[Pool] It seems strategic resources will no longer be needed to build specific military units. Would you approve this change?

[Wardog]

Is it true and definitive?

To me, since III, searching for an strategic resource (especially on the map, but also trying to get it via diplomacy) I needed to build an unit was among the most fun things to do in the game. That anxiety to find a resource, and the contentment after getting it, will be gone, in my view, if the resource will serve only to give units an attack or defense bonuses, for instance. The gameplay will lose part of its "uncertainy and expectation" appeal (if I can name it this way). I think strategic resources would lose a lot of their importance to the military side and player strategies and even diplomatic approaches would become less complex. It would be a game mechanics simplification whose purpose I can not understand.

Does anyone else see it this way?

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Searching for resources that almost no state in history ever had to search for, like Iron or Niter, broke whatever Immersion was left in the game for me. I don't mind a game that gives me problems to solve, but I loathe designers that make up artificial problems because they can't be bothered to find real ones.

Using Resources to increase combat power only is a welcome change. Conquerors, rabid militarists will still be scouring the map for them, because they want every combat multiplier they can get. Also, note that some resources, like Iron or Horses, are also required to progress to certain Civs, (Normans, Mongols) so if you have planned what you consider a 'perfect progression' to one of those two (and there may be more in the Modern Age that we haven't seen yet) then you will be frantically scrabbling for Resources - just as we were in Civs past.

Same game effect, different purposes is all.

 

[Xandinho]

I approve. I hated having tanks and helicopters while my opponents were stuck with units from two or three eras ago because they barely knew how to manage resources properly.

 

[Disgustipated]

I won't miss it. Civ 6 aluminum was the worst. Like, I can't have a decent size air force because I only have 2 aluminum. 2 aircraft, whoopee. They really screwed up in Civ 6 with this. Or your citizens have to live in the dark with no electricity because you have no coal or oil.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind searching the map (one thing Civ 6 did right was the map search feature, let's hope that returns) for resources I may want. It makes mid to late game city settling a thing. It's always nice when you can secure an island to get that resource you desperately need.

 

[Wardog]

Searching for resources that almost no state in history ever had to search for, like Iron or Niter, broke whatever Immersion was left in the game for me. I don't mind a game that gives me problems to solve, but I loathe designers that make up artificial problems because they can't be bothered to find real ones.

Using Resources to increase combat [ower only is a welcome change. Conquerors, rabid militarists will still be scouring the map for them, because they want every combat multiplier they can get. Also, note that some resources, like Iron or Horses, are also required to progress to certain Civs, (Normans, Mongols) so if you have planned what you consider a 'perfect progression; to pone of those two (and there may be more in the Modern Age that we haven't seen yet) then you will be frantically scrabbling for Resources - just as we were in Civs past.

Same game effect, different purposes is all.

But isn't demanding iron or nitter to increase an unit combat power as historically unrealistic as demanding these resources to build the unit?

I disagree militarists will be searching for them on the map the same way. Resources will become just important, not critical/decisive anymore.

 

[Wardog]

I won't miss it. Civ 6 aluminum was the worst. Like, I can't have a decent size air force because I only have 2 aluminum. 2 aircraft, whoopee. They really screwed up in Civ 6 with this. Or your citizens have to live in the dark with no electricity because you have no coal or oil.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind searching the map (one thing Civ 6 did right was the map search feature, let's hope that returns) for resources I may want. It makes mid to late game city settling a thing. It's always nice when you can secure an island to get that resource you desperately need.

Maybe the solution would be allowing unlimited units building until the resource time expires, like in previous Civ games.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

But isn't demanding iron or nitter to increase an unit combat power as historically unrealistic as demanding these resources to build the unit?

I disagree militarists will be searching for them on the map the same way. Resources will become just important, not critical/decisive anymore.

Not at all. What made the original mechanic silly was that in the quantities required for military units, a resource requirement made no sense at all until the Industrial Era. An entire Roman Legion could be equipped with weapons and armor using less than 200 tons of iron, in manageable 50 - 75 pound increments. If you didn't have a vein of iron handy, somebody was always ready to bring it to you for a price. Nitre could be manufactured in whatever quantity desired in Nitraries, so having all requirements met only from 'natural' resources was just flat Wrong.

