Feedback: Resources

[inasnapp]

Since 1.17 was released i've noticed that dye doesn't seem to appear anywhere on any of the maps, all the other resources seem to work fine; and I cant tell if its a mapscript problem or problem specific to dye itself, but its unfortunate nonetheless.
Otherwise the mod gets better with each new release.

 

[Howard Mahler]

I too do not see any dye.
I see most of giant map and also do not see any marble!

 

[Xyth]

Since 1.17 was released i've noticed that dye doesn't seem to appear anywhere on any of the maps, all the other resources seem to work fine; and I cant tell if its a mapscript problem or problem specific to dye itself, but its unfortunate nonetheless.
Otherwise the mod gets better with each new release.

I too do not see any dye.
I see most of giant map and also do not see any marble!

Something is definitely broken with Dye, my debug logs confirm that it's not being placed at all. Marble is appearing but not as commonly as it should. Investigating. Let me know if there are any other resources that seem too rare.



EDIT: Found the issue with Dye. It's an easy single file fix so I'll make some other resource placement adjustments in that file and post it here later, for those that don't want to wait till 1.18.

 

[inasnapp]

is it just me or does the ai not value peat?

 

[Xyth]

is it just me or does the ai not value peat?

The AI isn't very good at determining the value of resources that don't provide happiness, health, or enable units. I've made some tweaks to Peat and a few other resources that should see the AI value them more appropriately in 1.18. The other factor is that on several map types Peat is distributed in clumps because that's how wetlands are generated. So it's not uncommon for some civs to have quite a bit spare to trade.


EDIT: Worked out the problem with Marble. It's meant to be semi-rare (most but not all players will get access to it) but I'd accidentally allowed to appear on Ice terrain and as a result it was being placed disproportionately near the poles, often in inaccessible places.

 

[Simon_Jester]

Cool. How about that single-file fix?

 

[Xyth]

Cool. How about that single-file fix?

Here it is. Unzip and replace the file of the same name in /History Rewritten/Assets/XML/Terrain/. Has the fix for Dye, Marble, and numerous other resource distribution and valuation tweaks. As always, be aware that replacing a file like this can potential break compatibility with games in progress.

 

[Nightstar]

18 civs on a Standard Temperate Pangaea w/ medium sea levels.

There were exactly 8 Ice tiles (all clustered together at the northern tip of the continent). All 8 had Gas resources, and those were the *only* Gas resources on the entire map.

 

[Simon_Jester]

OK, so I'm playing a huge map, I think I've got this enormous empire with 33 cities, I discover geology. Coal pops up all over the place (including two existing mine tiles). Gas pops up all over my coastlines.

I see one oil deposit. ONE. Near a city that I liberated from a vassal through cultural pressure. Out of what must be something like a thousand or so tiles inside or near my cultural borders.

A number of other nations appear at first glance to have ZERO oil tiles.

Is this a really weird experience for you guys? Or am I not atypical in this? I think this is 1.17, but it's troubling given how vital oil is. In vanilla, you have to be pretty unlucky or tiny to have no oil at all, just as you have to be similarly unlucky to have no iron... which is the only other resource I can think of as vital to your civilization's ability to defend itself. Horses come close.

 

[Xyth]

Oil shouldn't be that scarce. What map type were you playing? Are you using the dye fix posted some time ago?

 

[Simon_Jester]

Uhg. I'm honestly not sure anymore, it's been like months since I started that game- if not months, at least A month.

 

[Azoth]

The first start I rolled when starting my next Annal was this:

Needless to say, I discarded it without moving the starting Scout.
Can you mark Fruit as a food, not commerce, resource so that it doesn't clump like that? Pig and Corn don't clump in that way.

You may want to diversify the yield of Orchard and Plantation resources while you're at it. Many of them are identical.
I suggest:

Resource: Base Yield Type, Bonus Improvement Yield
Fruit: food, 1/0/0 (-1 commerce)
Olives: food, 0/0/1
Wine: commerce, 1/0/1 (+1 food)
Spices: commerce, 0/0/2

Sugar: food, 0/0/2
Cocoa: food, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Coffee: commerce, 0/0/2
Tea: commerce, 0/0/2
Incense: commerce, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Tobacco: commerce, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Dye: commerce, 0/1/2 (+1 production)
Cotton: production, 0/1/1 (type change)
Silk: commerce, 0/1/1 (+1 production, -1 commerce)
Rubber: production, 0/2/0

Basically, some of the rarer resources pick up an extra , and the fabric related resources pick up extra .

