses; if you have one horse resource, you get a certain amount of horses per resource tile. If you don't build units that need horses, you can save them for later use. However, horses are only building costs, not maintenance costs - if you build a knight, then you need one horse resource but you don't need any horse to maintain this unit.

Oil, on the other hand, might be needed to build a tank but also to maintain it. So you have to be sure to keep enough oil resources (or get new ones) to maintain your tanks, ships and aircraft.

So basically every collected resource should be put on a stock; from there you can trade with it, keep it for later use or use it to build units. Maintenance resource costs would have to be collected automatically, of course.

That would - together with depletion - bring a whole new aspect to the game; In CIV4 ie if you had one oil resource in the middle of your country (far away from moving borders and war) that's enough for the whole game. If my idea of a resource system was implemented, you would still have to plan how to get the oil, after your resource depleted. Additionally (because of resources are kept on stock if you don't need them) you have a whole lot of new strategic decisions to make (save the oil and maybe trade it for a good price if someone else has not enough of it!?). There could also be techologies that make the use of resources more effectively (ie that units need less oil for maintenance because of better engineering techniques used etc). Think of all the (realistic) diplomatic and strategic decisions you'd have to make.

Bernd

I don't think Stockpilable resources would be a good idea.

They would have too much potential micromanagement.

I do like the idea that any "unused" resources benefit your domestic economy.

Possibly some Buildings may require resources in the same way units do... ie Each Coal Plant Requires a coal.

(This mandates that some buildings should have the ability to be "shut down" temporarily... ie Shut down My coal plants if uranium is available And I have a Nuclear plant... or vice versa if I want more Nuclear subs)

Or possibly a Coal Plant turns 1 unit of Coal into 5 units of power and that can be redistributed through my empire.

I strongly dislike the idea of stockpiling. Its too complex for too small a benefit (modeling resources as both a stock and a flow). Similarly dislike explicit maintenance.
I much prefer the idea of your resource "income" just being a capacity limit on building new stuff. Do you have total Resource X buildings and Resource X units less than your Resource X income? Yes? You can build more. No? You can't.
Simple.

I also dislike the idea of Lurker's for passive benefits to your empire from having extra quantities. It's interesting, but non-optimal.

Oil for eg should provide a benefit if you build factories or units that consume it. You should have incentives to use your resources, not to leave them idle. Better incentives for gameplay.
Having a strategic decision about *how* to use a resource (choosing between 2 actions) is much more intersting than deciding between whether to use it or not (active vs passive).

There could be a coal gasification technology which allows turning coal into oil (at a penalty) through a refinery building.

The Fischer-Tropsch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process) process was widely used in WW2 by Germany for this purpose.

Yeah, stockpiling does raise too many MM issues for my liking. A simple X resource units supports Y units-with anything leftover benefiting your domestic economy-is the easiest way to go. No muss, no fuss ;)!

Aussie.

There could be a coal gasification technology which allows turning coal into oil (at a penalty) through a refinery building.

The Fischer-Tropsch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process) process was widely used in WW2 by Germany for this purpose.

Makes perfect sense...
Building: Requires Coal unit, provides Oil unit.

Just make it expensive
or perhaps it requires a Coal unit and a 'Power' unit

It sounds like my system is basically what is being implemented, but with an increased maintenance cost if your resource supply falls below the number of units you have that need the resource.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356391

Strategic resources are handled differently. There the quantity is very important. One iron deposit, for instance, will only grant you the right to build and maintain, say, five iron-based units. You can't build any more than that until one of those units dies (or is disbanded) or you get access to more iron. You will be allowed to keep those units in the field if your resource is pillaged, but there's an additional maintenance burden and you won't be able to replace them if they're lost.

Huzzah!

No word on whether buildings can consume resources, but I'm sure that could be modded in.

It's ineresting in that new IGN review they are indicating that happiness resources work exactly like they did before, one will supply your entire empire, only military strategic resources use the new system. I wonder what healthiness resources and civilian strategic resoures will function.

I love the idea that unused military resources can aid your economy. I hope something like this is implemented, or that there's some similar limits on how many resource dependant buildings you can produce. Doing so would mean that controling strategic resources would be critical even for civs following a pacifist victory path.

Does forest count as a valuable source of timber. Because galleons and any other shipping vessel use timber as a source of building it.

If so, are forest maintain or chop to make shipping vessels

Another thing, if you declare war on a nation, then you standby/put your swordsman on the iron resource of your enemy. Does it count as your resource for a meantime during the course of the war?

I am skeptic about limited resources, so i'll wait for further news :)

If so, are forest maintain or chop to make shipping vessels

I'm guessing they won't require a timber resoure for building ships, as being unable to build a navy because you don't have any forests doesnt' seem like much fun.

Another thing, if you declare war on a nation, then you standby/put your swordsman on the iron resource of your enemy. Does it count as your resource for a meantime during the course of the war?

Why would it?
I'm sure you can stop your opponent from using it, but presumably as in previous versions you can only get a resource if it is within your own culture.
Your military occupation force isn't set up to mine the iron and send it back to your country.

[QUOTE=blacksmit049;8976245]
Another thing, if you declare war on a nation, then you standby/put your swordsman on the iron resource of your enemy. Does it count as your resource for a meantime during the course of the war?
QUOTE]

Ther've been small mentions of land trading, exchanging hexs between civs. I think this will be something done diplomatically, either during peacetime, or as the settlement of a war. However it might be possible to have a way to 'claim' tiles with your military units and extend your culture over them. The expansion system seems be be quite different from the old cultural expansion model, but some mechanism like that is pure speculation.

I think it would be a very interesting mechanic though, if you could secure the territory of an enemy civ and loot their resources. It would provide another incentive for war, besides conquest of land you might also start a fight just to steal iron for a while.

I'd say by putting your swordsman on the resource you stop Them from getting it.

If you want the resource you need to place/capture a city in range.

Makes perfect sense...
Building: Requires Coal unit, provides Oil unit.

Just make it expensive
or perhaps it requires a Coal unit and a 'Power' unit

If it is going to be realistic, it will be more like 2 coal for 1 oil. Only makes sense for civs with an abundance of coal who are also unable to trade with ease.

A modern tech, "biofuels" would perhaps turn 2-4 food into 1 oil, per refinery building. Exchange 1-2 pop off your megacities in order to afford a modern army of superpower size.