[Feature] Limited Resource Effects

[Leoreth]

Cities are prioritised by owner culture.

 

[TJDowling]

Cities are prioritised by owner culture.

Oh cool, thought it was just based on total pop.

 

[ozqar]

How does this feature interact with corporations?

As I understand corporations (and I really don't understand them very well, also not in real life) before, if you had 2 instances of X resource available in your civ, and a corporation branch in 7 of your cities, then the corporation would consume both instances and provide twice the bonuses for each of these cities, right? This means +14 bonuses across your empire.

Now, assuming those 2 instances can supply 6 cities, and assuming you have corporation branches in seven cities as before, the corporation would only provide its effects to the 6 cities where the resources are present (not the 7th) and then only once. This would mean +6 bonuses across your empire.

Is all of this correct?

 

[Leoreth]

The first paragraph is correct, that is how corporations work. I have left these rules unchanged, so as far as corporations are concerned, all of your cities are supplied with all controlled resources. The same is true e.g. for unit or building requirements and health and happiness from buildings in combination with resources. It really only affects immediate health and happiness from resources.

 

[soul-breathing]

How about to make resourses provided to the cities that have larger popolation? Now there are many resourses waste in cities that not so big.

 

[LikeNothing]

As a result of Limited Resource Effects, the Trading Company corporation urgently needs a rebalance. Playing a European colonial civ is quite jarring otherwise.

The food bonus, never very realistic to begin with, is now not mechanistically useful either. Trading Company cities will have low owner culture due to being recently conquered. Thus now they will have low health and happiness (compounding with the heathen religions), so that the only way to make use of the food bonus is to run a large number of specialists. Due to the specialists slots available those specialists will be mostly (Hindu, Confucian, Buddhist, Muslim) priests. Egads!

IMO the best way to fix this problem is to remove Trade Company corp completely. It was originally designed to make European colonialism worth the effort in distant areas, given the city maintenance. Now, with Limited Resource Effects, each instance of a resource is much more valuable than before, and Europeans thus have much greater motivation to colonize historically to begin with. Trade Company corp has fulfilled its historical mission and should retire.

Alternatively, the food bonus should be removed (and/or replaced with a production bonus), the gold bonus should be reduced, and the corporation could enable a building ("Colonial Administration") that improves the stability of the city and/or reduces maintenance.

And, of course, it should be made available to all civs as long as their capital is not in the same region. Alternatively, it should be available if and only if owner culture is below a certain percentage.

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Due to the specialists slots available those specialists will be mostly priests. Egads!

I don't see a problem with that specifically, it's not without historical precedent to have a very religious colonial population.

 

[LikeNothing]

I don't see a problem with that specifically, it's not without historical precedent to have a very religious colonial population.

You may be thinking of various sects of Christian zealots that immigrated en masse to the Thirteen Colonies, but Trade Company corporation does not appear there. Or in the Spanish Main, for that matter.

Instead, Trade Company appears in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Far East. Are the various European East India Companies known for subsidizing large populations of Hindu priests? How would the go about it even if they wanted to?

And if you want to spread Christianity to India, for example, you will have to pay for two to three times the amount of Missionaries because of localized religion spreading (another feature of DoC that long postdates Trade Company, and helps obsolete it).

 

[Imperator Knoedel]

Instead, Trade Company appears in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Far East. Are the various European East India Companies known for subsidizing large populations of Hindu priests? How would the go about it even if they wanted to?

Incidentally yes, modern Hinduism is very much the product of British imperialism.

 

[Ogi123]

Okay so after hiatus I played limited resources version. Changes it brings are interesting but not all for the better IMHO.
First of all I really dislike lack of control when distributing resources, this often forces me to play weird game of prioritising culture in some large cities and not building those improvements in some smaller cities. There really should be panel to assign resources.
Secondary mega cities are back with vengeance. Currently cities without access to resources are basically worthless, so you need to be really careful when placing cities. This of course means that Temujin was right and you need to burn a lot of cities.
Thirdly I think that there is need for more health and happiness buildings to make wide empire strategy viable.
Opinions?

 

[TripleRoryFan]

I think all the issues people have with the limited resources version of the game are either because they can't decide which cities the resources go to and it makes it harder to control a larger empire. Personally I think making it harder to run a gigantic empire is a good thing, it means that when you're a colonial power looking to expand you need to focus on what resources you can settle near or conquer near so that you can improve the situation in your core cities, which is a more historical kind of colonisation imo.