 

[Xyth]

Needless to say, I discarded it without moving the starting Scout.
Can you mark Fruit as a food, not commerce, resource so that it doesn't clump like that? Pig and Corn don't clump in that way.

It's a food resource already isn't it? Certainly is for me. Either way, the clumping mechanic is separate from yield types so I'll adjust that.

You may want to diversify the yield of Orchard and Plantation resources while you're at it. Many of them are identical.
I suggest:

Resource: Base Yield Type, Bonus Improvement Yield
Fruit: food, 1/0/0 (-1 commerce)
Olives: food, 0/0/1
Wine: commerce, 1/0/1 (+1 food)
Spices: commerce, 0/0/2

Sugar: food, 0/0/2
Cocoa: food, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Coffee: commerce, 0/0/2
Tea: commerce, 0/0/2
Incense: commerce, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Tobacco: commerce, 0/0/3 (+1 commerce)
Dye: commerce, 0/1/2 (+1 production)
Cotton: production, 0/1/1 (type change)
Silk: commerce, 0/1/1 (+1 production, -1 commerce)
Rubber: production, 0/2/0

Basically, some of the rarer resources pick up an extra , and the fabric related resources pick up extra .

I'm a bit confused by these yield numbers, they don't match up with mine:

*******************************************
RESOURCES
*******************************************

Corn			1/0/0 		4/0/0 with Farm	(irr)		5/0/0 at Fertilizer		+1 health	+1 health with Granary
Potato			1/0/0 		3/0/0 with Farm	(irr)		4/0/0 at Fertilizer		+1 health	+1 health with Granary
Rice			1/0/0 		3/0/0 with Farm	(irr)		4/0/0 at Fertilizer		+1 health	+1 health with Granary
Wheat			1/0/0 		4/0/0 with Farm	(irr)		5/0/0 at Fertilizer		+1 health	+1 health with Granary

Fruit			1/0/0		3/0/1 with Orchard		3/0/2 at Horticulture		+1 health	+1 health with Grocer
Olives			1/0/0		2/0/1 with Orchard		2/0/2 at Horticulture		+1 health	+1 health with Grocer
Sugar			1/0/0		1/0/3 with Plantation		1/0/4 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Distillery

Cocoa			1/0/0		1/0/3 with Plantation		1/0/4 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 health with Grocer
Coffee			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern
Tea			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern
Wine			0/0/1		1/0/3 with Orchard		1/0/4 at Horticulture		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern

Spices			0/0/1		1/0/3 with Orchard 		1/0/4 at Horticulture		+1 happy	+1 happy with Smokehouse
Incense			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Great Temple
Tobacco			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern, -1 health with Grocer/Supermarket

Dyes			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Cotton			0/0/1		0/1/3 with Plantation		0/1/4 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Flax			0/0/1		2/1/1 with Farm (irr)		3/1/1 at Fertilizer		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Silk			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver

Rubber			0/1/0		0/3/1 with Plantation		0/3/2 at Crop Rotation
Timber			0/1/0		0/4/0 with Lumbermill		0/4/1 at Paper

Cattle			1/0/0		3/1/0 with Pasture		3/2/0 at Biology		+1 health	+1 health with Supermarket
Pig			1/0/0		4/0/0 with Pasture		4/1/0 at Biology		+1 health	+1 health with Supermarket
Sheep			1/0/0		3/0/1 with Pasture		3/1/1 at Biology		+1 health	+1 health with Supermarket

Horse			0/1/0		0/2/2 with Pasture		0/3/2 at Biology				+10% production with Stable
Elephants		0/1/0		0/3/1 with Pasture		0/4/1 at Biology				+10% production with Stable

