[GS] Proposed Unit Strategic Resource Rework

[Jkchart]

Inspired by @Krajzen 's earlier post, I set to work thinking about how the current unit lineups SHOULD have their resource requirements since we have a lot of strategic resources that are not really valuable because only a couple units use them, and then you have Oil which is so necessary to a ridiculous degree that there are a couple units that we could axe that requirement from to make the unit resource requirements a bit more balanced. (Note, I am only worrying about base units in this post).

First: Horses.

There are two (obviously) unit lines that SHOULD use this resource: heavy cavalry and light cavalry. Right now, only Coursers and Horsemen use them, and heavy cavalry don't need them at all in any capacity. I would propose the following:

• The light cavalry line should require horses, including Cavalry, but excluding helicopters. This can easily be a flat cost. Cavalry can change to have a horse maintenance at this stage of the game.
• Helicopter of course gets more modern resources.
• Heavy Chariot is fine without a resource requirement. Chariots weren't always pulled by Horses, but it would be acceptable to add a horse requirement. Sumerian War Carts can be an exception since they were absolutely pulled by asses instead of horses.
• The Knight can keep its 20 iron cost, but should be the first fueled unit with a 1 horse maintenance cost. This balances the knight more since it is basically the first super unit in the game. Knights are widely considered one of the best units in the game, and since they are just as good at taking cities as other units, I think it would be fair to force them to have a horse maintenance cost in addition to the iron cost.
• Cuirassiers follow this logic but with Niter instead of Iron. Tanks can use Iron/Oil maintenance, and Modern Armor should eat into that Aluminum stockpile including the oil maintenance (and yes, aluminum is used as a component in modern tank armor - it was the closest thing to make sense). This line needs to be more balanced, and making Heavy Cavalry a bit more resource intensive is fair and forces you to diversify your army/expand resource stockpiles as I believe the devs originally intended.

Iron: Is now made more valuable by being required for Tanks, but still is only required by Knights and Swordsmen otherwise. Iron requirements should/could also be expanded to the following units:

• Ironclads - the most obvious candidate. The first metal ships should be a big deal, and they SHOULD use iron to be made. Make it a flat cost, and tacked on is that coal maintenance.
• Bombards - potential here, because early cannons should be something you are terrified of. They are powerful, but you should be required to make sure you get that iron to build them properly!
• Field Cannons - Not REQUIRED per se because I like the ranged line being a resource free line so that empires can always have some sort of unit that helps them defend on equal footing in the case of an aggressor. However, we could add it here.
• Pikemen/Pike and Shot - Maybe. I also like this line being resource free to give us a reason to use them, especially since this line still needs a combat boost.
• Artillery - this is a maybe in my opinion; Artillery shouldn't require oil, but if you want there to be some sort of resource requirement for artillery, make us cast those cannons out of metal!
• Frigate - I actually can't remember if this needs iron, but this is a good candidate for adding an iron cost as well.

Iron is also required for railroads, so that eats into the cost there.

Niter: right now, we have Musketmen, Bombards, Frigates, Cavalry, and Cuirassiers that require this resource. This makes it pretty valuable consumption wise, but could be expanded to Pike and Shot, Privateer, and Field Cannon. Personally, I think we can nix the requirement from Pike and Shot and Field Cannons, and perhaps add the Privateer a niter maintenance cost. It could also be the Artillery build requirement if Artillery MUST have a requirement. I think Niter is pretty strategically useful already. BUT Niter could be made into a "fuel" requirement to make it even more valuable, which might be a good idea than a flat niter cost.

Coal: There are only two units that use this - Ironclads and Battleships. This is fine, because coal's main use should be for industrial capacity/power, so railroads and power plants already eat into this. I don't think there are other units that can qualify here, so Coal doesn't need a change IMO.

Oil: THE BIG ONE. Right now, Oil is probably the most versatile/valuable of strategic resources, being consumed by a ton of units, in addition to power requirements.

