How should resources work in Civ4?

[Aussie_Lurker]

Hate to say it, Dexters, but my personal experience runs contrary to what you have stated here. In all of my games to date, I have NEVER needed strategic resources from anyone-and even luxuries only rarely. If anything I engage in diplomacy merely for the HELL of it, not because I have to. It would be incredibly easy to be completely isolationist without penalty-largely because once you have a resource, it pretty much NEVER disappears. Plus, it doesn't help that I engage in mega-expansion, largely because there is no restriction to me doing so.
My system doesn't add any greater complexity, IMO, as it merely builds one extra layer on top of the existing resource system. If anyone would benefit from my idea, it would be the AI, as it would be the only one with any practical knowledge of the true odds (this is a driving force behind some of my ideas, making the underlying formulas, behind certain game mechanics, more opaque-thus reducing the human players power to exploit the mechanics!) The fact is that a semi-quantitative system-unlike a stockpile system-would force a player to think BEYOND their current resource status, and tie future 'grand expansions' of your nation to the availability of resources. Most importantly, my system FINALLY allows helps to break the direct link between empire size and ever increasing success-the dreaded 'snowball' effect. Making resources less dependable means that larger nations have to be more careful, by default, than their smaller neighbours, and their smaller neighbours will also have greater leverage because they will have more of their resources 'to spare'-as it were-for trading purposes.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[MeteorPunch]

If anyone would benefit from my idea, it would be the AI, as it would be the only one with any practical knowledge of the true odds (this is a driving force behind some of my ideas, making the underlying formulas, behind certain game mechanics, more opaque-thus reducing the human players power to exploit the mechanics!)

It all depends on the programming. It's the game designers duty to make sure the cpu knows how to use what it has, though that doesn't always work (artillary, etc). That said, the newbs will definately be at a disadvantage until they know the system, and eventually the civer's from this site will figure out the underlying algorhythims of any new system.

 

[dh_epic]

The more that I think about it, I think limited resources are secondary to interesting trade and economics.

If I were looking at a feature, I'd say give people tangible trade routes. Not necessarily caravans (those added too much micromanagement and too many exploits)... but that you'd need to define one trade route to each civilization that you deal with. And perhaps by the industrial age you could define a "back up" route. The trade routes would be automatically handled by tiny but visible units. These tiny but visible units COULD be sacked by warmongers. Most of all, you'd have to consider the impact that declaring war would have on your trade -- like how the East and West were basically cut off through the entire middle ages because no trade routes went through the Middle East through the crusades.

But hey, I'm off topic.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Personally, I think an improved resource and economics system go 'hand-in-hand', but that could be just me !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I used to think so... but now I believe that making economics a more important part of strategy (maybe making it a strategy in itself) has more to do with trade. It's a subtle distinction, and resources are obviously still a part of it. But heck, I'm not full of concrete ideas (yet).

Although I do have one huge mutant of an idea.

 

[dexters]

The more that I think about it, I think limited resources are secondary to interesting trade and economics.

If I were looking at a feature, I'd say give people tangible trade routes. Not necessarily caravans (those added too much micromanagement and too many exploits)... but that you'd need to define one trade route to each civilization that you deal with. And perhaps by the industrial age you could define a "back up" route. The trade routes would be automatically handled by tiny but visible units. These tiny but visible units COULD be sacked by warmongers. Most of all, you'd have to consider the impact that declaring war would have on your trade -- like how the East and West were basically cut off through the entire middle ages because no trade routes went through the Middle East through the crusades.

I'm with you on this.

Caravans were messy in Civ2 and actually became nearly unmanageable as your cities grew given each city had 3 potential trade routes and the permutations just multiplied into infinity with each additional city in your empire.

A visual trade route as yoshi suggested is something that would solve the 'i didn't know war with country X cut my trade route and destroyed my reputation' problem we currently experience and it adds an element of strategy and maybe encourages the search for an optimal route ?

