Obsolete strategic resources

[Predator145]

Most resources remain relevant through out stock game. But horses and saltpeter become obsolete with their units. Yet the AI still values them and is willing to pay good money to purchase. I'm not sure what the mechanism for valuing a strat res is. Maybe it's how many units, city improvements and worker jobs it enables? In stock game, even late game, the AI still values being able to build cavalry, frigates and coastal fortresses. But in my modded epic game, all these things are gone from the build menu by the time one gets to modern age yet I can still sell saltpeter for a nice gpt.

Any ideas on how to make saltpeter relevant in late game?

 

[Spoonwood]

1. Fight wars where you pillage out all the oil (or rubber) as soon as the war starts. Both for your territory and the AI's territory. You and the AIs then might build tanks or modern armor before the war. But, once the war starts, saltpeter would then have some relevance if the war went on long enough, I think.

2. Change some, many, or all spaceship parts to require saltpeter. According to Wikipedia, much saltpeter (potassium nitrate) does get used as rocket propellant. Maybe cruise missiles require saltpeter also? Or maybe nuclear weapons require saltpeter since they need rocket fuel?

I think the AIs end up better off valuing saltpeter, because them having cavalry after losing control of oil or rubber, sounds more advantageous for them than not if they lose control of oil and rubber.

 

[Sakharov]

What about removing saltpeter at all? Like in civ4.

 

[Predator145]

Removing saltpeter would turn the game upside down during medieval age. It's such a centralizing resource and then suddenly it's gone.

Modern day use of saltpeter is: "Major uses of potassium nitrate are in fertilizers, tree stump removal, rocket propellants and fireworks."

So having access to saltpeter as a strat resource should boost your food as well shield income. Shield income can be done with the editor. But the smallest boost is 25%. It's a bit too much. I don't wanna make industrial age cities that much more productive than they already are. Just a slight boost will do.

So I've come up with this solution: A new city improvement called let's say: Fertilizer (I use the dairy farm graphics with the cows removed) https://www.greystoneconstruction.c...ertilizer-storage-building-construction-2.jpg

Thanks to C3X, city improvements can generate bonus resources that are local (doesn't enter trade network) and can yield resource gains. So Fertilizer generates "Bonus Fertilizer" with the yield of let's say 1 food and 1 shield. I initially made it yield 2 food. But that just helps the humans a lot for he/she can just add another or 2 mined tiles while the AI would just end up with more pop that get turned into specialists (they're nerfed back to 1 beaker/gold in my mod).

So for now Fertilizer will be available with Industrialization (where a new whole generation of units appears that no longer require saltpeter since it can be synthesized industrially). But having access to natural sources should give you a perk.

"From 1903 until the World War I era, potassium nitrate for black powder and fertilizer was produced on an industrial scale from nitric acid produced using the Birkeland–Eyde process, which used an electric arc to oxidize nitrogen from the air. During World War I the newly industrialized Haber process (1913) was combined with the Ostwald process after 1915, allowing Germany to produce nitric acid for the war after being cut off from its supplies of mineral sodium nitrates from Chile (see nitratite)."

Cost of Fertilizer for now is 80 shields, 1 maintenance and has the Ag Trait. For the human player, that's could be 2 extra shields for a city done growing. And if I'm not mistaken, the bonus yield comes before multipliers kick in. Fertilizers also need a Factory since it's heavily perfumed and new cities have better things to build.

 

[Civinator]

Predator 145 I just wanted to write the same about fertilizers and that saltpeter should stay in a Civ 3 game. So here only the part of my post that seems not be included in your post: Granaries in era 3 and 4 could be replaced by a farming building (where I am just searching a proper name for) that needs saltpeter (fertilizer) as a prerequisite. With such a setting the complicated way by virtual resources is not needed.

The use for saltpeter as an ingredient of rocket fuel in my eyes is a proper use, too.

 

[Predator145]

If I'm not mistaken the granary effect can't be stacked. So you can't really build another and grow even faster. It'd be weird if you could build granaries before industrialization but then suddenly can't because they're obsolete and are now replaced with a version that needs saltpeter and you just so happen to not have it.

A name for such an industrial age agricultural city improvement that boosts growth rate/generate food could be "Industrial Farming/Farm", "Fertilizer Storage (Facility)".

https://c8.alamy.com/compde/j7gbwp/industrielle-landwirtschaft-industrie-landwirtschaft-silbernen-stahl-metall-wellpappe-bauernhof-j7gbwp.jpg

 

[Civinator]

If I'm not mistaken the granary effect can't be stacked. So you can't really build another and grow even faster. It'd be weird if you could build granaries before industrialization but then suddenly can't because they're obsolete and are now replaced with a version that needs saltpeter and you just so happen to not have it.

