Keeping Resources in Check (No Phantom Resources)

[Pounder]

Rules if you have more than 32 resources in the game:

1) Maximum of 32 combined strategic and luxury resources. Try to keep them in the first 32 entries.

2) If you don't have all your strat/lux resources in the first 32 positions then it seems that the only rule is to count columns of 32 resources and have only one strategic resource or luxury resource per row..

Example: Red are strategic, yellow are luxury and blue are bonus, I have 96 resources: 22 strategic, 10 luxury and 64 bonus. This gives me 3 columns, 32 rows.



Avoiding Phantom Resources in unconnected cities:
Example, if a unconnected city has a strat/lux resource in position 25, a phantom resource will appear in that unconnected city assignning it from position 57 or 89 if they are not bonus resources. Position 25, 57 and 89 make up one row. If position 57 or 89 were a strategic or luxury resource then they would appear in the unconnected city and would be usable even if it hasn't been discovered yet in your game.

Phantom Resource to unconnected cities will give that unconnected city a resource that it may not have and probably shouldn't have, you may not have even discovered it yet, but it will be usable.

Again, you don't have to have all your strat/lux resources in the first 32 positions, as long as all increments/decrements of 32 are bonus resources.
Example: If you have a strat/lux resource in position 33, then you must have a bonus resource in position 1 and 65.


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edit: jan 16, 2011

Making a luxuryicons_small.pcx file when you have more than 32 resources in the game.

I have 96 resources in my game, 22 strategic, 10 luxury and 64 bonus.

When I went to build my luxuryicons_small.pcx file (that's the file that displays the luxury icons on the city screen view) I thought that they would be read in the order that the luxury resources were entered in the editor, but they don't.

My tobacco is resource #56, but it had to be placed in before cactus and tropical birds which were resource #28 and #29.

When I laid out all my resources in a matrix 32x3, it was plain to see that the game reads them row by row in the matrix, not in the order that the are entered in the game.

This makes complete sense as it fits perfectly with the phantom resource bug.




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edit: jan 21, 2011

More clarification was requested on the: editor, resource.pcx and my chart.

What you have to understand when you add resources to the game.



In the editor: click on the rules tab > click on edit > click on natural resources.

You will now have the screen shown in the pic above.

Notes:

1) The size and order of the resource.pcx file means nothing to the phantom resource bug. I have a resource.pcx file that has 144 icons displayed 0-143 in the editor. The range is dynamic depending on the size of the resource.pcx file. The size of the resource file seems to have no limit, I made a resource file 9600x9600 pixels, that's 36864 icons and the editor displayed a range of 0-36863 when I tried to enter something larger.

2) In the example (picture above) I have 96 resource entries in the game, the container depot is entry #52 and the icon is #44 (45th icon from the resource.pcx file), you can choose any icon on the list and it doesn't matter what order they are in the resource.pcx file.

3) The chart I made is arranged in columns, if the number of resources you have is 32 or less, you have no issues. So if you had 128 resources you would be 4 columns wide and the rules would still apply, you can only have one strategic or luxury resource per row.

4) When making a luxuryicons_small.pcx file, the order that icons have to be placed in the luxuryicons_small.pcx file is the order they appear by row as shown on my chart.



Edit April 30 2011: Making a luxuryicons_small.pcx file when you have less than 33 resources in the game:

The icons in the small luxuries icon file must appear in the order that they are listed/entered in the editor, not the order they appear in the resources.pcx file.

Pounder... It is just the opposite in this case...the Luxuries on the luxuryicons_small.pcx file must be in the Same Order as they are on the resources.pcx file. In this case, the editor order does not matter. The Editor Order is mainly a concern for the Number of Strategic/Luxury Resources as it applies to the so Called "Resource Bug" or Ghosting.

Example: In my EFZI2 Complete Game I have the Luxuries: Booze, Aid Parcel, Cola, Pills and Road Kill on the resources.pcx file in that Order with a couple of Bonus resources between Pills and Road Kill. In the Editor I have these Luxuries listed with other Resources between them starting with Road Kill, Aid Parcel, Booze, Pills and Cola with other Resources between those.

You can see that the Order on the resources.pcx file is Not as they are listed in the Editor...other than Aid Parcel that just happened to be listed in the same position in the Editor.

