New civ linked to new resource

[SammyKhalifa]

Why would you destroy city-states? Why not sell your glass for gold and then ally yourself with them instead?

More importantly, you're seriously overestimating how valuable luxuries are. I just played a game as Arabia in which I had every source of silver in the world—14 in all, once I had my bazaars built. Not only was that more silver than I could trade (I was playing on a standard map), but at no point in the game was I ever able to trade with all seven opponents anyway.

A total monopoly on one luxury, even an infinite number, would not necessarily be unbalanced.

Not unbalanced, but I don't know if I really like the "Glass as luxury" concept. I don't know, just doesn't do anything for me (at least the CS specials are just for city states).

I'd rather the resources be a naturally-occurring thing, and I think that special glass or other manufactured good could be just as easily expressed as the income from trade routes.

 

[LordProtector]

Aye, a turquoise quarry would be a Navajo signifier. I hope for the Navajo.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Not unbalanced, but I don't know if I really like the "Glass as luxury" concept. I don't know, just doesn't do anything for me (at least the CS specials are just for city states).

I'd rather the resources be a naturally-occurring thing, and I think that special glass or other manufactured good could be just as easily expressed as the income from trade routes.

I'd actually love to see manufactured goods included. If you had a source of certain raw materials (whether in your territory or you were trading for it) and the appropriate tech and building, then you could turn it into a manufactured good, Colonization-style, and trade it off to someone else. Then there could even be civs whose UAs gave them manufacturing-related bonuses. That could be an interesting addition, as a general thing that all civs can engage in. I don't know that I'd care to see a manufactured good just pop out of one civ that no one else would have the ability to make. But I also don't see why it would encourage Mafia-style whacking of City-States if that's what they have done. . . .

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'd actually love to see manufactured goods included. If you had a source of certain raw materials (whether in your territory or you were trading for it) and the appropriate tech and building, then you could turn it into a manufactured good, Colonization-style, and trade it off to someone else. Then there could even be civs whose UAs gave them manufacturing-related bonuses. That could be an interesting addition, as a general thing that all civs can engage in. I don't know that I'd care to see a manufactured good just pop out of one civ that no one else would have the ability to make. But I also don't see why it would encourage Mafia-style whacking of City-States if that's what they have done. . . .

If all civs could engage in it, sure--but not tacked onto the resource system as is currently speculated. Maybe in Civ6.

 

[alpha2117]

Why would you destroy city-states? Why not sell your glass for gold and then ally yourself with them instead?

More importantly, you're seriously overestimating how valuable luxuries are. I just played a game as Arabia in which I had every source of silver in the world—14 in all, once I had my bazaars built. Not only was that more silver than I could trade (I was playing on a standard map), but at no point in the game was I ever able to trade with all seven opponents anyway.

A total monopoly on one luxury, even an infinite number, would not necessarily be unbalanced.

Okay why destroy city states. expansion warmonger states rely on getting happiness to allow them to expand - in civ5 happiness is more than anything the mechanism preventing total war. If Venice gets a monopoly then if you are playing against the Ai the tactic is simple. Survive until glass. Then begin trading glass for luxuries - no other civ has glass therefore it is attractive to all the other civs and if you offer say glass and 100 gold for a luxury you dont have they will snap up that deal. Then you become happier allowing you to expand. Since you want to trade you dont attack civs you attack unaligned city states to gain more luxuries for more happiness to offset expansion. You are trading with the others so as long as you do it right the AI wont attack you. Straight away you want to kill any unaligned Jewelry or Porcelin city state as they offer an alternate to glass but any CS with resources you dont have is a target. Since city states want others bullied you can use that to assist in getting some city states onside whilst offing others. At a certan point in the game all other factors being equal Venice becomes the juggernaut by manipulating the game mechanics.

If Glass is in as a UA or UB or even in some way as a UI giving Venice additional bonuses to trade and gold then it doesn't open the game to the sort of manipulation of it's basic mechanics that it does as an exclusive resource.

