Most (& Least) Important Resources

[bioelectricclam]

Just wondering what resources you all consider to be the most and least important. Now I'm a warmonger, so maybe that changes things around a bit, but here is how I rank them and why. Figure people might see something I am missing and give some good advice:

#1: Iron: I consider early to middle game most important, and without iron in that era you can be in some serious trouble.

#2: Oil: if its endgame and you don't have oil, you will almost certainly lose.

#3: Stone: Best "Builder" resource, but also handy for players who prefer to fight. Especially good on "Raging barbs" maps for a good shot at the Great Wall.

#4: Rice, Wheat, Deer, Corn, Pig: the best food resources, since they are easy to get, work well with Granary, or are ridiculously high in . And since food means , they also boost production.

#5: Marble, Silver, Fur and Gold: These things are very nice for preventing early economic collapses, and so far as luxuries go are easier to get than those damnable plantation goods. I'd probably give Marble the rank of #4.5 if you like building and not pillaging.

#6: Horse: My theory is that you either love Horse or don't care. I never feel a real pressing need for this resource so long as I can hook up with Iron, but then again I'd rather have Horse and no metal than nothing at all.

#7: Crab, Cow & Clam: The "decent" food sources. Takes more time to hook up with these resources than the #4 stuff, and even then they just don't do the same job as Pig. Kind of hate starting with my capital on the coastline with only ocean food resources, since you lose the workboats the moment you use them. Would be neat if they were more like workers in the water and you could build multiple nets with one boat, but I digress.

#8: Ivory: Elephants can be a great addition to your forces, but like horse you can live without 'em. The luxury part is pretty nice since it can potentially get you out of rioting citizens early on in the game, but otherwise I won't quit a game over not having any Elephant.

#9: Plantation blahdy blahs: H8 plantation stuff. Calendar is probably one of the worst techs out there, as it comes at the same time far more enticing techs are poping up, is almost universally impossible to trade away (Someone always beats you to it), and almost all the plantation resources are either in terrible spots (like desert and jungle), or basically pointless for your overall strategy (you won't be able to trade them away because like you every other Civ has 5-6 Dye of their own, and my Empire's metallurgist have sadly informed me that you cannot make a sword out of Spice). Nice for founding a city with a decent amount of gold tiles to work, but otherwise really blah.

#10: Aluminum: Probably a bit more important than Uranium, because this metal can come in handy for the Space Race Victory. Otherwise, not something I would go to war over.

#11: Uranium: Nukes are just too easily countered (seriously...what gives? Not only are there two buildings which basically make a city immune to Nukes, but they add in the UN and Global Warming to boot. Last time I checked, Global Warming had nothing to do with Nuclear bombs...anyways just my rant. Nukes are fun for us warmongers but they up and give the peaceniks so many ways to counter them it becomes pointless to even try to go Nuclear). Mushroom clouds might be fun, but they are basically eye candy.

#12: Whale: Anyone else notice how, the moment you finally manage to grow your culture far enough to reach whale in some abyssmal little tundra town that will never grow beyond 5 population and that takes 250 turns to build a courthouse in, you are probably 3 or so turns away from discovering Plastic and making the resource useless? Gods I hate Whale.

#13: Did I forget anything? Not gonna count Best Singles and Reels or whatever, since they are more an improvement than a resource I'd say (although I bet others say different).

 

[Monado]

#1 Bronze - Axeman rush

 

[Dan Quale]

1 copper
2 ivory
3 stone
4 marble
5 happiness resources
6 health resources
7 all the rest is junk to me, except for its terrain bonus

* Swordsmen are more expensive than axemen and require a far more expensive tech which interferes with the economy techs/alphabet, therefore while being only mildly stronger, and losing to axemen/praets/ha They are completely and absolutely useless in most circumstances.
* War elephants rock
Even with their fancy pants longbows, maces,knights Once that stack of cats and elephants comes rolling in, nothing survives.

 

[jason77024]

You don't have fish or gems on your list. I assume wine is in at #9 as well.

 

[Snerk]

1 Copper. Gives you access to those important early mele units. If a neighbor is without it, he's often up for grabs.

2 Oil. Needed for a powerfull army in lategame. But by then my empire is usually big enough to host several oil tiles.

3 Aluminum. In my experience not as easy to get as oil. And inportant for some sweet units i late game. And a must if you're going for a space race vic.