What makes the 'increased combat power' work generally from having resources In Hand is that you have no limitations. If all your iron is right down the valley, it's relatively cheap and everybody gets an iron weapon or hauberk or helmet. If it has to be imported, somebody (probably in the back rank) can't afford it and is standing there in a felt cap with a wooden spear and shield instead of an iron sword and helmet.

IF any game was going to use a Resource limitation, it should start in the Industrial Era. A single kilometer of medium-weight railroad track (100 pound rails) uses more iron ore than that Legion, and that's not even counting more tons for wheels, locomotives, fittings, and eventually entire railroad trains. A single small ironclad squadron of 3 - 4 ships requires more iron ore to build than the entire Imperial Roman Army required to equip 50 Legions. The quantities go up by an order of magnitude or more, and suddenly resources do get scarce, and National strategies are built around acquiring them - as in the British Empire's careful sequestering of oil resources in the Middle East and Persia before and after WWI, as they decided to start fueling their navy with oil instead of coal: resource scarcity suddenly had Consequences, which was simply not generally true before.

 

[ehecatzin]

Not at all I prefer it this way, it was always so frustrating controling a bunch of territory just to found out you don't have acces to niter.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I wasn't a fan of not having the resources to build my unique unit. Sure, it's supposed to be motivation to go to war, but the diplomatic penalties are onerous enough that it's not really worthwhile, if it's just going to lead to a forever-war against the now-mad other civs. I usually just bought the resources, if I didn't have them, but that was unsatisfactory too.

So, yes. I like the idea of the resources having cost reduction bonuses. It's easy to make Swordsmen when you have tons of iron. It can still be done if you have no iron. Maybe you're scrounging plowshares to upcycle or something instead. Or you're using lead to make maceheads instead. Whatever works. Not making them at all is dumb.

 

[Wardog]

Not at all. What made the original mechanic silly was that in the quantities required for military units, a resource requirement made no sense at all until the Industrial Era. An entire Roman Legion could be equipped with weapons and armor using less than 200 tons of iron, in manageable 50 - 75 pound increments. If you didn't have a vein of iron handy, somebody was always ready to bring it to you for a price. Nitre could be manufactured in whatever quantity desired in Nitraries, so having all requirements me only from 'natural' resources was just flat Wrong.

What makes the 'increased combat power' work generally from having resources In Hand is that you have no limitations. If all your iron is right down the valley, it's relatively cheap and everybody gets an iron weapon or hauberk or helmet. If it has to be imported, somebody (probably in the back rank) can't afford it and is standing there in a felt cap with a wooden spear and shield instead of an iron sword and helmet.

I think the case was just increasing the number of units that can be built with a resource. Maybe making it unlimited again. Seeing the issue in a more simplistic way, if Romans literally didn't have any access to iron or steel, there would be no swords or helmets. The game mechanics needed an adjustment, not an exclusion.

 

[Evie]

There was never going to be literally no iron or steel. That'S the problem. Small amounts of it - enough to equip enough of a legion to go around - could always be scratched together easily enough. You could equip them better with more, and having your own giant vein wiht lots of the stuff would certainly give you an advantage in how well you could equip your troops, but you were never going to have no iron or steel. Even if by some satanic miracle you would up with none over a vast empire, ther ewould always be traders - not foreign government, but individual traders no one could control - to sell you the stuff.

Being unable to build legions without a giant iron deposit of your own or a foreign civilization willing to help you was never in any way, form, or shape a manifestation of realism. It was a gamey system that created grave imbalances. It needed to go, and I'm not sad to see it out.

 

[Disgustipated]

Iirc, it was Civ 3 that started this trend of needing iron to build certain units. This feature has been around a while. I'm excited to see how the new rules will shake out. I believe I'll like them.