I'm all for manufactured goods trading but I dont see the current mechanics set up for it. I'd be happy if it was developed for civ6 or a later expansion. Right now I dont like it because I just know how people will play to win. Monopolies of Luxuries are possible now but you need luck or cunning play to achieve them - it's random. A luxury auto linked to one civ means that the use of that Luxury will usually mean that the player will play to win and that means using that resource to win - in this case upping your happiness, trading happiness that makes the AI civs friendlier to you and since happiness is best used in waging war it means killing CS's. Imjust see it leading to a repetitive style of gameplay in a standard game. It will be different playing in multiplayer- in that case it's the opposite - as another player you need to hamstring Venice to avoid the possibility of them becoming a mid game juggernaut using the happiness mechanic. My problem isn't with Glass per-se it's with how the mechanics would relate to a single civ with an auto luxury monopoly. My analysis could be wrong but I jsut see it as the most logical way to play them and I think the AI isn't intuitive enough to gang up and stop them.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I think that may be called "using a strategy to win". It's why we have unique units and abilities.

 

[Arachnofiend]

Alpha you seem to have some misunderstandings as to the behavior of this game's AI? For one, they will never trade more than standard price for a luxury, even if they "need" it. For two, the AI explodes into a fit of rage when you take a city-state, whether they are allied to them or not. Taking all of them would just lead to massive hate from the AI and being unable to sell that glass for more than a few pennies.

 

[wigwam]

Alpha you seem to have some misunderstandings as to the behavior of this game's AI? For one, they will never trade more than standard price for a luxury, even if they "need" it. For two, the AI explodes into a fit of rage when you take a city-state, whether they are allied to them or not. Taking all of them would just lead to massive hate from the AI and being unable to sell that glass for more than a few pennies.

Bingo. Also, I don't know what difficulty level you're playing on, but the AI doesn't actually need luxuries—on no difficulty level does it ever have more than 60% normal unhappiness, and on the highest levels it's something like 36% or 40%.

 

[Red Milk]

And I return.

The Cuban missile crisis could've happened anywhere that was near the US. It just so happened to be in Cuba because that was the closest country that would let the USSR use it as a launch pad. That's not importance. That's proximity.

False.

After repelling the Bay of Pigs Invasion (i.e. America's invasion) Castro's administration openly announced its intentions to adopt Marxist-Leninist Socialism and then sought out the USSR as an ally.

The USSR couldn't have done anything without Cuba successfully repelling American invasion nor could "any country do this" as all Latin American countries were unable to fight off American Imperialism.

Oh my! What country could possibly match up with that? How about Guatemala? Nicaragua? El Salvador? Panama? Colombia? Bolivia? Argentina? Peru? Chile? Paraguay? Mexico?

Civil wars, corruption, and radical ideology have become the hallmark of Latin America.

And that's why I'm an advocate for more Latin American countries. They're quite interesting.

 

[Leugi]

The USSR couldn't have done anything without Cuba successfully repelling American invasion nor could "any country do this" as all Latin American countries were unable to fight off American Imperialism.

Admitively, Latin America couldn't fight off the American Imperialism before and after the missile crysis, because, by the doctrine and policy of National Security (which started as a ways of stopping the advancement of communism in Latin America), governments quickly degraded into awful dictatorships in all the region, to watch out for any enemies of Capitalism.

So, it was quite hard down here, since the guerrillas couldn't do a lot in bigger territories. There were rebelions, and in Bolivia the University was particularly vocal in fighting against the Dictators; but almost nothing could be done... They ended instaurating democratic governments, but some influence of the USA was still quite strong in that process...

Anyway, sorry for the relatively out of topic post, but hey, I couldn't avoid it hehe... But I also would love to get more Latin America in Civ...

Thing is, I doubt Cuba or any Latin American civ will be in BNW, perhaps later, should a third expansion or more DLCs be in the way...

And just to go back to my typical point: I still believe and hope Seals is the resource, and thus Inuit the Civ. Seals would actually change the gameplay a bit because it could appear on snow; I don't know if any other resource idea would do this (even a manufactured one, mind you, it isn't so game-breaking as some suggest)

 

[roguesaw]

The Cubans already began developing ties to the Soviets prior to the bay of pigs. The u.s. publicly claimed "international communism" i.e. the soviets, was using Cuba as a base for spreading communism in the western hemisphere prior to the bay of pigs. The Soviets knew of the planned invasion prior to it going down...

