New Resource System

[r_rolo1]

@ Ahriman

It seemes you read only the last sentence of that paragraph you quoted from me Look again:

My point in the parts you quoted from me was between the balance between resource-less and resource-enabled units ( suposing the existance of both and resources number capping the numbers of units you can make from them ). If the resource-enabled units are good compared with the resource-less ones, you will surely want to protect them the most, because they are rare and you can't summon them at will, atleast compared with some more less constricted resourceless units ( and this even if you can replace them: a lost armoured swordsman would need to be created in a city of yours and transported to the front, most likely with some cover of other units ( created for that propose in most of the cases ). In between you would definitely be in a disavantage, so you would want to avoid that if possible ). That is a similar situation to what happens to the Civ IV GG attached units, that a lot of people shun to use in direct battle exactly because of their comparative rarety ...

P.S My point was that even if you still had the slot you would be in a military disavantage if you lost the unit in the time it would be needed to make other brand new and bring it to the field unscratched, and that time is necessarily bigger than for a equivalent unit in a non-cap system ( because you need the start the unit from scratch and bring it to the war ). So you would prefer to minimize this situation and use this resource capped units in battles you have few chances of losing, not unlike people do with the GG atached units in civ IV....

 

[Thormodr]

Realistic? Hardly. How much forest cover is left in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, easern seaboard USA, China, India?
Very little - and nearly all in inaccessible hilly regions. Flatland forests are just *gone*, except for small stands, the densest jungles (Amazon, Congo, Indonesia) and those in the arctic taiga.



Yes, and Japan is literally the only exception. Every other country has massively depleted their forest resources.


I've read it.

I don't disagree that resource exploitation and deforestation have negative environmental consequences. I'm an environmental economist...

I'm saying that, throughout history, people have ignored this (or not known) and gone ahead and chopped anyway.
The game should have incentives that drive you that way. The short-term economic benefits of chopping the trees down far exceeded the long-term costs in nearly every case.

We want a history-flavored game, not a modern-environmentalist game. They did that, its SMAC.

It'll still be history flavoured. However, the Civ series is also about historical what ifs.
It'd be nice to have it in the game. Not beat your head over it of course but subtly.

I realize that in modern times there has been massive deforestation. Thailand for example was 90% covered by jungles and forests in 1900 but only 20% now.
Usually in Civ games I play I hardly see any forests by 1500.

I agree with the idea of incentives. Hopefully they can work something out.

If it's not included, I won't be too upset though.

 

[civ_king]

This resource cap is a good Idea with one resource supplying 10x units of it, I want to be able to trade 2 to one guy 3 to another and keep the remaining under this

 

[cardgame]

Stockpiling resources would be interesting... Say, an iron mine provides 1 iron per turn, and you need 5 to build a knight, 4 to build heavy footmen, 3 to build swordsmen, etc?

It would also make resource-trading more... I don't quite know what word I should use here, so 'interesting' will have to suffice.

 

[Danielos]

Can we pretty please have the seals from Civ 1 back as a resource? It would make those snow/tundra-regions a little more interesting and manageable...

 

[Ramesses]

Can we pretty please have the seals from Civ 1 back as a resource? It would make those snow/tundra-regions a little more interesting and manageable...

You could start a club.

 

[Chibiabos]

You could start a club.

Badoom pcchhh.

 

[Double A]

So then there would be ways to improve resource gathering, and once one ran out you'd have to expand more or trade...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Here is an illustration of how I'd like to see resource caps work in the game (note these numbers are for illustrative purposes only, & any actual numbers would depend on in-game balance issues !

-Say you have Oil. You have 3 sources of size 4 each (out of a maximum of size 5), this gives your empire a maximum of 12 oil units.

-Assuming you have no oil-requiring units, your 12 oil units grant a total economic benefit of +6 production & +3 gold.

-If you have 6 cities, then this will grant you +1 production & +0.5 gold per city.

-Now, lets say you start building tanks. Theoretically your oil can support a total of 12 tanks, but before you ever reach that limit, it will start to impact on the bonuses your civilian economy reaps from these resources.

-You can field more than 12 tanks, but this will lead to an equivalent *penalty* to your civilian economy (think rationing).

