Keeping Resources in Check (No Phantom Resources)

[Rambuchan]

Pounder - Given your excellent efforts, testing and understanding of this problem, is there any way that you can think of to exceed the total of 32 strategics and luxuries without any ghosting happening?

Surely that's the next step. It'd open up a whole new world of modding for people!

 

[Pounder]

Pounder - Given your excellent efforts, testing and understanding of this problem, is there any way that you can think of to exceed the total of 32 strategics and luxuries without any ghosting happening?

Surely that's the next step. It'd open up a whole new world of modding for people!

My only thought is to intentionally cause phantom resources to show up in unattached cities.

Something you may want to try is have the first 33 resources be strat/lux and the next 33 bonus. Maybe you could manage a single (or a few) intentional phantom resource, example: maybe satellite communications resource on an island once you get a resource at the capital related to getting a satellite advancement.

Some testing would be required to see if a few intentional phantom resources could be managed.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Could the geographic names used in TAM and Hegemon be phantom resource candidates? Those don't seem to show up in the city screen. Can the bonuses given be set to 0?

 

[Rambuchan]

Blue - Of course, Pounder as the resident expert can confirm, but I do believe geo-tags can easily be done without problem. They are best done as bonus resources, after all. And bonus resources do not show up in city screens, nor do they play a role in the resource bug.

Pounder - I was thinking more along the lines of working with the system as you've come to understand it in such a way as to have games with 50, 60, even say 200 strategics and luxuries.

 

[WildWeazel]

My only thought is to intentionally cause phantom resources to show up in unattached cities.

Something you may want to try is have the first 33 resources be strat/lux and the next 33 bonus. Maybe you could manage a single (or a few) intentional phantom resource, example: maybe satellite communications resource on an island once you get a resource at the capital related to getting a satellite advancement.

Some testing would be required to see if a few intentional phantom resources could be managed.

I'm doing something similar in my mod. Minor civilizations (strategic resources) are "paired up" with each other so that they are the only resources which can be phantoms. But they're only useful for building Small Wonders in the capital, so having an extra one in an unconnected city doesn't do anything.

 

[Blue Monkey]

What I was trying to suggest, but didn't express very well, was that the geo-tags might be apt choices for the resource slots that will show up as phantoms. But everything I post on the whole topic is either guesswork or blue-sky brainstorming.

 

[Pounder]

If someone could think of a way to enable air trade for all cities from the beginning of the game, then there would be no limit on the number of strat/lux resources.

This idea would change the game quite a bit, but would get rid of the phantom resource bug from early in the game.

What if air trade was enabled for all improvements, allow air trade for all improvements. Air trade would give connectivity to all your cities, thus no phantom resources. Alternative would be to add a trade building with no cost that every city would build (maybe include an incentive to build like a happy face).

Problems:
1)You would be allowed to trade with civs the minute you met them.
2)All your cities would have all your resources your capital has.
3)There would still be the possiblity of phantom resources until a city builds a building.

I say air trade for all improvements because I can't think of a way to turn it on for every city from the start, the palace is the only building guaranteed to be built from the start and it is only in the capital. This would only be a problem for random games of course.

I would not be using this, but it may be acceptable in some scenarios.

In a no random game this could be set up easily buy placing a trade building in every city.

Question: do you think it would be incentive enough to gain tarde in acity for the AI to build this trade building or would you have to add a happy or culture or such to make it happen (keeping in mind the cost is zero, so the building will always take one turn to build).

 

[Virote_Considon]

For improvements and wonders, so long as any building which uses the resource requires the resource in the city radius there should be minimal problems - the only problem would be if the resource wasn't connected but existed within a city radius. And of course as WildWeazel says there is always making the buildings using them require the palace.

For units, you can make the resources be civ/group specific. I.e. Messenians and Marathon ghost into each other. The former is only available to Sparta through an era=none tech and allows the building of the Messenian Helot - which only has Sparta checked for its "available to". Marathon is only available to Athens through an era=none tech and allows the Marathon Victor, which is only "available to:" Athens. Thus even though the resources are ghosted to one another, only the one actually available for use for that civ will be useable.

 

[Blue Monkey]

Virote - there's elegance in that solution. Many of the scenarios where a lot of resources are needed have civ-specific elements anyway. Arranging the order as you suggest is one of those genius insights that's only obvious after it's explained.

 

[WildWeazel]

For units, you can make the resources be civ/group specific. I.e. Messenians and Marathon ghost into each other. The former is only available to Sparta through an era=none tech and allows the building of the Messenian Helot - which only has Sparta checked for its "available to". Marathon is only available to Athens through an era=none tech and allows the Marathon Victor, which is only "available to:" Athens. Thus even though the resources are ghosted to one another, only the one actually available for use for that civ will be useable.

