Malchar
Prince
I also prefer minimally intrusive changes, at least for starters. I think that making the camel a prereq for the silk road would be a fine change. It provides a general representation for the link between camels, commerce, and regional trade, and it doesn't require any new units or concepts to be added.
@Force44: I actually misread your original proposal: I thought that access to the camel resource would automatically provide a trade route in every city. I see that it is much more limited since the city must actually work the camel tile, and it is probably balanced. I think that this is a novel concept, but I feel that in practice it is nearly identical to just adding +1 commerce, and the extra complexity is not justified.
I haven't studied the map too closely yet, but my proposal would be this:
Camel resource
+1
Camel tile
+1
Pasture improvement
+1
+1
+1
Camel is required for {new Middle Eastern military unit}
Camel is required for Silk Road
In terms of yield, it is half way between horse and sheep with a slight edge towards the horse. As a strategic resource like horse and ivory, camel should provide hammers when unimproved rather than food. I'm not sure about the history, but I think that camels were bred and raised rather than hunted, so the improvement should be a pasture not a camp.
I do not think that the camel tile should necessarily provide two food in a desert, especially considering that horse and elephant provide zero. One food and one health is a reasonable compromise, especially since many desert cities are health capped anyway. The fact that camels may replace sheep and leave some areas low on food can be addressed as a separate issue. We shouldn't force camels to provide a ton of food just because the specific cities where camels would be placed would prefer more food. That can be easily fixed by adjusting seafood, or by creating more plains or oasis. To make an equitable comparison, consider how camel would look next to horse, sheep, and cow if they were all on a grasslands tile in the middle of Europe.
In terms of gameplay, I think that hammers are more valuable than commerce in the areas where camels would be placed. There are a lot of other luxury resources available to provide commerce. While camels certainly contributed to trade and commerce, the camels really just provided the labor to transport the spices, silk, incense, and other luxuries, which are already represented with huge commerce tiles. Also, the fact that this is a one-food tile would make it pair perfectly with oasis tiles and flood plains, which add three food. In fact, most of the good sites in the desert already have plenty of food to grow up to the health/happy cap.
Finally, ivory provides a precedent for a resource that has limited strategic use and also provides an empire wide benefit. For camel it is health rather than happiness. If camels do end up replacing sheep, it is very important to keep the health bonus. We can adjust other tiles to accommodate the lost food but not the lost health.
@Force44: I actually misread your original proposal: I thought that access to the camel resource would automatically provide a trade route in every city. I see that it is much more limited since the city must actually work the camel tile, and it is probably balanced. I think that this is a novel concept, but I feel that in practice it is nearly identical to just adding +1 commerce, and the extra complexity is not justified.
I haven't studied the map too closely yet, but my proposal would be this:
Camel resource
+1
Camel tile
+1
Pasture improvement
+1
+1
+1
Camel is required for {new Middle Eastern military unit}
Camel is required for Silk Road
In terms of yield, it is half way between horse and sheep with a slight edge towards the horse. As a strategic resource like horse and ivory, camel should provide hammers when unimproved rather than food. I'm not sure about the history, but I think that camels were bred and raised rather than hunted, so the improvement should be a pasture not a camp.
I do not think that the camel tile should necessarily provide two food in a desert, especially considering that horse and elephant provide zero. One food and one health is a reasonable compromise, especially since many desert cities are health capped anyway. The fact that camels may replace sheep and leave some areas low on food can be addressed as a separate issue. We shouldn't force camels to provide a ton of food just because the specific cities where camels would be placed would prefer more food. That can be easily fixed by adjusting seafood, or by creating more plains or oasis. To make an equitable comparison, consider how camel would look next to horse, sheep, and cow if they were all on a grasslands tile in the middle of Europe.
In terms of gameplay, I think that hammers are more valuable than commerce in the areas where camels would be placed. There are a lot of other luxury resources available to provide commerce. While camels certainly contributed to trade and commerce, the camels really just provided the labor to transport the spices, silk, incense, and other luxuries, which are already represented with huge commerce tiles. Also, the fact that this is a one-food tile would make it pair perfectly with oasis tiles and flood plains, which add three food. In fact, most of the good sites in the desert already have plenty of food to grow up to the health/happy cap.
Finally, ivory provides a precedent for a resource that has limited strategic use and also provides an empire wide benefit. For camel it is health rather than happiness. If camels do end up replacing sheep, it is very important to keep the health bonus. We can adjust other tiles to accommodate the lost food but not the lost health.
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