A suggestion for a new resource system

[Commander Bello]

All this are really very nice ideas, and it would be fun to have a game with all these features being implemented.

But, how long would it be fun? Too much micro-management doesn't add to the all time - fun factor, just to the fun of one game, if at all.
Let's stay with the oil example and enhance it a little bit.
You have, say, 3 oil pumps, each delivering 10 oil "drops". And you have 2 iron mines, each delivering 10 ore units.
Now you start building your military. You plan to have 10 tanks (1 oil, 1 iron), 5 cruisers (1 oil, 2 iron), 1 battleship (2 oil, 3 iron) and 2 carriers (3 oil, 3 iron). Makes a total of 23 oil (which you have) and 28 iron (which you don't have). Since you started production with your tanks, you already have assigned all your iron to the various production queues. So, no navy!
Since your enemies are blocking your harbors, you have to re-assign iron from city D (A to C are still producing tanks) to U. Since you are going for the battleship and at least 3 cruisers, you will need another 12 iron. So cities E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M..... you get the picture?

Please tell me, how a human player should handle that on huge maps? Most of the players would just go crazy... and they would be right with it.
And even worse: how would you make the AI (we all know about the intellectual capacities of the AI, don't we????) handle all this stuff? How would the AI be able to estimate the value of a given ressource at a given time?
You have to take into consideration, that the value of the ressources might change every turn, since there are old deposits lost, some new are discovered, 2 civs have made peace, 3 others went to war and so on and so on....

Really, I like the idea very much...in principle. But, as long as the human player doesn't get satisfying help by an in-built "ressource-governor", most of them would get crazy about this.
And this governor I don't see being working properly.

My personal attitude towards this is, that we may get this with Civ5... in Civ4 we should get a reasonable AI, at least that is, what most of us are hoping.
If there were an AI which could get along with troop movements, wars and negotiations in a meaningful manner, then the time for having this discussion once again will have come.
Not earlier, not later.

 

[Harrier]

There was a game called "Destiny" produced in 1996 that had the resources idea worked out perfectly.

If you found a tile with a resource on it you got a number of units of that resourse per turn. (the number depended on your tech advancement i.e land scraping, mining, deep mining etc.). These units where stockpiled. Also they eventually became depleted.


To build a military item, building improvement or create new resources (steel for instance) you needed 1 or more units of an existing resource, or combined resources

When you founded a new city, once you had a road or sea network connected to it - you could transfer some of the stockpiled resource units to that city so it could build improvements/units etc.

The above is a very simplistic explanation of the way the game worked - but its idea were IMHO excellent.

Unfortunatally as well as the very detailed building and trade features the game was also 3D and MP. It was far to advanced for the computers, or Internet access that were available to the general public (at reasonable prices) at that time.

So it seems to have disappeared into the mists of time. I wonder if I still have my copy in the attic/loft !?

 

[Harrier]

Originally posted by Commander Bello
All this are really very nice ideas, and it would be fun to have a game with all these features being implemented.

But, how long would it be fun? Too much micro-management doesn't add to the all time - fun factor, just to the fun of one game, if at all.
Let's stay with the oil example and enhance it a little bit.
You have, say, 3 oil pumps, each delivering 10 oil "drops". And you have 2 iron mines, each delivering 10 ore units.
Now you start building your military. You plan to have 10 tanks (1 oil, 1 iron), 5 cruisers (1 oil, 2 iron), 1 battleship (2 oil, 3 iron) and 2 carriers (3 oil, 3 iron). Makes a total of 23 oil (which you have) and 28 iron (which you don't have). Since you started production with your tanks, you already have assigned all your iron to the various production queues. So, no navy!
Since your enemies are blocking your harbors, you have to re-assign iron from city D (A to C are still producing tanks) to U. Since you are going for the battleship and at least 3 cruisers, you will need another 12 iron. So cities E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M..... you get the picture?

Please tell me, how a human player should handle that on huge maps? Most of the players would just go crazy... and they would be right with it.
And even worse: how would you make the AI (we all know about the intellectual capacities of the AI, don't we????) handle all this stuff? How would the AI be able to estimate the value of a given ressource at a given time?
You have to take into consideration, that the value of the ressources might change every turn, since there are old deposits lost, some new are discovered, 2 civs have made peace, 3 others went to war and so on and so on....

