[BTS] Map Resources and Strategy

[Trout]

Would like to get some thoughts from the experts on the board about how strategy changes when a map has alot of resources vs. the opposite? I like to play the standard BTS scenario maps and for example Earth 18 has a ton of resources and the Europe map is exactly the opposite. One obvious thing is that State Property is a better way to go than Corporations when there are few resources and Diplomacy becomes more important since you will have to trade for luxuries since the map doesn't offer very many.

But I am guessing there are some subtle things as well that I am missing with regards to strategy and I can't really find a thread on this topic. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[lymond]

I'm not sure your exact experience level, but assuming you are newish to the game. In that case, regardless of resources, things like State Property and Corporations are really the last thing you should be thinking about. Granted, Corps is about the resources, but there are only really two Corps of note for the players, Sushi and Mining. And well, SUshi is self explanatory, you want lots of seafood and there are maps with a dearth of them . You aren't running Sushi on Pangaea. Mining on the other hand usually has ample, and once you have a corp, it is easy to trade for them. State Property is very powerful in most cases, and my usual go-to on most land-based maps if my game goes that far. You really can't go wrong with it. Sushi/Mining I think more of for Space games on more watery maps like BIg/Small. Have not played Europe 18, but my guess is both Sushi/Mining or SP would work fine. Don't know the Europe map.

Still, you are talking about much later game features, when the early game is so important. I recommend focusing more on that aspect for now.

Also, I recommend playing standard maps like Pangaea, Fractal or Continents, if you are learning. Pangaea mainly.

Diplomacy becomes more important

Diplomacy is always important. There's no situation where it is less so due to some factor.

Resource trading is actually part of the Diplomacy process. It builds relations. Plus it gets you needed happy resources (not luxes..ha..this is not V). Or you trade for Gold per Turn, which is important. Ofc, if limited on resources as you state, you are probably look for extra happiness or health.

Oh..And there is always the option of conquering for more resources.

 

[unas876]

More resources on the map benefit every faction greatly but as usual, a good player can get a boost from that advantage much greater than any AI ever could.
More happy stuff is great because it allows more whipping, less culture slider during war and bigger cities during peace times. More health allows for bigger cities. Moreover you not only get the advantage from your own resources, but you can also expect to be able to make a lot more trades by your own extra resources and also the AI having more doubles and thus offering more trades. Especially if you play on a big map, you can realistically expect to get pretty much every single available resource of your respective era. And if you don't need resources anymore, you can trade for gold or just give resources away for free for diplo bonus. So the effect is actually much greater than you'd originally think.

Now let's look at tile yields. Resources sometimes marginally, sometimes greatly improve the tile yield of any tile they are on. This is particularly important for commerce resources such as gold, silver, plains incense, gems etc. These make even otherwise marginal cities worth settling and being able to contribute to the big picture and obviously they greatly increase your general commerce output.
The most important point would be food resources though. Particularly the best ones such as wet corn or green pigs, obviously also fish. These resources are the primary thing you look at when settling.and a good food resource in your general area in most cases means you wanna settle that site and are then able to turn that food into anything else pretty much in the game: specialists of your choice, hammers for an army, hammers for wonders, working commerce tiles etc etc.
Even other mining, hunting or calendar resources such as copper or iron usually remain very strong tiles throughout the game and are a great boost to any city.
Not to mention the countless possibilities of settling on top of resources that have more marginal tile yield bonusses, such as plains wine, ivory or masonry resources. This saves worker turns and often boosts the tield yield of the city that you settle there (+1 commerce from wine, +1 food from sugar etc) from turn one, which can be a great boost.

Or in other words: more resources make the game faster and easier, yet less straightforward because there is more leeway to play in a lot of different ways whereas on a poor map you are usually sort of forced into a certain strategy. One definitely has to say though that the player has every chance to use the advantages of a rich map to a much better extent than the AI, which makes the game easier.

In terms of how the AI dynamics change, I wouldn't actually be able to say much. Never paid that much attention to it. You'd think IMP AI as well as CRE AI benefit from rich maps the most because they are the best at grabbing land and if that land then also is better that advantage becomes even greater.

 

[Swordnboard]

On very resource-poor maps, heavy expansion and cottage or hammer economies become crippled by city maintenance, since each individual city grows slowly, produces much less, etc. So certain alternative economies, for example the great lighthouse, become more useful as they contribute a larger percentage of your commerce per city. Also specialist economy and GS bulbs will be a higher percentage of your economy on poorer maps because you can do less traditional research.
Caveats: Reckless Expansion is pretty good regardless of map quality on difficulties below immortal since the maintenance is much lower

On very resource rich maps, we alter our strategy to claim as much of the richness as possible, as fast as possible, knowing that the cities will pay for themselves in short order. We can also take advantage of empire-wide benefits, like Mercantilism or the great lighthouse, because of this more aggressive expansion.

Another way of looking at it: as has already been said, poor maps are harder because the human is better at taking advantage of rich maps. On a poor map, we are fighting to win and must play superbly to take advantage of narrow opportunities to improve our positions. For example, this can be seen in lots of poor deity isolation maps played recently on the forums. Expansion, great people, tile improvements, everything are funneled into beelining astronomy, and later a narrow military advantage (usually cannons, cuirs, or rifles), then an army is rapidly whipped together from nothing to conquer some better land.

On the other hand, on a rich map, we are not necessarily fighting to win, more likely fighting to win quickly or convincingly. Where a poor map requires focus to do one thing well, a rich map requires vision and planning to realize exactly how much is possible. Conquer much of the world, expand rapidly, build the Pyramids, Oracle, and Great Lighthouse, all by 1000 BC? On a rich enough map, ridiculous things are possible (lots of HOF games are great examples of this, WastinTime's BC Space thread shows it especially well).

 

[dutchfire]

Diplomacy is always important. There's no situation where it is less so due to some factor.

Always war

 

[Trout]

Thanks all! Those are helpful. Yes, I can see that in my current game with a resource-poor map (the Europe scenario map) that slavery can't be abused since it is a Huge map with few cities that have more than one food tile in their BFC, which likewise doesn't allow many specialists, so I have been using Feudalism civic which I usually never consider on a high-resource map where the whip is supreme. To answer one question, I am an Emperor-level player. Not a noobie but not close to Hall of Fame-level. I don't post very often since I rarely have better advice to offer than others.