How would you like resources to be represented in CIV 7?

[Eddie Verdde]

I propose a new system of food resources that simulates better what happens in real life and could bring about new gameplay dynamics.

Three principles underlie this suggestion. Firstly, in real life, crops/animals used to be native to a region, but once they began to be cultivated/domesticated intensively, they spread to other regions of the world, generally with the same climate and type of soil of the native region.
Secondly, food diversity increases the health of a population and protects against famines; different types of food provide different nutrients and if a disease affects a crop/animal, it will only be a major problem if the population is entirely dependent on that single crop/animal.
Thirdly, different types of crops/animals provide adaptation to different types of climate and soils, so that different civilizations evolved under different climates, relying on different crops/animals.

So, under this system, in the beginning of the game, each food resource occurs only in a single region. Let's assume that you are playing as the Aztec and your starting location has maize nearby, in a humid grassland. You found your first city and if you start to work a tile with maize, you gain access to maize and learn how to grow it. From now on, in every tile with the same type of climate and type of soil as the original tile of maize, you have two options: either you build a regular "farm" to increase the food output by 1, or you build an intensive farm of maize to increase the food output by 2. You will be tempted to have the maximum output possible so you may choose the maize farm. But this has a risk: if a disease affects the maize, you loose all the production of that tile for a number of turns. While if you have a regular farm you keep producing food because there's no focus on a single crop.

Plus, in order to sustain the growth of your city you will need health points, and one of the ways to obtain health points is to provide other types of food to your population. So there will be a balance between investing in maize and gaining access to other crops, either by trade or by exploration. Now let's say you explore the map and find a tile with sheep. As soon as you know how to domesticate sheep, you will be able to build a pasture in every otherwise-barren hill within tour city radius. You could not build a maize farm in the hills because the climate and soil were not adequate to maize, but building a sheep pasture is a good way to increase the food production of that hill. Plus, now you have a second type of food and your citizens will be healthier, so your population can grow up to a certain limit, at which you will need aditional health points, either by building an aqueduct or by gaining access to other food resources.

With this system, a food resource is no longer a single bonus in a single tile. It is something that requires strategic thinking and at the same time offers adaptability and allows your civilization to prosper regardless of starting conditions. Tropical regions may not be suitable for wheat, but are ideal for manioc. Highland arid regions may not be suitable for rice, but you can use them to grow sheep. Will your civilization depend on wheat, maize, sheep, or a mixture of crops and animals?

 

[Eddie Verdde]

The system mentioned above could apply not only to food resources but also to some so-called "luxury resources" such as cotton.

So here's the list of resources that would start in a single location but could be spread to other regions with the same climate and soil by cultivation/domestication:

Edible crops (thanks to @Boris Gudenuf for pointing out some of these):

Wheat
Barley
Sorghum
Millet
Rice
Maize (aka corn)
Soybean
Manioc (aka cassava)
Potatoes
Tropical fruits
Citrus
Apples
Olives (also luxury resource)
Wines (also luxury resource)
Sugar (also luxury resource)
Cocoa (also luxury resource)
Palm oil

Other, so-called "luxury" crops:

Coffee
Tea
Tobacco
Reeds
Hemp
Linen
Cotton
Silk

Domesticable animals:

Horse (also strategic resource)
Camel (strategic resource)
Cattle
Sheep
Pig
Poultry

Finally, there are plant and animal species that are not domesticable and occur at very specific latitudes, soils and climatic conditions. These should be restricted to their initial starting locations, making them highly prized, which would make the players struggle to dominate the lands where they could be found. These could include:

Spices
Incense
Dyes
Elephants
Furs
Deer

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

I really do think every single tile should have some kind of resource.

 

[Hellenism Salesman]

Refraining from the larger discussion, I wouldn't really mind resources staying the same in Civ VII as long as they made one change: assuming that districts return, luxury resources and strategic resources will no longer block the placement of districts.