 

[ozqar]

I think it would be more appropriate if it was commerce, instead of culture, that was chosen to distribute resources. Would it be possible to experiment with that, Leoreth?

 

[Leoreth]

Okay so after hiatus I played limited resources version. Changes it brings are interesting but not all for the better IMHO.
First of all I really dislike lack of control when distributing resources, this often forces me to play weird game of prioritising culture in some large cities and not building those improvements in some smaller cities. There really should be panel to assign resources.

I don't understand why you regard it as weird that you have to pay more attention to culture in large cities than in small cities. That's exactly one of the outcomes this mechanic is meant to promote.

I definitely do not want any micromanagement of this aspect of the game.

Secondary mega cities are back with vengeance. Currently cities without access to resources are basically worthless, so you need to be really careful when placing cities. This of course means that Temujin was right and you need to burn a lot of cities.

That on the other hand is a valid concern, however it depends on if you choose to accumulate many different happiness resources or multiple instances of the same. The latter is of course the less intuitive play style if you are used to the old rules. I also understand it depends on what is available in your native area.

Thirdly I think that there is need for more health and happiness buildings to make wide empire strategy viable.
Opinions?

I agree, but I haven't thought about it much. Suggestions are welcome.

I think it would be more appropriate if it was commerce, instead of culture, that was chosen to distribute resources. Would it be possible to experiment with that, Leoreth?

I don't think it's a good idea to make the deciding factor for health/happiness something that is actively furthered by having more health/happiness. It's not as bad of an idea as using population which is a direct positive feedback loop, but this would also only enable good cities to become even better while allowing no active decisionmaking.

 

[Ogi123]

I don't understand why you regard it as weird that you have to pay more attention to culture in large cities than in small cities. That's exactly one of the outcomes this mechanic is meant to promote.

I definitely do not want any micromanagement of this aspect of the game.

There are two problems with this. Firstly border cities are often not in you core but really need culture to push borders. Secondly culture give yields to specialist and increases GPP generation, so ideally you want those 5k culture in all of yours cities. Thirdly this also lead to few super cities, because if I cannot control resource distribution then I will mitigate risk by having fewer cities.

That on the other hand is a valid concern, however it depends on if you choose to accumulate many different happiness resources or multiple instances of the same. The latter is of course the less intuitive play style if you are used to the old rules. I also understand it depends on what is available in your native area.

Actually what is ironic that isn't that super serious problem there are various ways of gaining some happy faces, mainly though sliders manipulation or civics.
Serious hurdle is presented by because there is no way to overcome lack of those kind resources. There isn't enough buildings to counteract , this is also making industrialisation almost impossible. It was already difficult under 1.15 rules but now is horror show.

I agree, but I haven't thought about it much. Suggestions are welcome.

There is need to revisit buildings anyway due to the new resource mechanics. Lot of them are useless now and aren't being build except some few selected cities.
I could throw some proposition here, but mind that it's only first look impression.
-new building: well +2, masonry.
-aqueduct: cheaper +2, no storage.
-bath: +2 +2 +2, more expensive.
-smokehouse : additional effect +25% food storage, moved from aqueduct.
-serwer: +3.
-hospital: +4.
And perhaps other buildings in later eras.

 

[1SDANi]

There are two problems with this. Firstly border cities are often not in you core but really need culture to push borders. Secondly culture give yields to specialist and increases GPP generation, so ideally you want those 5k culture in all of yours cities. Thirdly this also lead to few super cities, because if I cannot control resource distribution then I will mitigate risk by having fewer cities.



Actually what is ironic that isn't that super serious problem there are various ways of gaining some happy faces, mainly though sliders manipulation or civics.
Serious hurdle is presented by because there is no way to overcome lack of those kind resources. There isn't enough buildings to counteract , this is also making industrialisation almost impossible. It was already difficult under 1.15 rules but now is horror show.



There is need to revisit buildings anyway due to the new resource mechanics. Lot of them are useless now and aren't being build except some few selected cities.
I could throw some proposition here, but mind that it's only first look impression.
-new building: well +2, masonry.
-aqueduct: cheaper +2, no storage.
-bath: +2 +2 +2, more expensive.
-smokehouse : additional effect +25% food storage, moved from aqueduct.
-serwer: +3.
-hospital: +4.
And perhaps other buildings in later eras.

