It's time to stop requiring units to need resources

[Art Morte]

I like it the way it is. There are many more things in the game that need fine-tuning, overhaul or bug fixing, that starting to meddle with this particular thing feels rather pointless.

That said, if there was something I'd consider changing, it would be that you'd have to sacrifice gold and/or production to mine strategic resources from their mines, pastures or wells. Say that one iron mine, without spending any gold or production on it, would provide you with enough iron to build two iron-based units. If you wanted more iron to build more units, you'd have to allocate certain amount of gpt and/or production of that city. Now you could build and heal more iron-based units, depending on how much resources you spend on mining. This way civs with more iron mines would gain an advantage on those who have fewer. This could also provide more iron up for trade as it wouldn't be so scarce as it is.

 

[UWHabs]

There needs to be some incentive to settle for resources. But I agree that it's really annoying to miss out on upgrades, and it creates some weird issues where somehow the Romans care less about Iron than others because their swords don't need it.

I think my favorite plan would be as follows:
-All units (except nukes) are available at any time
-If you lack any copies of a resource, it heals at half the rate as normal
-If you have one copy of a resource, the unit gets +5. If you have 2+ copies, you get +7 (or maybe 4 and 7, or 7 and 10. I don't know, can play around). Base value adjusted down, though. So maybe a sword becomes 30 base strength, +5 with iron, and +7 with 2+ iron.
-each copy of a resource will give a production bonus to the units in question. Something small (maybe 5% per resource copy?), but enough that it might make me want to settle.

It's essentially saying that "everyone has access to all resources", but the resources on the maps are basically higher quality, or easier to extract, which can lead to bonuses. This should lead to enough incentive to want to settle resources, and if you're attacking someone would be an even higher bonus to pillaging the resource while attacking, and should avoid the case of lacking oil so still trying to run knights along with your jet bombers.

 

[Art Morte]

All units (except nukes) are available at any time

Err... wut?

 

[UWHabs]

Err... wut?

*I mean available without resource requirements. Sorry wording.

 

[Olleus]

If you want to make multiple resources worth while, just bring back the Civ5 system. More resource = more units of that type. It just makes perfect sense. You can make UUs require only half a resource if you want too.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

The past 2 games especially have shown how bad this mechanic is in my opinion. Civ5 implementation was no better than Civ6's implementation, it's worse imho. It's been a little too long to remember how well it worked in Civ4 and Civ3 (which I believe only UU's required resources in civ3?, I cannot remember it's been so long). Thoughts on why I feel units shouldn't require resources at the end of this post.

First idea is to completely eliminate the need for units to need resources. Any unit can be upgraded at any time provided they have the required technology. But of course we'd want to give an advantage to Civs that do have the resource associated with that unit. My first thought was to give them +5 on offense and defense if they have the previously required resource. Or would +7 be better? That may be too powerful.

My second thought was there's already a game mechanic for units that lose their required resources in that they stop healing. So we could make it so any unit can be upgraded, but if you lack the required resource, your units won't heal. This one may be a little too harsh, however. But perhaps more realistic. Think of German tank divisions late in WW2 who struggled to find enough oil to operate, and hence couldn't field full divisions. It's not like they went back to building knights when we took away their sources of oil.

My last thought is units should be forced to upgrade. Both AI and human units. This may be a little controversial. As a strategy game should be all about choice, and I'm hesitant to suggest forcing a player to do something. But in this case I feel like it will offer better and more realistic gameplay, and that outweighs strategy concerns. Now we wouldn't want to punish civs with good economies, they should have the outright advantage regardless. So I propose only 1 unit at a time automatically upgrades regardless of how much money you have stockpiled. Instead, gold per turn (rather than lump sum) is removed from your turn(ly) income until the unit is "paid for". Once that happens, a second unit is automatically upgraded until that unit is paid for, and so on. Civilizations with negative (or zero) per turn incomes cannot upgrade any units of course. The AI players seem too incompetent or poor to upgrade their armies, and some human players may purposely leave their army un-upgraded to save money on maintenance. Think about it, it's not like the U.S. was fielding divisions of musketmen in 1941 before WW2 broke out and suddenly decided to upgrade to infantry to fight the war. It's ridiculous. I'm tired of seeing outdated units on the game map. This has been a problem with this game from the start and needs to be fixed. One thing that would have to be balanced, is only removing a certain amount of gold per turn from the budget, like I said, civilizations with great economies should have the outright advantage. So maybe only -10 or -15 per turn until the unit is paid for (professional army card should still apply at the time the unit is upgraded).

