Finite Resources - a question...?

[Willem]

This, also. I don't know how many of y'all have had the pleasure of playing RailRoads!... but this is an aspect of that game, and I believe it could in Civilization for great justice.

Loved the original, hated the sequel. But I agree that some sort of similar sytem would fit quite well into Civilization. Economics has been woefully lacking in the series. Corporations were a good start, but that aspect of historical society really needs to be expanded on IMO.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As I said, rather than undergo some kind of contortions of logic in order to determine what cities benefit from a single source of a luxury & which don't, its simply easier to say: 1 unit of spices will grant a happiness bonus & a +1 Culture/+1 Food bonus to 3 cities (on a standard map), but will provide *NO BENEFIT* for any of your cities if you expand to 4 cities. However, if you get a 2nd source of spices, then the benefits are restored (up until you build your 7th city). This not only gives a benefit to multiple sources of the same resource, it also helps to cap-even further-the "Bigger is Better" phenomenon.

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

This not only gives a benefit to multiple sources of the same resource, it also helps to cap-even further-the "Bigger is Better" phenomenon.

Unfortunately, it is completely illlogical and massively counter-intuitive to the human player, which rules it out of consideration.

If I have three metropolises, and suddenly also found a small village somewhere else, suddenly I lose all my resource benefits?

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Unfortunately, it is completely illlogical and massively counter-intuitive to the human player, which rules it out of consideration.

What, more-so than it taking 200 years to cross a continent? Archers that can shoot arrows more than 500km? Or, indeed, a single resource miraculously capable of supplying an entire empire with all the health & happiness they demand?
My point is, don't forget the adage Gameplay>Realism. Sure its not "realistic" for a single "village" (though I believe even a size 1 city is significantly *larger* than a village) to suddenly cause you to lose the health benefit of a resource, but it will encourage better gameplay by forcing players to think about the downsides to expanded their empire *before* they place their next city-as well as encouraging greater interaction with your rival civs in order to acquire more of the resource you're interested in.
That said, if it seems overly harsh, then the loss could apply only to the secondary bonuses acquired from having multiple copies of a resource (so, as I implied above, 2 spice resources might give you +1C/+1F to your 3 cities, but you lose that benefit if you build a 4th city-you can only re-acquire that bonus if you secure a 3rd source of spice). Alternatively, having 2+ copies of a single resource might grant you +2 happiness/health, but only for empires of a certain size-meaning that you *never* lose the +1 bonus from having the resource, only the additional +1 bonus from having multiple copies.

 

[Ahriman]

What, more-so than it taking 200 years to cross a continent? Archers that can shoot arrows more than 500km? Or, indeed, a single resource miraculously capable of supplying an entire empire with all the health & happiness they demand?

Did I *say* unrealistic? No, I said illogical and counterintuitive. There's a vast difference.

It is highly counterintuitive that building an extra city suddenly removes a whole bunch of bonuses from cities that you already had. Players would be confused by this. The costs and benefits of any decision need to be transparent. It is *not* transparent that when founding or capturing a city, that action will somehow reduce the resource bonuses received by other cities you already control.

They'd also, IMO, be confused by any system where you had a connected resource that showed up in some of your cities as a bonus but not others, with no obvious means from the UI why their other cities weren't benefiting. [This is aimed at the cap, not your suggestion.]

Gameplay > realism is absolutely true. Which is why a simple and easy to interpret design (luxuries benefit all your cities) is better than a design with counterintuitive properties.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Ahriman-if the rules are *simple*, then they can be intuitive & easily understood by players. If a player knows that he will need 1 extra copy of a resource-for every 3 cities he owns-in order to gain the full benefit of said resource, then you can easily adjust your gameplay style accordingly. This is no different, IMHO, to changing strategic resources in CivV. There will be a lot of players who are going to be angry that their single source of iron no longer allows them to spam 10 billion swordssmen. The rest of us will probably just adjust our playstyle, & figure out quite quickly how much better the new system is.
What I find counter-intuitive is the idea that strategic resources are finite, but luxury & food resources are infinite. I think that has the potential to cause a great deal of confusion to players. No it is better, by far, to have a system which punishes city-spam, & rewards greater player interaction, by ensuring that a single copy of a resource no longer benefits your entire kingdom. Players are fairly intelligent, & I think they'll adjust to this change just as they adjust to all the other changes in the franchise (borders, resources, religion etc etc).

Aussie.

 

[SJSerio]

Aussie - Well, if the original three cities still get the bonus, but any additional cities don't get it until another resource is found, then I think that your idea would be good. If, however, you mean that the benefit is lost completely (to all cities) until another resource is found, the I would have to side with Ahriman on this one.