Really, I like the idea very much...in principle. But, as long as the human player doesn't get satisfying help by an in-built "ressource-governor", most of them would get crazy about this.
And this governor I don't see being working properly.

My personal attitude towards this is, that we may get this with Civ5... in Civ4 we should get a reasonable AI, at least that is, what most of us are hoping.
If there were an AI which could get along with troop movements, wars and negotiations in a meaningful manner, then the time for having this discussion once again will have come.
Not earlier, not later.

Destiny did just this and more, 8 years ago. As well as being a crude 3-D (by todays standards). Its attention to detail made it fun - at least to me.

i.e. To get Bronze you had to find copper and tin resources then build a kiln to make it. And so on.

As for cities, you even had to build houses before the population would grow - and upgrade them as the game progressed.


The game was far ahead of its time and the capabilities of the computers then available.

 

[socralynnek]

OK, Commander Bello. You have asked the right questions.
How can we make our new ressource system be nice withoput too much micro-managing.
If we had a deposit in every city, we would have much work on a large map.
But if we had only one deposit for the whole civ (like money), we would have the case from time to time that we build more than we can.
But I think this is a question for the User Interface.
So, how about this: If you don't have enough ressources to complete all units (which won't hopefully for you be that often), you get a pop-up in which all units to complete are listed and you choose, which are actually being produced (and the others are on the list for the next round).
And on one advisor screen all units that need upkeep are listed directly, s.t. if you want to save some oil, you can disband some without having to search the whole map.

Another idea would be (especially if I think of oil for tanks), that there is no upkeep, but each movement or fight cost a number of oil barrels. Just an idea...

The other good question is: Can the AI handle it?
That's a very good question. It would be a lot of work to make the AI smart enough to use the ressources intelligent, but since we are thinking about doing it for Civ4 there is still enough time.

 

[Dragonlord]

I very much like the idea of a revamped resource system! Any number of good strategy games have used such in the past, I see no reason why it wouldn't work in Civ as well!

It would add to the complexity, sure, but that's all to the good, as far as I'm concerned. Why not put in an option in the game setup whether to use the 'advanced rules' for resources or not?

I wouldn't make it too fiddly with resources being transported between cities and whatnot - keep it simple and playable!

Just make a central 'stockpile' in your capitol (which could be stolen if the capitol is taken? harhar) and any roaded city has access to that.
Then you need an advisor screen showing your stockpiles and a number for your net flow (positive/negative).
Most resources would be needed only for building a unit, only fuel (Oil, maybe Coal for Ironclads?) being needed for upkeep.. again, don't make it too complicated: a tank needs one oil per turn, regardless of whether its at war or not and so on.

 

[Shyrramar]

Commander Bello,

Your concerns are real. But I still think that they can be overcome, not that we should give up because it would be too complicated. It will surely be too complicated if it is designed as one.

I gave this some thought yesterday and I think we are all walking the wrong path here - the system is becoming too complicated. The idea is good, I think all can agree on that. The question is just what you asked: how long would it be fun? As I posted earlier, I think that a good strategy game is easy to learn, but difficult to master.

The scenario you brought up is indeed straight from my nightmares. So it must be avoided, and it is easy to avoid. As Socralynnek pointed out, the system is a system of a nation, not of cities. What I would like to bring up is that it is not intended for such a low quantities of resources. The basic principle is that you get enough resources to create a substantial army (in a sense, just like in civ3 now), but should you not have those resources, you would not be left completely lacking (as in civ3 now). If the situation would indeed be as dire as you pictured, I would hardly be considering any navy anyway - I would be building a small assault force to invade some resources and perhaps then the navy could be built.

The other I thing I thought was that support model. It might just be too complicated, as Enkidu Warrior has brought up a few times now (with no visible effect, it would seem ) I think it would work best if all resources would simply have an amount of units you can support with it. Say, 50 iron units means 50 iron units - simply. All units would need the same resource support and ONLY support - the building of a unit would cost nothing. One mod armor simply would need 1 oil, 1 rubber and 1 aluminum (as it is now). The whole point of this new model isn't an excessive renovation, but just a little change.