That's pretty brilliant.

 

[Takhisis]

I suppose the same could be done on a larger scale, not with just two civs… right?

 

[Virote_Considon]

Of course.

 

[Jorsalfare]

Good tutorial, Pounder. Now I know how to avoid ghost-resources in city-screen, and it works. Thank you.

A different matter is the ghost-resources in the trade advisor-screen (I apologize if it's already covered - I couldn't find it). I have tried every trick I can think of without getting rid of them. When I expanded the resource list to 96, I got 2 ghost resources for each "real" resource, and moving lux/strat resources to the area from #33 to #64 only made one of the ghost resources to appear before the "real" and the other ghost after. It seems that if resource #1 is the "real", then both #33 and #65 will be displayed as ghosts. Or if any of #1, #33 or #65 is connected (to the unconnected town), then all three will be displayed - two of them as "ghosts". Has anyone found a way to avoid this?

 

[Pounder]

Good tutorial, Pounder. Now I know how to avoid ghost-resources in city-screen, and it works. Thank you.

A different matter is the ghost-resources in the trade advisor-screen (I apologize if it's already covered - I couldn't find it). I have tried every trick I can think of without getting rid of them. When I expanded the resource list to 96, I got 2 ghost resources for each "real" resource, and moving lux/strat resources to the area from #33 to #64 only made one of the ghost resources to appear before the "real" and the other ghost after. It seems that if resource #1 is the "real", then both #33 and #65 will be displayed as ghosts. Or if any of #1, #33 or #65 is connected (to the unconnected town), then all three will be displayed - two of them as "ghosts". Has anyone found a way to avoid this?

Are you saying you still see the phantom resources here.



I tend not to go to the trade advisor screen, so maybe I missed something, I always go to each individual city for info.

When the phantom resources are fixed, I (AI as well) was no longer able to see or use the phantom resource.

Are you or the AI still able to use the phantom resource you see in the trade advisor screen.

As you can see, I am later in the game and currently the trade advisor screen is of no use to me and I don't think I currently have any unconnected cities.

Are you sure you are not just seeing resources that you traded for.

 

[Jorsalfare]

They are visible in the trade advisor screen, but under the section "Unconnected cities". They are not visible under "Can trade with" or "local/import/export". As you can see, the city screen is without ghosts. See screenshot:

Iron is resource #2 (strategic), and exotic woods is #34 (bonus resource), so it fits well with the matrix of 32 resources in each column. If I use more than 64 resources, there will be 2 ghost resources as stated in earlier post, but as long as both ghosts are bonus resources, they're only visible under "unconnected cities" and doesn't do any harm.

 

[Pounder]

They are visible in the trade advisor screen, but under the section "Unconnected cities". They are not visible under "Can trade with" or "local/import/export". As you can see, the city screen is without ghosts. See screenshot:

Iron is resource #2 (strategic), and exotic woods is #34 (bonus resource), so it fits well with the matrix of 32 resources in each column. If I use more than 64 resources, there will be 2 ghost resources as stated in earlier post, but as long as both ghosts are bonus resources, they're only visible under "unconnected cities" and doesn't do any harm.

Very interesting, I will keep a look out for it in my next game.

They are only bonus resources and nothing could be built from them anyway and they don't show in the city screen.

The only question left is does the unconnected city benefit from them or not.

 

[Takhisis]

I find it ironic that it still reads 'we should acquire more resources and luxuries'.

 

[Jorsalfare]

I find it ironic that it still reads 'we should acquire more resources and luxuries'.

Yeah. Some women never gets enough "stuff".

 

[MPK]

Well I think I got this;

If I decide that Horses [no.1] is no longer a strategic resource I have to make either resource [no.33] or resource [no.55] a strategic or Bonus resource to replace it.

If I decide that Wine [no.9] is no longer a luxury resource I have to make either resource [no.41] or resource [no.73] a strategic or Bonus resource to replace it.

Correct?

 

[Pounder]

Well I think I got this;

If I decide that Horses [no.1] is no longer a strategic resource I have to make either resource [no.33] or resource [no.55] a strategic or Bonus resource to replace it.

If I decide that Wine [no.9] is no longer a luxury resource I have to make either resource [no.41] or resource [no.73] a strategic or Bonus resource to replace it.

Correct?

기 맹

Not correct, I made changes in bold to your comments.

If I decide that Horses [no.1] is no longer a strategic resource (no.1 is now a bonus resource) I have to make either resource [no.33] or resource [no.65] a strategic or luxury resource to replace it.

If I decide that Wine [no.9] is no longer a luxury resource (no.9 is now a bonus resource) I have to make either resource [no.41] or resource [no.73] a strategic or luxury resource to replace it.