Resource Management Discussion

[Eagle Pursuit]

Isn't the Camel one that gives you an extra Slot? So you just.. keep making new Slots but use them up?

It gives you two, for a net gain of one. So stacking them does give a city as many additional slots as you have camels. And presumably this counts towards the Economic Legacy in Antiquity.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The real value of elephants was never the ivory, which was available from both walruses and frozen mammoths (Fun Fact: the first 'whaling ship' sent out from England came back having taken 1 whale and 600 walruses, the latter for their ivory. Second Fun Fact: for a while in late 19th century more ivory was being taken from unearthed frozen mammoths in Siberia than from live elephants in Africa) but their immense usefulness as work animals. There is evidence, in fact, that they were being used (by the Indus Valley Civilization, among others) as far back as 2000 BCE for draft and haulage, while the earliest evidence of them used in war isn't until the 6th century BCE, almost 1500 years later.

According to the Mughuls, an Asian Elephant, the most common trained species of loxodonta, could lift 1000 kilograms with its trunk and haul a 2 - 3 ton load - and also ate as much as 15 camels! Point is, that was an incredibly useful work animal when you are trying to slap together 'monumental' architecture, whether it is of stone, wood, or earth.

This also keeps the elephant, whether referred to inaccurately as 'ivory' or not, a useful resource right into the Modern Age: elephants were used to haul supplies and weapons in southeast Asia in World War Two over terrain that no wheeled vehicle could manage, and they are still used as work animals in the same area today.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

ate as much as 15 camels!

Wow. You have to keep a lot of camels on hand to feed an elephant.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Wow. You have to keep a lot of camels on hand to feed an elephant.

Think of it as using heavy machinery instead of hand tools for the job: it takes a lot of support to keep the heavy machinery going - normally fuel, lubricants, maintenance workers, for elephants vegetation by the hundredweight and water by the barrel. Neither is cheap, but worth it when (in the case of the elephant) the alternative is gangs of 20 - 100 men trying to do the same things.

They woulda Killed for elephants at Stonehenge!

 

[Krikkit1]

It does strike me as a little odd that a resource so crucial to the success of militaries past and present only gives a measly +1 Combat Strength. We have no sense of scale for what that means in the new system, but if it ends up being a substantial amount I still won't be too happy. I think values like Combat Strength need to have a certain level of granularity so that the difference between 1 and 2 doesn't feel so crushing. It gives greater room for balance changes and improves the player experience.

I think it is representing Quality Iron.... and if it stacks, then getting 2 or 3 is worth while.

 

[tedhebert]

Looks like the bonuses are sort of like the monopolies system from VI. Every resource will be a little like a product from VI.

I know in VI, it got annoyed if you wanted to micro to move things around. That's my only problem with a system like this - if I have 10-15 cities, and like 30 or 40 resources, keeping track of them all and shifting them to where I get the most use from them is going to be a pain. But it should give another level of customization, and give a much bigger difference if you have silk nearby or furs than you did in 6.

I share your concerns, but I hope the bonuses are incentive enough to interact with the system on occasion, at least.

Part of the problem with the monopoly products in Civ 6 was that you required tier 3 buildings to slot them, and I just didn't have enough Stock Exchanges and Harbor T3s to make it worth optimizing.

I agree about micromanagement here, but... they already have shown that they have a separate UI box that globalizes resource management. That's already a big plus from VI where we always had to wait for a mod to make the reports and UI boxes we needed... I'm happy they won't make us have to go through the cities one by one to assign ressources

 

[UWHabs]

I agree about micromanagement here, but... they already have shown that they have a separate UI box that globalizes resource management. That's already a big plus from VI where we always had to wait for a mod to make the reports and UI boxes we needed... I'm happy they won't make us have to go through the cities one by one to assign ressources

Yeah, but even a global resource management page (like the great works page) can still be very easy to miss and forget. I'm assuming they'll have a notice about "un-allocated resource" so you remember to go there before the end of your turn.

I guess in the end, it's not much different from governors or policy cards. I would guess you'll more or less lock the highest value rewards in your best cities. Hopefully they have a good auto-renew system on trade routes - it would be a pain to have a trade route end, then you start it up again, and now you have to remember which cities you had those resources slotted into again.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yeah, but even a global resource management page (like the great works page) can still be very easy to miss and forget. I'm assuming they'll have a notice about "un-allocated resource" so you remember to go there before the end of your turn.