Bison			1/0/0		2/0/2 with Camp			2/0/3 at Gunpowder		+1 health	+1 happy with Tannery
Deer			1/0/0		2/0/1 with Camp			2/0/2 at Gunpowder		+1 health	+1 health with Supermarket
Furs			0/0/1		1/0/3 with Camp			1/0/4 at Gunpowder		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tannery
Seals			1/0/0		2/1/1 with Harvest Boats					+1 health	+1 happy with Tannery

Fish			1/0/0		4/0/0 with Fishing Boats					+1 health	+1 health with Harbour
Shellfish		1/0/0		3/0/0 with Fishing Boats					+1 health	+1 health with Harbour
Crab			1/0/0		3/0/0 with Fishing Boats					+1 health	+1 health with Harbour
Whale			1/0/0		2/1/2 with Harvest Boats					+1 health	+1 health with Harbour

Stone			0/1/0		0/3/0 with Quarry		0/4/0 at Geology
Marble			0/1/0		0/2/2 with Quarry		0/3/2 at Geology
Salt			0/0/1		2/0/2 with Quarry 		2/1/2 at Geology		+1 health 	+1 health with Smokehouse

Amber			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Fishing Boats					+1 happy	+5% commerce with Market
Jade			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Quarry		0/1/4 at Geology		+1 happy	+5% commerce with Market
Gems			0/0/1		0/1/6 with Mine			0/2/6 at Metallurgy		+1 happy	+5% commerce with Market

Gold			0/0/1		0/1/7 with Mine			0/2/7 at Metallurgy		+1 happy	+5% commerce with Market
Silver			0/0/1		0/1/5 with Mine			0/2/5 at Metallurgy		+1 happy	+5% commerce with Market
Copper			0/1/0		0/4/0 with Mine			0/5/0 at Metallurgy				+10% production with Forge
Iron			0/1/0		0/4/0 with Mine			0/5/0 at Metallurgy				+10% production with Forge
Aluminium		0/1/0		0/4/0 with Mine			0/5/0 at Metallurgy

Peat			0/1/0		0/3/1 with Quarry		0/4/1 at Geology				+10% production with Kiln
Coal			0/1/0		0/4/0 with Mine			0/5/0 at Metallurgy				+2 unhealth with Factory, +1 unhealth with Industrial Park
Gas			0/0/0		0/4/0 with Well/Platform	0/4/1 with Highway				+1 unhealth with Factory, +1 unhealth with Industrial Park
Oil			0/1/0		0/4/1 with Well/Platform	0/4/2 with Highway				+2 unhealth with Factory, +1 unhealth with Industrial Park, +1 health with Public Transport
Uranium			0/0/0		0/0/3 with Mine			0/1/3 at Geology

 

[Azoth]

I'm a bit confused by these yield numbers, they don't match up with mine:

Sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear.
By "Base Type Yield," I meant the yield from the resource without an improvement: +1, +1, or +1, as listed on the resource tooltip.
By "Bonus Improvement Yield," I meant the bonus yield for the resource from its associated improvement, above and beyond the regular yield of the improvement, as listed in its entry in the Civilopedia.

Here are the changes using your (much neater) system:

*******************************************
RESOURCES
*******************************************

Fruit			1/0/0		3/0/1 with Orchard ([B]irr[/B])	3/0/2 at Horticulture		+1 health	+1 health with Grocer
Olives			1/0/0		2/0/[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR] with Orchard ([B]irr[/B])	2/0/[COLOR="Blue"]3[/COLOR] at Horticulture		+1 health	+1 health with Grocer
Sugar			1/0/0		[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/0/[COLOR="Red"]2[/COLOR] with Plantation		[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/0/[COLOR="Red"]3[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Distillery

Cocoa			1/0/0		1/0/[COLOR="Blue"]4[/COLOR] with Plantation		1/0/[COLOR="Blue"]5[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 health with Grocer
Coffee			0/0/1		0/0/4 with Plantation		0/0/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern
Tea			0/0/1		[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/0/[COLOR="Red"]3[/COLOR] with Plantation		[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/0/[COLOR="Red"]4[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern
Wine			0/0/1		[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/0/3 with Orchard ([B]irr[/B])	[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/0/4 at Horticulture		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern

