Refining Raw Material

[Shaleghi]

How about refining luxury raw materials.

Gold or Silver or any other item could be refined to Religions idol or jewelry or Art or Science experiment or (military weapon ?) Each will give faith, trade, culture, science ens ens to you civ.

Maybe you could have a building than does the refining.

This will add more complexity to the game. Either you can focus on one faith, trade, culture, science, military.. or diversify.

 

[dexters]

I've always advocated turning horses into glue, and iron into steel

 

[bite]

It will be interesting to see what they do with luxuries not that it is not global happiness

 

[Minor Annoyance]

I've liked this idea before but it always seemed more like a Colonization thing.

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[stiiknafuulia]

I like this idea. Depending on the implementation, it could add layers of 'good complexity' to the game. Consider this scenario:

Your civ is in a treeless area, so you import Wood (a raw material) from Catherine's Siberian forests to build up your navy, as well as to make Furniture (a luxury resource) combined with your own Glue (a refined resource, coming from Whales in your own territory). Now if someone pillages your fishing nets or destroys your Glue Refinery (a district in one of your cities), or Catherine declares war, you will lose access to Furniture for different reasons (no more Glue / Wood). Cathy declaring war could be worse, though, because your navy will also suffer for it (you cannot make repairs or build new ships).

This kind of complexity could easily get out of hand if not done thoughtfully and balanced pain-stakingly, but if successful, could add a lot to the game and work well with the district system, imo.

 

[bite]

I like this idea. Depending on the implementation, it could add layers of 'good complexity' to the game. Consider this scenario:

Your civ is in a treeless area, so you import Wood (a raw material) from Catherine's Siberian forests to build up your navy, as well as to make Furniture (a luxury resource) combined with your own Glue (a refined resource, coming from Whales in your own territory). Now if someone pillages your fishing nets or destroys your Glue Refinery (a district in one of your cities), or Catherine declares war, you will lose access to Furniture for different reasons (no more Glue / Wood). Cathy declaring war could be worse, though, because your navy will also suffer for it (you cannot make repairs or build new ships).

This kind of complexity could easily get out of hand if not done thoughtfully and balanced pain-stakingly, but if successful, could add a lot to the game and work well with the district system, imo.

That does sound great, but ow my the balancing you would have to do to get that right

 

[Shaleghi]

I like this idea. Depending on the implementation, it could add layers of 'good complexity' to the game. Consider this scenario:

Your civ is in a treeless area, so you import Wood (a raw material) from Catherine's Siberian forests to build up your navy, as well as to make Furniture (a luxury resource) combined with your own Glue (a refined resource, coming from Whales in your own territory). Now if someone pillages your fishing nets or destroys your Glue Refinery (a district in one of your cities), or Catherine declares war, you will lose access to Furniture for different reasons (no more Glue / Wood). Cathy declaring war could be worse, though, because your navy will also suffer for it (you cannot make repairs or build new ships).

This kind of complexity could easily get out of hand if not done thoughtfully and balanced pain-stakingly, but if successful, could add a lot to the game and work well with the district system, imo.

Combining refined material to make items and units might a lot to ask. My original idea is one luxury can be transformed in to one item of choice. (Like oil/ali used in units but now also for religion/culture/science) But yea who know how far you can take it

 

[stiiknafuulia]

Combining refined material to make items and units might a lot to ask. My original idea is one luxury can be transformed in to one item of choice. (Like oil/ali used in units but now also for religion/culture/science) But yea who know how far you can take it

I've no illusions that the devs will actually implement my version of the idea. Even yours is a stretch, because it's bound to be deemed too complex for their target audience. Perhaps in an expansion they might go for a very light version of the idea (like, your implementation but only for a few resources).