Whether this means the resource tile is destroyed or- in the case of accumulating strategic resources- they simply accumulate slower than their dedicated improvements, I don't know. I just want this horrible feature to go away so we aren't counterintuitively holding back research of certain techs so they don't block our districts. Additionally, if we adopt the change that all resources are visible from the beginning of the game but only gain uses later on (which I'm an advocate of), then this will be absolutely vital.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Refraining from the larger discussion, I wouldn't really mind resources staying the same in Civ VII as long as they made one change: assuming that districts return, luxury resources and strategic resources will no longer block the placement of districts.

Whether this means the resource tile is destroyed or- in the case of accumulating strategic resources- they simply accumulate slower than their dedicated improvements, I don't know. I just want this horrible feature to go away so we aren't counterintuitively holding back research of certain techs so they don't block our districts. Additionally, if we adopt the change that all resources are visible from the beginning of the game but only gain uses later on (which I'm an advocate of), then this will be absolutely vital.

A possible solution is to give the gamer the decision: always make it possible to ignore the Resource and put the District down - you've got 6 other sources of Horses, who cares about the one on the hill where your Acropolis should go . . .
The required addition, though, is that you should also always be able to demolish any Improvement or District if your needs change: Urban Renewal and Land Management are nothing new and constant rebuilding of parts of cities has been going on since the first cities and should be in the game .

 

[Eddie Verdde]

The required addition, though, is that you should also always be able to demolish any Improvement or District if your needs change:

That's one of the reasons why I don't like the system of districts. They are irreversible and, for instance, makes you think about Broadway when you're still in the ancient age. I miss the old days of Civ4 and Civ5 where you could just specialize a city by assigning specialists to boost science, culture or production and generate great people. If they're going to keep the system of districts i would prefer that they did not occupy a tile and could receive bonus from the tiles within city radius so that the player doesn't have to spend a lot of time considering all the possibilites for adjacency bonus. In my opinion it would be a more elegant solution.

 

[Zaarin]

That's one of the reasons why I don't like the system of districts. They are irreversible and, for instance, makes you think about Broadway when you're still in the ancient age. I miss the old days of Civ4 and Civ5 where you could just specialize a city by assigning specialists to boost science, culture or production and generate great people. If they're going to keep the system of districts i would prefer that they did not occupy a tile and could receive bonus from the tiles within city radius so that the player doesn't have to spend a lot of time considering all the possibilites for adjacency bonus. In my opinion it would be a more elegant solution.

The entire point of districts, though, is to make the map and city planning significant; there's no point in keeping districts if you remove that aspect. Specialists were sorely neglected in Civ6, though, and do need to be rethought for Civ7.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

That's one of the reasons why I don't like the system of districts. They are irreversible and, for instance, makes you think about Broadway when you're still in the ancient age. I miss the old days of Civ4 and Civ5 where you could just specialize a city by assigning specialists to boost science, culture or production and generate great people. If they're going to keep the system of districts i would prefer that they did not occupy a tile and could receive bonus from the tiles within city radius so that the player doesn't have to spend a lot of time considering all the possibilites for adjacency bonus. In my opinion it would be a more elegant solution.

The point of Districts in Civ VI was to spread out the city so that every building in it became visible on the map without requiring any kind of 'mini-map' in the game. I would be very, very surprised if they abandon the Visible City in Civ VII.

That said, the Districts could have been done a lot better.
The adjacency system results in ridiculously segmented and spread out cities which then has to be justified by saying the separate Districts are actually individual smaller 'suburbs' or towns, even though neither in effect nor graphically do the Districts resemble those.
The permanent and unchangeable nature of the Districts likewise is contrary to historical reality and practice, and unjustifiably restricts City Planning to place the District and forget it, because you can't do anything else.
Finally, the very specific nature of each District and the lack of a real Specialist system and the inability to have more than one of each specialized District in a city makes specializing a city an exercise in Frustration and results in some very artificial cities and city planning: IRL most cities 'jumbled' districts: as I've posted elsewhere, the Agora of ancient Athens had market Stoa, Temples, Government meeting/assembly halls, and Theatres/amphitheatres all a few minutes' within walking distance: the City Center contained all types of 'specialist' structures.

