Totally rockin' Idea!!!

Okay, I *think* this is a totally original idea...

I was thinking about how one could make an important resource, such as oil, concentrated in the middle east on a modern-world map. I was thinking about how if you placed like five oil deposits there in the mid-east, but were accurate enough to put one or two in Alaska, the US wouldn't need the middle east at all, because heck they got two oils...

What if oil deposits had a cap for limits they support? It could be based on the size of the world (map?) that you're playing on, but in essence the US would need more than just Alaska's oil to support a huge military. So they'd need to trade with the Middle East countries to get more oil.

Keep in mind the numbers I gave (2 alaska, 5 mid-east) are just totally randomish, and I'm not actually supposing that is an accurate ratio or anything.

Any feedback?

Use the editor on the world map. I don't think you can implement the cap limits though. 1 oil is the same as having 20, except for trade.

I think it is a great idea that would add an appreciable amount of realism. Good luck achieving it, and if you do, I'll be the first to download your scenario!

I have always wanted to put caps on resources. But I could not think of a way to do it.

How would you handle someone who needs for example 3 oils and only has 2?
1. Can some cities/workers build the units/improvements associated with that resource and onther's not or
2.would you not be able to build anything asociated with that resource?

1. would let you easily work around the extra numbers needed ( you usually build mil units in a few core cities anyway) the second one would be very much like it is now.

What I would like better than more numbers of the same resource is resources that have a limited shelfe live measured in units/improvements. For example 1 iron supports 20 swordsmen and after that it respawns somewhere else. Dunno if this possible to do also.
In the 1st case you could easily work around the cap, the 2nd one would be quite the same as the current situation only with different numbers of resources.

The theory is certainly sound, and should apply to all strategic resources. However, implementation is the key. Even if you say that only two cities can build units based on every one square with a strategic resource, you could still just build all your units in those two cities without a cap on the size of your army. The other way would be to say that each strategic resource square will support X number of units. Lets say that number is 20 units per resource square. You would then need to restructure trade so that, for example, you can trade strategic support for 5 units if you only have two squares but have, say, 30 or so units.

Not bad idea, but you are thinking like a civ2 player. Firaxis wanted to keep the game simple.
As if civ3 were a simple game. A nice way of implimenting something like this would be to tie to difficulty level. One strategic resource fits all civ's needs before Monarch level. Then each each strategic resources has smaller and smaller ability of providing benefit. For example, at monarch, 1 oil could be used to build 100 units. At emperor, 50 units. At deity, 20 units.

== PF

I like the idea of tying it to difficulty.

I don't see any way of actually implementing this, unfortunately. Assuming I had free reign, though, I would put it as realistically as possible.

Especially liking the restriction based on difficulty level. With that in mind, I would design the real-world map to have plenty of resources, and design it to be played on deity only. (Perhaps I could even set how many resources are placed, depending on difficulty, so that it would always be balanced.) In any case, I envision deity to support 15ish (maybe 20 just to have an even number) units, and make oil plentiful in the mid-east, and not unheard of in other key oil producing places. So, for example, America has 2 oils in alaska and trades for 5 oils from the mideast, giving a total of 7.

Using the 15 units per oil figure: America can support up to 105 units requiring oil. Now, America attacks a mid-east country in its peace-keeping attempts and the extra 5 oils are cut off: now, only 30 units are actually able to move per turn. Since realistically they would be able to prioritize who gets gas, we let them move any 30 units, but once they move 30, the rest are immobile for that turn, and automatically fortify.

Oil is the only resource I can think of that would be set up like this, however; all other resources, even if they are cut off, are fairly permanent. Those swords won't stop swinging just because you have no more iron, and the horses won't stop riding just because the horse herds are no longer under your control.

Only oil is the resource that is constantly required... (well, perhaps gunpowder... but that's something I don't care to invest any thought on, this evening.) I especially think oil should be treated differently than other resources, to reflect the important role and constant requirement that it poses in today's world.

PS: I was originally a Civ 2 player, yep That's the one that sucked me in.

yeah, it would work for gunpowder too, in that since... I've thought of this basic Idea numerousl, but I've given up on trying to implement it (however, I still need to test if a unit can require more than 1 of the same resource; since the editor allows units to require 3 resources, maybe if I made them all oil, the unit would require 3 oil--I doubt this would work, and it would be problematic for trade, but it would be nice anyway).

Why don't you change the stradegic resource requirements for units, it can be easily done. e.g make the AGIS cruiser require three oil, but only give US two, so they can build normal ships, but if they want to build better units, they have to trade. I think make one oil support 20 units as such will really mess up the game.

This is a great idea, but the AI would have a hard time to match the human player's capability to handle it and think ahead. It would require a lot of effort to implement the cap itself, but even more to have the AI handle it properly. Just think about how the AI messes up regicide, artillery, pre-building and railroad, to name a few.

There are some great idea's for this 'problem' in the CIV IV thread.

Most realistic would be that only using a unit cost oil.....

I must say that this is a great idea...especially since I thought about it a few months ago

Let me add a bit from my idea: Each oil resource would provide a number of resource points per turn, say 500 - this could even be a bit random so that some oil resources are better than others.

Then, when you're building a tank in a city that produces 60 shields per turn, this also uses 60 oil resource points per turn. Say you have 10 cities each producing 60 shields and want to set all to build tanks.

The 8 first will use a total of 60*8 = 480 oil resource points. You can then set the 9th city to build a tank, but since you've got only 20 resource points left, only 20 shields are added to the build each turn, effectively wasting 40 of the 60 shields since the city lacks the resources. The 10th city cannot be set to build anything that uses oil.

When trading, instead of trading one oil resource, you trade a number of oil resource points per turn, from 1 to whatever. So 2 small civs could in effect share one oil resource if the one owing it trades half of the resource points to the other.


This would wastly improve the games IMHO. Now a really big city would need lots of resources to build everything it wants.