• Tank, Missile Cruiser, Modern Armor, Submarine, Biplane, Rocket Artillery, and Mech Infantry should all keep their oil requirements.
• Infantry and Artillery should LOSE their oil requirements. Modern age players need some sort of offensive power to be able to seize oil if they need it, so removing resource requirements for at least infantry should be required. Artillery can have a different requirement if it must have one.
• The Helicopter should keep its aluminum cost but should also require oil.
  
• Possibly, Destroyer should lose its oil cost so that a player in the modern age can have some sort of non-wooden navy if they don't have oil to be able to fight subs, battleships, etc.
• Move oil maintenance cost to the carrier from the freed up destroyer. Mobile sea airstrips are valuable, and should be reflected as such for the gas guzzlers they can be. If you don't have oil, you won't be using carriers anyway.
• All air units should require oil maintenance, in addition to aluminum (except the Biplane, which remains oil only)
• Drones - since they are so powerful, you could add an oil requirement here (or aluminum).

This is a far better balance of oil for people who need to be able to acquire oil from their neighbors while still being incredibly necessary to maintain a well-equipped modern military.

Aluminum: is pretty widely used. All non-biplane air units use it, in addition to helicopters. This is pretty good, but there are a couple more units that realistically could use it as a requirement.

• Modern Armor (see my horses post; Heavy Cavalry should require two resources since they are so powerful, and Aluminum fits the bill nicely; flat cost).
• Rocket Artillery - flat cost. Very powerful, should nicely balance it with an oil requirement. similar reasoning to modern armor for the change.
• GDR: Okay, but why DOESN'T this monster use it? The uranium cost is well balanced, but GDR should be the most resource intensive unit of all.
• Drone: makes Rocket artillery even more OP. Can add just a small flat cost here instead of oil since drones are the best support unit (change my mind).

Uranium: used for power and GDR/Nuclear Sub/Missiles. I don't think uranium needs to be required for anything else necessarily. The best balanced and used resource.

Hopefully this is something Firaxis can implement because this would make each strategic resource more valuable throughout their respective periods of the game, and would serve to better balance the various classes of units. I love the new strategic resource system, it just needs some tweaking right now to become the best possible that it can be.

Thoughts?

 

[Sostratus]

Differentiating cavalry and cuirsassiers;
Removing oil from Infantry and Artillery;
Adding dual resources to Heavy Cav;
Making destroyers resource free;

Are all things I argued for here although people were a little testy on the destroyer thing. As you note, I agree that if you lack oil, the implication is you either do without or go get oil; right now combat is such that you cannot go get oil because you have only AT crews and no siege; you also have no navy. And with the AT crew army, you will be hard pressed to survive without oil since the two other frontline oil options (infantry and tanks) are +10 and +0 but twice the movement against your dudes.
As some have noted elsewhere, it's really when one resource is needed for everything in one particular point in the game. Then you don't have much choice. Having oil and aluminum end game paths is one option instead of aluminum only for aerodrome units. I do think it would be ok to have a bit of civ5's model, where you end up with a hybrid of information and modern era units based on what resources you have available. (So have some tanks and some modern armor; some infantry and some mech inf; etc.)

I like that the UU system seems have been adjusted so the strong ones need the resource and some have fewer benefits in combat but don't need the resource. I think it's a good theoretical framework.
Except Toa which are very silly units we don't talk about.

 

[Jkchart]

Differentiating cavalry and cuirsassiers;
Removing oil from Infantry and Artillery;
Adding dual resources to Heavy Cav;
Making destroyers resource free;

Are all things I argued for here although people were a little testy on the destroyer thing. As you note, I agree that if you lack oil, the implication is you either do without or go get oil; right now combat is such that you cannot go get oil because you have only AT crews and no siege; you also have no navy. And with the AT crew army, you will be hard pressed to survive without oil since the two other frontline oil options (infantry and tanks) are +10 and +0 but twice the movement against your dudes.
As some have noted elsewhere, it's really when one resource is needed for everything in one particular point in the game. Then you don't have much choice. Having oil and aluminum end game paths is one option instead of aluminum only for aerodrome units. I do think it would be ok to have a bit of civ5's model, where you end up with a hybrid of information and modern era units based on what resources you have available. (So have some tanks and some modern armor; some infantry and some mech inf; etc.)