However, depending on how moddable the game will be, the district system could very well be utilized in complex production chains. The modder who does this ought to be very careful, though, because if this is overdone, the mod will have a rather steep learning curve for even dedicated Civ players. I'm a little worried in this respect, because most modders seem to throw anything and the kitchen sink into their mods simply because it's a cool idea, while paying no regard to the 'learning costs' that this induces into their mod. Each new feature tends to add exponentially to the initial 'frustration factor', when you can't figure out what's what due to the vast number of stuff that affects other stuff through complex feedback loops etc.

 

[Ryika]

I wouldn't really say it's "too complex for their target audience", the Anno-Series has tons of semi-complicated production lines with ratios and setting up trade routes and still a rather Casual playerbase.

The way I see it is that what it's really about is feature depth vs. amount of features. Such a complex system, while sounding great on the surface, would in all likelihood not work well with other mechanics and may start completely dominating the game - which may be interesting to some, but will put off other players.

 

[Hajee]

Would be nice. I do miss the Corp in Civ 4 requiring two resources to have a Corp aswell.

But atleast the game is easy to mod. In Civ 5 made a mod to have iron be refined into steel and Ammo for late game units.

So it is not in the base game we will have mods for that

 

[oddtail]

I like this idea, and I've toyed with the idea of making a mod for Civ 5 doing pretty much that (with some more complexities and implementations of the concept, but the basic idea was the same). It would also probably enhance the game if implemented right, making trade and industry big parts of the game.

However, I'm pretty sure the AI would be *extremely* difficult to implement so that it would be able to handle this. So as much as I'd love this to be in the game, I'm not holding my breath...

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I wouldn't really say it's "too complex for their target audience", the Anno-Series has tons of semi-complicated production lines with ratios and setting up trade routes and still a rather Casual playerbase.

The way I see it is that what it's really about is feature depth vs. amount of features. Such a complex system, while sounding great on the surface, would in all likelihood not work well with other mechanics and may start completely dominating the game - which may be interesting to some, but will put off other players.

The Anno series is basically *about* resource management, though, so it makes sense that the players tolerate what they bought the game for in the first place.

I forgot all about having to teach the system to the AI... Yeah, better keep it simple if this is to be done at all.

 

[Ryika]

Yeah, that's why I said it would put off other players. ^^ It can work in a game with a casual playerbase, but not everyone will like it. Such a big focus on such a system would certainly be something that would would split people's opinions.

 

[redwings1340]

I like this idea. Depending on the implementation, it could add layers of 'good complexity' to the game. Consider this scenario:

Your civ is in a treeless area, so you import Wood (a raw material) from Catherine's Siberian forests to build up your navy, as well as to make Furniture (a luxury resource) combined with your own Glue (a refined resource, coming from Whales in your own territory). Now if someone pillages your fishing nets or destroys your Glue Refinery (a district in one of your cities), or Catherine declares war, you will lose access to Furniture for different reasons (no more Glue / Wood). Cathy declaring war could be worse, though, because your navy will also suffer for it (you cannot make repairs or build new ships).

This kind of complexity could easily get out of hand if not done thoughtfully and balanced pain-stakingly, but if successful, could add a lot to the game and work well with the district system, imo.

We do have a little bit of this with strategic resources in civ V, but it could be very interesting to have more interactions like that, and for strategic resources to both be more common and play a bigger part in your military. In civ V, you can usually find enough strategic resources to create an army.

 

[Nixalo]

This is something I'd like to see more as a reintroduction of corporations and businesses. You spend a GP and a resource to create a noble family/corporation which gives you a new resource and GPT.

THEN the noble family/corporation buys resources from other civs for more power. All fear Civilized Jewelers Inc.

 

[Breezin]

I'd vote no to refining. I don't mind complexity but not just for the sake of complexity. I want more fun/gameplay way before adding in complexity.

Also, I always worry for each feature they add, they need to make sure the AI can actually use it effectively. I'd rather they spend the time optimizing the AI to use the systems currently in place before adding any others.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

All they have to do is to add different yields just like Vox Populi/Community Balance Patch does., there's your solution.