For food, I would say that there should be a range limit for cities that can benefit from it, maybe a 10 hex radius (for example... depending on map size, etc.). This range limit could be expanded or illiminated with certain technologies (Refridgeration) and can vary depending on resource (some may be able to supply a greater range than others). Of course, the range would have to be an "editable" attribute for modders (whether in an editor or XML).

 

[Willem]

It is highly counterintuitive that building an extra city suddenly removes a whole bunch of bonuses from cities that you already had.

And why would it have to be done that way? In real life, once a merchant has established a business in a city, which trading in a luxury resource would represent, they aren't just going to shut down an established connection for some brand new market. There's absolutely no reason why an existing city has to lose their resources, just have it so that the new city doesn't get them instead. A city would only lose their resource if the supply was overrun by an enemy.

They'd also, IMO, be confused by any system where you had a connected resource that showed up in some of your cities as a bonus but not others, with no obvious means from the UI why their other cities weren't benefiting.

Then put some obvious means into the UI so they can understand. Most people don't understand how the current Civ 4 trade routes work either, but that doesn't leave them feeling frustrated with the game.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well as I've said elsewhere-how about you get the +1 health or happiness from a single resource-regardless of the size of your empire-but any benefits you gain from *multiple copies* of a resource are entirely dependent on the size of your empire? So again, to cite the example I've used previously-if you have 2 sources of Spice, this might provide +2 Food & +2 Culture for an empire of size 1-3, but only +1/+1 for empires size 4-6 & no benefit at all for empires of size 7 or above (until you have 3 sources of Spice-then it will go back up to +1/+1). This way you have a perfectly good reason for getting multiple copies of a resource, but you're not unduly punished for lacking those extra copies-& it still helps to negate some of the immediate benefits of over-expansion (i.e. smaller empires with an over-abundance of 1 resource or another get multiple benefits from staying small-be it bonus yields/commerces or extra trade opportunities). Obviously a key benefit of this approach is that it opens up far, far more opportunities for trade than what exists in CivIV-until corporations, most resource trade opportunities dry up the moment the other empire obtains a single copy of the resource. With the system I'm proposing, AI & player civs will want to acquire more of a resource they already have, in order to reap all the potential benefits.

Aussie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Those are also very good points Willem. Only cities which exist at the time you hook up the resource gain the bonus, newer cities get no benefit unless you can obtain a new copy of that resource-that approach could also work for me!

Aussie.

 

[snapple232]

Wouldn't making luxury resources finite discourage trade? If you always want as much of every resource as you can get, why would you trade your resources to other civs in any meaningful way? Keeping luxury resources the way they are is fine.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I don't believe it will. Imagine the following scenario. 2 civs have 2 completely different resources-say Civ 1 has 3 sugar (food & culture bonus) & 1 Gold (Culture & Gold bonus), & Civ 2 has 1 Sugar & 3 Gold. Well in CivIV you can effectively forget any trading, as each civ already has what the other one has to offer. Using my system, though, there is actually a benefit in trading sugar for gold, as each civ gains a bonus they currently lack (gold for Civ 1 & food for Civ 2)-even though they might (depending on empire size) lose a part of an existing bonus they already receive.
Consider another example-a civ has 4 Gold but no Ivory (culture & production bonus) & wants to trade with a civ which has 1 gold & 3 ivory. Again, in CivIV there is no impetus to trade, but in my system there is actually a perfectly good reason to trade.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't other ways to increase the chances of trading in these situations (like having trade route incomes boosted by resource trades between 2 civs-a la Krikkitone's suggestion) &/or having a cap on the *maximum* benefit obtained by having multiple copies of a single resource, but I've just highlighted 2 perfectly good examples where my system would allow for resource trades which would otherwise never occurred. Of course, this merely highlights peaceful acquisition of those resources-the desire for more copies of a single resource can equally drive violent acquisition in a way that is not allowed for in CivIV!

Aussie.

 

[tom2050]

Wouldn't making luxury resources finite discourage trade? If you always want as much of every resource as you can get, why would you trade your resources to other civs in any meaningful way? Keeping luxury resources the way they are is fine.

I believe it may discourage play, depending on how it is setup. Strategic resource trade is heavily discouraged. Strategic resources I would assume allow better units, there is no point to trade several of these when you can take advantage of them yourself.

I would think, from what we know, that strategic resources will never be traded, unless the trade somehow heavily benefits the trader in a massive way.