 

[petermarkab]

i think food resources are by far the most important. Food can be converted into both shields (pop rushing) and cash (specialists). That makes corn, rice, wheat, fish, clams, crabs and deer slightly more valuable than pigs, cows, sheep, since the former require one tech and the latter require two.

 

[KMadCandy]

you're missing coal!

i had two games within a week where there was no coal at all on my continent. i hated life. for about the next 3 weeks i had hubby go into WB and check my maps (while i wasn't here, to keep the surprise *giggle*) to make sure there was coal SOMEwhere on the continent i started on. didn't care if it was anywhere near me. but it had to be on the same freaking landmass!

 

[ABigCivFan]

i think food resources are by far the most important. Food can be converted into both shields (pop rushing) and cash (specialists). That makes corn, rice, wheat, fish, clams, crabs and deer slightly more valuable than pigs, cows, sheep, since the former require one tech and the latter require two.

Corn, rice and wheat are the best food res imo since with Granary they give +2

Cow is great since it gives good production, it is often the res that I pasture ASAP.

The early res are the most important, my games are typically over by the time OIL is available.

I would weigh stone & marble about the same, since you need the marble for GL, HE, and NE. These wonders are always on my priority list.

For military purpose, iron is better than copper, since iron allows you building more units types. But copper is good for some wonders. Horse is must have for me since i like to use mobile units since they have the highest strength in their era. With proper promotions and unit mix, they can conqure as well as anything else.

Gold, siver, gems are the best happy res since they are available early, give nice commerce boost and +2 with forge. I almost always have forge before market.

 

[Joe Harker]

Its either horses or iron for me, the number of times i have only had horses and no iron on multiplayer and still crush so many people with just horse archers is amazing in my view! they never build spearmen until it's too late!

 

[ChicagoCubs]

For me:

#1 Copper

#2 Water Food Resources

#3 Land Food Resources

#4 Everything else

I broke out the food resources for a couple of reasons. First, while building the "worker" to improve the water resource, you city is still growing, unlike building a worker. Second, you can go an entire game without ever worrying about the water resource being pillaged.

 

[Monado]

#1 Bronze - Axeman rush

Meant to say copper, but I was thinking bronze working as the most important tech instead.

 

[Chemtech]

I just gave up on a game where even tho I controlled the largest continent on a continents map (1 per civ it looked like although there was a TON of small islands) AND had 3/4 of the next continent over I had neither coal nor aluminum - figures since I randomly had mansa and would have otherwise cruised to a space win.

 

[Steve the Noble]

MOST

#1 Pig/Sheep/Cow: Important for food to get a city growing, particularly early cities, and a pasture only requires the early Animal Husbandry tech.

#2 Copper/Iron: Early melee units.

#3 Gold: Happiness, plus huge commerce bonus with a mine.


LEAST

#1 Hit Movies/Musicals/Singles: Happiness usually isn't a problem late in the game.

#2 Whale: Usually too remote.

#3 Sugar: Minimal bonuses, plus a Medieval Era tech (Calendar) is required.


Extra category: FAVOURITE: Bananas: I like the animation!

 

[Tabster]

In my last few games I've been playing with "Always War" option switched on , on a lakes , great plains or other non-sea type maps and I've found ivory to be essential , more so than iron and horses . But , to be fair , I will have to own up to starting again if I haven't got copper near by . A experienced enough war elephant will even take care of any low level pikeman that the AI occasionally sends . Got to agree with Dan Quale , War elephants + Catapults are a phenomenally powerful combination .

least important the whale , rarely bother with it .

 

[Mango]

I'll rank the types:

Food: All food is a base +1, but what determines the ranking is what you have to spend to get the improvement, what the additional bonus is and what techs are required. Because of that...

1. Fish - +3 food is tied for first with pig, and fishing is a starting tech for many civs. Other civs require you to research fishing, but that's really easy. Workboats are cheap and you can build them while your city grows, so they make for ideal starters when your civ has fishing and starts on the coast.

2. Pig - +3 food and a pasture doesn't take as long to build as a farm. The only problem here is animal husbandry is annoying to research early, though it's a must if you're a civ like Persia or Mongolia that needs horses.

3. Corn and Wheat - +2 food and +1 with biology, but that's later in the game and sometimes requires difficult irrigation spreading. It's a tossup here because some people like corn better since it's on grass, and some people prefer wheat because it gives you a hammer since it's on plains.

