@MoogleEmpMog
Hmm some good points. How about +15% production of those War Elephant type units with Copper or Iron. Sound good?
Absolutely! I've loved this mechanic since it first showed up (in AND or RoM, I believe, or maybe as far back as Legends of Revolution), and wish it, or a more extreme version of it, would be made ubiquitous. They probably need to have their base cost raised by 15% and the discount bring them in line with their current cost, that way they won't be an overly effective unit for Iron-owning civs to spam.
In general, I think it both makes more sense and would play better if strategic resources reduced hammer cost rather than locked what types of units were available. IRL, I don't know of
any instance of a "resource embargo" shutting down a country's production - even in modern times, when embargoes are more widespread and more effective and resource demands are more severe, they make it difficult for a country to buy and sell goods, but aren't enough to shut down a country's access to anything with the possible exception of uranium. And even that doesn't seem to work.
You'd probably have to go deep into the ancient or maybe even prehistoric era to find examples of what Civ defines as a civ that are flatly
unable to produce what Civ defines as a unit that they understood the technical and tactical requirements of. It might not be
worth it for them because of the cost of imported resources, but they could do it.
The closest historical example I can think of to how Civ models strategic resources is the absence of horses and metal in the Americas. But once the natives of the Americas started fighting, trading and interacting with Europeans, horses and guns rapidly spread amongst them, to the point that the popular image of many North American natives is as expert horsemen!
In Civ terms, without "Horse" and "Sulphur" resources of their own, they weren't able to produce huge standing armies of cavalry and gunpowder units (and due to disease and differing starting populations, didn't have the population to), but the smaller number of units they did field would still be "Cuirassiers" and "Cavalry."
From a gameplay perspective, there are certain periods where the lack of a strategic resource, or worse, a series of strategic resources, can simply end a Civ. If you miss Copper, Horse and Iron, or Horse, Iron and Sulphur, that's potentially Game Over for the human and almost certain doom for an AI. The latter trio is especially vicious because the archery and siege units, which can keep a medieval civ viable at least on the defensive, are respectively phased out and start requiring the same resources as the main combat units.
I'd rather see, for example, a unit cost 200 hammers, -25% with Horses, -25% with Sulphur, rather than 100 hammers, requires Horses and Sulphur. Being the owner of Horse and Sulphur resources would still be a huge advantage, since you'd get the unit for half price (probably = its current price) while if you didn't have those resources, you'd get it for twice the price and thus have to invest significantly more production.
Actually, I have no idea if this is possible, but tying it to being on a trade route with a Civ that had the resource (not actually trading the resources on the trade screen, just being linked via routes) would probably represent it better. It would also allow you to use Mercantilism to shut down access to a resource you controlled ALL instances of in the known world, a sufficiently difficult goal that it's worth a significant reward.
Equipment will come into play to make them stronger with stronger materials as well.
Equipment ala Fall From Heaven? Didn't realize that was a planned addition.
I'm not at all a fan of that method, since it merely reduces the significance of the unrealistic and very swingy strategic resource method, rather than replacing it with something that makes more sense and plays better (faster construction with strategic resources).
