Late-game strategic resources

[civnoob13]

aluminium is the most abundant metal in the world - it civ 5 is realistic then aluminium will easily be found

 

[SlothMD]

Just to throw this idea out there:

I wonder if it would be a good idea or not to have a standard land unit that does not require resources that is basically like the resourcesless upgrade to Infantry (Mechanized Infantry being the normal upgrade route).

Maybe something like 45 strength 2 movement or whatever stats are good. They would look a little bit more modern than Infantry.

Could possibly have a small resourceless upgrade unit to AT guns and maybe AA guns.

This would eliminate the oddity of having WW II style land units in the Modern Era.

The more proper fix would require a change to the Civ philosophy of building units. Building and training units shouldn't tie up your entire city production for years, or centuries in the case of ancient units. There should be a "manpower" concept, and you should be able to recruit however many divisions can be supported by that manpower with no effect on production, calling on manpower beyond that limit should have an impact on production - but in the form of a percentage penalty, not completely tying it up. And training a unit should take X time, not be dependent on the production of a particular city. Want to train 5 divisions of musketeers? Put the order in, and they'll pop out 2 months later. 20 divisions? As long as you have the manpower, they all should also pop out 2 months later. As long as you keep the unit active, it counts as a drain on available manpower. Strategic resources? Great - to build, say, a division of swordsmen, you need to have a unit of iron...or the monetary cost goes up to match whatever the global market rate of iron is. Either way, the division takes 6 months to train.

My two cents.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The more proper fix would require a change to the Civ philosophy of building units. Building and training units shouldn't tie up your entire city production for years, or centuries in the case of ancient units. There should be a "manpower" concept, and you should be able to recruit however many divisions can be supported by that manpower with no effect on production, calling on manpower beyond that limit should have an impact on production - but in the form of a percentage penalty, not completely tying it up. And training a unit should take X time, not be dependent on the production of a particular city. Want to train 5 divisions of musketeers? Put the order in, and they'll pop out 2 months later. 20 divisions? As long as you have the manpower, they all should also pop out 2 months later. As long as you keep the unit active, it counts as a drain on available manpower. Strategic resources? Great - to build, say, a division of swordsmen, you need to have a unit of iron...or the monetary cost goes up to match whatever the global market rate of iron is. Either way, the division takes 6 months to train.

My two cents.

You are not "Training" Musketeers with the production... you are Building Muskets.

 

[Polobo]

The more proper fix would require a change to the Civ philosophy of building units. Building and training units shouldn't tie up your entire city production for years, or centuries in the case of ancient units. There should be a "manpower" concept...

If thats really what you want you are playing the wrong series.

The trade-off between buildings and units is a large part of what makes a civilization game. They could change it, sure, but to what particular end. No matter what decisions they make if they retain the turn-based concept there is going to be a significant layer of abstraction to make the game playable in ones lifetime while trying to reflect the entire course of civilized human history.

Most other civilization-like games tend to focus on a specific time-period and thus can reduce the abstraction and implement more concepts more true to life.

While I wouldn't necessarily mind some degree changes with the unit production system I find the current implementation quite fun as it is; though some tweaking can almost always be done within any implementation - without requiring a labotomy.

 

[Ikael]

If they were so prone to include futuristic tech they could have added the ITER project wonder instead of the Giant Death Robot, it is the first experimental cold fussion reactor and it is currently being built on France. Make its effect to make the builder of its civ do not depend on oil nor coal, and there you have an elegant solution to that problem

 

[SlothMD]

The trade-off between buildings and units is a large part of what makes a civilization game. They could change it, sure, but to what particular end. No matter what decisions they make if they retain the turn-based concept there is going to be a significant layer of abstraction to make the game playable in ones lifetime while trying to reflect the entire course of civilized human history.

Never mind that my change would keep the abstraction and actually speed up the game. But, yes, this model is firmly established in the Civ universe.

 

[SlothMD]

You are not "Training" Musketeers with the production... you are Building Muskets.

Which also makes no sense. The overwhelming cost in raising a division of soldiers is the training and manpower, not the cost of the muskets - and it doesn't take 50 years to produce the muskets necessary for that division. But, again, I recognize that this model is entrenched in the Civ universe, and unlikely to change.

\Incidentally, something else I've never seen modeled well: the inherent advantage of firearms isn't that they are basically better at killing people, it's that *the monetary and time cost of training the soldiers is much lower*, thus allowing States to field larger armies.

 

[Alki]

I think Sloth's idea has alot of merit.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Which also makes no sense. The overwhelming cost in raising a division of soldiers is the training and manpower, not the cost of the muskets - and it doesn't take 50 years to produce the muskets necessary for that division. But, again, I recognize that this model is entrenched in the Civ universe, and unlikely to change.

\Incidentally, something else I've never seen modeled well: the inherent advantage of firearms isn't that they are basically better at killing people, it's that *the monetary and time cost of training the soldiers is much lower*, thus allowing States to field larger armies.