As for resources and economics I agree with DH also. Resources is a small part of Civ economics. Having 'resources' can be defined as wealth in the traditional sense but Civ3 economics is about the number of gold/trade you generate per turn and your production. Resources (more specifically luxuries) modify how your empire functions and thus indirectly affect economics. Tying resources more closely to Civ economics is really a pandora's box at the moment. It could be interesting and strategic if done right, but the suggestions about increasing upkeep costs, requiring resources for certain buildings etc. seem more problematic than interesting because of how easily it could be exploited, adding extra layer of micromanagement without a real benefit to the human player. And yes, its all about what we get in return for new features. Features shouldn't exist for their own sake or because it will be more realistic (a reason for including a feature that i hear often, but is illogical)

 

[dh_epic]

Yeah, I'm definitely not one for realism for realism's sake. But looking at an area that Civ can improve on, it's always good to draw from reality... and simplify so it makes sense for the game.

I'm also trying to look for "bang for buck" type features. While you could modify a bunch of little things, and you WILL need to modify a bunch of little things, you still need to center that around a core feature that gets you the biggest results.

In this case, the problem was making economic power a more seperate and equal strategy. Seperate in that it wasn't tied to conquest as much, and equal in that developing your economy would be a more powerful strategy (even with its own victory condition.)

The solution that came to mind centered around resources, because resources are the center of an economy. But after some discussion, changing resources is an incomplete solution at best -- requiring a lot more fixes to get the net result of a better economy in Civ.

Suggesting a resource overhaul is "bottom up" thinking. It may be a core issue in economics, but it's also at the bottom level. Trade is just as core, but is more "top down" thinking. It touches just as many aspects of the economy, and you're playing with something at the higher level, which is where the player tends to have the most empowering decisions.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The problem, DH_Epic, is that the trade and resource systems are so inextricably linked-and improving one would invariably improve the other. Truth is that in ALL the games I have played, the resources which I have gained have NEVER disappeared. This has meant that I could build all the cities, units and improvements I wanted, without having to find another deposit of a resource. The only reason I even trade in the game is so that I needn't be a complete warmonger-not out of any actual NEED. So, by making nations more interdependant for resources-via a semi-quantitative resource model-you are actually pushing trade much more into the forefront-and this can be the starting point for a more overarching improvement to the economics system!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[dh_epic]

I guess I'm one for the "magic bullet", the "bang for buck", the "ockam's razor" of features. Let's take a look at the aspects that make up Civ's (limited) economic model right now:

- Gold
- Resources
- Luxuries
- International Trade
- Economic Improvements
- Economic Wonders
- Trade Arrows and Tiles

Certainly if you played with any of these features you'd make some impact on the others -- the economic system as a whole. But it's a question of which changes are more fun than others (empowering the player with meaningful choices, instead of busy-work). It's also a question of which changes make the biggest impact.

I'd argue that resources may make a big impact, but not enough, and catches the user up in busy work.

Trade, on the other hand, could be an interesting way to play with it. For example, with the goal in mind of trying to motivate more interdependency, and to make trade so necessary that a trade embargo is a dreaded attack... maybe give huge bonuses for international trade?

We're talking about asymmetrical happiness / gains. American Furs are neat to Americans, but AWE inspiring to China, and Chinese Furs are neat to Chinese, but AMAZING to Americans. American Furs generate small amounts of capital in America, but huge amounts of capital abroad. Chinese Furs generate small amounts of capital in China, but huge amounts of capital abroad.