Spices			0/0/1		1/0/[COLOR="Blue"]4[/COLOR] with Orchard ([B]irr[/B])	1/0/[COLOR="Blue"]5[/COLOR] at Horticulture		+1 happy	+1 happy with Smokehouse
Incense			0/0/1		0/0/[COLOR="Blue"]5[/COLOR] with Plantation		0/0/[COLOR="Blue"]6[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Great Temple
Tobacco			0/0/1		0/0/[COLOR="Blue"]5[/COLOR] with Plantation		0/0/[COLOR="Blue"]6[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tavern, -1 health with Grocer/Supermarket

Dyes			0/0/1		0/[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/4 with Plantation		0/[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/5 at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Cotton			0/[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/[COLOR="Red"]0[/COLOR]		0/[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/[COLOR="Red"]2[/COLOR] with Plantation		0/[COLOR="Blue"]2[/COLOR]/[COLOR="Red"]3[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Flax			0/0/1		2/1/1 with Farm (irr)		3/1/1 at Fertilizer		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver
Silk			0/0/1		0/[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/[COLOR="Red"]3[/COLOR] with Plantation		0/[COLOR="Blue"]1[/COLOR]/[COLOR="Red"]4[/COLOR] at Crop Rotation		+1 happy	+1 happy with Weaver

Bison			1/0/0		2/0/2 with Camp			2/0/3 at Gunpowder		+1 health	+1 happy with Tannery
Deer			1/0/0		[COLOR="Blue"]3[/COLOR]/0/1 with Camp			[COLOR="Blue"]3[/COLOR]/0/2 at Gunpowder		+1 health	+1 health with Supermarket
Furs			0/0/1		1/0/3 with Camp			1/0/4 at Gunpowder		+1 happy	+1 happy with Tannery
Seals			1/0/0		2/1/1 with Harvest Boats					+1 health	+1 happy with Tannery

Rationale:

• Orchards: Slightly higher yields for Olives, Wine, and Spices, since the base +1 from Orchards requires irrigation. At the moment, dry Olive Plantations only produce +1 on top of the base yield. Almost any other improvement would be stronger.
• Camp: Slightly higher yield for Deer, as +1 on top of the base yield is no better than a Farm, Pasture, or Orchard.
• Plantation: Tweaked yields on several resources for variety. Dyes, Cotton, and Silk swap bonus commerce for bonus hammers because of their use in fabrics. Incense and Tobacco become stronger but are held in check by their natural disadvantages: technology requirements (Ritual and Horticulture), poor base terrain (Desert for Incense), expensive complementary buildings (Great Temple for Incense) and health penalties (Tobacco).

 

[Howard Mahler]

In the game I am playing I seem to have gotten early access to Prime Timber by building a city on top it. This is way way before I had the relevant tech.
Do not know whether this was intended.

 

[davidtylr]

I don't know if you can do this or not maybe with some resources depending what you build you have a choice on what resource you can get out of it. for example with cattle if you build a pasture you get beef but if you build a factory you can get cheese. If you build a factory on sugar you get ethanol. if you build a plantation you will get sugar.

 

[Simon_Jester]

[*]Plantation: Tweaked yields on several resources for variety. Dyes, Cotton, and Silk swap bonus commerce for bonus hammers because of their use in fabrics. Incense and Tobacco become stronger but are held in check by their natural disadvantages: technology requirements (Ritual and Horticulture), poor base terrain (Desert for Incense), expensive complementary buildings (Great Temple for Incense) and health penalties (Tobacco).

Dye was very much a trade commodity for most of premodern history. I approve of Cotton, Silk, and Flax providing hammers instead of commerce, but I don't think Dye should.

I don't know if you can do this or not maybe with some resources depending what you build you have a choice on what resource you can get out of it. for example with cattle if you build a pasture you get beef but if you build a factory you can get cheese. If you build a factory on sugar you get ethanol. if you build a plantation you will get sugar.

This is a viable thing to do in theory- what you'd really implement is a system that has 'synthetic' resources (like beef, cheese, etc.) provided either by the terrain improvements, or by the buildings in the city. The problems:

It enormously multiplies the number of terrain improvements you need to remember and have unit art for. And most of those improvements won't exist anywhere but as resource buildings, which is something that both vanilla and HR Civ mostly try to avoid.

