[GS] Importance of strategic resources

[Tomice]

While I really appreciate the fact that the precise amount of each strategic resource is counted now, I had no success understanding how the system will work exactly. It also seems to change a lot between versions.
The analyst site has some detail, but I'm not sure if it's up to date.

Has anyone checked the press release gameplay vids regarding details? What are your thoughts so far?

As far as I have seen, Oil seems extremely important, as most lategame units need 1/turn. Plus we need it for power generation.
Coal seems less used for units (and only makes sense for Ironclads and Battleships anyway), so we'll probably use it more than we like for power generation. It's also used for railroads.
Uranium will probably be needed for nukes, nuclear plants, GDR's and possibly nuclear subs.
Aluminum seems exclusively meant for airplanes.

I'm less sure about niter, horses and iron. Horses will most likely be needed for light horse units, while knights seem to switch between horses and iron, but I've also read somewhere cuirassiers need niter instead.

All this seems quite chaotic, some resources like iron seem to get less attention than they'd deserve (as a lack of iron was a wartime problem up to the 20th century, especially when needing lots of tanks or ships).

 

[Kaan Boztepe]

i totally agree that late( industrial ) game units should still need iron and gunpowder , maybe not horses though

 

[Tomice]

Personally, I think it may turn out to be a missed opportunity!
I'd really have loved to see multiple resources being needed for some elite units.
Iron should have been important throughout the game IMO.
Aluminum/turn for hightech planes seems weird, especially when they use it instead of oil

 

[King Abbas]

I think the new resource system introduced in the next expansion will only reach it's full potential at the hands of modders.. I thank Firaxis for taking us this far and hope that modders won't take too much time to provide us with a more detailed system.

 

[Kibikus]

Aluminium can also be used to build space lasers for the exoplanet mission, so it will probably be useful for a space victory.

It does seem that horses, niter and iron (with the exception of railroads) will be useless from the modern era onwards. You can always sell them to the AI, and they'll probably buy them, even though they don't need them.

 

[Casworon]

Oil does seem to be very important in the modern era!

Thats why i think Norway should get +1 oil per turn from oil source's as a way of giving them a pretty powerful buff and also differentiating them further from the maori and Phoenicia.

Give them a late game power boost to go along with the rest of their abilities

 

[Sagax]

While I really appreciate the fact that the precise amount of each strategic resource is counted now, I had no success understanding how the system will work exactly.

For units:

1. All units consume X amount of resource to be produced.
2. Later era units also require Y amount of resource per turn for maintenance.
3. For the most part, the same resources needed by units before GS will be required under the new mechanic - with Knights being the only known example where they still can't decide between Iron and Horses.
4. We don't know the resource requirements for the new unit types introduced in the expansion (or maybe it's shown in someone's demo gameplay. But seeing how it's not a hot topic here, I assume there's nothing notable about them)
5. Nothing is 100% certain until the release.