I like that the UU system seems have been adjusted so the strong ones need the resource and some have fewer benefits in combat but don't need the resource. I think it's a good theoretical framework.
Except Toa which are very silly units we don't talk about.

Okay so I'm glad I'm not the only one that has thought of these (and why should I be surprised, you are the unit man!) - it just seems silly that we aren't giving the Heavy Cav line, which is the best land unit line in the game, the appropriate hurdles in cost (production and resources) to force players to actually pay for those units. You shouldn't be able to spam them - they are your elite troops, very valuable and expensive. And going through your post, I'm definitely reminded of the sore point that is the Anticav line - the only unit in that line that can pull its weight even a bit is the Pike and Shot.

I'm surprised people don't like the Destroyers without oil option. IIRC, Destroyers didn't need oil by the end of Civ V either, which is kind of what I'm pulling from. I know that they needed it in IV and III, but I think that there should be some way that resource-less players can attempt to fight resource rich players to get their resources, and having access to resourceless infantry and destroyers seems like the best way to encourage this. Otherwise, you dig in with machine guns and AT and hope you can do enough defensive damage to counterattack and take resource rich cities. You would think making a couple modern units lose their oil costs would be okay to help balance the modern war game a bit more. Plus, it means the AI can always have more modern soldiers by that point - what if your AI neighbor doesn't have oil? Probably not getting infantry, makes them even more of a pushover than many people claim...

I also like the hybrid idea, as well as the UU resource requirements that they've done. Thanks for the reply, Sostratus!

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

My thoughts, which will probably overlap with the excellent posts already here.

First, the entire Heavy cavalry line can legitimately require Horse Resource both to Build and to Maintain. Heavy Chariots (not the light Egyptian or Celtic types) required large horses (attested from Assyrian and Persian records), and anything carrying an armored man (Knights, Cuirassiers) required specially-bred large horses. And campaigns killed off those horses, requiring them to be replaced.

On the other hand, Light, or unarmored cavalry could use just about anything on four legs that didn't bray or moo: the earliest horses available (before Start of Game) could carry a little over 200 pounds comfortably, which is enough for an average human without heavy saddle, armor, or the other cumbrances of heavy cavalry. BUT to balance the availability of the Light cavalry line, the melee factor should go down - light cavalry was not Battle Cavalry, and any close-order infantry could deal with them, Unless the cavalry got around to their flank and rear while they were busy with someone else in front, then it turns into a massacre. So, give the light cavalry line maximum Flanking Bonuses, maximum mobility, but mediocre melee factors and no resource requirements, and they become the worrisome but not fatal factors they were in battle, and also the premier Pillaging Units of the game, which was another historical characteristic of light cavalry.

On the naval front, the Modern Era and later answer to big, resource-rich navies was the submarine, not the destroyer. Make the submarine - and in fact, the entire Raider Line of ships - resource free and at a stroke you make possible the classic answer of the small navy to the larger: raid their commerce, ambush their ships, but without help, you cannot really dare meet their capital ships - and we pretty much reproduce A. T. Mahan's entire set of arguments about the Influence of Seapower. . .