If the manpower doesn't interfere with production, then it is not a Cost.

So either the manpower needed is not a significant cost, or it interferes with production.

PS It doesn't take 1000 years to build a monument either.

(also, who said it was a 'division' of muskets. depending on gamespeed, etc. that # of muskets could be reasonably considered anywhere from 1,000 to 1 million men)

 

[Ahriman]

Incidentally, something else I've never seen modeled well: the inherent advantage of firearms isn't that they are basically better at killing people, it's that *the monetary and time cost of training the soldiers is much lower*, thus allowing States to field larger armies.

Right. So a unit with muskets has three times as many men as a unit with bows, and hence has a higher combat strength.

The basic model works fine.

 

[GeoModder]

If they were so prone to include futuristic tech they could have added the ITER project wonder instead of the Giant Death Robot, it is the first experimental cold fussion reactor and it is currently being built on France. Make its effect to make the builder of its civ do not depend on oil nor coal, and there you have an elegant solution to that problem

Cold fusion reactor? AFAIK, and according to the Wiki page on the project, it is a "normal" reactor from the Tokamak type. Nothing to do with cold fusion hypothesism.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Cold fusion reactor? AFAIK, and according to the Wiki page on the project, it is a "normal" reactor from the Tokamak type. Nothing to do with cold fusion hypothesism.

They DO have fusion power... I can easily see that allowing Fusion Power Plant Buildings/National Wonders... that frees up the Aluminum+Uranium your HydroPlants and Nuclear Plants were consuming to allow for more GDR/Nukes and a Modern Military.

 

[SuperSmash5]

The more proper fix would require a change to the Civ philosophy of building units. Building and training units shouldn't tie up your entire city production for years, or centuries in the case of ancient units. There should be a "manpower" concept, and you should be able to recruit however many divisions can be supported by that manpower with no effect on production, calling on manpower beyond that limit should have an impact on production - but in the form of a percentage penalty, not completely tying it up. And training a unit should take X time, not be dependent on the production of a particular city. Want to train 5 divisions of musketeers? Put the order in, and they'll pop out 2 months later. 20 divisions? As long as you have the manpower, they all should also pop out 2 months later. As long as you keep the unit active, it counts as a drain on available manpower. Strategic resources? Great - to build, say, a division of swordsmen, you need to have a unit of iron...or the monetary cost goes up to match whatever the global market rate of iron is. Either way, the division takes 6 months to train.

My two cents.

If you want it, mod it. There's no way they're doing anything like that.

 

[GeoModder]

They DO have fusion power...

There's a world of difference between (hypothetical I may add) cold fusion and the fusion accomplished in today's Tokamak reactors, which is based on physics observed in stars.

 

[Seven05]

I think the limit (although the exact limit is unknown) on strategic resources is fine. In previous versions of civ the only real dividing factor was technology and now you have two factors to keep in mind. This has the potential to take two otherwise equal opponents and give one an advantage due to resource availability or diplomacy. It also helps creat an abstracted 'consumer' nation giving those with abundant resource the ability to trade them for additional income.

So, unlike Civ 4 (or earlier) there is a real advantage to being resource rich, especially later in the game. Warmongering in the late eras will also have added complexity with the absense of an easily produced unit with no resource requirement, if you wish to go that route you'll be using subpar units which is appropriate. Gone are the days of winning simply by having more mines to spit out units faster than the next guy.

I certainly welcome the change from only needing to secure a single source of oil, iron or whatever, especially late in the game. It may not give us a perfect representation of a global economy but it sounds a lot more interesting than the corporate mess in Civ 4.

 

[bloodfin]

ON the original point of resource/unit ratio, I have observed over time in the real world resources may increase for a number of reasons. For example, being able to mine deeper into the Earth's crust, where more metals (perhaps not Aluminium) may inhabit. This could be implemented via the tech tree. Also, the defraction method (and perhaps others) used for refining oil could proudce better quality oil or more effient units. So, perhaps through technology, what the nodes provide could increase overtime. I hvae no modding expereince, and a fat chance of it being included in the main game now, but just a thought

 

[Lyoncet]

Which also makes no sense. The overwhelming cost in raising a division of soldiers is the training and manpower, not the cost of the muskets - and it doesn't take 50 years to produce the muskets necessary for that division. But, again, I recognize that this model is entrenched in the Civ universe, and unlikely to change.

It doesn't take hundreds of years to give a few warriors clubs either. Nor can an archer fire an arrow the 250 miles that a game tile probably represents. What's you're point? If you don't like a "not to scale" model, don't play civ. You can't have one without the other. Simple as that.

As for training rather than weapon production being the major constraint in unit construction and the dual-build idea, yeah it's sort of nifty. Still, I'll take the less realistic but more strategic (and IMO much more fun) model of one production at a time any day. It gives me some really stark choices of how I want to run my empire, which I like.