How to play with sixty resources

[Quasar1011]

Originally posted by bcaspius
I am playing with over 80 resources, and have had crashes, but cannot pinpoint it to this resource issue. I have so many strategic resources, that they do not fit in the civilopedia box, so I have had to remove some from there (but keep them in the game).

I had 67 resources in my mod. I had pinpointed the crashes to the luxuries. Whenever I had a certain luxury connected by road, and wanted to go to the city view screen, the game would crash. Last night I changed all my new luxuries to strategic, and so far, no crashes!

Originally posted by bcaspius
My problem with resources is distribution. If I give every resource 200 appearance ratio (luxury and strategic) the game will create a map and put 2,3,4,5... of the same resource together, and in clusters throughout the map. This makes it impossible to generate something automatically. Any thoughts would be great.

I avoid that problem by making my own maps. Then the only thing beyond my control is when the silver and tin and such disappear, I don't know where they will re-appear.

 

[Defender]

As for the appearance ratio I think you just need to lower your appearance ratio. Mine are between about 50 and about 140 with most in the 60-120 range. One warning if you do that... It may well make it so that not every civ will have access to every resource. I personally don't mind that at all... in fact in a way it's the cornerstone to my mod that you will only have about half of the resources. But it might be a problem for you.

As for the luxeries... I realize that changing them all to strategic would fix the prob... Changing them all to bonus might as well.(though I'm not sure about that) I had thaught of that. But I do not want to do that unless it is really necessary.

You see, in my mod temples and the like are not necessarely readily avialable. I have split everything in the game (units, buildings and wonders) into like 16 categories by type of thing. And the way it works is that the type of resources you have will dictate which categories of things you will be able to purchase. One team might be able to get defensive units and comercial buildings, while anouther might have fast units and defensive buildings (walls, barracks, costal fortresses etc.) So the more successful you are at growing the more types of things you will be able to build.

The system is further divided into about 13 epics also related to a rescource...

The resources would appear when they are first needed and not before and every team will only be able to get about half the resources depending on thier success. Since everything in the game requires the category resource and the epic resource to be able to build(except some early stuff which only need on resource) you will not be able to get everything. You have to learn to work with what you have. But temples etc may not be available to you. Happiness buildings only comprize 2 out of 16 categories.

My point being that if you are not necessarely able to get happiness buildings such as temples a luxery or two might be a real life saver... If you can find them... they are rather rare though they have sizable or even huge(for hard to get deep sea spaces) bonuses. If I could keep the luxury happiness bonus I would be much happier. Hehe

 

[Defender]

Actually... I'm not sure I correctly understood your question... Do you mean that you want the resources to be spread enough that most everyone would be able to get them? That I don't think is possible to GUARNANTEE without a ready made map like Quasar said... Raising the number would raise the number of the resource on the map lowering it will lower the number... Howerever raising the number will not guarantee anything. They might all clump. You just have to tinker with it until you like it... If you want guarantees you gotta do it yourself. Sorry.

Partly I'm still not entirely sure that I understand your question.

 

[Quasar1011]

What I am trying to do with my mod is add variety and challenge. I have several (18, I think) new buildings in the game, but all of them require 1 or 2 of the new resources. A few also require techs or prior buildings. None of the new luxuries I have added show up at the start. I am trying to spice up (no pun intended) some of the techs that are somewhat bare, like chemistry, by allowing new resources to appear with those techs. Some older units in my mod require new strategic resources (catapults need stone, galleys need timber, etc.). I know that regardless of the number of luxuries in the game, only the first 8 will make your citizens happy. So the 12 new luxuries I have added are for variety, and a civ can still earn cash by trading them. Plus, some luxuries allow new buildings (cotton allows textile mills, which boost production; flowers allow florist which adds 1 happy face to the city; etc.). But so far, I can only get the game to work by changing all the new luxuries to strategic resources. It's just not as fun that way!

Maybe I should have catapults require the dead cow resource, eh?

 

[bcaspius]

Thanks for the advice. I wasn't trying to guarantee resources to each civ... I agree with the comment that not every resource should be available to every resource.

After reading through a bunch of these, I realize my pcx is out of order, as well as, my luxury icons. Does anyone have, or know where I can find the pcx and luxury files with the native icons and room for me to build my 80 resources out. That megafile of resources has everything I want, I only need to copy them over to synchronize with my bix file.