You really think that if the united states used its full might as opposed to 1500 men, mainly Cuban exiles, that Cuba would have repelled "American imperialism" The whole point was "plausible deniability". The last thing they wanted was open conflict, with the u.s. as the aggressor, inviting the Soviets to come to Cuba's aid and having open conflict with the Soviets 90 miles from a major American metropolitan area.

As for the Cuban missile crisis your kidding yourself if you think the Cubans had any real and genuine importance in that event. Two nuclear superpowers locked horns. The Cubans were an afterthought. Castros blustering doesnt make him a key player. Id argue the Latin American nations that sent ships to aid the Americans with the blockade had more impact than the Cubans in that event.

The Cubans interest me about as much as the C.S.A.. The arguments supporting Cuba, the ideology, "repelling American imperialism" etc are probably better made on behalf of Vietnam. Though I have no idea what resource would tie to Vietnam, not that one is necessary beyond suggesting them in this thread.

Tobacco wouldnt surprise me as a resource, "cigars" would. I liked a previous corn suggestion. either could be tied to a native american civ. I think at this point id just like firaxis to tell us what the bleeping resource is lol.

 

[VSorceress]

I think its strongly possible that they will Tobacco and Coffee in BNW.

 

[ahawk]

I find this clue to be strange: what does it mean that a civ is linked to a resource? If I'm Egypt, I'd love to see Marble in the starting area for building wonders, but does that mean Egypt is 'linked' to Marble?

I guess what I'm after is this term 'linked'. Does it mean historically linked? Or linked gameplay-wise (like Egypt wanting Marble in the example above)?

And why all of a sudden would a new civ be linked to a new resource? Does that imply that their UA, UU, UI, or whatever interacts with the new resource (like Arabia getting double Oil, or Russia getting double Horses, Iron, and Uranium)? I'd be willing to bet that the answer to that is 'yes', but who knows.

 

[Hans Castorp]

Has anyone suggested some sort of Spice Islands idea for Indonesia? Historically the Moluccas were a major focus for global trade, with both China and European powers heavily involved. It was the spice trade that made the Portuguese a major trading power, and, as far as its Asian factories were concerned, the Netherlands too. The specific spices associated with the Moluccas were nutmeg, cloves and mace, so you could certainly pick one if you wanted to distinguish it from the generic spices resource. Alternately you lose spices as a generic and add other generics in its place, eg. pepper, tobacco, coffee, etc. Either way, as far as a strong link between a globally traded resource and a specific civ, this is hard to beat, and would tie into the new trade system nicely. Presumably a major bonus from having a unique trade resource of your own would be a guaranteed resource diversity pay-off for international trade routes, as well as the small boost to happiness you would get.

 

[SnowKomodo]

Has anyone suggested some sort of Spice Islands idea for Indonesia? Historically the Moluccas were a major focus for global trade, with both China and European powers heavily involved. It was the spice trade that made the Portuguese a major trading power, and, as far as its Asian factories were concerned, the Netherlands too. The specific spices associated with the Moluccas were nutmeg, cloves and mace, so you could certainly pick one if you wanted to distinguish it from the generic spices resource. Alternately you lose spices as a generic and add other generics in its place, eg. pepper, tobacco, coffee, etc. Either way, as far as a strong link between a globally traded resource and a specific civ, this is hard to beat, and would tie into the new trade system nicely. Presumably a major bonus from having a unique trade resource of your own would be a guaranteed resource diversity pay-off for international trade routes, as well as the small boost to happiness you would get.

This would be the strongest theory...if we didn't already have spices. As for replacing spices with something else and giving the 'new' spices to Indonesia, I don't know. Unless I get more evidence I'm going with Occam's razor on that

 

[Hinterlander]

1. Morocco
- Hinted by the accidental (?) slip in the interview and the poster clue.
- Ressource: nothing comes into my mind

Saffron!

3. A native American Civ (Soiux or Cherokee, very unlikely Inuit)
- To "compensate" for the Pueblo; useful in one scenario
- Ressource: Buffalo (if Inuit: Seals)

Tobacco seems more likely than either buffalo (bison) or seals.
Axeman UU hint = Algonquin, perhaps Powhatan.

 

[God of Kings]

If cloves/nutmeg/allspice/saffron/vanilla/whatnot are added, then the generic spices lux can become cinnamon (less need to create a new icon!)