4. Cow and Sheep - I love cow. It always ends up being a self sufficient square and it has +2 hammers and +1 food. Cows are great in cities that otherwise lack hammers. Granted you don't care for them in your capital. Sheep are great too, but they end up in stupid places so I have to drop them to 4.

5. Deer and Crab - They both live near the tundra, so that's kind of annoying. On the other hand that makes them rare, and crab like to live together. If you end up with them you will always have trading partners vying for them.

6. Clam and Rice - Same yield as crab but more common it seems, thus less valuable in trade. As for rice, it only yields one food instead of two like corn and wheat.

7. Banana - Requires calender which takes forever to get compared to the others. Requires chopping jungles which makes it twice as long to complete compared to other foods. Also calender kills monuments, so if you have Stonehenge and rely on them for border popping then it's annoying having to beeline for bananas.


Strategic:

1. Copper - No copper early means one more civ near you lives for thousands of years longer than it should. It also means you have to build more settlers since you don't get the two free cities (including one capital) that you'd get otherwise. I love axes. Also it helps build the Statue of Liberty, which is very powerful.

2. Iron - No iron means no swords, which means you just beelined to iron working for no reason you crazy little warmonger. At least you can chop jungles now.

3. Oil - Oil isn't nearly as important as some people say, because without oil you can still win pretty easily via diplomacy. It just makes building modern units a bit hard.

4. Horse - Isn't really necessary, but so many UUs require it. Chariots ARE pretty useful if you're playing multiplayer and they're great for scouting since they can wipe out most barbs. Plus they make good transports for settlers. Horses are also the best pillagers, but you can get by just fine without.

5. Stone/Marble - You don't need them, but IMO you don't need any of the other resources either and stone/marble are the most useful since they come so early.

6. Coal - Railroads make the late game so much more fun. Without them you'd probably restart. Still, that's the only use here.

7. Uranium - Building nukes is the only use, and that is annoying. The only time I use them is at the very end of the game when I'm within a dozen turns of winning or so. Also good for diplo victories in continents to get the total votes required down. I stop teching, goldrush a bunch of nukes and destroy all major cities on the other continent, then vote myself a diplo victory.

Aluminum - Useless unless you forgot to win the game early.




I'll do luxury later.

 

[ABigCivFan]

Food: All food is a base +1, but what determines the ranking is what you have to spend to get the improvement, what the additional bonus is and what techs are required. Because of that...

IMO, Rice,Corn,Wheat are much more important not because the food bonus they provide but the tremendous strategic value they posses as health boosters for the most important early-mid period of the game. Having 1 of each in your territory means +6 for your entire empire, which means your cities will grow faster than other civs lacking these resources.

I have won many games before even reaching the tech that allows Supermarket...

 

[Quintillus]

I'll rank the types:
7. Uranium - Building nukes is the only use, and that is annoying.

Uranium can also be used to power most of the ships (except transports IIRC). So if you don't have any oil, uranium can potentially be quite useful in getting to wherever there is oil (or defending the seas). But you're probably in a bit of a pickle by the time you get Uranium if you don't have any oil.

 

[DrewTate]

Iron, not even close.

 

[Mango]

IMO, Rice,Corn,Wheat are much more important not because the food bonus they provide but the tremendous strategic value they posses as health boosters for the most important early-mid period of the game. Having 1 of each in your territory means +6 for your entire empire, which means your cities will grow faster than other civs lacking these resources.

I have won many games before even reaching the tech that allows Supermarket...

Good point. Graneries are essential builds because your cities grow so much faster (which is great for whipping) but I completely forgot about the health benefit. Corn, wheat and rice all give health boosts WAY before pig, deer and banana, and graneries can be built in all cities whereas harbors require a coast. That really does boost the value of corn and wheat specifically, and rice too.

 

[Bushface]

The worst :-
Whale. Rarely available, little benefit, and goes obsolete.
Fur. Only near the polar regions and goes obsolete.
Uranium. I never build nukes or (heaven save us !) niclear plants, and as I usually play pangaeas nuclear-powered vessels are unnecessary to me.

The best :-
Iron. For swords and rails.
Coal. For rails.
Oil. For my tanks and bombers.

The others are useful, but not absolutely necessary.