My solution, assuming the Districts remain on the map in Civ VII, is to drop down most of the District effects to the individual Buildings/Structures. The District would be just a Holding Pen on the map for buildings. The type and amount of structures in the District would give it its 'specialization' - if any. Increase the number of Building 'slots' in the District to, say, 6 with some Buildings taking up more than 1 Slot (like the Palace, or a major Factory, or a Wonder). All 'adjacency' bonuses would be by Building: a Market in a District with a Harbor structure would produce Gold and Trade bonuses, a Factory next to a Shipyard would be a major ship-building center (which should also affect Trade by sea) and might be a requirement to build Battleships or Aircraft Carriers, and so on.
Your original City Center District would have the Palace, of course, but might also house a Temple, Market and Granary as 'basic structures' to make the city grow and keep everybody happy. Later, as it gets bigger and the grouping similar buildings gives you extra bonuses, you should be able to move the Temple into a separate District with other religious buildings into a Temple Complex in which the religious structures 'reinforce' and provide extra bonuses to each other - not all of which would be Religious bonuses: Scriptoria, Temple Schools, Temple Treasuries (Greek Temples were storehouses for individual and government deposits of coin) could provide Gold or Science bonuses.

 

[dagriggstar]

I have a slightly different idea

Every crop/animal bonus resource gives you +1 food per city (or +1 food in 4 cities, or whatever bonus).
Every crop/animal only appears on one tile in the entire game, the "source" tile. To gain access to said bonus resource the tile simply needs to be revealed by a civilization.
Essentially, bonus resources act as an incentive to explore the map. They sort of spread throughout the world as more civilizations explore it, without appearing on any extra tiles in game.

Ore I think should be infinite, just because I have bad memories of my Iron deposits depleting back in civ 3. I would however, allow civilizations to research stuff like "Iron Working" then "Iron mining" then "Iron Smelting" etc, with each technology revealing more sources of Iron on the map.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I have a slightly different idea

Every crop/animal bonus resource gives you +1 food per city (or +1 food in 4 cities, or whatever bonus).
Every crop/animal only appears on one tile in the entire game, the "source" tile. To gain access to said bonus resource the tile simply needs to be revealed by a civilization.
Essentially, bonus resources act as an incentive to explore the map. They sort of spread throughout the world as more civilizations explore it, without appearing on any extra tiles in game.

Ore I think should be infinite, just because I have bad memories of my Iron deposits depleting back in civ 3. I would however, allow civilizations to research stuff like "Iron Working" then "Iron mining" then "Iron Smelting" etc, with each technology revealing more sources of Iron on the map.

On the first point, too many Resources have never had a single source, at least while humans were on the planet. Cattle, for instance, were found in various forms from Europe to Southeast Asia and North Africa and India. Grain in forms like Wheat, Millet or Rye was gathered and later cultivated from Mesopotamia and Anatolia to China. Even Cotton, a relatively scarce resource early, was found in both India and South America. I agree that the animal and botanical Resources should be spreadable to suitable terrain beyond their starting points, but most of them have potentially numerous starting points.

The 'expanding access' Technologies for most minerals are:

Deep Mining - in the Medieval Era, the development of sophisticated timber framing and bracing trusswork that allows mines to be sent 100s of meters into the earth, along with wooden railed trackways that allow carts to bring large quantities of ore to the surface to be processed. The Steam Engine or Steam Power tech in the Industrial Era would provide a Bonus to the output of these mines, because the first use of primitive steam engines was to pump water out of Deep Mines so they could be worked without drowning the workers.

Open Pit Mining - in the Modern Era, the development of massive internal combustion machinery that can literally remove an entire Tile and produce craters visible from space to get at any ore underground. This, of course, could dovetail nicely with any Ecology movement, since the ecological destruction from these mining operations is among the most extreme on earth.

There are several different Irrigation Technologies that could provide similar Bonus Production from Farms, and Mono-Crop and Selective Breeding Techs that could do the same for Plantations so that just about all the Resource Extraction could be Dynamic, with more Resources appearing throughout the game - representing not brand new deposits or plants, but the ability to make use of deposits already there.

Smelting techniques, high-temperature Kilns and Furnaces, and similar Technologies could be used to make the use of mineral Resources more efficient, so providing a Bonus to them, but I don't think we need more than 2 - 4 Bonus Technologies for any single Resource throughout the game - after all, many of them cannot be used for anything at the start of the game, and some, like Oil, Coal, Uranium, or Aluminum, are irrelevant until fairly late in the game.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I really do think every single tile should have some kind of resource.

