A suggestion for a new resource system

[Shyrramar]

I have given some thought to the way resources and luxuries are handled in Civ3 and here is what came in to my mind. I thought it would be a good thing to share it with you folks, so that perhaps together we could make up a real working system to replace the somewhat simplified existing system.

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.

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.

Now this would only make sense if the resources were more common - so that it would be very improbable to completely lack some resource, but perhaps more common to have too little of it. As it is now, it may be even that there is not enough oil for all civs - which certainly puts the ones left without in a very precarious situation! How realistic is it, that a great nation can't have ANY tanks although it is the most advanced nation it the world?

I agree, that resources and luxuries should play a big part in the game, but I do NOT think that it should make ALL the difference. A civilization without rubber and oil is doomed indeed unless it can conquer some before the other civs get infantry. With this modification, I believe that the game would become more realistic in this sense. They would still be very important (it's pretty hard to conquer the world with 15 tanks if other civs have more than a hundred, but it is possible to invade an oil field to get greater support for bigger tank-armies), but they would less likely ruin the game.

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. They would either make it possible to build a superior tank-army, or you could trade it, as the other civs would be eager to buy more oil. It would also force players to ponder whether to keep the oil to support larger armies or trade it off for other goodies.

Of course, should I have 90 rubber-units and lose a rubber and be left with a support of 60 units, the additional 30 would not be destroyed. I would simply not be able to build more until 31 of them would be destroyed. That would severely cripple my offensive capabilities.

This would also force players to use the less-used units more and re-think their way of building their military. It would perhaps be impossible to simply build hundreds of modern armors, but instead you would have to be satisfied with 50 modern armors and use mech-infs, bombers, artillery, infantry etc. to make up the loss. I think it would have a great impact on military tactics!

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?)

All in all, I think this system would be worth pondering . I guess it would anyway be civ4-stuff, as it is perhaps too big a change to implement in any patch. Remember that this is just a thought and probably needs much tuning. I think that it has potential anyway, even if it turns out to be a bad idea.

As a summary of the pros of this system:
1. No more "Oh I have no oil and I am doomed", and welcome "Damnation, I have only one oil source...Must quickly invade others with my 10 tanks!"
2. A real reason to go after the ninth rubber and eleventh gems.
3. More room for tactics as some unit types would most certainly be limited to small numbers (perhaps some units would cost more resources than others?)
4. More realism

So, what say you?

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

I like the idea of a unit cap for the high end stuff based not only on economy and government but on the availability of resources. It would of course be contentious, and far too big a change for Civ3. High up on my wish list for Civ 4 though.

P.S. I'm putting you on my list of psychic idea thiefs!

 

[Nihilist]

Excellent idea. I've been thinking along those lines since way back when Civ3 first came out. Oil didn't seem nearly as important in trade negotiations as I thought it would be, and I was a bit disappointed in the lack of realism in that regard.

I like the idea that going to war for more sources of Oil might actually serve some useful purpose in this game.

 

[Chauliodus]

Rather than a cap, oil could be needed to support units, like the higher the number of oil based units, the higher the shield cost, or increase chance of having that resource be exausted.

Would be neet to if the loss of a resource would effect units based on it after it is lost, give the player a certain amount of turns to secure a new source before they become non-functional (unable to move/defend). Could also allow the player to downgrade units so they could become usful again, for a cost.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

It does make sense that you could be forced to go to war to secure more oil to maintain your current force as well as to actually expand your army, but I think that's getting a bit too fiddly. You could get a turn-limit to replenish your oil before your units go out of service. Note that I'm trying hard not to make comparisons with current alleged events. Honest!

I like the idea of a unit cap just because I'm attracted to a limit on the size of big wars (no more need to employ logistical staff to fight a big war). I shudder to think about how poorly this would be received by some players though. This would be the most argued about feature ever if it was added in Civ4.

Unit caps could also be imposed based on population - say only 20% of your population could be enlisted in the military, less in a democracy etc etc..... That's definately getting a bit too detailed though IMO.

 

[Chauliodus]

You could get a turn-limit to replenish your oil before your units go out of service.

That was in my post~

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

delete me

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Originally posted by Chauliodus


That was in my post~

Apologies, I'm half asleep.

Also one eight awake and three eights dead. :arrow:

 

[Goober]

Very interesting idea. I think this might bring a whole new dimension to the game. This certainly would change the way I do combat!!! I do like it, but maybe they should include a little gauge like thing to tell you how much oil or whatever is remaining? Likely in the Military Advisor.