A while back I was trying to figure out how to make smokehouse, sewers, and baths better, but I found that per the mechanics of the game they're pretty balanced.

In retrospect, I may have thought bath UP because it's prerequisite of aqueduct filled an entirely separate niche, meaning I'd often want to build aqueduct but not bath. Smokehouse meanwhile was pretty balanced but only ever useful in cities near livestock, making it useless for a majority of cities, and sewer was average in terms of cost, but +2 health without any other effects gave me the feeling of a building that only served one purpose, compared to baths that also gave culture and hospitals that helped military units.

I still feel that bath and smokehouses have issues, though now I feel it's less of a "pls buff" and more "this is relatively niche". Sewers are fine as is.

Moving beyond a recollection of my history with these buildings, I feel like your suggsetion is pretty good. I like the idea of giving smokehouse a wider use, and ditto for bringing aqueduct in line with the use of baths. However, I feel that your proposal for aqueducts is VERY similar to wells. I'm not sure if wells fit in the current scale of the game, being such a small building compared to everything else. I also question the idea of wells giving the same health bonus as baths and aqueducts. I don't think baths need to give extra happiness, as you say there's already enough of that and doing so would in turn increase it's cost and therefore makes it's health benefits harder to reach.

I'm also concerned about hospital and sewers being too good, the game already is pretty balanced in health per production, and I'd suggest you look into that. I already build hospital in more than enough cities, and if I had to improve sewers it'd probably be something really small to help the player's perception of it's usefulness match the reality. I'm not sure what that could be though.

 

[Leoreth]

There are two problems with this. Firstly border cities are often not in you core but really need culture to push borders. Secondly culture give yields to specialist and increases GPP generation, so ideally you want those 5k culture in all of yours cities.

Looks like this new feature forces you to make strategic choices where to allocate your culture. WAD.

Thirdly this also lead to few super cities, because if I cannot control resource distribution then I will mitigate risk by having fewer cities.

Risk?

Actually what is ironic that isn't that super serious problem there are various ways of gaining some happy faces, mainly though sliders manipulation or civics.
Serious hurdle is presented by because there is no way to overcome lack of those kind resources. There isn't enough buildings to counteract , this is also making industrialisation almost impossible. It was already difficult under 1.15 rules but now is horror show.

Did you actually build something like Sewers before? I could also imagine to repurpose Parks to help with health.

There is need to revisit buildings anyway due to the new resource mechanics. Lot of them are useless now and aren't being build except some few selected cities.
I could throw some proposition here, but mind that it's only first look impression.
-new building: well +2, masonry.
-aqueduct: cheaper +2, no storage.
-bath: +2 +2 +2, more expensive.
-smokehouse : additional effect +25% food storage, moved from aqueduct.
-serwer: +3.
-hospital: +4.
And perhaps other buildings in later eras.

Food storage to Smokehouse is bad because it comes too early in the tech tree. I would also prefer to spread health bonuses across more buildings rather than just increasing existing ones.

Another point here, the number of cities affected by a given resource is not set in stone at all. Bumping grain to affecting 2 cities and seafood to 3 cities is an easy change and would have significant effect.

 

[Ogi123]

Game is reasonably balanced for bigger cities with access to all relevant resources. Small cities in current game cannot industrialize at all.
Even worse is that problems with starts way before that. Add to this that villages and towns also cause , that means that player simply don't have any way to properly compensate for lack of .
Buildings proposition are very raw, will need a lot of tuning.

 

[Leoreth]

Yeah. Honestly adding unhealth to villages etc. was just another attempt to balance overabundance of health in the game. Now that resource health has been severely limited, it may be better to remove it again.

 

[1SDANi]

Yeah. Honestly adding unhealth to villages etc. was just another attempt to balance overabundance of health in the game. Now that resource health has been severely limited, it may be better to remove it again.

This is a very good idea, and would go a long way to the goals of my new platform: Make Towns Great Again. We have made many great strides over the years, especially the great population stability buff of X.XX. We are so close to total improvement equality. After that, I plan to pivot to the second greatest issue of recent years: spamming the end turn button. #FeelTheTurn

 

[Temüjin VIII]

Yeah. Honestly adding unhealth to villages etc. was just another attempt to balance overabundance of health in the game. Now that resource health has been severely limited, it may be better to remove it again.

The Public Transportation and Park would be rendered useless in this case, though. What will happen to them, if ever?