So what would be the benefits of the above system?

(a) its relatively simple-not much more complicated than the benefits accrued from Corporations in BtS.

(b) it places further constraints on the "bigger is better" foundation of previous Civ games (a foundation which Civ4 definitely helped to break!)

(c) it makes resource acquisition a much bigger part of war & diplomatic relations!

(d) it forces players into making difficult decisions-build numerous units for a war that might never come? Or build a small army so that you can reap maximum economic benefit from your resources?

Aussie.

 

[DSYoungEsq]

I think what the resource's limit's effect is should depend upon the resource. For example, a metal resource should have a limited number of units that can be built using the resource. But an oil resource should have a limited number of units for which it can provide supply, and that only for so long. The key with depletion is to let you know in advance what the limit is (or provide you with a minimum value and then randomize the actual depletion after that), so that it isn't just disappearing without you being able to plan for that occurrence.

Most other strategy games put a limit on the amount of a resource that a site has, and that limits the amount of the resource you can 'mine' from it. Think Age of Empires, or the Anno series, for example. I would expect it is this type of realism they are trying to implement.

 

[Rexflex]

I'm happy to see limited throughput of resources, but would rather not see depletion... even if the depletion occurrences are regulated from their use rather than random. The former can help form strategic directions, but the later may restrict you too much and make the game all about managing your limited resources rather than anything else.

 

[Dragonlord]

Some of you guys have already alluded to this, but I would prefer the relationship between resources and units to not be direct. Instead I prefer that a specific resource produces a set amount of that resource that your civ can then consume in many different ways. It also gets away from the unit being the smallest common denominator and ending up with a tank using the same amount of oil as a battleship.

Here is how I would ideally see it working:

Each resource would produce a set number of “resource units” like barrels (oil), ingots (metal), etc. per turn. The total amount of “resource units” available to you would then be used to maintain your units and, potentially, buildings.

In the case of oil, a battleship would use 3 barrels per turn, while a destroyer would use 2. Note that the numbers are just for explanation purposes, not suggestions on what a battle ship should “cost” relative to a destroyer.

A typical oil well would produce 10 barrels per turn allowing you to build and maintain 3 battleships or 5 destroyers (or some combination of the two).

The more wells you have, the more barrels you have at your disposal to build units or other items that require that resource.

This would then open up additional possibilities in diplomacy because you would be able to trade X number of barrels to another civ for something in return. It doesn’t have to be the whole resource.

It would also be cool if all resources were not created equal. Some iron resources might produce 10 ingots of iron per turn, while another might produce 15. This would add a whole new element to the strategic game play over which resources are really important, and which may be less so.

Additionally, it would be nice if as you advance technologically, you could upgrade your mines or wells to have them produce more per turn.

Stockpiling resources would be interesting... Say, an iron mine provides 1 iron per turn, and you need 5 to build a knight, 4 to build heavy footmen, 3 to build swordsmen, etc?

It would also make resource-trading more... I don't quite know what word I should use here, so 'interesting' will have to suffice.

I also hope for stockpilable resources. I would like them to stockpile in a warehouse, where you can use the stock in various ways: to build units, to maintain units, to trade.

Units should depend on resources for building and/or maintenance. Say you want a Battleship: you'd need a large amount of steel (converted from iron in a building) to build it. Once built, it would consume a set amount of oil per turn for maintenance.
An Archer or Swordsman would need wood or iron, but cost no maintenance.

Your strategy and tactics would depend to a large extent on the resources available to you in a particular game, whether through ownership or diplomacy, with different requirements depending on your technology - as it was supposed to be in previous Civ versions, but never quite clicked.

I don't want random depletion of resource sources. If depletion at all, it should be plannable (like a certain amount of resources prognosticated for a mine or oil well, with maybe a bit of a random factor to the actual depletion) and you would need some way of finding new resources, maybe with advanced techs. I think this is too much complexity though - better not to deplete the sources at all, unless with a rare special event.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The way I would see it, "Renewable resources" ie Horse, Elephants

1. Could be required to Build a unit but not to "Have a unit" so with one unit of Horses you can only build one Knight at a time. But you can Have as many Knights as you want.