Niter is an Artificial Resource. The bulk of it never came from 'natural' deposits, it was manufactured. First in Nitraries from the Renaissance on, and then, the nitrates for modern explosives (and agricultural fertilizer) using the Haber Process in the Modern Era and later. I'd 'downgrade' it as a natural resource by requiring only a very minor amount of it to build anything, but require a Maintenance Amount of it for any firearm-equipped unit (Musketmen, Pike and Shot, Infantry, Bombard, Field Cannon, Artillery) to reflect the cost of Ammunition, which previously has ben entirely left out of the game. When it comes to Artillery Ammunition in the 20th century, the production of enough of it absorbed up to 1/4 of all the industrial resources available (in Germany, Britain, and the Soviet Union, at least)
For balance purposes, in fact, the difference in tonnage of ammunition required is such that the Pike and Shot, Musketman, and Infantry could have no requirement while the Bombard and Field Cannon have a minor one and Artillery a large one. In World War Two at least, the 'rule of thumb' was that the artillery regiment in an infantry division fired off 10 times the weight of ammunition that all the infantry units did. Since AT Units and Machine-guns are firing roughly the same type of ammunition as the Infantry, they could be included and give the would-be in-game combatant in middle and late game a series of units requiring no resources for maintenance with which to fight off the tanks, artillery and airpower (and off-shore Battleships) of a resource-rich opponent.

Back to navies. In the Atomic and Information Era, there is at least the potential to 'replace' Oil as a Maintenance Resource with Uranium. Nuclear power has been applied to submarines, aircraft carriers, fast freighters, and icebreakers, so there's no reason it couldn't also fuel Destroyers and Missile Cruisers. Of course, sink any nuclear-powered ship and there should be a Pollution Cost on the tile of the sinking and possibly spread around that tile, from released radioactive elements.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

The tech tree is already a large concession to gamism over realism. And part of the tech tree is the separation of different unit lines to different paths. Truly balancing unit (promotion) class data would have to respect this, as it's simply a different ball game, with how cavalry and archers and swords and all of those, get unlocked vs. how those made their way into the armies of history. Not to mention how 1 unit per tile of course completely sidewinders the construction and fielding of 'armies' themselves.

The selection of a unit type starts with teching down the path to obtain it, over other unit types, and over non-military advancements, and continues in the selection of the units to bring into the front lines of a conflict. This has to be balanced. This balance is, with 100% probability, going to bench any and all realism considerations about how horses and armor and the rest actually worked.

This is only clearer on reviewing the diatribes on strategic resource balance... Everyone has to have iron. Nitre shouldn't even be tracked. Giving some locations Coal and not others is explicitly disfavoring some civilizations on every map, explicitly recreating one of the "OP imbalances" of history. And Oil is something you fight to the death to get, before it can be used, and it has to stay that way, because Oil weapons vs. pre-Oil weapons is a joke.

 

[Sostratus]

BUT to balance the availability of the Light cavalry line, the melee factor should go down - light cavalry was not Battle Cavalry, and any close-order infantry could deal with them, Unless the cavalry got around to their flank and rear while they were busy with someone else in front, then it turns into a massacre.

With the sole exception of the horseman, the entire light cav line is represented as below average strength:
Horseman, 36 v 35
Courser, 44 v 45
Cavalry, 62 v 65
Chopper, 82 v 85
Which is good, considering their mobility and pillage power. Although the point about flanking I will have to keep in mind as a light and maybe heavy cav perk in a future unit balance... (There's already boosted flanking promos, I believe)

And Oil is something you fight to the death to get, before it can be used

Oil becomes visible at Refining, a tech contemporary with replaceable parts and steel - both of which unlock oil units. Refining leads to combustion which of course, has tanks.
There isn't any time at all to use up a niter advantage to secure oil. The timing on the tech is bad. And it's not a very accurate thing: certainly we knew about oil in the modern sense in the mid late 1800s, the industrial era.
I would propose oil visibility come at scientific theory. That way you have 1 era to secure oil fields. As is, you unlock oil using units and oil at the exact same time. Even if you have oil, you might already have obsolete units that need upgrades when you actually unlock refining.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

With the sole exception of the horseman, the entire light cav line is represented as below average strength:
Horseman, 36 v 35
Courser, 44 v 45
Cavalry, 62 v 65
Chopper, 82 v 85
Which is good, considering their mobility and pillage power. Although the point about flanking I will have to keep in mind as a light and maybe heavy cav perk in a future unit balance... (There's already boosted flanking promos, I believe)

Horseman is the one I've seen the most of in games, which explains why I missed the 'nerfing' of the melee factors in other units in the line. . .

