Why are some lux so inferior?

C

carbontaxes

Chieftain
Joined
Oct 7, 2011
Messages
36
Maybe it's just me in my noobness, but damn why do some luxuries suck so hard?

Gold/silver- you get to build the Mint for extra $$. It might not be mammoth extra $$ but it's there anyway.

Ivory- you get to build a Circus for :) and I think that that building has no maintenance to boot!!

Spice/Incense/Wine- you get to build the Monastery for fairly hardcore culture early on.

and now, the suck:

Pearls/Gems/Cotton/Whales/Furs. These seem to suck to me for so many reasons. You get no building options out of them. Not only that, but they are slow to get online. Like you want to do something else than Calendar but only have cotton around you? Screwed. Only have Pearls and Cotton? Double screwed if you had no interest in the Sailing and Calendar route over some over path. And so on.

Is this a wrong assessment? B/c right now I'd like to see a further building option for most of these other luxuries. Am I missing their worth?
 
Pearls and Whales become fairly decent tiles with a lighthouse/harbour/seaport in place. Cotton, furs and gems have no "added value" from structures, but really about 90% of a lux's value just comes from you connecting it, its hardly a huge problem that you can't build a circus or a monastery. These buildings are often not worth building unless you have multiple sources of the lux to work anyway (with the obvious exception of the Circus which is always going to be good).

The biggest factor in a luxuries "usefulness" - and this tends only to affect your capital luxes in the early game - is the tech you need to connect it. In this regard pearls and whales are annoying to have since you need work boats. Gems however are connected by mining and are easy to get early (and also make for a very nice early production/gold tile for you to work). Cotton is also still generally quite easy to connect. Furs may be a bit more awkward but are still on the route to Civil Service/Education.
 
For pearls and whales, my feeling is that their value is that they're so relatively rare, and so there's always going to be someone you can trade them to. They're almost always possible to buy from city states as well when you need a boost. Plus sea tiles can get very good with the appropriate buildings.

Cotton/dyes/furs are kind of the opposite - each copy isn't particularly fantastic, but you tend to get big clusters of a lot of them. So you likely have heaps of copies to trade, and you get the gold bonus spread over a number of tiles. Cotton and dye are usually on good food tiles too, so they're easier than some resources to work in the early game.
 
I'm not a big fan of incense, it always seems to be in the desert.

Pearls & Whales do kind of suck if there is only one water resource in a given city. However, if there are multiple copies, or a couple of fish, it's not so bad.

Cotton/dyes/spices are nice because they are most often on grassland so can be worked right away and provide that early gold boost.

Mining resources are the best to settle on because you get the 2 free food so you are working a good production tile right off the bat without the need to build farms. Also mining is a very early tech so you can use/sell it right away.

Generally I agree with Noatz that the most important thing is the number of techs you have to research to get them all improved.
 
chazzycat said:
Mining resources are the best to settle on because you get the 2 free food so you are working a good production tile right off the bat without the need to build farms. Also mining is a very early tech so you can use/sell it right away.
Click to expand...

A great idea - never really thought of that! Perhaps a dumb question, but do you still get the gold bonus on the city tile if you build a mint?
 
chazzycat said:
I'm not a big fan of incense, it always seems to be in the desert.

Pearls & Whales do kind of suck if there is only one water resource in a given city. However, if there are multiple copies, or a couple of fish, it's not so bad.

Cotton/dyes/spices are nice because they are most often on grassland so can be worked right away and provide that early gold boost.

Mining resources are the best to settle on because you get the 2 free food so you are working a good production tile right off the bat without the need to build farms. Also mining is a very early tech so you can use/sell it right away.

Generally I agree with Noatz that the most important thing is the number of techs you have to research to get them all improved.
Click to expand...

The good thing about any resource is the tech-specific benefit you get from it. Once you research Fertilizer, each plantation produces +1:c5food:, which can be a big growth boost.

Work boats provide +1:c5food: and +1 :c5gold: with Compass.
 
I'm a big fan of luxury resources as I like trading and maintaining good relationships where possible. I don't think any of them suck. I frequently settle seaside and like to build work boats and other buildings to enhance their value.

Ivory is probably my favourite as I think it gives you a bonus constructing wonders, or maybe it used too. My next favourites are gold/silver as there is not concept of environmental damage and money is useful regardless of how you are trying to win. I also like building Mints.

I think the latest efforts to balance the game have helped. I seem to win and be able to win with a variety of civilizations and in a variety of ways. Going to try a new game possibly even on a increased difficult level.