I think that the point is simply that you could easily have SOME resources, so that the no-resources-catastrophy could be avoided - as it is a game spoiler and as unrealistic as it gets. This simple change would allow more trading as a side effect. It would make those civs with excess resources RICH, not make those who are left without just target practise for others. Saudi-Arabia has huge amounts of oil, but it isn't (for some incomprehesible reason ) invading Finland just because we have no oil. They're just very rich instead, as they should be.

Actually this system would be reasonable also in one more sense: if you have already taken the path of world dominance, you would need more resources as a result (not the other way around). So the Mad Conqueror would need more resources to be able to maintain its armies. It should be relatively easy for a defensive, peaceful nation to support enough defensive units. And I mean that this system should be designed to do just this.

The easiest way to deal with what happens when you have 90 tanks and lose 30 oil would be simply to allow that civ have its 90 tanks, but be unable to build more until 30 have been destroyed / disbanded. This would cause problems, as you could always trade more oil for some time and build more units - then you would not need the excess oil. For example: you have 90 oil resources. You buy 60 more to a total of 150 oil resources. Then you build 150 tanks and stop buying the oil. You would have 150 functional tanks still, but only 90 oil. This would be the easiest way to avoid micro-management, but it is also a bit too simple.

I think that this should nevertheless be allowed. Only that all the units that have surpassed your resources should cause progressively more upkeep. Say if you have 130% of the units you could otherwise have, the 100% would have an upkeep of one gold per turn. Then 100-110% 2gpt, 110-120% 3gpt and 120-130% 4gpt. This would effectively simulate the problems a nation would face with too few resources (which is not something that a rich nation couldn't handle with better management etc). This would be very simple, but effective. To have 100 oil and 100 tanks would cost you 100gpt. To have only 50 oil would then cost you 50+10+15+20+25+30+35+40+45+50+55=375gpt. This would be in effect almost four times the previous upkeep. This would make it imperative to somehow get rid of the excess units or buy more oil (and would not cause a fixed 20 turn time-period, but it would be left up to the player how long it will be tolerated). It would not cripple the nation, however - 10-20% less science should correct this. But who would want to go on with limping research?

The point is that the system should be optional. You would not face any walls even without ANY oil (although I think that you could still not BUILD any more units without oil, but you would not lose those already built), but be faced with different options. To pay more for your excess units, to acquire more oil, to disband the excess units or to downgrade them.

One thing I would want to address still is the problem of no navy. I think that there is little chance that someone would first build a number of tanks, then artillery, then airforce and then be left without a navy. I tend to build them all at the same time, as it makes my army become useful even when not fully built. And I think most do this too. Therefore I do not see the problem Commander Bello brought up as very acute. The scenario you pictured would mean a civ is in very deep ****, if you allow this expression. Normally there would be enough resources to build all unit types. In civ3 the situation you pictured would probably mean that the civ lacks atleast one resource COMPLETELY. No tanks, no bombers, no navy. This new system would atleast allow some tanks for resource hunting.

I guess this is enough for now. I would like to hear some comments concerning this new proposal. And Commander Bello: this is what is needed. Criticism will enable us to find the weak spots of our system and perhaps make it good enough to even use. Thank you! I do agree that the AI should be made smarter first and if you could choose between this system and AI, I would definitely go for the AI. I was just hoping that we could even get both (what an idealist! )

By the way, before you dump my proposal as too complicated etc, simply think of the corruption model in civ3. There are not many who know how it really works. But it doesn't matter, because you don't have to micromanage it. It is simple on the outside, if not on the inside. And that is all very well.

 

[Shyrramar]

Dragonlord,

I think complexity should be avoided, but not at the cost of enjoyability. This system would add to complexity, but not much (if it is kept simple). I agree that if the stockpiling system is adopted, it should be in one city (in effect: in the whole nation, not just in cities). The isn't different money resources for different cities in civ and for a good reason!

And I wholeheartedly agree that we keep war/peace upkeep the same.