On the other side of it, if you own 3 iron, and build the max number of iron units you can, and are not at war... THEN TRADE THEM ALL. Your units don't disappear, and if war happens, you can cancel the trade, or let it run out and not re-negotiate the deal.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Take another look at my examples Tom-in CivIV, *all* resource trades are effectively impossible if the other player already has even 1 copy of that resource in their possession. At least with a Finite Resource system, new opportunities for trade are established for players to exploit of they so wish. The secret, of course, is to only trade to those whom you want to be good friends with, whilst not forgetting that refusing to trade a finite resource to another Civ might be seen as a legitimate grounds for war-even if they already have 1 copy of said resource!

Aussie

 

[tom2050]

Take another look at my examples Tom-in CivIV, *all* resource trades are effectively impossible if the other player already has even 1 copy of that resource in their possession. At least with a Finite Resource system, new opportunities for trade are established for players to exploit of they so wish. The secret, of course, is to only trade to those whom you want to be good friends with, whilst not forgetting that refusing to trade a finite resource to another Civ might be seen as a legitimate grounds for war-even if they already have 1 copy of said resource!

Aussie

True, but in order to have the best military you can, for defense or offense, it would be wise for a player to build all the iron, etc units he/she can before trading them.

Chances are, a player will have absolutely NO trouble finding someone to trade an iron resource to. It allows better units and more of them.

But, in the same way, because of these being finite, trading can be worthless for these because:

-If you own 2 irons, and each iron lets you build 2 iron units, you can have 4 iron units.
-You build 4 iron units, and go ahead and trade your 2 iron resources.

Now you have no iron, so you would never trade another civ for an iron resource, or even 2... because they do you no good, you already have 4 iron units. Trading for 3 iron resources would likely be incredibly expensive and not worth it for 2 extra iron units.

So, if there is ALOT of strategic resource around the map, this problem will come into play on occasion. This is probably the same issue you are referring to, but the example brings to light your point is absolutely correct. Strat resources are not good for general trading as we all know it, but more for diplomacy and tactics with your friends, and to those you wish to be friends with. This is only good if backstabbing by the AI does not take place often.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I'm assuming that all resources will be at least as rare/scattered as in CivIV. However, in regards to strategic resources, you forgot one important detail-if you build 4 iron units then lose an iron resource, the maintenance costs of *all* your iron units increases, so it does pay to retain your iron in this instance. A more likely scenario might be that you have 3 iron but only 1 horse, so can only build 2 knights, so you instead trade 1 of your irons for someone else's horse so that you can build 4 knights instead. Such a trade would never have occurred in CivIV.

Aussie.

 

[tom2050]

So in that case, it is a tradeoff... and may not be worth it to build as many units of a particular resource as you can, if the higher maintenance cost has a large enough effect on your economy. If you traded for alot of resources, then lost them all for a reason, it could be crippling to your economy (not sure how economy works though don't think they have released much info on that).

If you have no iron, and 5 horses. You build 10 Knights, then trade 5 horse for 5 iron and build 10 Swordsman. No matter what you will be paying extra maintenance for at least 10 units (Knights or Swordsman) with nothing else in play. That may be a bad way to go unless you are going straight for a conquest type victory.

So it is a balancing act of what you can afford, and what you feel is most important at a particular time.

 

[Ahriman]

Aussie - Well, if the original three cities still get the bonus, but any additional cities don't get it until another resource is found, then I think that your idea would be good.

Except this puts you back into all the previous problems, about determining which cities get the goods (the first cities, the biggest cities, the closest cities?) which is what Aussie was attempting to avoid.

And why would it have to be done that way?

Because that was Aussie's proposal, which we were evaluating.

absolutely no reason why an existing city has to lose their resources, just have it so that the new city doesn't get them instead.

Chronological order has its own problems. Suppose I have my capital, and then build a second good city, and then a third city which is weak and has little growth potential but gets me a resource I want. Then I build a 4th city which grows to become a huge metropolis.

Why shouldn't I ever be able to get the bonus for the 4th city, just because I happen to have the 3rd city built beforehand, even if it never amounts to anything?

Well as I've said elsewhere-how about you get the +1 health or happiness from a single resource-regardless of the size of your empire-but any benefits you gain from *multiple copies* of a resource are entirely dependent on the size of your empire?

Same problem; building a new city reduces the happiness of your existing cities.

Its not very logical or transparent to the player when deciding whether or not to build or capture another city that this will affect the happiness of their existing cities.

Only cities which exist at the time you hook up the resource gain the bonus, newer cities get no benefit unless you can obtain a new copy of that resource-that approach could also work for me!

