Resource clustering?

[PhilBowles]

For me, one of the best aspects of Civ is finding resources during early-game exploration - and indeed starting a new game to find what you have near your starting location. I've noticed that in Civ V there is a severe case of resource clustering - in one game an area will have nothing but silver in appropriate terrain types, in another nothing but gems, in my last mainly sugar. From mentioning it to my multiplayer crowd, they've noticed the same.

Query: Is this deliberate (so that, for example, it's easier to find luxury resources to trade early on), or is it a bug? Personally I prefer the older games' more random distribution of resources, and even if this is deliberate I think it should be patched so that higher difficulty levels have a more random spread of resources in each terrain type (as above, clusters may be helpful for players on lower difficulty levels due to the ease of acquiring trade goods).

Any thoughts?

Phil

 

[joncnunn]

Resource clustering near starting locations of major players is intentional.
Advanced settings have various options; some of which further increase them.

And luxuries being concentrated in specific areas has been intentional since Civ III. It's intended to promote trading of luxuries. (In some games, you'll be the one supplying sugar, in others silver, in yet others wine)

 

[Mesix]

If anything, higher difficulties should cluster resources more rather than less. Having to either trade or go to war to obtain resources rather than peacefully expanding to claim them should be a requirement for higher levels, not lower levels. Perhaps on higher levels, there should be fewer resources all around and the resources which are present should be clustered into concentrated areas. This would make scarcity at real game definer.

 

[PhilBowles]

Resource clustering near starting locations of major players is intentional.
Advanced settings have various options; some of which further increase them.

And luxuries being concentrated in specific areas has been intentional since Civ III. It's intended to promote trading of luxuries. (In some games, you'll be the one supplying sugar, in others silver, in yet others wine)

Thanks for the clarification - yes, I have a vague memory of being irritated by it in Civ III too! If anything it seems more pronounced now, however - I don't need 5 sugar within a few tiles to trade, only two or three, and it limits my incentive to expand or get into conflicts to obtain multiples of the same resource. There's certainly scope for having more variety in resources.

I'd favour a system, albeit potentially more complex, where each luxury resource has a different effect, rather than each giving an identical happiness boost. That would promote trading resources since you'd no longer have pointless trade options like 'my only dye for your only gems' - say if gems provided a lower happiness boost but some additional gold.

If anything, higher difficulties should cluster resources more rather than less. Having to either trade or go to war to obtain resources rather than peacefully expanding to claim them should be a requirement for higher levels, not lower levels. Perhaps on higher levels, there should be fewer resources all around and the resources which are present should be clustered into concentrated areas. This would make scarcity at real game definer.

Trade is pretty vital at lower levels at the moment - in fact the more you expand to claim resources, the less net benefit you gain from them since the happiness hit from creating extra cities more or less cancels out the advantage from trading, which doesn't seem a strategy that should be confined to lower levels. And since you always have at least one luxury in quantity, and quite often have a monopoly, trade is a very simple decision gameplay-wise.

Phil

 

[Mesix]

Yes, but having diversity of resources makes trading and expansion irrelevant. If you have three of the same resource clustered in your city radius then you must trade or expand to get different resources. If you have three different resources in your city radius, then the game is easier...thus trade and/or expansion should be more essential at higher difficulties...thus fewer resources total and a higher concentration in clusters would be more appropriate at higher levels. At lower levels, it should be easier for a beginner player (like my eight year old son for instance) to get the necessary resources as easily as possible...thus less clustering and more density of resources at easier levels.

Example:

On a small isolated continent (say room for 4-5 cities) there would be two resource paradigms. Option one (which I think more appropriate to beginning players) would have 1-3 each of 10-12 different resources. Option 2 would have 6-8 each of 3-4 different resources. Having more copies of fewer resources generally makes the game more difficult and requires the player to expand, trade, or conquer to get additional resources.