Just throwing that out there as a starting point. If you want to make economics a more viable and sophisticated strategy, it need not be done through resources.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree, DH_Epic, that making foreign luxuries more sought after than local varieties is a good start, but placing ALL resources at risk of 'drying up' if you don't seek out new deposits of them is another good way of encouraging trade and interdependance. Also, coupling the ability to trade in food and shields, with a very basic inflation system (i.e., very strong/wealthy economies have more expensive food/shields) will also encourage trade as a means to supplement local production of raw and manufactured goods. In addition, if we introduce a very simple 'label' system for primary goods-based on the tiles they originally came from-then this could also act as a driver of trade. For instance, an island nation obtains the bulk of its food from coatal and river squares, meaning that much of it is marine produce. To a landlocked nation, such food would be very much sought after, meaning that they will attach a much greater value to it than the locals (in fact, to the latter nation, marine produce could-up to a point-behave like a minor luxury, due to its scarcity).
As for the base value of foreign luxuries and strategic resources, I think that both should depend on scarcity and distance between trading nations-as should your reputations and your your relative economic and military strength-as well as relative tech levels. For luxuries, the relative cultural strength of the trading nations, as well as how new it is to the purchasing nation.
So, as an example, two nations have recently come into contact. A 10 hex ocean lies between their nearest cities (another reason to build colonies and/or outposts !) and one nation has tobacco, and the other has dyes. Now, civB has never seen tobacco before-therefore they will initially place a VERY high base price on each unit of this luxury. Also, said luxury will be MUCH more effective at increasing happiness than their own local dyes, which the people have long since grown used to-especially as they have so much of it. In addition, the distance between the nation, AND the fact that the culture of CivA is so strong, will also boost the base price AND demand for the tobacco. The only downside for CivA is that the people of CivB are quite nationalistic, meaning that though they like tobacco, they would prefer not to have to buy it from these 'savage aliens'. This means that, not only is the base value reduced, but should CivA ever try and charge 'too much' for the tobacco, there is a good chance that CivB will simply come and take the tobacco by FORCE.

Oh, on a final note: as DH_Epic has mentioned before, limiting the presence of certain resources to very specific climate bands is another way to encourage trade-based interdependancy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Dida]

I would like resource to work like this:

You acquire some raw resource, you build some structure on top of it to gather a certain amount each turn. For example, some oil is found under the sea bed, you built deep sea drilling platform, which will get you say 20 oil a turn. This goes into national stockpile, just like gold. When you start building some unit, the whole amount is deducted at the beginning of the production. You will get half of it back if you switch to build something else in the process of building. Some technology or wonder might increase rate of resource gathering.
Luxury works the same way, but the amount used each term is based on your luxury slider as well as population size. More population demands more luxury to get the same effect.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well, consider this in the context of my 'semi-quantitative model'.

First up, if you discover a resource, then you only get a small % of its total 'size' to work with (meaning it has a higher chance of disappearing). If you build an APPROPRIATE terrain improvement on it (farm for plant/animal based resources, mines for all the rest) then the 'size' of the resource you can access is increased. Also, as you get certain tech advances, the size of the resource which you can readily use goes up, thus decreasing disappearance chances-up to a point.
The other issue to consider, with luxuries, is that what starts as a luxury can end up being considered quite.....ordinary. This is a process I refer to as 'complacency'. If you have 'too much' of a luxury, and/or have had access to it for too long, then the happiness effects of the luxury can diminish-to the point where it is 'no better' than a bonus/strategic resource. Too much of a single luxury can also lead to possible Dependancy and/or Decadance-proving that you can have too much of a good thing !

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[yoshi]

@dexters:

I think you’ve misunderstood: this post was referring to issues in Civ3 and how to deal with them within the parameters of Civ3’s system.

Anyway, I’ll reply in relation to both Civ3 and RTS:

Civ3's resource model is quite generous in that in most games, assuming you play a difficulty that is reasonable challenging, you'll be short 1 or 2 resources and 3-4 luxuries. With strategic wars of expansion and opportunisitc land grabs, a Civ3 Empire can become a truly self sufficient Empire by the late game. The concept is largely a mercantile concept of self sufficiency.

If you’re referring to (1), then the point was that Civ3’s system is too generous (i.e. 1 resource is sufficient for ALL requirements). So, you either have the resource or you don’t. There is little more to it than that. That may be more than enough for the kiddies but way too cut and dry for a serious strategy gamer (that is, the core audience of this game).

This reduces the game to little more than ‘capture the flag’ only with resources (i.e. whoever controls the resource, has everything).

Fixes:

Civ3: Unit/building cap (i.e. 1 resource allows x number of dependent items to be built).
RTS: Production halts when resource stockpile reaches 0.
Aussie: Each additional dependent item above limit increases chance of resource disappearance.

