Lack of Iron

The issue with the Renaissance and Industrial Eras is that way too many units need niter. It’s too much of a bottle neck. It also feels silly, because we all know Niter is a fudge - it’s not a real strategic resource because you can make it fairly easily. We have to have Niter for gameplay reasons - but let’s keep it to a minimum. Niter really should only be required for Muskets and Heavy Cav. Everyone else should use some other resource (eg Iron for Frigates) or no resource.

Modern Era is a bit funny because of some unit gaps in the Industrial Era and the small number of units in the Modern Era itself. I really think the issue is that FXS should have split resources required to build a unit and maintenance. You should always be able to build Infantry - ie no upfront resource cost - but you should need oil to maintain them. So, if you’re short of oil, you can still have Infantry but they are weaker. (Infantry becomes their own “default” unit.) Tanks should require Iron to build (steel) and then oil to maintain. There would then be a clearer distinction between Melee and HC.

I think there is also maybe an argument for having late game buldings that can give you a tiny bit of oil and iron, to help mitigate some of the issues around lack of resources (so, you’ll still have to trade for resources etc., but it’s not so stark). Maybe Factories could produce one oil and one iron with a policy card or oil / iron per turn if they run a particular project (a bit like how logistics gives you power). Something like that.

It’s a good post @Sostratus. But I actually think FXS alread have the balance right subject to a bit of tweaking.

Part of the fun of Civ is serendipity. I think sometimes people are pushing for things for the sake of balance or flexibility or consistency that, if implemented, would really just undermine what little serendipity there is. Yeah, sometimes you get to the Modern Era and you have no Oil and it feels ... all for naught. But there’s fun and challenge in that too. I think you’d lose that if you can just go “oh well. Guess I’ll spam “Default No Resource” Unit. Maybe you get Oil some other way. Maybe you have to suddenly lean into the diplomatic game. Maybe you just get smashed, and next time you play you keep in mind that “no Oil” scenario - you maybe Warmonger less at the start, or settle more out of the way Cities or have more allies, because you know you can’t rely on finding Oil later.



Isn’t that a good thing? It’s a reason to settle that sort of territory and or settle cities late game. It also rewards colonial expansion earlier in the game - more chance you’re on a continent that has resources you’ll need in tha future.



That actually sounds kinda cool. I mean, isn’t that the point of a Civ like Mali? No resources. No production. So, you get all the gold and buy what you need?

(People keep asking for an Economic Victory and I just don’t get it. The game already has one - play Mali (Or Spain, or England etc) and buy your way to Victory.)

By the way, don’t the Balanced Start and Legendary Start mechanics already solve this problem? Don’t they basically guarantee there will be key resources near your cities?

I was referring to snow locations that have minimal tundra but 3 iron deposits and then oil. It has happened too frequently in Civ 5 and Civ 6, even past vanilla. I think it has something to do with the original script of the game requiring two of the same resources to build resource dependent units. Trust me I'm all for having to colonize and take land; but having disproportionate resources placed in snow areas is ridiculous. Its certainly not a matter of not wanting to invest in late game cities or colonies. I do think you have an excellent idea for infantry and tanks, but take that a step further and incorporate aluminium for jets and jet bombers.

That must have been at Civ5 launch. BNW was nowhere near as bad as Civ6 of any expansion, in terms of resources. Civ5 worst resource was coal. Everything else was so-so or decent. Every blue moon no oil in range. Uranium was pretty hit or miss, but hey by then, if you were not warmongering, who cared for it. The game might have been nearly over by then if doing a fast science victory.

I remember it took about a month after launch to re-balance the resources for BNW. They had fixed it but it temporarily broke. As for coal, yea I remember how no matter what there was never enough.
 
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There is a sneaky way to combat shortages of critical resources. It is using a mod called Strategic Forts. With Early Empire you get to raise a civilian unit called an expansionist. These guys get to build fort improvements, but you can build them outside your territory, and they culture-bomb the six hexes around the fort. So - suppose you have no nitre in your own lands, and the only ones you can see are in god-forsaken corners of arctic wilderness where settling is not realistic. Send up an expansionist to sit next to the resource, build your fort, and you can mine it.

Incidentally, the AI loves raising expansionists, and produces lots of them, but doesn't use them very effectively. Also, it seems the only way to conquer territory held by an AI civ through one of these forts is to eliminate the entire civ.
 