I still don't believe it was lack of resources which doomed certain civilizations (Yes I know about Guns, Germs, and Steel). But you can't convince me that there was no Iron for the Native Americans. There certainly was Iron in the Eastern U.S. at least. I can't speak for South America, as I'm not familiar with that continent. It was lack of technology that doomed them, not necessarily lack of resources. The iron was always in those hills (of Pennsylvania), they just didn't know what to do with it. I feel if you have the required technology, then you should be able to upgrade. Of course I feel for my ideas above, technology costs should be upped by 15% at least in order to slow things down and space unit upgrades apart. As for gameplay reasons, yes we want the search for resources to be exciting and intense, but seeing these outdated units really breaks immersion. To me, better realistic immersion would be more beneficial than trying to promote fighting for resources. And as the way the warmongering system is right now, who wants to start a modern war just to get oil? I can often win the game without it. Though usually I just build a city out in the middle of nowhere to get it.

In theory, even nukes I feel should be able to be built without Uranium. Uranium 238 is not hard to come by, 20 countries mine the stuff. It's technology (and industrial capacity) that is needed to turn this into U235 or Pu239, in the form of breeder reactors, or centrifuges in the case of U235 (though this is mostly used for energy and not weapons). But since a nuke is a nuke in the game, and can't be made "less powerful", I would be okay by saying this is the only thing that should require a resource to be built since there's no easy way to give advantage to players who have Uranium.

I still want strategic resources to be useful. I just don't want to see knights in the modern age because a civilization lacks oil or Uranium (for modern armor). It's not like you see Slovenia's army using knights (I picked Slovenia since Wiki lists them at the bottom of oil production).

So give me 1 good reason why we should be seeing knights in the modern age for you strategic resource defenders.

This sounds very much like a return to the bad-old days of Civ2, which I'd be dead-set against. Introduction of Strategic Resources & tying it to unit construction was-quite simply-the best thing to come out of Civ3. Civ5 actually refined it, whereas I feel like Civ6 has gone backwards. In Civ5, I really loved finding that especially rich source of Iron, to allow me to really dominate the battle field. Something that combines the best elements of Civ5 & Civ6 would be my preferred model.

Anyway, just my 2c worth.

You also mention Slovenia & Oil......but it would be fair to say that Slovenia almost certainly imports oil......so a poor analogy if you ask me.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

If you want to make multiple resources worth while, just bring back the Civ5 system. More resource = more units of that type. It just makes perfect sense. You can make UUs require only half a resource if you want too.

Yep, great idea.

 

[Disgustipated]

but it would be fair to say that Slovenia almost certainly imports oil......so a poor analogy if you ask me.

that's the point. any Nation that lacks a resource will import it. It's easier now days with the global economy, but I imagine there were ways to obtain resources (even if just stealing it) in older times as well. Native Americans never did have the ability to manufacture firearms, but they certainly did steal them. Of course things like embargos can perhaps slow the trade of goods, and might be an interesting game mechanic to implement (and make navies more useful).

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

that's the point. any Nation that lacks a resource will import it. It's easier now days with the global economy, but I imagine there were ways to obtain resources (even if just stealing it) in older times as well. Native Americans never did have the ability to manufacture firearms, but they certainly did steal them. Of course things like embargos can perhaps slow the trade of goods, and might be an interesting game mechanic to implement (and make navies more useful).

Well that I will agree with you on. Blockading should be a means of denying trade of resources between two civilizations, as could a country closing its borders-if it lies between two trading civs.

Doesn't change the fact, though, that I do like having a mechanic for resource scarcity.....though I would also like to see all the resources in the game have a broader, economy wide impact (like each source stone and/or copper boosting production in X cities by ×%).