It's already the case. (after all, non-improved grasslands give you 2 food, it's not out of nowhere)

Although, I would like, indeed, that particular types of concrete resources to be detailled in the tiles characteristics. (rabbits, insects, diverse types of animals and plants) Ideally they could disappear or move, always with a reason (predators, proliferation of herbivorous, climate changes, monoculture, etc.) but that would be kind of a stretch for the goals to reach in that particular game. You would need to make a world simulation basically, and that would be very power consuming. (if not impossible other that on a supercalculator)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's already the case. (after all, non-improved grasslands give you 2 food, it's not out of nowhere)

Although, I would like, indeed, that particular types of concrete resources to be detailled in the tiles characteristics. (rabbits, insects, diverse types of animals and plants) Ideally they could disappear or move, always with a reason (predators, proliferation of herbivorous, climate changes, monoculture, etc.) but that would be kind of a stretch for the goals to reach in that particular game. You would need to make a world simulation basically, and that would be very power consuming. (if not impossible other that on a supercalculator)

I confess, I would really like an answer to the question of What Is Possible? on game maps from someone who knows a lot more than I do about the technicalities of computer graphics (which won't be hard: I last had technical training on computers in 1986, which probably counts as Mesolithic in computer ages)

Reason is, I keep comparing the graphics in Civ VI with other recent games like Humankind and Anno 1800 and even with older games like Settlers 6, because of things like:

Humankind has animals wandering about the map that you can actually chase around with a cursor - not just animated, but interactive animated objects on the game tiles. They also have a much more graphically diverse set of terrain - too much so, to be sure, for easy play, but visually very impressive, and on maps that are not much different in total numbers of tiles from Civ VI.

Anno 1800 has massively detailed and animated terrain on almost every single tile and combinations of tiles - from cities teeming with people, who occasionally go into graphically-detailed celebrations or riots, to animals roaming the arctic that leave tracks in the snow behind them as they move. And, if anything, in the mid to late game when you are playing with all DLCs in 5 different Regions, their maps are if anything bigger than Civ VIs, and cover a similar range of terrain, from desert through temperate and tropical to Arctic.

Settlers 6, a game 14 years old, had, again, people in crowds wandering the streets of your towns and rabbits playing in the fields and marvelously varied and detailed buildings of all kinds and terrain representing 4 different climates from sub-arctic to desert. Admittedly, their maps are much smaller than Civ VIs 'standard' map, but as said, it is a much older game.

The kicker: my current computer can play and display all these games at the same graphic and CPU settings that it plays and displays Civ VI.

So, to repeat the question: what are the real graphic limitations/possibilities with current (average gamer) computers?

 

[Naokaukodem]

So, to repeat the question: what are the real graphic limitations/possibilities with current (average gamer) computers?

Alas, I can't answer your question, being myself a total noob considering programmation and computer technics.

Plus, I was not talking about graphics, but simulation here (the resources are not displayed, they are just represented by text when you put the cursor on the tiles, lile now "Grassland ; River ; Hill ; Forest ; Farm, Camp, Continent, etc.), and a complex one, each tile inter-acting with its neighbour and maybe more. Where to begin ? But more importantly : where to stop ? One thing is sure : I see Civilization as a great opportunity to simulate such things, although they probably must stay the simpliest possible for the purpose of not distording the reality too much at the point it is ridiculous and unrealistic. (I mean, if we really try, we probably shouldn't try too hard, because it opens up to things like "can the whole universe be recreated in a computer ?")

As to graphics, all I can say is that nowadays, it depends on "performance" more than anytime before. Do you want 4K ? 120 FPS ? [Insert technical/marketing term here] ? The only standard as up today is consoles. PS4/XboxOne/PS5/XboxSeries/Switch. I bought a PS5 recently, only played Astro's Playroom (platine trophy) and it's really impressive. I can nearly say that graphical standard is limitless. Even seeing Civ6, the map full of detailled buildings, it's really impressive. The only limitation now is the market and its evolution. (unfortunately we are in a period of crisis, and i hope it will end soon or later)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Alas, I can't answer your question, being myself a total noob considering programmation and computer technics.