One of my issues with having a lack of resources is trying to find them on the map. I don't see an easy way to see those resources. If leader X has iron, where is it located. Even if I have visibility in his empire, it s somewhat hard to spot. And if I want to take out the iron city, I'm really trying to determine where the hell it is located...

Another reason why that "brown old map" fog of war is not as good as the regular white clouds or greyed out fog of war. I knew before Civ6 came out that I was going to struggle with it due to my poor eyesight, but I appulad them for trying something new and different. I wish there was a toggle setting to go back to the old way, but that likely is too much to ask for.
 
There is a sneaky way to combat shortages of critical resources. It is using a mod called Strategic Forts. With Early Empire you get to raise a civilian unit called an expansionist. These guys get to build fort improvements, but you can build them outside your territory, and they culture-bomb the six hexes around the fort. So - suppose you have no nitre in your own lands, and the only ones you can see are in god-forsaken corners of arctic wilderness where settling is not realistic. Send up an expansionist to sit next to the resource, build your fort, and you can mine it.

Incidentally, the AI loves raising expansionists, and produces lots of them, but doesn't use them very effectively. Also, it seems the only way to conquer territory held by an AI civ through one of these forts is to eliminate the entire civ.
Sounds a bit like Civ III colonies - but those would disappear if not successfully defended, or if another civs territory spreads over the colony. That sort of thing could be a good addition if implemented well. They sound a bit OP in the mod.
 
I dont quite understand the complaints. It looks to me that everybody asumes you need to have at least 1 of the resource. IMO the scarity is what makes it fun. Ive had games with several and games with none. I would only see a problem if I wouldnt have any in almost all my games. But it looks like ppl want it on every game.
 
While the strategic resource distribution could probably stand to be improved, isn't scarcity the whole point of bothering with strategic resources at all?

If in 90% of games you were guaranteed to have all the strategic resources within your natural boundaries, there would be no incentive to make an effort to acquire them.

No, for several reasons.

  1. Even if strategic resources are relatively common, they're not always ideally placed. Players have to make concessions to utilize them. As a result having them consistently does not remove important decisions regarding them. In fact w/o them existing you don't need to make this decision at all.
  2. Strategic resources still need to be protected, creating an area of tactical importance with significant consequences if cut off for too long. Though this is somewhat offset by a crappy trade model with no way to militarily intercept trade (Civ 4 managed this, yet people like to claim it was less tactical).
  3. Having imbalanced strategic resource spawns can create no-win scenarios on RNG alone. Picture defending against Kongo who has iron w/o iron or horse of your own. While somewhat rare there is zero place for such scenarios in a strategy game.
  4. There's virtually no historical justification for most of the resources not existing on wide scales such that relatively large empires have zero means of access. An obvious exception is oil, and I'm more on board with late-game resource scarcity because there's more counterplay.
 
Civ 4 managed this, yet people like to claim it was less tactical
They can dislike the stacks of doom, but not likeing civ4 macro compared to 5 or 6, come on.

  • Having imbalanced strategic resource spawns can create no-win scenarios on RNG alone. Picture defending against Kongo who has iron w/o iron or horse of your own. While somewhat rare there is zero place for such scenarios in a strategy game.

  • I wouldnt mind. Makes for more different games. I dont finish most games anyway :p
  • There's virtually no historical justification for most of the resources not existing on wide scales such that relatively large empires have zero means of access. An obvious exception is oil, and I'm more on board with late-game resource scarcity because there's more counterplay.
More counterplay for no oil than for no iron? Ill give away all my iron for an oil tile any game ^^
 
More counterplay for no oil than for no iron? Ill give away all my iron for an oil tile any game ^^

Iron is early game. Oil is late game. There is a lot more you can do before reaching the late game than there is before reaching early game.

I wouldnt mind. Makes for more different games. I dont finish most games anyway :p

RNG loss removes the "S" in TBS. It's needless. Silly in SP, completely indefensible in a competitive setting. More like something for mods/variant play than what is reasonably in the vanilla experience.

I suppose you can just pick balanced resources though, and when this actually works it mostly solves the issue.
 
I
RNG loss removes the "S" in TBS. It's needless. Silly in SP, completely indefensible in a competitive setting. More like something for mods/variant play than what is reasonably in the vanilla experience.

I suppose you can just pick balanced resources though, and when this actually works it mostly solves the issue.