At this point, I feel locked into my resources, since I have built over 100 units off the disovery of technology and the production of these resources. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels like he will never be done with programming.

 

[Defender]

Believe me, I understand what you mean about never being done w the programing... I've come to learn that that is just how it's gonna be with a person who likes to mod... I'll never be done. There is always something that could be better. Hehe. It's our blessing and our curse. Hehe.

As for the larger smallresource chart, I need one as well, as I also feel that my mod is built around having a lot of resources. I guess it's not ENTIRELY necessary as I can change all my resources to strategic or something... But, I'd really rather not do that.

 

[Quasar1011]

I am play-testing my Thuban map, and so far no crashes. What I did was add 12 luxury resources. But I took the time, as suggested on another thread, to re-order all the resources in the .bix file. That means I that I put them in this order: all the strategic resources (old, then new), then all the luxuries (old, then new), then all the bonuses. Voila, no crashes! So far so good, but this mod was certainly crashing at earlier stages due to the luxuries. I guess they were out of order.

Of course, this wiped the old resources off the map, and I had to re-add them. It also wiped out the requirements that I had set for some units and buildings. But I re-set those, and everything seems to be working without crashing.

 

[Defender]

Sounds good.

BTW... I'm curious as to what progam you used to switch around your resouces. I've not seriously tried that yet... I'm glad to hear that it's working though. I think that if I can't find a larger chart for the luxuries I may put the extras into bonus... I guess we'll see...

 

[Quasar1011]

Originally posted by Defender
BTW... I'm curious as to what progam you used to switch around your resouces.

I used Paint Shop Pro 8. If you are talking about the actual .bix file, I did that by hand.

Originally posted by Defender
I think that if I can't find a larger chart for the luxuries I may put the extras into bonus... I guess we'll see...

That's what limited me to adding 12 new luxuries, the size of the luxuries_small.pcx file. But I think 12 extras is fine for variety. I also have 6 new strategic (decided bricks + clay was redundant, and bricks are man-made, so I kept clay, but also kept brickworks as a new building). and 24 bonus resources. This gives my mod 42 new resources, for a total of 66.

By the way, if anybody knows of a good "coral" resource icon, I wouldn't mind putting that as an offshore bonus in a couple of places on each map.

 

[Quasar1011]

I know that any luxuries beyond the initial 8, will not benefit my cities with regards to happiness. But they are exportable, as are the new strategic resources, so it helps cash flow. In the below example, I could sell Mao my excess silver, stone, timber or fruit. I could even sell him my sole sources of coffee, marble or pearls if I so decided. This wouldn't affect my happiness, since my trade advisor says I have a total of 12 luxuries. That still leaves 8 luxuries out there (out of a total of 20) that I don't have. The only one up for sale is olives, but the Arabs want way too much for them.

The other use for the luxuries is as requirements for buildings and small wonders. Strategic resources can be used that way too, with the addition of using certain strats for units.

Another bonus to this mod: with more luxuries and strats to sell, the AI is more friendly. Most AI's in this game I am play-testing are polite towards me, as I have been selling items to them the whole game. This has allowed me to stay in democracy, with no wars since B.C. That's why my treasury is approaching 100,000 gold.

 

[SchmuckyTheCat]

In your graphic, you have Pearls as a tradable resource. Are they on land or did you find some method to trade resources that are in the coastal/sea tiles?

I've added pearls, but they just give extra commerce.

 

[GIDustin]

Originally posted by Quasar1011
That's what limited me to adding 12 new luxuries, the size of the luxuries_small.pcx file.

You can add a lot more than that... Dont let the default size of the file hinder you. Here is the DyP luxuryicons_small.pcx

- GIDustin

 

[Quasar1011]

Originally posted by SchmuckyTheCat
In your graphic, you have Pearls as a tradable resource. Are they on land or did you find some method to trade resources that are in the coastal/sea tiles?

I've added pearls, but they just give extra commerce.

They are on land. But since I make my own maps, I control where they are located, and always place them next to a coastline. To me, this simulates the offshore resource being able to be harvested. I don't set pearls to show up until navigation though, which makes this less of a dead-end tech.

On my newer maps, I have taken to placing barbarian camps next to fish resources. The same thinking applies here: that the barbs would be able to harness the nearby resource, and thus would camp there.

I think my Quasar mod is up to 72 total resources now.