Plus, I was not talking about graphics, but simulation here (the resources are not displayed, they are just represented by text when you put the cursor on the tiles, lile now "Grassland ; River ; Hill ; Forest ; Farm, Camp, Continent, etc.), and a complex one, each tile inter-acting with its neighbour and maybe more. Where to begin ? But more importantly : where to stop ? One thing is sure : I see Civilization as a great opportunity to simulate such things, although they probably must stay the simpliest possible for the purpose of not distording the reality too much at the point it is ridiculous and unrealistic. (I mean, if we really try, we probably shouldn't try too hard, because it opens up to things like "can the whole universe be recreated in a computer ?")

As to graphics, all I can say is that nowadays, it depends on "performance" more than anytime before. Do you want 4K ? 120 FPS ? [Insert technical/marketing term here] ? The only standard as up today is consoles. PS4/XboxOne/PS5/XboxSeries/Switch. I bought a PS5 recently, only played Astro's Playroom (platine trophy) and it's really impressive. I can nearly say that graphical standard is limitless. Even seeing Civ6, the map full of detailled buildings, it's really impressive. The only limitation now is the market and its evolution. (unfortunately we are in a period of crisis, and i hope it will end soon or later)

Unfortunately, graphics drives the gaming industry now and Civ has more or less bought into this with Civ VI's Everything on the Map philosophy. If that remains in Civ VII, they will have to have some on-map graphic representation of all the resources, biomes, climate, terrain and other variations and features. That's why I think knowing exactly what is possible and what the real limitations are technically is the first step in figuring out how much of what we want we can reasonably expect to get.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It all depends if they can go around the banana animations. (See Civ4 fps drops)

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

1. I don't see any logic of static 'bonus resources'. wheats and rices harvested as grains can be sown and grown elsewhere with proper farming techniques associated to each of the two respective crops. these never was a 'tile exclusive'...
2. On animals, they all have legs and actually moves around, and what's the point of Animal Husbandry tech if ranchers can't move their herds around nor can build a dairy farm in a better, more secure place than those randomly generated by the game itself?
Some new gameplay models regarding to horses, elephants, and dromedary has to be devised to represent military stables actually 'breed' these animals after their prime pairs were acquired.
Bonus resource (especially agricultural ones) can only make ANY SENSE if it augmented EVERY respective Food/Production generator TI. ie. if Grain resource is tapped. ALL farms in the same city yields more food than usual.
3. Resource depletion, and prospecting can be realistic (like in Civ3) but in Civ4 onwards (I'm not sure), it was proven more frustrating and I think F'xis got a fan letter not to use depletion rules again.

 

[Naokaukodem]

3. Resource depletion, and prospecting can be realistic (like in Civ3) but in Civ4 onwards (I'm not sure), it was proven more frustrating and I think F'xis got a fan letter not to use depletion rules again.

It depends on what are the "depletion rules"... if it's random like in Civ3 (didn't bother me too much), it may cause problems to some players, but if you have a finite resource that you know of, and that you can renew with new technologies, and find others in other places, it may be a totally different story. That said, I'm not sure if I want to take care about iron in modern eras, as it seems to be so much common. Well, I guess it depends on how far are pushed the resources transformation and use, like steel and copper for XXth century telecommunications. But the quantities needed vary so much that I wonder how to manage this, other than massive increase in production. (which isn't really the case in Civ6)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It depends on what are the "depletion rules"... if it's random like in Civ3 (didn't bother me too much), it may cause problems to some players, but if you have a finite resource that you know of, and that you can renew with new technologies, and find others in other places, it may be a totally different story. That said, I'm not sure if I want to take care about iron in modern eras, as it seems to be so much common. Well, I guess it depends on how far are pushed the resources transformation and use, like steel and copper for XXth century telecommunications. But the quantities needed vary so much that I wonder how to manage this, other than massive increase in production. (which isn't really the case in Civ6)