 

[VermelhoRed]

If cloves/nutmeg/allspice/saffron/vanilla/whatnot are added, then the generic spices lux can become cinnamon (less need to create a new icon!)

But then they would need to creat a new resource for every spice?

 

[Loaf Warden]

Okay, I've gone back to the actual Q&A video, and I've transcribed what was actually said in re: resources. The video is here, and the discussion begins at 18:04. They said:

Kate Distler: What I really want to know about, and this is something that I've talked about on my Twitter feed, is I love finding the natural resources on the board and trying to like, you know, set up my cities so I have as much as possible. Are there any new resources in Brave New World? That we can talk about?

Dennis Shirk: There are, but we can't talk about it yet, because it's directly related to one of the other new civs that we're also not talking about yet.

Kate: Well, you heard it here first. There's new resources. It's happening.

Dennis: Oh, sorry, did that not come through? There are, but only as it relates to another specific civilization in the game that we're also not talking about.

Kate: Not a problem. We can talk about things that we're not talking about. So, there will be resources, of some kind.

And that's where it ended. The subject then changed to what Kate was drinking and what was in the box behind Dennis.

Even confirming that the words "linked" and "give away" were not in fact used, I still interpret this to mean that the resource is not going to be something mundane like tea or rubber or chocolate. I mean, to take a previously-mentioned suggestion at random, suppose the new resource is Chocolate. And any civ can get and trade Chocolate, like any other luxury resource, because that's a global product that they would not have any reason to make exclusive to any civ. But suppose there was a new Belgian civ whose UB, in addition to whatever effects the building it replaces has, can take a source of Chocolate and convert it into Fine Chocolate, which provides extra happiness or commerce or whatever. So there is a new resource, and it's directly related to a new civ.

But why, in this case, would he not be able to mention the chocolate?

Remember, the only reason we have any idea at all that the new resource relates to a new civ is that he said it does. Too many of the resources that have popped up in this thread are based on links so tenuous that they absolutely depend on his having said that to allow even the suggestion of a link. If the link between the resource and the civ isn't blatantly obvious, why would he have said that instead of mentioning the resource without saying it related to a new civ? Imagine if Kate had asked if there were new resources, and he had said, "Yep, we've added chocolate!" No mention of relating to a civ. Just "We've added chocolate". There would be no logical progression from that to, "They've added Belgium." None of the resources they've included before have had any special connection to a civ, so how would it make any sense for us to hear "chocolate" and start making assumptions about the list of new civs?

I don't think the "question caught him off guard" hypothesis really works. It's true this Q&A did not consist of prepared statements, but the question was just about whether there were any new resources. That's a pretty predictable question. He may not have known for sure it would come up, but he'd have known it could, and he'd be aware of what he could and couldn't say. With a resource like chocolate or rubber or coffee, he'd know he was safe just saying the name of the resource without saying there was any relationship to a civ.

That's why I still think it has to be something where the resource in question is so firmly linked in the popular consciousness with that civ, that he knew he couldn't even say what the resource was. Something like the Murex sea snail, which he'd know would immediately remind a lot of us of the Phoenicians. Or something like buffalo, which could be added without a new civ, and which was used by more than one group, but which would get most people thinking about the Sioux quickly enough that he would know that even mentioning it would start the speculation. Whether the new resource is actually exclusive to the new civ or not--and that much is not clear--I interpret his wording to mean that the reason he couldn't identify the new resource was because, even if it didn't give away a new civ directly, it would hint at it so strongly that it just wasn't "safe" to say anything yet.

I could be wrong about that, of course. Maybe it really is something so totally mundane that this whole discussion will make it seem anticlimactic once we find out. Maybe the only reason he said he couldn't tell us was that he knew it would be fun watching us speculate about it. Who knows? But based on what he actually said, I genuinely think that it is not going to turn out to be anything as general as chocolate, coffee, rubber, tea, rice, or corn, where one could find links with any number of civs if one were really trying to. I think it's going to be something that, if he had said the resource, it would be as good as giving away the civ by name.

 

[phaethon16]

There could be a Native American civ linked to tobacco. Think about; we know a NA civ is coming, and tobacco is unique to them (originally, and they are known for it) and smoking is unhealthy, but that doesn't stop hundreds of thousands of people using it.