These Luxury Resources are on the luxuryicons_small.pcx file in the same order as they are on the resource.pcx file to show correctly in the City Screen.
Here is an Image to Show what I am saying:

 

[MeteorPunch]

2) You have to have total resources be multiples of 32.
Example, you have 32 strat/lux, followed by 64 bonus. Total 96 resources.

This doesn't sound right because the standard game of Conquests only uses 25. I don't think Conquests has this bug.

And a question, let's say I have 20 lux/strat and 15 bonus, 35 total. Will I get phantom resources?

 

[Pounder]

This is a bug in Conquests, I've been adding to the same game since Conquests came out, I clearly ran into this once I got past 32 resources in my game, following these rules is how it was cleared it up.

There are many others who have been discussing the problem for years and because it keeps coming up in other threads I am just trying to summarize the findings in this brief tutorial.

 

[MeteorPunch]

This is a bug in Conquests, I've been adding to the same game since Conquests came out, I clearly ran into this once I got past 32 resources in my game, following these rules is how it was cleared it up.

What I meant was, does this bug exist when you start up a normal "vanilla" game of Civ 3 Conquests (unmodded)? It sounds like you're saying it does.

There are many others who have been discussing the problem for years and because it keeps coming up in other threads I am just trying to summarize the findings in this brief tutorial.

It's a good idea for a single dedicated thread. I've been modding awhile and as you see, don't fully understand it.

 

[Pounder]

What I meant was, does this bug exist when you start up a normal "vanilla" game of Civ 3 Conquests (unmodded)? It sounds like you're saying it does.

I said

This is a bug in Conquests, I've been adding to the same game since Conquests came out, I clearly ran into this once I got past 32 resources in my game, following these rules is how it was cleared it up

I didn't have this problem until I exceded 32 resources.

And a question, let's say I have 20 lux/strat and 15 bonus, 35 total. Will I get phantom resources?

You will get the phantom resource in your unconnected cities, you may not be so quick to notice that you got horses, iron and saltpeter.

I really noticed when I added natural gas to my game in the modern age and it showed up in one of my towns when I was in a previous era when I hadn't even discovered it yet or could see it on the map.

 

[Gojira54]

Rules:
1) Maximum of 32 combined strategic and luxury resources.

2) You have to have total resources be multiples of 32.
Example, you have 32 strat/lux, followed by 64 bonus. Total 96 resources.

Got it. But I seem to remember there was at one point a limit on the number of Luxury resources as well (like 8 or 10). Has this been removed or is it still in effect?

For instance, I will avoid the resource bug with the following combination of resources:

18 Strategic
14 Luxury
32 Bonus

...but will I now hit a Luxury limit?

I've made Scenarios like this before, so I know the game won't crash, but will it have a behind-the-scenes failure like the resource overflow bug?

 

[Virote_Considon]

There's a limit on the amount of luxuries, in that the city screen is only set to display upto 8 of them, so it looks really ugly if there are more. I think there's a mod which does something to the pollution icons below to allow for 9, and you wouldn't have any problems if in a game each city could only have access to up to the 8 or 9 at a time, such as through some of them only being available to certain civs, or if trade between continents/regions was restricted on a custom map.

 

[Gojira54]

Thanks VC. Will have to make some adjustments as ugliness is not preferred...

 

[Pounder]

I've edited the city screen to remove the pollution text and dividing line.

This allows 10 luxuries to be displayed along with the pollution icons just below.

I figured that I would know what the pollution icons were for without the box and text.

The top pic is the edited screen and the bottom pic is the original.

 

[Gojira54]

Link?

 

[Pounder]

Link?

I never did post it, it was one of those changes you happen to make to your game.

It was like 3 years ago.

I modded out the line on the city screen background.pcx file.
I modded out the pollution text in the labels.txt file.
I used a smaller pollution icon and placed it in the bottom/left corner of the frame it the cityicons.pcx file.

labels. txt before:
#CS_SECTION_LABELS
STRATEGIC RESOURCES
IMPROVEMENTS
PRODUCTION
FOOD
COMMERCE
LUXURIES
CULTURE
POLLUTION
per turn
Growth in
Complete in
turn
turns
%
CHANGE
HURRY
GRANARY
SHORTAGE
- Zero Growth -

labels.txt after:
#CS_SECTION_LABELS
STRATEGIC RESOURCES
IMPROVEMENTS
PRODUCTION
FOOD
COMMERCE
LUXURIES
CULTURE

per turn
Growth in
Complete in
turn
turns
%
CHANGE
HURRY
GRANARY
SHORTAGE
- Zero Growth -

 

[General 666]

I've edited the city screen to remove the pollution text and dividing line.

