benefit of certain resources to low

[Karnja]

in my opinion, the benefitt of certain resources is to low: fur, marble, rice, sheep, banana, sugar, and cotton being the worst. (probably i forgott 1 or 2)

really, not worth it to use them most of the time, unless you needed for happyness in town. but most of the time, if you have 2+ of the same resource, either built a farm on it or a house that gives money (dont know the english word) because the benefitt is higher. what do you guys think?

 

[westamastaflash]

Cotton is worth only the first one, unless you are trading it. Otherwise, build a town on it, you get more commerce from a town than from the resource!

Marble is only worth it for the bonus to certain wonders it gives, and possible production bonuses on a flatland. It's also great to found cities on a marble hill (3 hammers base).

Fur is fine because you get to keep the hammer in the forest and get 4 commerce out of the deal. Its like an elf cottaged forest for anyone.

Rice, Sheep, and Banana all provide Heath and Food, though i question Rice giving one less food than Wheat or Corn, I'd think it'd be the other way around, if anything! Sheep give +3 food which is fantastic (the +1 commerce is incidental).

Bananas don't get the same bonus from Agriculture that Corn, Wheat, and Rice do, but they still give a good yield (5 food on grassland).

I would agree that Marble and Cotton need a slight buff, but other than that, the resources are fine.

 

[westamastaflash]

Oh, and sugar, with the +1 food, is nice. It's like a poor man's Wine though. I think it ought to be improved to what wine gives (+2 commerce), then it'll be fine.

 

[HadesScorn]

I'd add sugar to westamastaflash's list of needing buffs. Absolutely not worth it after the single investment.

 

[Karnja]

wine, sugar etc.. id rather built a farm or money house (whats the real name for it?) if i had two of em instead of a plantage.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The real name is cottage.

Many of those resources - fur, sugar, and cotton - tend to clump together at one spot on the map, meaning if you have them, no one else will. Best to exploit that by improving them all and trading them around.

Sheep and rice give fine yields.

Banana sucks ass, though, yes.

 

[First]

Forgive me for thread hijacking, but I never ever see sugar anywhere on maps, although that could be something to do with the Erebus mapscript.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Sugar and Banana are the worst in my opinion. 5 food with a plantation, 6 food with a farm+agrarianism+sanitation. not a difficult choice.

Forgive me for thread hijacking, but I never ever see sugar anywhere on maps, although that could be something to do with the Erebus mapscript.

I see sugar a lot, but it does tend to clump, like dye and gems. I can't remember the last time I saw more than 2 bananas on an entire large Erebus map.

 

[HadesScorn]

I tend to play on Huge Continents, with the "double resources" option so you get a good spread on any continent. There is still significant clumping, which can be nice for creating oversea trade incentives. That being said:

-The AI is obsessed with trading food resources for mana [their food for your mana]. This is fairly frustrating as it can give a negative relations for refusing to trade.
-About 2/3 of resources are better improved than otherwise, or have their bonus based on what you would put there anyways. Gold, [removed silver], Gems, bronze and iron all give benefits over that of normal tiles with standard improvements. Why then are banana and sugar plantations worse both food and economic wise than standard tiles? Wine I understand as it takes a single tech to improve and offers a significant early game commerce and happiness boost.

 

[Karnja]

i very much agree with hadesscorn. and even wine is only worth it at the beginning. after a short time i built a cottage on it (always unless its needed for lucky ppl in your city)

 

[Mailbox]

Marble should give + 1 imo

 

[HadesScorn]

Marble could also give a culture boost to the city nearest it. Think Greek.

 

[zup]

Marble could help with building more stuff. Temples for instance, could use a 50% boost from it. (Double speed for a wonder is 100% boost.) It could really help late game expansion (it takes forever to set up those cities). And one could actually make use of conquered cities some day.

 

[First]

Honestly there should be some sort of civic (just like Industry in FF) that boosts a number of improvements so that one's empire isn't just a cottage/farm sprawl.

 

[Inkling]

The real name is cottage.

Many of those resources - fur, sugar, and cotton - tend to clump together at one spot on the map, meaning if you have them, no one else will. Best to exploit that by improving them all and trading them around.

Sheep and rice give fine yields.

Banana sucks ass, though, yes.

the real problem with trade, on larger maps with lots of civs, or with raging barbarians, you end up with a major surplus, because only one is needed for an entire civilization, if there is one for every civ, the minute one civ dies, you have an untradeable surplus. being that in most of my games atleast a third of the nations are wiped out before trade can even be established, you have a worthless stockpile. why i kinda thought guilds from bts were a good idea.

then you further wind up with random resource finds(haven't seen that event in a while though outside of mines) nations which are too poor to offer a reasonable price or whom you are at war with, unable/unwilling to trade with.

The resource needs to be worth having on its own face value, it shouldn't rely on being traded when more than likely it won't be, can't all be.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Honestly there should be some sort of civic (just like Industry in FF) that boosts a number of improvements so that one's empire isn't just a cottage/farm sprawl.

the problem with that is the opportunity cost of NOT being able to use another civic though. imho late-game improvements should be superior to early game improvements even without the need for a particular civic.

 

[MaxAstro]

Marble definitely needs a buff; it should almost certainly be a luxury resource. I actually think Quarries in general need a slight buff, which is why I tend to add Stone back in my modmods; also makes Slavery a bit better.

Rice should be as good as Wheat and Corn one way or another; could have it give commerce.

Fur would be a lot better if it wasn't always in horribly inhospitable areas. Same with Deer; I like FFs solution to that, actually (gasp, deer actually show up in non-arctic condition! Who'd have thought?).

Cotton and Sugar are both pretty horrible compared to Dye, AND Dye seems to clump more than them.

One thing to consider is that not every resource needs to be equal. But in general, I think the best resources should be the hardest to get, and this is not nearly the case. Fur and Deer are mediocre resources that are really hard to come by, while Gold and Dye are indisputably the best commerce resources in the game but can be a dime a dozen (especially Gold, which doesn't usually require Bronze Working to connect like Dye does).

 

[thapagan]

So maybe the should be a few plantation buffs in the tech tree. I think and extra food and an extra coin, placed on the "naval" tech branch ( you make money by shipping this stuff).
It won't solve all the problems, but a small boost here and there would be nice.

Slavery civic and plantations seem like a natural, I think one extra hammer.

Just an idea, maybe good or bad?

 

[Fafnir13]

-The AI is obsessed with trading food resources for mana [their food for your mana]. This is fairly frustrating as it can give a negative relations for refusing to trade.

I think you can get around that by clicking "care to negotiate" and then clicking "exit trade" or whatever the exit text is. Been doing that for a while now and I don't think I've seen the "you refused to trade with us" popping up either.
It is really annoying though, especially when more then one offers the same, horrible trade.

 

[zup]

Have you played Space Empires V? The treaties those AI empires suggest...FfH does not compare.

I don't remember getting 'you refused to trade with us'. But those requests of tribute/help are just ridiculous. IMO, you should get a positive modifier for rejecting them. Something like 'you are not completely without common sense'.