I guess in the end, it's not much different from governors or policy cards. I would guess you'll more or less lock the highest value rewards in your best cities. Hopefully they have a good auto-renew system on trade routes - it would be a pain to have a trade route end, then you start it up again, and now you have to remember which cities you had those resources slotted into again.

Yep, resource management system is the second thing which worries me in terms of tedious micromanagement. The first is potential adjacency planning - the interface could help you with current numbers, but planning future age civ buildings has to be made inside player's head.

 

[Krikkit1]

Yeah, but even a global resource management page (like the great works page) can still be very easy to miss and forget. I'm assuming they'll have a notice about "un-allocated resource" so you remember to go there before the end of your turn.

I guess in the end, it's not much different from governors or policy cards. I would guess you'll more or less lock the highest value rewards in your best cities. Hopefully they have a good auto-renew system on trade routes - it would be a pain to have a trade route end, then you start it up again, and now you have to remember which cities you had those resources slotted into again.

Hopefully trade routes just don’t end unless disrupted or reassigned.

 

[Siptah]

Hopefully trade routes just don’t end unless disrupted or reassigned.

Yeah, I really hope that. Automatically ending trade routes and alliances/friendships were some of the most tiring features of civ VI, and a design decision that I simply fail to understand. I hope we‘ll never see such things again.

 

[Archanist]

Automatically ending trade routes and alliances/friendships were some of the most tiring features of civ VI

Lowkey why I don't usually make alliances/friendships whenever I play VI

 

[chaosprophet]

I'm assuming they'll have a notice about "un-allocated resource" so you remember to go there before the end of your turn.

They have, it showed on the Antiquity stream here:

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Iron is an Imperial resource. You don't slot it into a city like you do camels. It does appear to stack though. At least, the Imperial resources in this video have an indexing number to show you how many copies you have.

That probably does imply stacking of bonuses, although it might just be an indicator that you have extra copies that you could seek to trade away.

 

[Zaarin]

although it might just be an indicator that you have extra copies that you could seek to trade away.

We've been told trading resources creates a duplicate that is traded.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

We've been told trading resources creates a duplicate that is traded.

Missed that. That's good. I presume each cope can only be traded (duplicated) once?

 

[Zaarin]

Missed that. That's good. I presume each cope can only be traded (duplicated) once?

I don't think we've been told that specifically, at least that I recall.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Missed that. That's good. I presume each cope can only be traded (duplicated) once?

I don't think that's the case. Also, you don't decide who your resources get traded to. A merchant or trade ship approaches your city and creates a trade route, which gives the sender copies of that city's resources. Unless there's some intervening diplomatic step that hasn't been discussed, you don't get to make that choice to allow or disallow trading of specific resources.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't think that's the case. Also, you don't decide who your resources get traded to. A merchant or trade ship approaches your city and creates a trade route, which gives the sender copies of that city's resources. Unless there's some intervening diplomatic step that hasn't been discussed, you don't get to make that choice to allow or disallow trading of specific resources.

For some reason, I thought that only applied to resources assigned to that settlement, not empire-wide resources.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what that means for trade routes that are created and then the resource gets reassigned out of the origin settlement. Does that immediately break the trade route? Is this a cheesy way to mess with your neighbours, or does the trade route have a finite lifespan that stays in place until its normal end date? Or something else entirely?

 

[Zaarin]

For some reason, I thought that only applied to resources assigned to that settlement, not empire-wide resources.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what that means for trade routes that are created and then the resource gets reassigned out of the origin settlement. Does that immediately break the trade route? Is this a cheesy way to mess with your neighbours, or does the trade route have a finite lifespan that stays in place until its normal end date? Or something else entirely?

I would imagine it's resources produced in a settlement, not assigned.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

For some reason, I thought that only applied to resources assigned to that settlement, not empire-wide resources.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what that means for trade routes that are created and then the resource gets reassigned out of the origin settlement. Does that immediately break the trade route? Is this a cheesy way to mess with your neighbours, or does the trade route have a finite lifespan that stays in place until its normal end date? Or something else entirely?

I don't think you're getting copies of the resources slotted in that city, rather the ones produced by that city's improved tiles. The only way those could be removed from the city is by swapping tiles to another city (if that's possible) or culture bombing them (if it's possible to steal them in that way).