 

[Shyrramar]

Thank you for your comments and suggestions,

The problem here is this: what makes civ so great is its simplicity and ease of use. The best games are those that are relatively ease to learn, but difficult to master. And, of course, its all about balance. For example, Call to Power was nothing compared to civilization because of a variety of reasons, mainly because it was made too complicated. There was simply too much stuff. The trade system was innovative and somewhat realistic, but the trade routes were laborsome to maintain and control. The space- and sea-cities were an excellent idea, but the AI couldn't use them well enough and they were simply too good. And the special units were also good in theory, but a catastrophy in practice.

The point is: the system should be kept simple but fruitful. I think it is a good point that losing your oil would make you lose some oil-based units, but it may be a disaster to game balance. Turn limit for downgrading your units might prove to be a real pain in the ass - it could lead to same problems that we face today: the game becomes too much a hunt for resources and less everything else. This should be considered very thoroughly.

I think that this could be done if the loss of oil would cause a decrease in movement points. Not completely immobilize (potentially disastrous), but cause a nationwide reduction. Thus tanks would move only 2 tiles per turn for the time you have excess units. The problem with this, I now perceive, is that swordsmen can hardly be made slower with the lack of iron. Perhaps a better solution would be that only a certain percent of your units could move per turn (perhaps 60 oil-units of those 90 with the loss of 30 oil). This would cause similar effects that we see in Russia, for instance. They have a huge military, but it cannot be fully mobilized because of lack of money and resources. That does not mean, however, that their army couldn't handle small skirmishes effectively!

So the lack of resources effectively reduces your military offensive capacity, but does not completely disarm you. The problem still remains with defensive units, though.

This idea has great potential, I think, but one should be wary of making it too complex to easily handle. This system should be easy to handle and learn, but difficult to master. Therefore it should be simple, but all the same complex. That would keep the spirit of Cilization alive and perhaps add an extra flavour to it. Or what do you think?

RealGoober: you are right in demanding information about the resources. The system could hardly work without it: one should always be able to see exactly how many units can be supported with each resource.

 

[Shyrramar]

Oh yeah, one more thing,

I thought that it would be realistic that some units require less resources than others. For example: cruise missiles require aluminum same as modern armors. It would be real stupid that you could either have 20 modern armors or 20 cruise missiles. This would be an addition to the common request that different units should have different upkeep costs.

My suggestion is that some units require more than one "resource-point" for upkeep and some less than one. For example five cruise missiles would total up to one aluminum resource. So you could either support 100 cruise missiles or 20 mods. Perhaps railroads would have similar costs, like 10 railroad squares per one coal or such. Perhaps even later in the game the railroads would not need coal as a resource at all (I haven't seem many of modern day trains use coal... ). Or has someone a better solution for this? This would make it possible to demand a small amount of some resource for some units - such as small amount of rubber in mods, but a large quantity of oil. I fear, however, that this too would result in too much complexity, as units would have their att/def/mov-values, bombardment rates, upkeeps in both gold and resources. This would perhaps be overwhelming to beginners...

 

[socralynnek]

I have also a few suggestions: What about having a storage for oil etc.? If you have 2 fields producing 10 barrels per round and you lose them you would still have enough oil to get around a few rounds with your tanks, but if you don't get any oil in a few turns youn are doomed... (The storage should be like your treasury s.t. you can trade oil per turn or stored oil and that you lose some oil if you lose a city)
And you should have units that need resources to be build and units that need support.
E.g.
Swordsmen only need iron to be build, but no upkeep but
Tanks need some oil to be build and some oil each turn.

I don't think that this would be too complicated, because it's very logical.

 

[Shyrramar]

This sounds very good. I like the idea of some units needing upkeep and some not. But would you suggest that if you have, say, 50 iron, you could build 50 iron units and no more - so that each iron unit would consume one iron and the iron deposits would be exhausted when they would be spent? This would require that whenever one iron is depleted, another would pop up somewhere, otherwise the world would be left without iron after a time (and that isn't very realistic!).

It would indeed make it simple and effective to treat resources as gold. They would then fit neatly into one information box.

It would also be nice that units would need some resources to build them and perhaps some to upkeep (mod armors oil to upkeep, aluminum and rubber to build?)

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Keeping stockpiles of resources incase they dry up is very realistic but I fear far too fiddly to enhance the game.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

All this has been brought up before, and it is a very good idea. As far as unit upkeep goes, it seems that the most important factor is the resources used as fuel, e.g, oil. Maybe , then what you would need to to is have only the fuel resources (oil, uranium) be kept track of for maintenance purposes. Oil could be discovered, then exploited through wells and offshore platforms, and stockpiled, if you have built tank farms. Enough oil to maintain the worlds armies would be available on the map, but in limited quantity per deposit, so continued exploration and drilling would be necessary. As deposits run dry, new ones appear, though you have to explore for them. Running out of oil would not disband your units, they would become inactive, unable to attack, defend or provide military/police support. They would still cost maintenance, though. You could also mothball units, to save oil for a big campaign. (If you are at war your units should use more oil per turn.) Derricks, oil platforms and especially tank farms would be separate improvements on the map, like radar towers/forts, and vulnerable to enemy bombing if left undefended.