There are two basic 'Resouce Problems', I think.
The first is the very universal one that the actual quantities of Resources required go up by several orders of magnitude in the Industrial Era and later, and while IRL this required a lot more attention and energy be expended in finding, exploiting, and transporting the greater quantities, the entire problem has been largely ignored in Civ - and, as far as I know, every other game as well. Humankind sort of addresses the problem by requiring multiples of Resouces for later units, so that to build, say, a Battleship or Tank unit you need 2 - 3 times more Iron resource than to build a Swordsman unit, which is at least a Baby Step in the right direction.
But I have argued for some time that Resources should be divided into Ordinary and Industrial Quantity, and among other differences, Industrial Quantity would include all Food from the Start of Game because to make a difference in feeding even a small city you need tons of food delivered every day. Industrial Quantities could, in fact, only be traded/moved by sea, river, or railroad - horse-drawn carts and wagons will not suffice to deliver the 1500 - 2000 tons of food that Imperial Rome needed every day.

The other problem is strictly a Game Problem: IF Resources are going to deplete, or suddenly massively change the quantities required, then the gamer has to have a good chance of being able to access the resources or the game becomes unplayable - and will be neither played nor bought.
The answer to this problem, I think, is to use the relevant Techs to increase supplies and produce new Deposits/sources of Resources or expand the amount you can extract from existing tiles of Resources.

 

[Eddie Verdde]

There are two basic 'Resouce Problems', I think.
The first is the very universal one that the actual quantities of Resources required go up by several orders of magnitude in the Industrial Era and later, and while IRL this required a lot more attention and energy be expended in finding, exploiting, and transporting the greater quantities, the entire problem has been largely ignored in Civ - and, as far as I know, every other game as well. Humankind sort of addresses the problem by requiring multiples of Resouces for later units, so that to build, say, a Battleship or Tank unit you need 2 - 3 times more Iron resource than to build a Swordsman unit, which is at least a Baby Step in the right direction.

I actually like the system implemented in Civ6: once you start extracting a strategic resource, a certain amount goes into a stockpile every turn and then you have to spend a certain amount to build a unit that requires that resource. I hope that system is maintained in Civ7.

I just didn't like that they abandoned copper as a strategic resource in Civ6. Access to copper would be very interesting for the gameplay in the ancient age. If a player didn't have copper he would be encouraged to gain access to a source of copper through fighting, trade or diplomacy, or to develop alternative weaponry. Some historians have even argued that iron working only came about as a response to the scarcity of tin as a result of the disruption of certain trade routes during the collapse of the bronze age civilizations in the 12th century BC (bronze is 1/8 tin and 7/8 copper). Iron is harder to work and is rarely found in its native state, but if you have no other option, youd have to go for iron. I wouldn't got to far as to suggest that both tin and copper should be strategic resources in the game, but I'd like to see copper back as a strategic resource to build bronze age units such as spearmen.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I actually like the system implemented in Civ6: once you start extracting a strategic resource, a certain amount goes into a stockpile every turn and then you have to spend a certain amount to build a unit that requires that resource. I hope that system is maintained in Civ7.

I agree; after playing around with Humankind's system for a while I've come back to the Civ VI system in my thinking, simply because the 'stockpiles' have the potential for more variety and 'granularity' in the use of Resources - none of which Civ VI actually used in its implementation.

Consequently, it takes 20 of each Resource to build something, despite the fact that a Roman Legion (as an example I've used many time before) could be completely equipped for about 125 - 150 tons of worked iron, whereas a single Ironclad took about 20 times that much, and a medium-sized Battleship 200 times as much. "Industrial Quantities" of resources are an Order of Magnitude higher than the traditional amounts required for anything.