 

[Commander Bello]

@ all:

A lot of very good replies to my concerns! Please allow me to take some minutes to make my thoughts, because I just don't want to "drag n' shoot".

 

[DaleSwanson]

Yeah, I like this alot. Resources should be handled like money. Every civ would have some small oil, but there would be large oil spots giving 20 oil per turn in single square. You could store up the oil and trade either lumpsums of it or opt, just like gold now. Then make units depend on some rescources and not money at all. Basicly split resources into building requirements and fuels. For building requirments you'd have bronze, iron, aluminum, maybe titanium. Fuels you'd have saltpeter, coal, oil, rubber(yes rubber, rubber parts need to be replaced constantly), uranium.

That sytem also does something else, it makes it so early units would only need building resources, you wouldn't have to worry about fuels until saltpeter. The building resources would work just like the fuels, you get so many iron per turn out of a mine, then you need one iron to build a unit that needs it. They would have no upkeep. Then when you build a unit that needs a fuel you would need some building resource (maybe iron and aluminum) and a fuel (again maybe oil and rubber). You could build storage places in a city for them, when you built one it would store say 100 iron, then the rest would just be wasted, you could build more in more cities, and if a city with a full one got taken over you'd lose that iron. If you had a full one then built another they'd both spread out the iron to 50 in each.

As for what happens when you lose a resource, well make it not just disappear, but dwindle down. So you have a big oil spot making 20 per tern then it will start to die out, 19, 18, 17.... 2, 1, gone. You would need to maintain a stockpile of oil, if you suddenly were losing oil per turn, you'd need to trade for it/ stop trading it out. If you went into the negative for the oil either a unit would be disbanded or made inactive. It would be no different than running out of money is now.

I think buildings should require resources. This would keep iron valuable until the end, since modern buildings would need steel, and thus iron.

 

[ybbor]

how does the luxry thing work w/ marketplaces, does it take more of the luxury, or create more, or a little of both?


1 more post and my own avatar...

 

[Shyrramar]

Ybbor,

A good question. I suggest that marketplaces make existing luxuries more effective. So there would not be more luxuries, but you could make more people happy with less luxuries. It might work just the way it does today: you get "extra" happy faces. The amount of luxuries acquired would not go up, but the happy faces would. That would in effect of course enable you to make more than 50 people happy with 50 dyes - which would be due to better distribution etc.

So all in all, I would go for the "take more of the luxury"-option. It would not differ from the existing system in that sense and it is also more realistic that way.

Congratulations for your avatar! [dance]

 

[TerraHero]

If u make oil necesary for upkeep, cause when u lose then resource the units u have cannot excist

 

[ybbor]

okay, now that we got that cleared up, maybe we should have city improvements like oil well, can only be built in a city that has oil in it's radius, and creates x amount more oil as long as the improvement exists, and upkeep can be afforded, also the subject of supply lines will probably spring from this system (which in my opinion is represented by the decreased movement of most troops, i.e. sure a destroyer could probably go around the world 5 times a year, but to maintain supply lines, and prepare for battels at every turn, it might only be able to go 700 miles) this sytem could also go with rivers, i.e one river can't provide water and irrgation to evry square/citizen on the planent, and maybe instead of city rank it's determined by number of roaded tiles to the luxury, and cities that don't need them, don't take the luxury

 

[krazz]

