I have been playing the Civ-series since Civilization 1 came out in 1991, and what struck me first about CIV was the multitude of resources available on the map. Many are the same as before, such as wheat, fish and gold but there were so many new resources that it was hard to keep track of them, what they did and how important they realy are.
Obviously it is quite important to have resources since it will have a big influence on how big your cities will be (health, happiness), which units you can build and added speed in Wonder construction.
I have designed this guide to help new players as to how important the resources are.
In my guide I will use the following abbreviations:
F = food
P = production
C = commerce (aka "coins")
H = health
S = happy face (aka "smiley")
So if something is "1F 3C" that means it gives 1 food and 3 commerce.
The strategic resources like iron, horses etc are obviously invaluable if you want to build certain units, so their value is related to if you will be building these units or not. Concerning the others one of the first questions you should ask yourself is: "Do I need mainly more health resources or happiness resources?". This depends on a lot of factors, and at the easier game levels you will normally have a lot less problems dealing with low health and happiness. On the higher levels this will definately become a problem.
For health there are a few other ways to get it besides the resources. You can get it from buildings (aqueduct, hospital), civics (environmentalism), tech (genetic engineering) or wonders (Hanging Gardens). Some things also add unhealthiness: buildings (forge, factory, lab, certain powerplants), map terrain (jungle, floodplains).
For happiness there are also other ways to get it, including buildings (religious buildings, theater, coloseum etc), civics (hereditary rule, representation etc), wonders (Notre Dame). Some things add unhappiness, such as wars, not having any city defenders and pop-rushing using slavery.
The consequences of being above your threshold for health and happiness are somewhat different. For each point above the health limit you will get a -1 food penalty, so if your health limit is 10 and your pop size is 13 you will have -3 food. For happiness it works diferently, each point above means you have a unhappy citizen who does no work at all, so potentially you will get a lot more than -1 food for every point above the happiness limit. Because of this I consider 1 point of happiness to be worth more than 1 point of health, but of course what realy decides this is your current situation. Religion will have a big inpact on this, and if you have many religions in most of your cities happiness will be less of a problem, and in such cases getting more health resources is often better than getting more happiness resources.
Obviously it is quite important to have resources since it will have a big influence on how big your cities will be (health, happiness), which units you can build and added speed in Wonder construction.
I have designed this guide to help new players as to how important the resources are.
In my guide I will use the following abbreviations:
F = food
P = production
C = commerce (aka "coins")
H = health
S = happy face (aka "smiley")
So if something is "1F 3C" that means it gives 1 food and 3 commerce.
The strategic resources like iron, horses etc are obviously invaluable if you want to build certain units, so their value is related to if you will be building these units or not. Concerning the others one of the first questions you should ask yourself is: "Do I need mainly more health resources or happiness resources?". This depends on a lot of factors, and at the easier game levels you will normally have a lot less problems dealing with low health and happiness. On the higher levels this will definately become a problem.
For health there are a few other ways to get it besides the resources. You can get it from buildings (aqueduct, hospital), civics (environmentalism), tech (genetic engineering) or wonders (Hanging Gardens). Some things also add unhealthiness: buildings (forge, factory, lab, certain powerplants), map terrain (jungle, floodplains).
For happiness there are also other ways to get it, including buildings (religious buildings, theater, coloseum etc), civics (hereditary rule, representation etc), wonders (Notre Dame). Some things add unhappiness, such as wars, not having any city defenders and pop-rushing using slavery.
The consequences of being above your threshold for health and happiness are somewhat different. For each point above the health limit you will get a -1 food penalty, so if your health limit is 10 and your pop size is 13 you will have -3 food. For happiness it works diferently, each point above means you have a unhappy citizen who does no work at all, so potentially you will get a lot more than -1 food for every point above the happiness limit. Because of this I consider 1 point of happiness to be worth more than 1 point of health, but of course what realy decides this is your current situation. Religion will have a big inpact on this, and if you have many religions in most of your cities happiness will be less of a problem, and in such cases getting more health resources is often better than getting more happiness resources.