I’m not sure what true scarcity has to do with this; resources locations are the same in each model (RTS and Aussie’s system allow you to make individual resources bigger or smaller on the map as opposed to an infinite resource).

Given the current Civ3 AI's myopia, and its inability to behave as if it has a foresight and plan long term, any AI algorithm that will be managing the AI storage system would be fundamentally weak. At best, it will just store average stockpiles based on some assumed optimal quantity.

First, don’t compare Civ3’s AI with Civ4’s as the latter will be much better (or at least have the potential to be much better).

Second, ‘canned’ actions are much more than just pre-setting optimal values. One thing that Civ designers have never bothered with AFAIK is random actions (i.e. AI has x chance of doing A or B—without referring to core algorithm—‘out of the blue,’ so to speak; the human has absolutely no way of predicting it). It’s just a matter of programming in the right strategies that good players use, nothing more.

The ‘storage’ improvement ability I brought up in (2) is simply to balance things out in Civ3 so that you don’t go from everything to nothing in a single turn. Gives the player a chance to continue functioning for a while. Would be essential if unit/building function were dependent on required resources.

(Or, if it suits you better, think of this as stockpiling—albeit a cheap substitute—without the MM.)

The only reason to limit the amount of a resource is to create pressures on empires to seek out new sources. This has already been modeled with the resource disappearance model in Civ3 and people hated it.

I addressed this in my reply to your last quote but I’ll elaborate here:
Just to be clear, having 1 resource suffice for ALL requirements and countering that with random disappearance is unacceptable; it wasn’t acceptable in Civ3 and it won’t be in Civ4 if they decide to use the same system.
Adding the cap adds the element of resource scarcity without requiring stockpiling or random disappearance (which you hate ).

Purpose:

a) Dependent item cap prevents the player from exploiting the infinite availability of 1 traded resource to build as much as possible within the trade time.

b) Difference b/w a Civ with multiple resources of a type and a Civ with 1 resource of a type.

c) Takes material limitations into account (equivalent of not being able to extract fast enough to keep up w/production). Important where speed is an issue as is the case in wartime.

d) Adds resource scarcity effect without stockpiling or random disappearance.

RTS: You can only build as much as you can extract. You want to extract faster, find another deposit. No need for a cap.

Oh and to reply to this comment:

Too much lottery elements of 'oh, i found iron, but only 500 units, looks like i'm still screwed in 5 turns' is not very useful.

In Civ4 it would be more like, ‘x resource = 10000 points, 1 unit costs 1 resource point per turn to maintain’ (building would require a separate resource—obviously as you don’t build a Tank out of Oil and don’t supply it w/Iron). I don’t see why this is problematic.

Aussie: “Cap” is the risk of causing the resource to disappear if you exceed the limit.

The solution is to remove the random element and create more stability and the current C3C build has resources disappearing A LOT less.

You forgot something:

Additionally (and most importantly), add a 'Minimum Time to Disappearance' feature that determines number of turns that must pass before resource can disappear (i.e. disappearance will not trigger before then). This ensures that the resource will not disappear before it is able to be properly exploited. (In addition to that, you could possibly add a requirement that the resource be connected to at least one city before the timer is triggered.)

This solution is so simple, I can’t believe Civ3’s designers didn’t think of it (and if they did, shame on them for not adding it).

The effect is that the resource can’t disappear until x turn. After x turn, the disappearance seed takes effect.

The other part that you skipped was the part I stole from Aussie:

If resource-based upkeep is a factor: disappearance denominator also decreased per turn of unit maintenance.

So, if a lot of dependent items have been built, the chances of the resource disappearing after x turn are higher.

If you go with something like the Civ3 system, randomizers are a way of adding uncertainty as Aussie said. I think adding the delay and having items increase chances deals with the problem effectively.

RTS: No timers, randomizers or other crap. Just the hard amount: you use it, you lose it.

(Could always add a random element at the end if you really need the uncertainty in RTS, you can always replace the exact amount with ‘Large/Small/Medium’ and have it chance to the corresponding ‘size’ or whatever and make the initial amount randomized so the player really has no chance of guessing the amount.)