It multiplies the total amount of happiness and health made available by the set of all resources- if I have two Cattle squares I can get the benefits of Beef AND Cheese throughout my civilization, instead of the single +1 health I get for Cattle alone.

It causes problems for the AI, which isn't really designed to understand "you have a choice of which resource to tap from a given square."

 

[Nightstar]

I think the techs that enable certain resources could use a bit of a review. After the changes to improvements in 1.18, several of the enabling techs seem a bit odd.

Fruit, Olives, & Wine: Improved by Orchards with Pottery, but enabled by Calendar
Seal & Whale: Improved by Harvest Boats with Seafaring, but enabled by Hunting
Salt & Jade: Improved by Quarries with Masonry, but enabled by Mining
Flax: Improved by Farms with Agriculture, but enabled by Calendar
Fur: Improved by Camps with Hunting, but enabled by Leather Working
Elephant: Improved by Pastures with Pastoralism, but enabled by Hunting
Peat: Improved by Quarries with Masonry, but enabled by Pottery
Prime Timber: Improved by Lumbermills with Machinery, but enabled by Carving
(Changing the enabling tech for Prime Timber would also address the issue of accessing it early by settling on it, which the AI seems to do quite frequently.)

On a mostly unrelated topic, I would also like to suggest having Fish, Shellfish, and Crab revealed by Fishing (you can't work their tiles without it anyway, and it would give the weakest of the starting techs a bit of a boost).

 

[Xyth]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't very clear.
By "Base Type Yield," I meant the yield from the resource without an improvement: +1, +1, or +1, as listed on the resource tooltip.
By "Bonus Improvement Yield," I meant the bonus yield for the resource from its associated improvement, above and beyond the regular yield of the improvement, as listed in its entry in the Civilopedia.

Here are the changes using your (much neater) system:

I'll review this once I'm done with the tech tree desnarling.

In the game I am playing I seem to have gotten early access to Prime Timber by building a city on top it. This is way way before I had the relevant tech.
Do not know whether this was intended.

This was not intended.

I don't know if you can do this or not maybe with some resources depending what you build you have a choice on what resource you can get out of it. for example with cattle if you build a pasture you get beef but if you build a factory you can get cheese. If you build a factory on sugar you get ethanol. if you build a plantation you will get sugar.

A system like that would be pretty cool, I always loved the raw materials --> manufactured commodity aspect of Colonization. It's possibly doable via buildings and/or corporations, but not via improvements. The killer though, once again, is that the AI relies on the health/happiness aspect of resources to determine their worth in diplomacy and there's no way I can change this. More resources automatically means more happiness and health and that's just not feasible in HR at this time. If we do add any more, they have to be strategic resources.

I think the techs that enable certain resources could use a bit of a review. After the changes to improvements in 1.18, several of the enabling techs seem a bit odd.

Fruit, Olives, & Wine: Improved by Orchards with Pottery, but enabled by Calendar
Seal & Whale: Improved by Harvest Boats with Seafaring, but enabled by Hunting
Salt & Jade: Improved by Quarries with Masonry, but enabled by Mining
Flax: Improved by Farms with Agriculture, but enabled by Calendar
Fur: Improved by Camps with Hunting, but enabled by Leather Working
Elephant: Improved by Pastures with Pastoralism, but enabled by Hunting
Peat: Improved by Quarries with Masonry, but enabled by Pottery
Prime Timber: Improved by Lumbermills with Machinery, but enabled by Carving
(Changing the enabling tech for Prime Timber would also address the issue of accessing it early by settling on it, which the AI seems to do quite frequently.)

On a mostly unrelated topic, I would also like to suggest having Fish, Shellfish, and Crab revealed by Fishing (you can't work their tiles without it anyway, and it would give the weakest of the starting techs a bit of a boost).

Good call. I'll review all this at the same time as I review Azoth's yield change suggestions.

 

[Howard Mahler]

Fish is one resource that is not used by corporations; I think this is a good thing.
Fish do not get better later in the game.

Could it use some boost with a later tech?
For example, Fish (with fishing boats) +1 commerce with Refrigeration.