As far as other resources like metals go, they should be available in finite quantity also, with new deposits appearing periodically. As mining techniques improve with new techs, you can dig deeper, and find larger deposits of iron, copper, aluminum, etc. Modern units will use much larger amounts of metal than do early units (it should take much more iron to build a battleship than a swordsman). Some metals, like titanium, could be made relatively scarce, but necessary to build premium jet fighters and the like. As pointed out, everything should be available for trade in discrete quantities. Whoever has titanium, or currently controls the lion's share of the oil supply has the capacity to really influence world affairs, even if they are somewhat weak militarily.
You could make some sweet tech/gold deals with a near monopoly on titanium. Also, no more of this invisible resource business - if any one civilization knows how to use something, any civ that has it can trade it, even if they don't know what it's used for, though they should demand to be caught up in tech for selling it to you.

 

[stivomali]

One problem I can see with this approach is the snowball effect. Already it seems that once you have, say, twice the territory of any of your rivals, you're pretty much on course to win.

Imagine you have a neighboring civ that's pretty equal to you in strength. Each of you has control of three 10 point iron supplies with approximately equal support for 30 swordmen (or ability to mobilize 30 swordmen per turn, or whatever the game mechanic is). Now with a decisive victory over one city you steal one of his iron supplies.
Suddenly, you can support 40 swordmen to his 20, doubling your relative strength with the capture of a single city, quite a big difference from the current resource system, IMO.

(Although with the scarcer resources in Conquests, one could argue it would be more crippling to steal a rival's only iron source in the current system.)

 

[12ozProphets]

I like the idea of resources per turn, and storing each like money is now. That way you could trade what you don't need for cash or other resources. Unit would then have a cash per turn and a resource per turn requirement.

As far as balance. Less resources force everyone to trade more. As in the real world. If one civ has almost all of the oil. Everyone will be buying oil from that civ. If you attack that civ, you threaten the other civs economy, and even thought there is no mutual protection act, they should still declare war on you to protect their own interests.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

Originally posted by stivomali
One problem I can see with this approach is the snowball effect. Already it seems that once you have, say, twice the territory of any of your rivals, you're pretty much on course to win.

Imagine you have a neighboring civ that's pretty equal to you in strength. Each of you has control of three 10 point iron supplies with approximately equal support for 30 swordmen (or ability to mobilize 30 swordmen per turn, or whatever the game mechanic is). Now with a decisive victory over one city you steal one of his iron supplies.
Suddenly, you can support 40 swordmen to his 20, doubling your relative strength with the capture of a single city, quite a big difference from the current resource system, IMO.

(Although with the scarcer resources in Conquests, one could argue it would be more crippling to steal a rival's only iron source in the current system.)

There would need to be a full range of units throughout the ages that don't require resources. Whether these are subject to some sort of build cap is a valid question.

There has also been the suggestion throughout that the way resources are traded should be re-worked, so that even a nation with almost no resources (Japan being the case in point) could reasonably procure them whilst remaining competitive (I think WWII Japan could reasonably be described as "competetive"). I've no idea how this could reasonably be acheived without removing the importance of controlling strategic resources however, I defer to my peers.

 

[Fanny Brice]

You could do a lot of things to tie in with the explotation of a resource to enhance the efficiency of its use.

To continue with the oil example, you originally tap a deposit of oil and it can support 25 units. Building an oil refinery allows great efficiency and that oil deposit can now support 35 units.

The original oil deposit can slowly become less abundant. Say, it drops to only support 15 units. A tech is discovered later that increases the efficiency of your oil industry and increases the number of units supportable.

Also -- factor in if you can the huge effect that oil plays on economies. Abundant oil keeps prices down. Scarcity drives prices up. Even happiness could be effected in scarcity ratios.

 

[Shyrramar]

I think that this system has actually lesser snowball effect than the system now. Usually I attack those enemy cities with best resources. Nowadays it is very easy to completely deprive your enemies of oil or other vital resources. After that, they are definitely lost. They cannot produce enough powerful units to reclaim their resources.

In this new system it would be very difficult to deprive them of all their resources, only to lessen their capabilities. If you have stronger production that your enemy, you can reclaim the lost resources (actually the other civs can't do much with their resources if they are unable to produce enough units). You with your 20 swordsmen can overcome the 40 if you build reinforcements faster than they do - it will eventually dip your way if your defences are built up.

Anyway, I think it is actually this new system that corrects the snowball effect that is there already, not the one that would cause it.

As far as the resource dependent units are concerned, I fully agree with you guys that there should always be optional units to replace those that need unavailable resources. There should be some weaker unit that would replace the better if there was no resources.