Oil becomes visible at Refining, a tech contemporary with replaceable parts and steel - both of which unlock oil units. Refining leads to combustion which of course, has tanks.
There isn't any time at all to use up a niter advantage to secure oil. The timing on the tech is bad. And it's not a very accurate thing: certainly we knew about oil in the modern sense in the mid late 1800s, the industrial era.
I would propose oil visibility come at scientific theory. That way you have 1 era to secure oil fields. As is, you unlock oil using units and oil at the exact same time. Even if you have oil, you might already have obsolete units that need upgrades when you actually unlock refining.

As usual, the Tech Tree telescopes things by a bit.
First oil well was at Baku in 1823, first developed oil field in 1854 in Pennsylvania, but in both cases the oil was refined into Kerosene, light oils for cooking and illumination (because Whale Oil was already getting scarce)
Gasoline/Diesel fuels and engines for them weren't available until the 1880s, and the first gasoline-powered vehicle came along at virtually same time: 1885, the first Mercedes.

On the other hand, the first Oil-using unit, historically, don't come along until much later:
oil-fired boilers on naval ships in the early 20th century (first such Battleships 1915), motorized army units the late 1920s (and those were experimental - first fielded units weren't until 1932 in the Soviet Union, 1934 in Britain, 1935 in Germany), Biplanes, of course, from 1914 on with some military application. (Although, first 'bomb' dropped from an airplane was 1912)

So, 'Oil' should really be visible at least a Tech level earlier than it starts being required for units, which might give players time to start acquiring it before they need it for virtually everything.

 

[Jkchart]

So, 'Oil' should really be visible at least a Tech level earlier than it starts being required for units, which might give players time to start acquiring it before they need it for virtually everything.

Absolutely agree with this. We know that we are going to be super dependent on this resource, so really we should see it earlier because it will become a scramble to gain oil.

 

[acluewithout]

Iron and Niter. I still think too many things use Niter and not enough use Iron. Niter is clearly a fudge given it was largely manufactured IRL, but maybe no more of a fudge than only having a particular tile produce Horses. I think the fudge can be made, er, more edible (?) by only having Melee and Heavy Cav actually need Niter, and allowing players to actually "manufacture" Niter in addition to having it as a resource on the map. Manufacturing could be a simple as having an Armory and Factory both produce +1 Niter per turn either as a project or with a Military Policy Card (I prefer the later). I think once you research Steel, you should also be able to do the same with Iron (i.e. Factories can produce +1 per turn). So, Iron and Niter would still be key resources, but ones that through technology you can have some flexibility with.

Oil and Coal. FXS really should separate maintenance requirements from building requirements. Iron to build e.g. Ironclads and Tanks, nothing to build Infantry and Mech Infantry. And then have Coal and Oil to fuel them. Planes should need Aluminium to build but not to maintain,

From a gameplay perspective, it just feels like too many things need oil. I'm okay with Infantry and Tanks needing them; but beyond that, it just seems unnecessary. Maybe Missile Cruisers. That's it.

Anyway, yeah, I can see the merits of being able to see oil a little earlier. Maybe only "some" oil should revealed by an earlier tech, and more oil is revealed by combustion or refining - representing technological improvements in finding oil. It's actually a bit of pain finding oil in real life - the world thought it was running out of the stuff not too long ago until people worked out the whole fracking thing; and actually searching for oil is incredibly expensive and time consuming anyway.

(Sorry if I'm repeating myself a little.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Iron and Niter. I still think too many things use Niter and not enough use Iron. Niter is clearly a fudge given it was largely manufactured IRL, but maybe no more of a fudge than only having a particular tile produce Horses. I think the fudge can be made, er, more edible (?) by only having Melee and Heavy Cav actually need Niter, and allowing players to actually "manufacture" Niter in addition to having it as a resource on the map. Manufacturing could be a simple as having an Armory and Factory both produce +1 Niter per turn either as a project or with a Military Policy Card (I prefer the later). I think once you research Steel, you should also be able to do the same with Iron (i.e. Factories can produce +1 per turn). So, Iron and Niter would still be key resources, but ones that through technology you can have some flexibility with.

