Strategic resources in Civ 6

[fmm]

I thought it would be good to have a thread discussing strategic resources in Civ 6, as well as just a place to post complete info about which units require strategic resources.

So first of all here are the units that require strategic resources, listed by era:

---- (Ancient) ---
(None)

---- (Classical) ---
Horseman - Horses (Light Cavalry)
Swordsman - Iron (Melee)

---- (Medieval) ---
Knight - Iron (Heavy Cavalry)

---- (Renaissance) ---
Musketman - Niter (Melee)
Bombard - Niter (Siege)

---- (Industrial) ---
Cavalry - Horses (Light Cavalry)
Ironclad - Coal (Naval Melee)

--- (Modern) ---
Battleship - Coal (Naval Ranged)
Tank - Oil (Heavy Cavalry)

--- (Atomic) ---
Fighter - Aluminum (Air Fighter)
Bomber - Aluminum (Air Bomber)
Aircraft Carrier - Oil (Naval Carrier)
Nuclear Device - Uranium (Nuclear Weapon)

--- (Information) ---
Nuclear Submarine - Uranium (Naval Raider)
Jet Fighter - Aluminum (Air Fighter)
Modern Armor - Uranium (Heavy Cavalry)
Jet Bomber - Aluminum (Air Bomber)
Thermonuclear Device - Uranium (Nuclear Weapon)

As we can see, most strategic resources are required for exactly two units; sometimes these two units occur in the same era, such as for Niter, and sometimes these units occur in eras that are quite far apart, as in the case of Horses. The late-game resources of Aluminum and Uranium are used for four units each. In the case of Aluminum, this is require for all air units beyond the Biplane, and is only required by air units. Whereas Uranium is a very interesting late-game resource: it's required, of course, for nuclear weapons, but also for the Modern Armor (upgrade to tank) and the Nuclear Submarine.

Finally, a refresher on how strategic resources work in Civ 6 (subject to my mistaken memory). First note that strategic resources are *only* required for military units, not buildings. So if you're being peaceful, you might be able to eschew strategic resources entirely. Second, you only ever need at most two copies of a strategic resource to build a unit. More specifically, with no other districts you need two copies of a given strategic resources to build a unit that requires it some city; but if you have the relevant district in the city (Encampment for land units, Harbor for naval units, Aerodrome for air units) then you only need one of that strategic.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Quick question: do you need, for example, 1 or 2 iron per Swordsman? Or just 1 or 2 copies in order to make as many Swordsman as you can afford to maintain?

 

[Jaybe]

1 iron to produce in an encampment, 2 without an encampment.

 

[Magil]

Quick question: do you need, for example, 1 or 2 iron per Swordsman? Or just 1 or 2 copies in order to make as many Swordsman as you can afford to maintain?

By all accounts the latter, building units doesn't "cost" strategic resources anymore. It's back to the III/IV system where you just need one resource to maintain as many of the unit as you like. However, you need 2 sources to build units in a city, unless the city has an encampment (for example).

 

[fmm]

Quick question: do you need, for example, 1 or 2 iron per Swordsman? Or just 1 or 2 copies in order to make as many Swordsman as you can afford to maintain?

Sorry, should have been more clear about this in the OP. Yes, as far as we can tell you just need the resources to *build* the units, but the units themselves do not "use" the resources in any sense.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

By all accounts the latter, building units doesn't "cost" strategic resources anymore. It's back to the III/IV system where you just need one resource to maintain as many of the unit as you like. However, you need 2 sources to build units in a city, unless the city has an encampment (for example).

Very interesting. Thank you.

 

[pietro1990]

Do you get strategic resources of city states if you are ally with them?

 

[fmm]

Do you get strategic resources of city states if you are ally with them?

I believe you get all resources (including strategic) of city states you are the suzerain of.

 

[npburg]

This is a good post. I was wondering about the details and will be curious to see how it plays out.

In general I like the concept of strategic resources; however, there is always a balancing act between making them powerful enough to be relevant while not overpowered such that those without access are not over run. It is good to have powerful units but restrict them in some way. Just providing access via 1-2 sources but spamming unlimited units could be too powerful, especially if the units provide a significant advantage.

In the early part of Civ V, I rarely build swordsmen and never found lack of iron to be an initial concern since a bunch of spearman, archers and catapults could taken down an army and take over cities, even if they had iron. The spearman strength of 11 is not much worse than the swordsman strength of 14 so about a 25% advantage, plus spearmen have an advantage over horseman. In Civ VI, the spearman strength is 25 (or 35 vs horseman) while the swordsman strength is 35 so a 40% advantage, plus it appears melee unit have an advantage over anti-cavalry units so swordsman might be more important this time around. It would be great to see if spearman > horseman > swordsman > spearman kind of struggle exist. Civ IV had an interesting take on this with the addition of axemen who had a +50% bonus against melee units and also required either copper or iron while chariots had a +100% bonus against axemen so there was a greater need for mix of units, but that was also the days of the stacks of doom. So it would be great to see a rock-paper-scissor dichotomy arise against since picking rock every time gets boring.