So, now if I pillage my road on the resource to disconnect it, and then reconnect it again by rebuilding the road, I can hook up my extra cities?

Wouldn't making luxury resources finite discourage trade?

I think this is a fair point, in that it encourages hording. With the new strategic resource rules, why would you trade some of your iron away, if you need all the iron you can get?

It won't prevent trade, there are certinaly still cases where trade might happen; eg I want to build knights and have lots of iron but no horses.

I like the limits for strategic resources, I just don't think it will work well for luxuries.
Every finite luxury good resource runs into all kinds of confusing logic issues, I think Fireaxis made the right call by retaining luxuries as infinite.

 

[Willem]

Except this puts you back into all the previous problems, about determining which cities get the goods (the first cities, the biggest cities, the closest cities?) which is what Aussie was attempting to avoid.

I don't see that there has to be a problem here. There's various ways of coming up with a formula to determine which city gets the resource. The basic elements would be, first, whether the city actually existed at the time when the resource was first hooked up. Then size of the city and the actual distance from the resource.

Chronological order has its own problems.

I'm not suggesting a strict chronological order, only that new cities don't take away a resource from one that already has one simply because it happens to be closer to the resource.

So, now if I pillage my road on the resource to disconnect it, and then reconnect it again by rebuilding the road, I can hook up my extra cities?

You can't pillage your own roads in Civ 4, why would you assume that you will be able to do so in 5? Of course you can pillage your own improvement but there's no reason why a safeguard can't be put into place so that when the resource is rebuilt that it goes back to the same cities again.

I think this is a fair point, in that it encourages hording. With the new strategic resource rules, why would you trade some of your iron away, if you need all the iron you can get?

You're thinking in terms of Civ and the infinite stacks. With 1 unit per tile, we're not going to need as many units, so it may not be an advantage to hoard resources we don't really need.

Every finite luxury good resource runs into all kinds of confusing logic issues, I think Fireaxis made the right call by retaining luxuries as infinite.

I agree with Aussie that having one type of resource finite and the others not is counter-intuitive and will even more confusing than treating them all the same way. It will also open up trade possibilities alot more. It's a bit silly the way it is now when I can no longer trade my excess Gold because all my other neighbours already have a single source. Having health and luxury reources be finite as well will ensure that there will always be a market for them.

 

[Ahriman]

The basic elements would be, first, whether the city actually existed at the time when the resource was first hooked up. Then size of the city and the actual distance from the resource.

The first is incredibly non-transparent to the player. You should be able to see everything easily from looking at the game as it currently is. Having a current impact depend on the state of the world that existed in the past (that has no current visible indicator anywhere) is a terrible idea.

The second and third: how do they interact?
Size isn't great; you might have a big city with lots of happiness infrastructure where the resource is useless, and some other smaller city elsewhere without the infrastructure that could really use it.
Distance isn't great; do you count ocean tiles? What about ties?
Read the first page of the thread, lots of problems with any allocation mechanism.

Luxury resources are already somewhat weak, in that they only have an impact on your cities that are at happy cap. Reducing their benefit so that they only benefit a few of your cities (potentially none of which might be at happy cap) will make them very weak.

I'm not suggesting a strict chronological order, only that new cities don't take away a resource from one that already has one simply because it happens to be closer to the resource.

You are suggesting a strict chronological order; you're suggesting that only the early cities you build will be able to access the resource, and that cities you settle or acquire later will be get resource access.

but there's no reason why a safeguard can't be put into place so that when the resource is rebuilt that it goes back to the same cities again.

Do the resource access of a particular resource is set forever and ever when the resource is first connected? How is that logical or transparent? Player's shouldn't have to remember the entire micro-history of the game.

With 1 unit per tile, we're not going to need as many units

I severely doubt that a larger army will ever be not useful.
I'd say you're not going to be able to *build* as many units because of higher unit cost, but that isn't quite the same thing, and neither reduce the point that you will have a tendency to hoard resources. Either you'll want to hoard the resources and not trade them, or you won't want the extra resources and so the whole cap system becomes irrelevant. Either way has an issue.

more confusing than treating them all the same way.

How are you treating them the same way if strategic resources provide a constant amount that can be used anywhere, and luxury goods provide an amount that can only be used in particular cities depending on the order in which you found your cities, the timing of when you first connect the resource, the relative size of your cities or the

If you absolutely had to make luxury goods limited, the easiest way to allocate them would be to have them automatically allocated to your cities with the most unhappy citizens (ie net unhappy faces - happy faces).