Oil getting obsolete with Aluminium

So, in Civ5, all WWII of units which require oil are replaced with upgrades that require Aluminum.

Tank (oil) -> Modern Armor (aluminum)
Fighter/Bomber (oil) -> Jet Fighter/Stealth Bomber (aluminum)

With exception of:
Battleship (oil) -> Missile Cruiser (no resource, but not in upgrade path either)

Plus units whose upgrades require Aluminum, while older unit is resource free:
Artillery -> Rocket Artillery (aluminum)
Anti-Tank -> Helicopter (aluminum)


Why such big shift to everything needing a single resource late in the game?
If you don't get enough Aluminum you are kept at WWII era tech.

Advanced units you do have access to without Aluminum:

Mechanized Infantry
Bazooka
Mobile SAM
Missile Cruiser
Nuclear Submarine
Guided Missile

Everything else is Aluminum dependent, and if missing will be on WWII level tech.


Is this good for game balance?

Yes. Sometimes you won't get enough aluminum and it's needed for both units and spaceship parts.

on the other side, you'll either want to spend them on space parts if going for science tech. That way you won't need aluminium for units.

if going for domination, aluminium is needed for units, but you won't need it for spaceship parts.

and aluminium is not really that much required, even if going for domination victory. You'll need it for few rockets (2-3 are enough to take down even high defense cities), and stealth bombers and modern armors come so late in the game that buy the time you finally get those techs, you've probably conquered most of the world anyway, so they are simply there to speed up finishing off leftover civs.

You can always get up to 15 aluminum from recycling centers. Also consider that you get the ability to see aluminum on the map a full era before you can use it and at nearly at the same time as revealing oil. Therefore, if you are concerned about upgrading your oil using units you have quite a long time to acquire territory containing aluminum with those oil using units.

Of course, you have to fight over the available aluminum resources while you have oil

Aluminum is the most 'balanced' resource because you can get it from the recycling center buildings, nothing else can do that.

Strategic resources can always be found in some city-states, just find one with aluminum and befriend it.

ofc Aluminum is a must for SV, but if we're talking Dom-style activities then Aluminum is only "necessary" for rocket arty's. there's no real reason to take the Stealth/Jetfight aircraft into account b/c if you're wanting to upgrade your airforce to those, then usually you're just playing with your food when you could finish a messy Dom operation instead.

How is it a problem for a bunch of oil-using units to upgrade into ones that require aluminum, but not for all those units to require oil in the first place? This is no different from the situation with oil, with iron or with coal. The only strategic resource that's useful for a broad portion of the game is horses, and even they go out with oil.

I don't think the problem is the obsolescence of oil. Resources go obsolete, just like iron and horses did. However, I do agree its a problem that everything gets stacked into aluminum. It's the reason I never build a hydro plant. The resource is just too valuable. It would be nice if a few more things kept oil just for that reason.

off topic but far, far more important to history than hydro dams are Refineries. they need that building in the game, maybe at Biology + Combustion or something.

Louis XXIV said:

I don't think the problem is the obsolescence of oil. Resources go obsolete, just like iron and horses did. However, I do agree its a problem that everything gets stacked into aluminum. It's the reason I never build a hydro plant. The resource is just too valuable. It would be nice if a few more things kept oil just for that reason.

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I think you can build a hell of a good military out of the non-aluminum units. Oil seems like much more of a choke point to me because of how easily an early air power can roll over opposition.

And let's not even get into how in early Vanilla, you just rerolled if you got to Iron Working and found out you couldn't ever build longswordsmen...

Actually, this whole discussion is semi-pointless as the units that upgrade into Aluminum resource units never actually go obsolete. You can still build WWII tanks after unlocking Modern Armor if you don't have (or wish to use) the aluminum. And there's not a huge difference in power level (80 vs 100) so the units aren't obsolete by lack of firepower (like Warriors are vs Swordsmen). Same goes for Fighters, AT Guns and Bombers.

Oil never goes obsolete for trading either (unlike Iron/Horses).

Barghaest said:

Actually, this whole discussion is semi-pointless as the units that upgrade into Aluminum resource units never actually go obsolete. You can still build WWII tanks after unlocking Modern Armor if you don't have (or wish to use) the aluminum. And there's not a huge difference in power level (80 vs 100) so the units aren't obsolete by lack of firepower (like Warriors are vs Swordsmen). Same goes for Fighters, AT Guns and Bombers.

Oil never goes obsolete for trading either (unlike Iron/Horses).

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It isn't the in-game technical definition of the word "obsolete," it's the colloquial one, in which something becomes less useful due to external changes. Still a valid question even if the word isn't precise in some sense.

Polisurgist said:

It isn't the in-game technical definition of the word "obsolete," it's the colloquial one, in which something becomes less useful due to external changes. Still a valid question even if the word isn't precise in some sense.

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Actually, I addressed that definition too... but the colloquial one is something become useless not merely less useful, which they aren't. Non-upgraded Anti-tank guns can still take out Modern armor and WWII tanks can still defeat bazookas or mobile infantry.

Air power might be less useful but you can surely field more oil based planes than your opponent can field aluminum ones.

the tech priority for laser is awkward, and you only need 1 helicopter to scout ahead.
missile cruisers can't shoot over mountains, and steath bomber can't be based on a carrier.
so actually oil still have some uses until endgame, while aluminum is only important for rocket arty.

It's not like tanks and fighters just auto-lose to modern jets and armor like they do in real life, if you have a lot of oil, you can still tank spam someone to death easily.