A name for such an industrial age agricultural city improvement that boosts growth rate/generate food could be "Industrial Farming/Farm", "Fertilizer Storage (Facility)".

https://c8.alamy.com/compde/j7gbwp/industrielle-landwirtschaft-industrie-landwirtschaft-silbernen-stahl-metall-wellpappe-bauernhof-j7gbwp.jpg

Sorry, about the obsolescence of granaries I have a different opinion. Measures that are sufficicient for early growth of cities can become not so effective in later eras of mankind. Per example in the mod CCM, granaries become obsolete in the later era 2 by the tech that allows hospitals and these hospitals additionally also have the function of the earlier granaries. There was never any protest about that setting in that mod. On the other side, as I have the hospitals in CCM for the function in growing the population of cities, I have not used the "fertilizer way" for this in CCM.

I never posted anything about stacking the granary effect - but in some way even this would be possible in limited situations by the flag for wonders "city growth causes two citizens instead of one". Another possible way to introduce fertilizers could be a wonder with the prerequisite saltpeter, that provides a granary to every city.

 

[Sakharov]

Removing saltpeter would turn the game upside down during medieval age. It's such a centralizing resource and then suddenly it's gone.

Modern day use of saltpeter is: "Major uses of potassium nitrate are in fertilizers, tree stump removal, rocket propellants and fireworks."

So having access to saltpeter as a strat resource should boost your food as well shield income. Shield income can be done with the editor. But the smallest boost is 25%. It's a bit too much. I don't wanna make industrial age cities that much more productive than they already are. Just a slight boost will do.

So I've come up with this solution: A new city improvement called let's say: Fertilizer (I use the dairy farm graphics with the cows removed) https://www.greystoneconstruction.c...ertilizer-storage-building-construction-2.jpg

Thanks to C3X, city improvements can generate bonus resources that are local (doesn't enter trade network) and can yield resource gains. So Fertilizer generates "Bonus Fertilizer" with the yield of let's say 1 food and 1 shield. I initially made it yield 2 food. But that just helps the humans a lot for he/she can just add another or 2 mined tiles while the AI would just end up with more pop that get turned into specialists (they're nerfed back to 1 beaker/gold in my mod).

So for now Fertilizer will be available with Industrialization (where a new whole generation of units appears that no longer require saltpeter since it can be synthesized industrially). But having access to natural sources should give you a perk.

"From 1903 until the World War I era, potassium nitrate for black powder and fertilizer was produced on an industrial scale from nitric acid produced using the Birkeland–Eyde process, which used an electric arc to oxidize nitrogen from the air. During World War I the newly industrialized Haber process (1913) was combined with the Ostwald process after 1915, allowing Germany to produce nitric acid for the war after being cut off from its supplies of mineral sodium nitrates from Chile (see nitratite)."

Cost of Fertilizer for now is 80 shields, 1 maintenance and has the Ag Trait. For the human player, that's could be 2 extra shields for a city done growing. And if I'm not mistaken, the bonus yield comes before multipliers kick in. Fertilizers also need a Factory since it's heavily perfumed and new cities have better things to build.

Maybe recycling center and solar plant may require saltpeter?

 

[Predator145]

Maybe recycling center and solar plant may require saltpeter?

That could make gameplay sense but little thematically.

 

[WildWeazel]

Thanks to C3X, city improvements can generate bonus resources that are local (doesn't enter trade network) and can yield resource gains.

waitwaitwait. So the yields of any generated resources are applied directly to the city output? Does that work with negative numbers?

 

[Ozymandias]

Most resources remain relevant through out stock game. But horses and saltpeter become obsolete with their units. Yet the AI still values them and is willing to pay good money to purchase. I'm not sure what the mechanism for valuing a strat res is. Maybe it's how many units, city improvements and worker jobs it enables? In stock game, even late game, the AI still values being able to build cavalry, frigates and coastal fortresses. But in my modded epic game, all these things are gone from the build menu by the time one gets to modern age yet I can still sell saltpeter for a nice gpt.

Any ideas on how to make saltpeter relevant in late game?

Easy: history. Early on, saltpeter was made by fermenting manure mixed with hay, urine, and wood ash. Get rid of it. Using Flintlock, create a resource called "Steel" and simply make it invariant over time, presuming that the requisite technologies for producing it continue to progress. For simplicity's sake, I'd keep both iron and coal as prerequisites, with the knowledge that the AI will be done with these by the time, e.g., that Battleships come around,

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrous_metallurgy#Medieval_and_early_modern_Europe

 

[Sakharov]

It came to my mind that bombers may require saltpeter also (while fighters would not). So fighters would be more often used in bombing if someone is short of saltpeter.