I'm trying to earn more badges, but so many of them are either chance cases or scenario specific. I haven't won with every leader, but some leaders don't appeal to me or I think they won't work so well with my style had high difficulty levels.
 
In my current game; 2/3rds of the city states have Whales.

I've also played another where most city states had Pearls.

Polycrates said:
For pearls and whales, my feeling is that their value is that they're so relatively rare, and so there's always going to be someone you can trade them to.
Click to expand...
 
They don't all need to be completely equal, otherwise there isn't much distinction between them. All of the luxury resources you claim suck have a benefit because they contribute towards a city's Gold which is increased further by all Gold yield increasing buildings (Bazaar/Market/Bank) and Social Policies (such as Theocracy and Commerce though it's more limited). They'll also give you twice as much Gold if you have a Bazaar and end up being just as profitable as Gold/Silver with a Mint. They also add a nice little boost to your Happiness which becomes even more useful if you take the Mandate of Heaven or Protectionism Social Policies. As a worst case scenario, you can use the extras to negotiate with other civs. I've found cornering the market on something like Whales to be quite beneficial as the AI eventually wants them to help keep their Happiness up and puts me in a better bartering position.
 
carbontaxes said:
...why do some luxuries suck so hard?
Click to expand...

Because, if there is nothing that sucks, there is nothing that shines, too. There must be some medicore luxuries, so that others (the good ones) make you smile if you can settle near them.

Equalness is boring. An totally equal universe (as it will be one time in far future. It's called the entropic death...) is nothing favourable.

So, to answer your question: Some luxuries suck to make the game interesting!
 
carbontaxes said:
and now, the suck:

Pearls/Gems/Cotton/Whales/Furs.
Click to expand...

Whales and Pearls make sea-tiles worth while.
Gems provide a +3 gold already, which is huge in the beginning.
Cotton and Furs have improvement that receive an extra bonus when you research the right tech.

I don't mind a bit diversity.
 
Your basic thesis (some luxuries > others) is accurate, but the specifics are a bit off.

Gems are arguably the best luxury, as they give you +1:c5gold: from turn 1 without having to wait for Currency and the investment of 120:c5production: in a Mint. They are certainly the most desirable Mining luxury, given the brevity of the game.

Cotton and Furs are pretty awful. The best thing to do with a Cotton tile is settle it.

Whales and Pearls are decent in a true fishing village where you pound out a Harbor and Seaport ASAP, but are generally subpar.
 
Why do expect everything to be equally excellent? were all the kids above average in your school, or did they just give them As anyway?
 
Yeah I get the "not everything needs to be uniform" lesson here. Also I see that I've vastly underestimated Gems; so true that you get decent hammers and coin from gems with only mining technology. Can't believe I didnt recognize it before now.

The thing is that you can keep true to the whole avoid-cloning-all-luxuries while still adding even a token little secondary use for some of the worst luxs, like fur and cotton. Like possibly give a building option for those such as a "textile mill" or whatever that might worth a little :), food, or "health" in the next Civ (not that health is an attribute in this version), because maybe your citizens would then have access to more substantial clothing or whatever. Idk I see it as more a flavor issue than an equalization issue.

I know the pros barely even build anything anyway and they wouldn't care either way but I've always been a builder and that's why I'm for that.

About pearls+whales+Colossus=insane, yeah no doubt.
 
I don't think gold/silver is worth much because of the Mint. You could have spent the production on something better like a workshop or aquaduct. +2 gold is not that much money. Most times you'll only have 1 of those resources around a city. On harder difficulties when you are just struggling to maintain a decent army, that Mint is just a waste.
 
Sugar is probably the worst, as it is often covered up by marsh, requiring you two techs (calendar and masonry) to hook it up. Typically 1-3 copies near your starting spot will be marsh free, but the other extras will take a long time to get online with only 1 worker per tile ><
 
Furs on woods/plains... you can chop the woods with no impact to the tile yield, when going for an early wonder that isn't too bad. Chop furs on woods/grasslands, I think the tile loses a hammer. But if you chop furs on woods/tundra, the tile really suffers.
 
Krikkitone said:
Cotton, Fur, (and Silk)... Would be great for a Textile mill... Probably +1 Gold each tile and +1 Production from the building.
Click to expand...
I agree that a building to improve those would be great.

Textile Mill (available at Machinery): +2:c5production:, 2:c5gold: maintenance. +1:c5production: for each Cotton, Fur, and Silk worked by the city. (Must have one of these resources improved near the city.)

edit: It would even make sense thematically/historically, given how key textile manufacturing was to the Industrial Revolution.
 
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