What I think would work would be:
1. Vary the amount required of any Resource to build a Unit, and include requirements for other construction as well. Aside from requiring 100s of tons of steel to build a few kilometers of railroad, it also took tons of bronze to build the Colossus (so much that it supposedly affected the international supply of bronze!) and more 100s of tons of steel to buld skyscrapers nd other 'monumental' Modern Era and later structures of all kinds.
2. Vary the amount you can get from a given Resource. I've argued for Dynamic Resources for a while, but now I can get specific:
Early Pre-Industrial Resources give you 1 per turn - and that would include All Resources: X Points of Population would require X Points of a Luxury/Amenity Resource to be affected, and the actual amount could be modified by Civics and Social Policies and even Religion (If one Tenet says you get Favor with God or the Gods by denying yourself pleasures, the demand for Luxuries will drop)
In the Medieval Era, Deep Mining Technology allows mines to be dug 100s of meters into the earth and maintained with sophisticated timber trusses and framing, so that now each mineral deposit gives you 2/turn.
In the Modern Era,Open Pit Mines with massive internal combustion machinery allows you to remove whole tiles to get at the ores, so you can get 3 Resource/turn.
3. Include the depletion of older Resources (not so much for Iron, but very frequent for Gold and Silver) and newer deposits being found with the new technologies for accessing them, and Resources will stay dynamic throughout most of the game. Additionally, ALL plant and animal resources should be Movable. You can grow the plants in any terrain similar to where they started (and very different terrain tiles later with advanced Technologies) and likewise, domestic animals have been spread by humans far beyond their original locations. In fact, DNA now confirms that all modern horses are descended from a single strain of horse first domesticated around 4000 BCE, which humans then spread everywhere they could pasture them, so that today there are only traces of 'wild' horse DNA in modern horses - in game terms, one Horse Resource on one tile was spread across the entire map!

Vary the amounts of resources required for constructions appropriately, and both the tech improvements in extraction and their purpose can be neatly shown in-game.

Similar progressions can be worked out for resources exploited with plantations, farms, and pastures: crop rotation, better irrigation technology, selective breeding of animals, etc. Camps represent hunting of non-domesticated animals, so they don't improve. Instead, many of the 'natural' resources should be replaceable with Manufactured resources as technology progresses: among the first 'plastics' in the 19th century were materials to replace Ivory in manufactured objects like billiard balls, and Artificial Dyes ("coal tar" or aniline) have replaced virtually all natural dyestuffs in manufacturing since the late Industrial Era.

I just didn't like that they abandoned copper as a strategic resource in Civ6. Access to copper would be very interesting for the gameplay in the ancient age. If a player didn't have copper he would be encouraged to gain access to a source of copper through fighting, trade or diplomacy, or to develop alternative weaponry. Some historians have even argued that iron working only came about as a response to the scarcity of tin as a result of the disruption of certain trade routes during the collapse of the bronze age civilizations in the 12th century BC (bronze is 1/8 tin and 7/8 copper). Iron is harder to work and is rarely found in its native state, but if you have no other option, youd have to go for iron. I wouldn't got to far as to suggest that both tin and copper should be strategic resources in the game, but I'd like to see copper back as a strategic resource to build bronze age units such as spearmen.

Copper, Lead, Silver and Gold were the first metals worked by modern Humans, because all of them can be smelted and worked in slightly-improved campfires: no 'special technologies' for hotter fires or kilns are required. Copper was first combined with arsenical ores to make 'arsenical bronze', later with Tin - which also melts at relatively low temperatures. Kilns to fire pottery can also be adapted to smelt and work all of these metals more easily and the bronze alloy, which means early Metal Working is linked to Pottery as Technologies.

Copper itself was used for both decoration and tools (hammers, needles and awls for leather and clothworking) but really made no significant change in Weapons - copper-headed clubs just substituted copper balls for stone, and copper knives or axes were too soft and dulled too fast to have any real advantage over flint or obsidian edges.

Bronze was the first Weapon and Tool metal to have a significant impact:
Bronze tools included toothed saws strong enough to make a smooth cut across the grain in wood. That made it possible to cut solid wooden wheels for carts and primitive wagons - everywhere bronze tools are introduced, so is the solid-wheeled cart ("The Wheel" Technology) at virtually the same time.
Bronze weapons included short swords, edged axes, spear points, helmets, body armor all of which dramatically changed warfare. The first close-order units of Spearmen appear along with Bronze, and also the first Elite Warriors with bronze swords or axes. In fact, to some extent the Elite Warrior (Heroic Warrior from Homer) appears with Bronze, because the metal was so expensive that completely equipping men with bronze weapons and armor was only possible for a tiny percentage of the society.
That means Bronze has not only a military and production effect, but also a Social/Civic effect - which Civ has never modeled.