There are alot of good suggestions here and I apologize if I repeat any. The way the resources are controlled now( even with the shortages) are a simple method, though impractical. I don't like the fact that I haven't built any oil dependent units yet and the resource is gone! Nor do I like it that I just discovered oil and it is in a border city and must be heavily defended as a result. The thing of it is, do you wish to change all resources or just a few. I think all strategic resources should have a cap as stated by some already. To manage them, some are needed for building and some for upkeep. Most of this is really only used in the later ages. I don't have any suggestions, per se, but have ideas to throw in.
The limit of the resources could use a random generator for amount.
The resources needed should be stockpiled for future use( again suggested earlier),until exhaustion of the resource. You build a stockpile that holds x amount, then another and so on. In this way you would know how much resource you have for usage. Once a resource is used up , another could be randomly generated back to the map. In this way, another civ has a chance to find that resource and take advantage of stockpiling.
The stockpiling should be a cost to do also. If you don't stockpile, you don't know exactly how much resource you have, nor when it may run out. Also, you are keeping it from reappearing in another civ's backyard. This would be some sort of resource monopoly.
Say you have 3 oil resources. You stockpile a limited amount until 1 resource is depleted. That one is regenerated but you now control 2 resources that are yours alone.
In trade agreements you can only trade stockpiled resources.
Resources could be managed by the following example: I want to build a tank. I need to have iron, oil, and rubber available for production. I am charged (x)iron and (x)rubber to build it. When the unit is finished I am charged (x)oil for it to move about in peacetime. War is declared and now I am charged (x)oil for every unit in my military that needs it(or that is mobilized?). Peacetime comes back and no charge is issued. If war is declared again, then you are charged mobilization fees again. I would have to think about how to differentiate between mobilized units and stationary units. If this could be figured in, you could mobilize some units immediately and have a reserve. If you don't need the reserve you aren't charged for them. They aren't moving after all. If you need them, then you are charged. Perhaps the sentry command could be distinguished for non-mobilized?
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Old&Slow]

Question Please.

I asked this in the Mods Forum and got no respose.

Can we use the editor to increase the number and placement of resources in a New Game ?

Thanks

 

[Shyrramar]

Old&Slow,

You can edit the appearance ratio and disappearance probability in the editor under the tab "natural resources". The larger the number in appearance ratio, the more resources there will be. The help gives us this information: "In an eight-player game, a value of 160 would mean two of each resource per player". This does not, of course, mean that each player will get two of them - but merely that there should be about 16 resources in the map. The disappearance probability is smaller when the number is larger (but if the value is 0, then the resource will not disappear). So a disappearance probability of 600 would mean, that there is 1/600 probability of disappearance EACH TURN.
I do not know if the placement can be edited.
Hope this answers your question.

 

[HorseSoldier]

Very good ideas above - how about this distillation?

- Unit # caps per Resource

- Vary sizes/capacities of Resources as they are found

- Random disappearence of Resources already happens so random generation shouldn't be a problem

- No unit elimination penalty for loss of a Resource (Horses already broken, swords/gunpowder/tires already made, etc.) - just loss production ability as it already is

Coal might be tricky as it applies to Railroads (they change to the road rate?)- otherwise see below for units with a Coal prereq.

- loss of oil = naval movement minus 1 or 2, land movement minus 1 for units with an oil prereq.

- Uranium and naval nukes - same thing

- storage of excess and diplomatic trade of unit capacity rather than the resource itself

 

[Dragonlord]

Originally posted by HorseSoldier
Very good ideas above - how about this distillation?

- Unit # caps per Resource

- Vary sizes/capacities of Resources as they are found

- Random disappearence of Resources already happens so random generation shouldn't be a problem

- No unit elimination penalty for loss of a Resource (Horses already broken, swords/gunpowder/tires already made, etc.) - just loss production ability as it already is

Coal might be tricky as it applies to Railroads (they change to the road rate?)- otherwise see below for units with a Coal prereq.

- loss of oil = naval movement minus 1 or 2, land movement minus 1 for units with an oil prereq.

- Uranium and naval nukes - same thing

- storage of excess and diplomatic trade of unit capacity rather than the resource itself

This works for me!

 

[EddyG17]

what if for every unit that requiers a resource there is one that doesn't

let's say you don't have iron, you can't biuld a swordman but you can build a swordsmen wich are more expensive to build.

 

[GoodGame]

The problem with it is the "on/off" way it works. Either you have oil, or you don't. If you have it, then you have it in abundance and can build hundreds of oil-dependent units if you wish to. If you don't have it, then you are completely deprived of it (unless, of course, you trade it). What I would like to see is a more forgiving system. Here is a thought I came up with, and I would like to hear some comments, suggestions, opinions etc. concerning it.

I think the resource game is generally fine with this as is. It makes for a slightly un-fun game when you get road-blocked out of easy progress (lack of strategic resource), but that is what makes the game challenging. You have to come up with strategic solution to the situation, else you lose. If you lose, then you have to rethink some of your strategies---perhaps on an easier level----and that's what the multitude of difficulty levels are for.