 

[Art Morte]

Doesn't change the fact, though, that I do like having a mechanic for resource scarcity.....though I would also like to see all the resources in the game have a broader, economy wide impact (like each source stone and/or copper boosting production in X cities by ×%).

That feels too much, especially since considering that if a city nowadays has, say, coal, it has little impact on a another city 100 miles away.

But like I said earlier, if you needed to allocate gold and production to strategic resources, that would be something in between Civ5 and Civ6. You get the more units the more gold and production you're willing to spend on a strategic resource you've discovered.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

That feels too much, especially since considering that if a city nowadays has, say, coal, it has little impact on a another city 100 miles away.

But like I said earlier, if you needed to allocate gold and production to strategic resources, that would be something in between Civ5 and Civ6. You get the more units the more gold and production you're willing to spend on a strategic resource you've discovered.

The bonus shouldn't be too huge, & should be more applicable to Luxury & Bonus resources.....but it's also more about Classical-Renaissance resources having a use in the Modern Age.

 

[Gedemon]

Resource requirement for units, I'm not sure that there is a simple solution for that problem.

on one hand we want resources to matter (and preferably not just one source of each)

on the other hand we do not want to be penalized a lot by the random resource placement during the map creation.

I've the following design in a mod I'm working on, but it does change a lot of mechanisms and I don't think it will fit in the streamlined design of the current Civilization game.

For example, working on single unit of resource is too binary and does not allow to mitigate the penalty of not having direct access to the resource, so in my mod each resource deposit have a value, like in civ5.

I also introduce stockpiling for resources in cities, then simulate transfert and trade in a background simulation using river/road/sea route and generate a cost per unit depending of local supply&demand, production cost and transport cost with route efficiency. Trading with other civilizations is automated, depending of your diplomatic relations.

Automated trading generate income and no cost, but when you'll use effectively a resource (when building or healing an unit) you'll pay for it.

Then I'm making strategic resources available on specific tiles of the map (for example a mine on a hill could add 1-2 iron per turn to the corresponding city stock - at a high extraction cost -, while a mine with an iron resource deposit would give 10-20 at a lower extraction cost)

Finally units require equipment (to be build and to heal) that is made from the strategic resource and stocked in city like any other resources (and added in the trade network, I do plan to have limitation on automatic foreign trade depending of the diplomatic relations...)

Techs will not unlock units but the building making an equipment for an unit, and with equipment stockpiled and part of the international trade network, you'll have multiple way to acquire equipment to build (and heal) an unit: diplomatic (trade), territory (not just deposit) and combat (city capture and attacking unit will allow to steal part of its equipment), and you could eventually field an unit before having the tech to produce its equipment.

 

[Art Morte]

Just having a game where the closest iron to my capital is 14 tiles away, the closest horses 18 tiles away and the closest niter 19 tiles away... I don't have any of them. Thank goodness crossbowmen are resource-free. It does feel a bit bonkers, though.

I would be all for not increasing tiles that resources emerge on, but having them provide more than one copy. More strategic resources up for trade would make sense, imo.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

Some units should have resource requirements. It just makes sense.

Tanks need oil, so do modern ships, until you get nuclear power.
Mech inf should also need some oil, but nowhere near what tanks to.
Prior to that, yes having coal, iron, niter etc.

Civ 5 making you have some for each unit, I rather prefer, but then again, we didn't have districts either.

There isn't going to be a perfect answer to cover everyone.

so... /shrug.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

The way Civ 5 did it was just fine: more resources means more units. It worked.

The only problem is getting to the resource without spamming cities.

I always loved how Rise of Nations did it. (In fact, Civ has a lot to learn from RON, in my opinion). In that game, a merchant unit can work any resource anywhere on the map, even share it with a rival merchant. However, it can't defend, and plus if it falls within the expanding borders of another player you don't have an alliance with, it gets destroyed.

It should be the same here. A scout or a settler should be able to found a "station", "outpost", "colony", whatever, that can work anywhere that isn't inside another's borders without their permission.

 

[Olleus]

Civ3 had colonies, which worked in roughly that way IIRC