This allows 10 luxuries to be displayed along with the pollution icons just below.

I figured that I would know what the pollution icons were for without the box and text.

It annoys me for a longer time to have this display error.

Just to be on the safe side ;
Does it mean I just need to erase the line/text ,to fix it ?
And then I`ll have space for one more lux ?
... and the pollution gets displayed automatically at the bottom of the box ?

 

[Pounder]

It annoys me for a longer time to have this display error.

Just to be on the safe side ;
Does it mean I just need to erase the line/text ,to fix it ?
And then I`ll have space for one more lux ?
... and the pollution gets displayed automatically at the bottom of the box ?

You will have space to display two more lux.

The files have to be modded, pasting some of the background over the line and in the other file using/placing a smaller pollution icon.

I could make the changes for you if you make a request on my miscellaneous graphics thread, I would need you to provide the city screen background.pcx and the cityicons.pcx

Click miscellaneous graphics in my signature below.

 

[Rob (R8XFT)]

Thanks for clarifying things, Pounder. I'm going to set up 10 luxuries + 22 strategic + 32 bonus for ADII. I'd been wondering about the bug, came along to this forum and there was the answer!

 

[Pounder]

Here is a bit more info from my own experience, if anyone has had a different experience I would like to know, because it was not making sense why it had to be set up this way for it to display properly in the game.

If you are adding/deleting any resources to be or not be luxury, you may have to modify your luxuryicons_small.pcx, those are the icons that display in the luxury area of the screen.

This is what mine looks like.

 

[Pounder]

I have 96 resources in my game, 22 strategic, 10 luxury and 64 bonus.

When I went to build my luxuryicons_small.pcx file (that's the file that displays the luxury icons on the city screen view) I noticed that they would appear to be read in the order that the luxury resources were entered in the editor, but the didn't.

My tobacco is resource #56, but it had to be placed in before cactus and tropical birds which were resource #28 and #29.

When I laid out all my resources in a matrix 32x3, it was plain to see that the game reads them row by row in the matrix, not in the order that the are entered in the game.

This makes complete sense as it fits perfectly with the phantom resource bug.

 

[Blue Monkey]

So, if I understand correctly, the first 8 strategic resources in the red/blue/yellow chart are the equivalent slots to the first row of the pcx. My instincts tell me that arranging the resource icons in all the pcx files in the same pattern & following that pattern for setup in the editor is a good idea. Even if the a resource pcx doesn't need to follow a set pattern consistency would make CnP between files (amongst other things) a lot simpler. & maintaining a consistent pattern helps the planning/troubleshooting process. But that's just a hunch. Won't know until somebody tests actual files.

 

[timerover51]

Does this mean that the resource bug shows up as soon as you have a total of 32 strategic and luxury resources combined? I was under the impression that it showed up when you exceeded 32 combined strategic and luxury resources.

Next question is how well does the map generator handle a total of 96 resources? Does it show all of them or are some crowded out by not having available terrain? What sort of distribution do you get?

 

[Pounder]

Does this mean that the resource bug shows up as soon as you have a total of 32 strategic and luxury resources combined? I was under the impression that it showed up when you exceeded 32 combined strategic and luxury resources.

Next question is how well does the map generator handle a total of 96 resources? Does it show all of them or are some crowded out by not having available terrain? What sort of distribution do you get?

Resource bug does show up once you exceed 32 combined strat/lux.

I play on a 194x194 map with 31 civs. The distribution is really good.

The reason I have so many bonus is because I got rid of mines on grassland and plains, I have bonus resources appear as technologies are discovered.

So over 1000 turns I get a lot of visual diversity and much more varied tile attributes.

 

[timerover51]

Resource bug does show up once you exceed 32 combined strat/lux.

I play on a 194x194 map with 31 civs. The distribution is really good.

The reason I have so many bonus is because I got rid of mines on grassland and plains, I have bonus resources appear as technologies are discovered.

So over 1000 turns I get a lot of visual diversity and much more varied tile attributes.

I can see getting rid of mines on grassland and plains, and I have compensated by boosting the yield of mines on hills and mountains.

Do you have to use your system if you keep the number of strategic and luxury resources at about the same number as the game?