2. Could allow you to build sources (ie Having Horses allows you to build a Stables that increases your number of Horses)

Or no resources could be renewable and all work like Oil, Iron, etc. The number on the tile=number of units you can have. (like Supply in Star Craft.. but all units only require 1 'supply' of each of the 'types of supply' they have)

 

[seasnake]

This for me really revitalizes the tech tree and city improvements. Imagine building a refinery that raises your oil cap from 10 to 16. Or a wonder that allows you to build X units without counting against your resource cap. Or a technology that allows for more efficient iron working so your units cost less. Or a UU that does not require something like horse (think camel archer) allowing you to use the horses in other units (like the hypothetical light cavalry).

This game mechanic sounds more profound then hexes.

 

[BerndPodhradsky]

Hi everyone!

Don't know if my idea was covered in a previous post (not as far as I could see), but I'd like to see a mixture of building and maintenance costs for units in the game.

Take - for example - horses; if you have one horse resource, you get a certain amount of horses per resource tile. If you don't build units that need horses, you can save them for later use. However, horses are only building costs, not maintenance costs - if you build a knight, then you need one horse resource but you don't need any horse to maintain this unit.

Oil, on the other hand, might be needed to build a tank but also to maintain it. So you have to be sure to keep enough oil resources (or get new ones) to maintain your tanks, ships and aircraft.

So basically every collected resource should be put on a stock; from there you can trade with it, keep it for later use or use it to build units. Maintenance resource costs would have to be collected automatically, of course.

That would - together with depletion - bring a whole new aspect to the game; In CIV4 ie if you had one oil resource in the middle of your country (far away from moving borders and war) that's enough for the whole game. If my idea of a resource system was implemented, you would still have to plan how to get the oil, after your resource depleted. Additionally (because of resources are kept on stock if you don't need them) you have a whole lot of new strategic decisions to make (save the oil and maybe trade it for a good price if someone else has not enough of it!?). There could also be techologies that make the use of resources more effectively (ie that units need less oil for maintenance because of better engineering techniques used etc). Think of all the (realistic) diplomatic and strategic decisions you'd have to make.

Bernd

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I don't think Stockpilable resources would be a good idea.

They would have too much potential micromanagement.

I do like the idea that any "unused" resources benefit your domestic economy.

Possibly some Buildings may require resources in the same way units do... ie Each Coal Plant Requires a coal.

(This mandates that some buildings should have the ability to be "shut down" temporarily... ie Shut down My coal plants if uranium is available And I have a Nuclear plant... or vice versa if I want more Nuclear subs)

Or possibly a Coal Plant turns 1 unit of Coal into 5 units of power and that can be redistributed through my empire.

 

[Ahriman]

I strongly dislike the idea of stockpiling. Its too complex for too small a benefit (modeling resources as both a stock and a flow). Similarly dislike explicit maintenance.
I much prefer the idea of your resource "income" just being a capacity limit on building new stuff. Do you have total Resource X buildings and Resource X units less than your Resource X income? Yes? You can build more. No? You can't.
Simple.

I also dislike the idea of Lurker's for passive benefits to your empire from having extra quantities. It's interesting, but non-optimal.

Oil for eg should provide a benefit if you build factories or units that consume it. You should have incentives to use your resources, not to leave them idle. Better incentives for gameplay.
Having a strategic decision about *how* to use a resource (choosing between 2 actions) is much more intersting than deciding between whether to use it or not (active vs passive).

 

[axi]

There could be a coal gasification technology which allows turning coal into oil (at a penalty) through a refinery building.

The Fischer-Tropsch process was widely used in WW2 by Germany for this purpose.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Yeah, stockpiling does raise too many MM issues for my liking. A simple X resource units supports Y units-with anything leftover benefiting your domestic economy-is the easiest way to go. No muss, no fuss !

Aussie.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

There could be a coal gasification technology which allows turning coal into oil (at a penalty) through a refinery building.

The Fischer-Tropsch process was widely used in WW2 by Germany for this purpose.

Makes perfect sense...
Building: Requires Coal unit, provides Oil unit.

Just make it expensive
or perhaps it requires a Coal unit and a 'Power' unit