How do you get resources? Are you limited to City radius?

[Larsenex]

From what I see our 'city' radius is much smaller and takes more time to grow. Are we able to harvest resources such as iron or horses OUTSIDE this cultural radius?

Thanks

 

[Pragmatic]

From what I've seen, as long as it's within your cultural borders, you can harvest it (without the need for a road, even).

Getting that resource may involve using gold (or culture?) to buy the tiles leading up to it.

But to get the city-specific benefits (e.g., enhanced production), it'd have to be within your city radius.

 

[Polobo]

All resources require an improvement (or city) to harvest. You can only build improvements within your cultural borders. Ergo, no you cannot. But, you no longer need to build roads to connect those resources to your trade network.

 

[12agnar0k]

City radius is not small, it extends 3 hex's in all directions, however the cultural border will take time/effort to expand fully, station your city next to important resources or have gold on hand to buy the tiles in your radius to get the resource.
No you can't get resources outside of your cultural border, although city radius is not the only way to expand the border, the culture from cities goes further than the city radius and also culture bombs can do it.

 

[Kin]

Will we have to have iron to build swordsmen, etc.

 

[Madprofe55or]

Will we have to have iron to build swordsmen, etc.

Swordsmen do require iron, but iron deposits (and other strategic deposits) vary in size. If you control one that has 4 Iron early in the game, then you can build up to 4 Swordsmen, or a combination of any units that need iron up to 4 times.

As far as what other units need from strategic resources I do not know, and I don't know if there is a list somewhere of such either.

 

[Kin]

Thanks Madprofe55or. Can't wait to find this stuff out while playing. I think we are like children waiting for Christmas morning.

 

[Madprofe55or]

Thanks Madprofe55or. Can't wait to find this stuff out while playing. I think we are like children waiting for Christmas morning.

If you want to find out more stuff like that, just hit up any of the wikis or the official site which contains features, etc. Also check out the 2-hour playthrough (half of it from the start of a new game and the other half in the middle of a war in the middle-game) which was recorded live earlier this week. The game they're playing is pretty much the final game we will see on Tuesday.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9553042 (Part 1)

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/9553920 (Part 2)

 

[Pragmatic]

Note that only about half of the units (roughly, from a glance over the Analyst's page, from memory, yadda-yadda-yadda) require the use of a resource. So you can have, for instance, a lot of archers and spearmen, but have limited numbers of swordsmen. At which point, you're only limited by the "# of cities + # of citizens + base level" of units.

 

[Kin]

Yea I saw the video and it was fun watching but did leave a lot unanswered. I hope some of the really good player will post game videos so I can learn from them. I did that a lot with "Age of Empires" way back when.