Rubber

Should be treated like Saltpeter -- necessary to build Infantry and Tanks, but unneccesary in Modern Age thanks to rubber plantatiosynthetic rubber. Therefore Mod Armor and Mech Inf (and any other modern unit) should not require it.

but then it would be unimportant because it would be useful for such a limited time.

Right now, though, it is completely impossible to have any kind of modern army without rubber. Rubber should stay the same, but at least one unit should be better than the 6/6 of the guerilla that would be available in the modern ages. The guerilla should not be the most balanced unit an army without rubber should be able to produce.

Originally posted by Yzman
but then it would be unimportant because it would be useful for such a limited time.

Click to expand...

And there is quite nothing wrong with that. Iron isn't required to build a Battleship because of the techology of advanced steel processing, so why should a Modern Armor need rubber anymore with the technologies of synthetic materials.

In a gameplay perspective this is also valid, since a civ without a source of rubber (while this is usually not a huge concern since rubber is quite abundant and never gets exhausted) should not still be plagued. No resource should extend too much in time periods, and neither should rubber.

I believe what mojotronia says makes perfect sense.

I believe we should keep the rubber as requirement, and add steel as a requirement for tanks and modern armor.
Once we discover steel technology, we should have a factory that requires iron and coal to produce steel. And then, we can produce these units...
Makes it more tough but more logical.

I like your idea, Globetrotter, or actually we should need iron and steel (from coal and iron) to build refining sites that give us derived oil products to replace rubber......

Thx Lt.
This could be applicable to modern fleet and aircraft too, etc. etc.

yep, you need two of the three, coal or oil or rubber, then can synthezie replacement products - that's what I think would work nicely.