This is largely based on the context. If you have three Civs being able to share 1 resource because you count in quantities and not in 'instances' it has the same effect as having 3 units of the same resource. This is the same idea approached from a different perspective and I still think the current model is much better and more elegant. Its an on off digital switch as opposed to the analog mess of a quantitative resource model.

The idea was only meant to allow trade with a max. of one civ: if CivA has x resource then CivA can both use it (to build items requiring it or to have luxury effect) and trade it to CivB but not CivC (or any other additional civs).

I added this for two reasons: a) small civs (that usually only have access to 1 resource of a type) can trade—to one other civ—without suffering production limitations; b) civs are unlikely to have more than one resource of a type on very small maps.

Exploit anyone? sounds like the new way to bankrupt the AI.

It’s not an exploit. Civ3 already does this to a degree: a) Unit-producing improvements cease producing units if disconnected from required resource(s), b) if city containing wonder that places an improvement in each other city is captured, previous owner loses all effects of that improvement. As long as the AI isn’t so ******** that it doesn’t even have the sense to try and take back the resource (and adequately protect the area in order to prevent the resource being lost), there’s not much the player can do that the AI can’t (where AI effectiveness in capturing resources is concerned, note the Civ3 AI’s tendency to go for enemy resources before anything else).

The idea is to add ALL effects to this (i.e. improvements cease all functions if disconnected from required resource(s)).

The really new part would be to add units to this: if units’ owner loses control of all required resources, units lose ADM. (I did something like this with the ‘+1 movement for all ships’ wonder flag in Civ3: wonder placed in strategic ‘Oil’ city, when taken all ships lose 1 MP.) Having unit be disbanded would be WAY to extreme for Civ and the loss of the resource is meant to represent scarcity not complete loss of resources. (Not sure how this would work with the storage improvement feature though.)

RTS: Same only ADM loss takes effect once stockpiled resources reach 0.

Aussie: Same.

11. Does not take into account different sized deposits.

This is not a problem. In fact, the proposed solution solves this
problem but presents several problems of its own, which requires
increasingly complicated rules to solve. I say, leave it as is. The current 'instance' based system is simple and elegant.

What problems? You get 2 resources in each city resource box (to use Civ3 lingo) instead of one, just as if you had control of 2 resources. If you lose control of a ‘large’ resource square, you lose 2 resources instead of 1. I just thought that (where Civ3 is concerned) this would be simpler than Aussie’s multiple-sizes idea.

12. Additional Luxury resources of a type have no additional effect on
owner.

That's because you trade the additional resource away. Again, you want a model where if you have 20000 units of incense your empire would be happier than if you have 19999. That's splitting hairs and micromanaging happiness a bit too much.

As you’ll notice I dropped this one because it just wouldn’t work with the Civ3 system and you may be right that surplus should be something that only serves trade purposes.

RTS: I didn’t really think about the luxury resource application (I’m more interested in the direct strategic applications) but now that you bring it up, I think it would work just like strategic resources: 1 happy face costs 1 resource point per turn, you run out, no more happy face. Odd that I didn’t think of that, considering how obvious it is.


Now to the general points:

Why change it if it works? I say it doesn’t do what Civ is meant to:

If the object of resources is to force players to acquire resources required for production purposes (and, to a lesser degree, population contentment) then infinite resource use defeats this purpose I the following ways:

- Additional resources serve no purpose except as trade items.
- No item cap means any number of items may be built for even 1 turn of controlling a resource. (That means you can build1 tank or a 200 tanks, it makes absolutely no difference.)

These two reasons combined result in no strategic incentive to acquire additional resources beyond 1 for each type.

This also results in a kind of all-or-nothing approach that is too simplistic considering the more complex city functions in civ (yes, it’s not all about units…warmongers ).

If the above isn’t enough, there are other reasons but I’m too tired to get into them after already typing all that other stuff. Suffice to say the need is there, the want is there (check the poll) so…there you have it.


Saw some other good ideas mentioned but I’ll reply to them some other time.