As an aside, in vanilla Civ V, it was more imperative to get iron early since it was used for catapults as well but it seems that was changed because of the balance issue since it was too difficult to go on the offensive to take over cities without iron due to the catapult's requirement.

Moving to the mid game for Civ V, iron was critical since Frigates are so powerful and yet I don't see Frigates on the list requiring iron nor even niter. Since Frigates were a big jump over the Galleass and there was no other comparable naval vessel, iron is king unless you are land locked. The iron needed in this time meant that going to war for access to iron was an important driving factor, just as coal is king in the industrial era for building factories and establishing an ideology early and oil was critical for upgrading those frigate to battleships and then later bombers.

Having these strategies resources needed for powerful units is a good driving factor to expand and conquer. With the new system only requiring 1-2 sources, could either means everyone has enough to build their army and therefore the strategic nature of the resource is meaningless or it is possible to monopolize resources and use that to your advantage flood the world with your dominate units. The balance to have Civ VI land somewhere in between those extremes seems like it will be more difficult to achieve with the new system. This list still seem lite on units that require strategic resources and it would be interesting to see more strategic resources; however, the reintroduction of Niter (saltpeter) for gunpower units is a nice start.

Cannot wait to find out for myself how this works in practice when the game comes out.

 

[pietro1990]

Would have made musketman not require strategic resource but the bombard requirse a resource.

because you need strategic resources to atack... Not to defend.

 

[Ranias]

Can you harvest strategic resources? I think you should always do so if you are technologically finished with it.

 

[Olleus]

Why on earth would they choose to quantify luxury resources (more can be useful) at the same time as going back to the old system for strategic ones? It makes no sense?!? It's also far less balanced, the difference between having iron or not is now all-or-nothing!

This might be the first design decision I've seen in Civ6 which is purely idiotic. I can see no valid arguments to defend it.

 

[Big J Money]

Trading strategic resources should be valued very high!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It certainly inflates the value of the Hattusa suzerainty bonus.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It does seem bad.

I like the "easier to build" with an encampment idea, but you could have done that anyways. (if you have < 2x what you are using, non encampments can't build those units..encampments always can)

 

[MistyRonin]

I like the Civ VI system better than V, I guess there will be less instances of strategic resources (at least judging by the previews), hence they become actual strategic resources.

Meaning if you want to unleash a big war, you'll need to secure some of them.

I really disliked the fact that in V they were limited, hence f.i. the Roman Empire couldn't build many Legions due to the lack of iron. As if mines in real life stop working when a Legion was created and kept working when one was disbanded...

What I'd do is restrict more units with the resources, frigates should need Niter, as well as any unit that uses gunpowder.

 

[Vaclac]

Why does modern armor require uranium? Are there really nuclear-powered tanks around?
Also, I think some units should require multiple resources, for example, knights requiring both iron and horses. Then again, I also think it's weird for unique units not to require resources across the board. I do think though that basic units should not require resources so that you can always at least make some units even if you lack resources or they've been pillaged, which is why I don't like the niter resource, taking away the basic unit for that era.

 

[MistyRonin]

Why does modern armor require uranium?

They use depleted uranium AT projectiles, because of its density.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/armstrade.kosovo

BTW I would also have liked combined requeriments, iron and horses for knights f.i.

 

[fmm]

Here is another thing worth thinking about with respect to strategic resources: unique units. I do not know if this is 100% confirmed, but I believe that all evidence points to unique units never requiring strategic resources. (This is similar to how unique districts build in half the time- they really want you to use the unique things.)

Many unique units replace units that otherwise do require strategic resources. Here is a list of unique units that possibly replace units requiring strategic resources, which contains a lot of guess-work (guesses marked with question marks):

P-51 Mustang (American unit unique) - Replaces Fighter? Does not require Aluminum?
Rough Riders (Teddy Roosevelt unique unit) - Replaces Cavalry? Does not require Horses?
Mamluk (Arabian unique unit) - Replaces Knight. Does not require Iron?
Minas Gereas (Brazilian unique unit) - Replaces Battleship (but unlocked through Nationalism civic). Does not require Coal?
Crouching Tiger Cannon (Chinese unique unit) - Replaces Bombard? Does not require Niter.
Varu (Indian unique unit) - Replaces Horseman? Does not require Horses (one would have to assume!)?
Ngao Mbeba (Kongo unique unit) - Replaces Swordsman. Does not require Iron.
Legion (Roman unique unit) - Replaces Swordsman. Does not require Iron?
Conquistador (Spanish unique unit) - Replaces Musketman. Does not require Iron?

I believe the Garde Impériale (French unique unit) and Redcoats (Victoria unique unit) *do not* replace Musketmen; they definitely are unlocked at Military Science, not Gunpowder. Also I think Samurai (Japanese unique unit), which come at Military Tactics, do not replace Swordsmen.

 

[MadDjinn]

They use depleted uranium AT projectiles, because of its density.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/armstrade.kosovo

BTW I would also have liked combined requirements, iron and horses for knights f.i.

and the armour of MBTs (at least US and British ones which this may be based upon) use depleted uranium in the armour matrix.