 

[King of Prussia]

Ive been advocating for this to be changed for a very long time. Not just in Civ either. The late game was super dull when no one was able to build even a few or any late game units. Not to mention buildings also competing for them. Its way better imo to either make the troops better, faster to build, or provide other benefits to your civ. Civ 5 at least had an alternate way to get aluminum. This is a big plus for the AI as well.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think the case was just increasing the number of units that can be built with a resource. Maybe making it unlimited again. Seeing the issue in a more simplistic way, if Romans literally didn't have any access to iron or steel, there would be no swords or helmets. The game mechanics needed an adjustment, not an exclusion.

The key word is "If": there was no time, in any place I know of before the Industrial Era, when anybody who knew the techniques of working iron could not find enough iron to work. Or, for that matter, any other metal. Uruk, one of the first major cities, imported copper from hundreds of miles away, from settlements established just to extract copper ores and smelt them and send them off to the Big City by pack trains. Rome imported iron from modern Balkans (before they conquered them) and so on and on.

Lack of Resources is a strictly Game Mechanic with no basis in history or reality until Industrialization jacked up the requirements for quantities of raw materials to previously unimaginable heights. Before that, resource scarcity never really existed: if you needed it, someone was willing to bring it to you for a price, no matter how far they had to lead a train of pack animals or sail a ship: Neolithic trade routes already went across the Mediterranean from Sicily to the middle east or from the Caucasus across the Black Sea with obsidian, copper, and probably a mass of more perishable goods now unknown. If you could pay for it, someone was willing to chance it.

 

[Wardog]

There was never going to be literally no iron or steel. That'S the problem. Small amounts of it - enough to equip enough of a legion to go around - could always be scratched together easily enough. You could equip them better with more, and having your own giant vein wiht lots of the stuff would certainly give you an advantage in how well you could equip your troops, but you were never going to have no iron or steel. Even if by some satanic miracle you would up with none over a vast empire, ther ewould always be traders - not foreign government, but individual traders no one could control - to sell you the stuff.

Being unable to build legions without a giant iron deposit of your own or a foreign civilization willing to help you was never in any way, form, or shape a manifestation of realism. It was a gamey system that created grave imbalances. It needed to go, and I'm not sad to see it out.

Resources must come from somewhere. From controlled lands or commerce, this is how it always was. Building an unit that historically needed a certain resource to be built without having any internal or external source of it looks more unrealistic to me.

It's a game, and my point is related to the game fun. Not about absolute realism or historical perfectionism. "The Giant Death Robot" will maybe be there again and it's a thousand times more unrealistic than a system in which a player must have certain resources to build specific military units. I don't see any "grave imbalances" in the system itself, it just needed to be fixed for VII. I'm sad to see it won't be part of the game anymore.

 

[Vitruvian Guar]

I think the mechanics where you gain a free copy of a resource via a trade route already solves worst issues with lack of resource blocking the creation of a units.

So I'm not sure that switch to the combat bonus from resources mechanics is necessary.

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

I never liked the way they handled resources like this. I feel like some kind of prospector unit should be able to check your files for deposits and find additional sources, so if you invest you can get access to more. Either that or a bigger emphasis was needed on trade between civs, which has always been janky. Or more branching paths about how a civ might change its development path around an absence of resources.

In lieu of inspiration in that space, I'm happier they remove the reliance. It's never fun being stuck unable to advance your units

 

[Isengardtom]

I prefer the new approach. Feels like less RNG.

Between that and the ages reducing snowballing so you don’t have infantry fighting warriors anymore, the combat looks more interesting.

 

[sTAPler27]

Depends on the resource tbh. Some cultures didn't use certain resources as much so I'd prefer if instead there were multiple strategics that could serve the same purpose. Like camels and elephants instead of horses or Obsidian instead of Iron

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

I also prefer this new approach. It could be tweaked perhaps, but the RNG of needing a resource in order to build a specific thing was too annoying. Now I don't have to worry about strategic resources, simulating that these resources were never scarce, but I can make a play for them to give me an advantage. I can use diplomacy to get as much as possible, I can still pillage iron mines during a war to hamper my opponent, etc. I think it works better from both an immersion and a gameplay perspective.