Oil and Coal. FXS really should separate maintenance requirements from building requirements. Iron to build e.g. Ironclads and Tanks, nothing to build Infantry and Mech Infantry. And then have Coal and Oil to fuel them. Planes should need Aluminium to build but not to maintain,

From a gameplay perspective, it just feels like too many things need oil. I'm okay with Infantry and Tanks needing them; but beyond that, it just seems unnecessary. Maybe Missile Cruisers. That's it.

Anyway, yeah, I can see the merits of being able to see oil a little earlier. Maybe only "some" oil should revealed by an earlier tech, and more oil is revealed by combustion or refining - representing technological improvements in finding oil. It's actually a bit of pain finding oil in real life - the world thought it was running out of the stuff not too long ago until people worked out the whole fracking thing; and actually searching for oil is incredibly expensive and time consuming anyway.

(Sorry if I'm repeating myself a little.)

Given the sheer ghastly verbosity of some of my posts, you are doing Great!

And your points are right on the mark: Building and Maintenance resources are almost always different (one that isn't is Horses, because they are required to mount cavalry and also tend to become casualties on any long campaign) for units, especially in the Industrial and later Eras when Building uses industrial raw materials and Maintenance is ammunition and fuel using very different raw materials.

Good point about early view of only some oil. Baku was the first 'oil field' largely because there was oil on the surface: the drilling came later after they'd 'scooped' everything they could off the surfaces. The Titusville 'Field' in Pennsylvania in the 1850s was really the first oil 'drilling', but the drills were very shallow by later standards - measured in 10s of feet rather than 100s.

Strictly historically, some oil was exploited before the game even starts: in Mesopotamia some of the first reed boats on the rivers were waterproofed using bitumen - oil tar from surface pools of petroleum. The same type of resource was also exploited by the Byzantines to manufacture 'Greek Fire' incendiary weapons in the 6th century CE and later.
So, it would be perfectly accurate and an advantage in Game Play to have a few (1 - 3 depending on map size?) 'deposits' of surface oil visible very early in the game, with the tiles perhaps giving only a Production bonus (+1 only, there really weren't that many uses for the stuff) until you can actually Drill for it and Refine it.

Here I will 'piggy-back' on your post to make a case for 'Limited Resources'. Like the rare 'surface pools' of oil, some other resources are really rare in historical terms, but could be expanded on or manufactured artificially later. Niter is a case in point: there are very few natural deposits, and most of those are in tropical or semi-tropical areas or (very special case) the massive guano deposits on islands off the coast of South America that were exploited in the late 19th century (Industrial Era). On the other hand, it is relatively easy to manufacture, and was from the Renaissance Era on and in Industrial Quantities using the Haber Process and similar chemical engineering in the 20th century (Modern Era).

Other candidates for Rare Resources would be:
1. The 'Wootz' iron deposits that were so pure that with a little industrial engineering (Monsoon-driven windmills powering forge bellows) really good Steel could be manufactured in One Spot - India - in the 4th century BCE - the Classical Era, about two Eras before anybody else could do it! Since they still couldn't manufacture Industrial quantities (dozens of pounds, not thousands of tons) it might give a slight Comba Bonus to, say, Melee and Heavy Cav units that use Steel in armor and weapons (early Ranged weapons don't really use a lot of metal of any kind, and Light Cavalry and Scouts don't carry around a lot of extra weight such as heavy metals)
2. Several Bonus/Amenity/Trade Goods were virtual monopolies for centuries because the Raw Materials only occurred naturally in a few places originally: cotton, silk, coffee, cacao and tea spring to mind, also the kaolin clay (wind-blown deposits) that allowed China to develop Porcelain centuries before the rest of the world figured out how to duplicate the 'natural' materials with manufacturing processes.

All these, unfortunately, would probably have to wait on a 'spreadable resources' mechanism, something Civ has never had and is long overdue for.