My suggestion is quite simple. Now when you find oil, you can build endless number of units with it. Also, when you trade oil from another civ, you automatically trade endless quantities of it for a small period of time. I thought that it would be more realistic and interesting to make all oil fields have a different amount of oil. Not so that when it is exhausted, it disappears, but more like a maximum support limit. So that one small oil field would allow you to build and support, say, 25 oil-dependent units. Same would apply to other resources and luxuries.

I generally agree that it's unrealistic that for almost all the strategic resources, they're located in a few pin-point locations. Having more locations per resource, and increasing the possibility of their 'drying up' is a good idea. Tying the rate of their 'drying up' in some way to the production of the units / city improvements requiring them is wise also----if not by an actual quantity (like the Age of Empires games), than by a probability recheck everytime a requisite unit/improvement is built.

Another idea is to allow an increase in the chance of finding a new source of the resource once you research an optional tech---maybe 'Advanced Prosepecting' or 'Satellites'.


Generally, it's part of the game play that just having a tech doesn't guarantee you getting the unit. The tech tree should always have enough unit possibilities so some ingenious unit can be built. E.g. build a Guerilla even if you don't have Rubber to make Infantry. Build an alternative to that tank?

Along those lines, I find it funny to have (borrowed iron) railroads and a military of Infantry, Galleons, and Trebuchets in some games. Surely they could have figured at least coal and rubber-driven upgrades into the original tech-tree, for iron-less oil-less societies.

Trade would also become more interesting. It would actually be useful to hunt more resources. It seems odd that if all other civs have one oil-resource and I have five, I have no use for the additional four. In this new model, they would indeed become handy.

As the game is now, you do benefit from being a resource hog in that you deny the opponents those benefits as wells. It's an important part of a war, too.

I agree that scattering the resources and making them of limited use would make the game more challenging in trade, diplomacy, and exploration.

An alternative might be to have secondary (lesser) value bonus resources that double as strategic resources, but produce less useful variants. E.g. using some other metal than iron for Iron, or using Iron for Aluminum, etc... The city improvement requiring that resource might need extra shields, and the unit made like that might have weakened stats. (Iron planes don't fly as good as aluminum ones, and wood isn't as great armor as Titanium.)

That way there's still a hunt for the good resources, but second-placers can still build the advanced tech units at least in a semi-laughable / cruder form. Kind of like real life.

Luxuries would have a "support" too. Say, there would be enough dyes to satisfy 44 unhappy people. The luxuries could work just as before, but there would not be enough dyes to make happy faces in the 45th city (perhaps the ones left without would be determined by city rank?)

This is a good idea, but probably hard to implement or hand-calculate in game. Even if you only get a snort of a luxury, to me the idea of luxuries is that are mainly natural, renewable resources intangeably more valuable than money/gifts, so they're worth fighting for in time and space. And having multiple copies of the same type are just to represent a surplus from which you trade from, rather than an ability to satisfy each and every citizen with a whiff of a particular luxury.

To me a better way to limit the power of a luxury monopoly in hogging happiness is to make a few more types of luxuries, and to also allow the bonus resources (e.g. tobacco, grain, cows), to be worked up into a luxury item as well, of equal value. Once you have an advanced technology and a proper city improvement (like the plantations in the Age of Discovery scenario, although they made victory points), it makes sense to me that nearly anything can be produced and re-marketed as a luxury (like real life). If you could turn tobacco into cigars, grain into alcohol, and cows into fast food (with each counting as a unique luxury like raw incense/dye/furs) then you'd have competing luxuries that eventually null the lead of having an ancient era

The bonus of that system would be to simulate a working economy a little bit more than just resource harvesting, and building 'The Industrial Factory'. And it would also simulate for economic specialization of regions, since you wouldn't want to build multiple copies of the same improvement in different cities, if you could do it in one city with multiple copies of the bonus source resource.

More realism

So, what say you?

I say too much realism means too much math means 'un-fun', except maybe to help with the college work.

As long as the system eloquently explores the 'real thing' in depth, without excess calculations, but also sums it up simple, then I'm for it as entertainment.