Well, Id totally agree in starcraft, warcraft, even age of empires or panzer general. But in an empire game with the scope of civ? It already has so many variables that I dont find this a bigger imbalance than having a better or worse start location or a better or worse civ.
 
Well, Id totally agree in starcraft, warcraft, even age of empires or panzer general. But in an empire game with the scope of civ? It already has so many variables that I dont find this a bigger imbalance than having a better or worse start location or a better or worse civ.

In SP you won't notice right now (likely ever) because the AI is awful. I guess reasonable MP games should just pick balanced resources so it doesn't happen.
 
In SP you won't notice right now (likely ever) because the AI is awful. I guess reasonable MP games should just pick balanced resources so it doesn't happen.
Yup, it may be unfair on a pvp game. but in a game like civ Id never sacrifice the least bit of fun in SP/coop for pvp. The setting you say and battleground maps solve it tho
 
The resource system is awful, and ironically a buff to the horsemen line.

And as TheMeinTeam has suggested; the only reason this is functional at all is because the AI doesn't do anything about it. (And also can't handle it either, leaving them with warriors way too late into the game)
 
One of my issues with having a lack of resources is trying to find them on the map. I don't see an easy way to see those resources. If leader X has iron, where is it located. Even if I have visibility in his empire, it s somewhat hard to spot. And if I want to take out the iron city, I'm really trying to determine where the hell it is located...
Get the More Lenses mod. It has a great Resource lens with filters by type.
 
One of my issues with having a lack of resources is trying to find them on the map. I don't see an easy way to see those resources. If leader X has iron, where is it located. Even if I have visibility in his empire, it s somewhat hard to spot. And if I want to take out the iron city, I'm really trying to determine where the hell it is located...

More Lenses is your friend.

The resource system is awful, and ironically a buff to the horsemen line.

And as TheMeinTeam has suggested; the only reason this is functional at all is because the AI doesn't do anything about it. (And also can't handle it either, leaving them with warriors way too late into the game)

I don't see them with warriors even into the mid game, but I only play IMM/DEI so maybe at lower diffs they have more trouble?
 
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This is a very interesting thread and the change in how strategic resources and resource-dependent units work in GS is what I have noticed the most out of the changes introduced. I have definitely had to adapt the way I now play as if you want to build certain units you need to go out of your way to obtain them or increase what you have per turn coming in.

I feel like I have worked out horses, iron and niter as these still work quite simply - get 20, build your unit (Professional Army is your obvious friend as a policy card; as is Magnus' Black Marketeer title).

What I am struggling with is maintaining a large late-game army because so many units now need oil (primarily) and aluminum. I enjoy building a decent land army, a navy and an air force if I am going domination (and sometimes just for fun) but now I find I cannot build anywhere near the amount of units I would have done pre-GS. Even after owning the majority of the tiles producing oil/aluminum on the map and with the relevant policy cards, governor titles, wonders, GPs etc there doesn't seem to be quite enough of these resources on the map. Quite simply, I feel like a cap has been placed on being able to maintain a large amount of units irrespective of how hard you try. Maybe that was the idea...

I now find myself building and maintaining just a small fighting force and having to take it quite slowly if wanting to go domination or take out the odd civ.
 
This is one of the things I have no quarrel with in Civ6.
There are many ways to get your hands on resources.

Also, regarding iron, light cav with proper comp works just as well (if not better) than iron units because of pillaging. And it makes sense now to build a tundra/desert/snow city just for the resource.

You don't really need any resource for peaceful victory types (hydro power works too), and it makes sense if you go for domination that you are always one step ahead of the competition in resources.

I don't care about MP so I can't comment on that.
 
I don't see them with warriors even into the mid game, but I only play IMM/DEI so maybe at lower diffs they have more trouble?

Probably. What would you expect from the game that takes a 2 settler lead to even work?
 
I tried to use black marketeer last night and clearly I had no idea what I was doing. I had 5 warriors ready for upgrade and only 20 iron but was expecting I could upgrade them all.
What was I doing wrong?

Did it not work at all?

It might be that the units need to be in Magnus' city to benefit from Black Marketeer.

For example, if you get Liang's fisheries promotion, you can only create fisheries in the city that Liang is currently in. The vast majority of Governor promotions only seem to affect the specific city that governor is in (Victor and Amani loyalty effects seem to be the exception).
 
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