Resources should be in numbered quantities

[Suspiria]

Resources should be in numbered quantities. For example why should a Gold mine always give you an unlimited amount of gold just from mining it? Realistically you should be able to produce a certain limit from a resource per turn. So instead of an infinite flow of gold from a mine each turn you get ten 10 units of gold from a mine per turn? This way you would need to build up your gold stocks to produce certain buildings/units, or you could stock up the excess, then trade variable quantities to your neighbours.

Im not asking for a complex system, just for it to give you an output for the resources you process.
Numeric quanities also introduce various new and exciting gaming strategies.

Military conquest/expansion/trade would now be vital in order to gain more quanities of mineral resources, instead of just the infinite flow you have now. You could specialise in any or all of these areas of your choosing.

If your resources are attacked/pillaged it wouldnt instantly just cut off the resource to your empire, you would still have the built up stocks in your cities to rely on.

Population/buildings/units would consume certain amounts of resources in a turn, allowing you to build up stocks, or even trade/assist rival civs with resources.

Trade would be more exciting too. Now you could barter with your neighbours for various amounts of resources. Trade routes over land and sea would deliver a certain amount every turn. If a trade route could be pillaged from land or sea(introducing pirates) a certain amount of the resources would be pillaged, not the overall amount.

It could also mean realistically that certain mineral resources dont last forever, hence to maintain your mineral resources you would need to trade for more or expand your empire. Also as each age goes and technology improves, the output of your resources should increase. So in anicent times you may get 10 units of gold from a mine per turn, but in modern times you easily get 200.

Weather/natural disasters should be able to effect the output of your various resources. Also morale and happiness should effect your resource output.

Im thinking also maybe Arms/manpower/slaves should also be a resource and a tradeable item. There would also be certain number of resources you need to build certain military units. So for example a swordsman should be -

1000 manpower
2000 Arms
5 Gold support cost
4 Bags of Food
+ Morale bonus with any alcohol resource

I dont know, i wouldnt like it to be too complex but just change the way each civilization builds things. Maybe hammers is an easy simplified system and they should stick to it, but part of me thinks its just way too easy and un realistic. Like if you get 3 hammers from a forest why would you use this to build a military unit like a tank? You wouldnt use wood from a forest to build a tank now would you. Sure the wood might go to the factory to make the tank, but the wood wouldnt go into the tank directly, you would need a certain amount of metal.

Maybe the micro management would be a bad thing, I just think it offers an exciting new and strategic game play.

What do you guys think?

 

[terror2000]

That's exactly what I posted on the "my vision for civ 5" thread. Only you described it more thoroughly. My opinion on what you say is: (your swordman suggestion) I would only require iron besides the basic sheild (hammer). The hammer pretty much symbolizes manpower. I wouldnt introduce morale.
The problem with this concept is what happens if your building two s.man in two cities, but you only have 1 worth of iron stocked, which unit will be delayed until enough iron comes in from the mines?

 

[Suspiria]

) I would only require iron besides the basic sheild (hammer). The hammer pretty much symbolizes manpower.

Yeah I dont know. I would like to see some sort of limit per city or total population that your civ/city can produce units, and i think manpower would allow this. Maybe even have soldiers as a different type of manpower (because it takes something different to be a solider i think). I would also like to see more management of resources. I dont want it to get too psychotic and indulge in micro management but i would like to see some more strategy and skill involved in creating units/buildings etc.

The hammer to me, is vague and unsatisfactory. And i've been playing since Civ1 and ive always kind of felt this way about it.

I wouldnt introduce morale.

I think its a great idea (not really a resource in itself but i wanted to mention it anyways cos it is connected to resources, maybe i might go more in depth in another thread). I think morale plays a huge part in todays modern military forces and how soldiers operate efficiently. If your civ has a victory or series of victories then i think there should be some small morale bonus +1 strength or something like that for a limited number of turns. There could be several ways a unit can get a morale bonus. Religion, wonders, civics, certain resources like wine or beer, etc. I think its an interesting and exciting addition to experience points. I dont think it should last forever necessarily. I also think a +1 fanaticism bonus for a communist regime, or a +1 ideology bonus with police state or something like that should come into play. There should really be a few different bonuses to go with different governments and civics.

The problem with this concept is what happens if your building two s.man in two cities, but you only have 1 worth of iron stocked, which unit will be delayed until enough iron comes in from the mines?

There would obviously be a ranking system, the first ranked cities would take precedence in completion of units rather than lower ranked ones, or you could select which one completes it.

 

[King Flevance]

This idea is neat and I remember a mod talking about this before where someone had split the resources but didn't know what to do with the system after that if I remember correctly.

Here is what I have thought about so far and some of it as I have been making this post.

Luxury (Example: 1 Goldmine - 5 units of Gold)
5 cities of your choice get +1

Health (Example: 1 Rice Farm - 5 units of Rice)
5 cities of your choice get +1

Military (Example: 1 Iron Mine - 5 units of Iron)
5 cities of your choice get access to iron.

*At any time (or possibly something like every 20 turns) you may redirect which cities recieve the goods.

Each health and luxury resource is worth 2 GPT in value of trade.
Each pre-renessaince military resource is worth 10 GPT in value of trade.
Each post-renessaince military resource is worth 20 GPT in value of trade.

Say you have 10 cities and these 3 resources listed above. The Domestic Advisor would need a new screen that allowed you to focus on your goods. In the new screen you would have the option to distribute 1 unit of a resource to whatever cities you wish. (Dependant on how much units you gain per turn) And then an "excess bin" where it takes all extras and stores them back instead of using them up for the turn.

So actually 1 farm provides you with 5 units of Rice per turn. However, if you allocate all 5 units of rice to 5 cities (or trade it off) and don't store any back you do not have anything go into "storage". You may also choose to not use it and have all 5 per turn go into storage and hold it back for future purposes. (Deals or in case something gets pillaged somewhere.)

****************​

You can trade your 5 units of rice (2 GPT x 5 = 10 GPT) for a supply of horses in 1 city (10 GPT) of your choice if you have a friendly AI that is willing to trade with you. You have to give up the entire amount from your 1 farm and possibly lose all your rice but in return you gain a resource that helps you defend yourself. Or you can keep some of your rice and trade off some for either GPT or say Furs in a city for happiness instead of health.

If the AI (or other player) suddenly gain access to rice your deal will probably be broken though, naturally. This is when you would need to redistribute your goods. If this was incorperated though, I think it would be a good idea for there to be a new screen for the domestic advisor as that would be where the routing of this would have to take place.

 

[motherboard1]

how about this alternative, for simplicities sake

1 Resource source (Oil, Iron, etc) can allow for say 20 units that require Iron/Oil/whatever

and if you want to build more, you would need to aquire another source

although I see little wrong with your idea either, except I just dont like any extra micro management

 

[Shadowhal]

nice idea, love it, but how about the following:

the ressource you have access to has a certain value of total units, say 1000 iron, now each unit you produce requires a certain amount of iron, obviously modern day tanks and battleships more than a swordsman. you could even make certain techs like steel works increase the amount again (which is in a certain way how it developped in the real world) or make those new techs favour appearance of new sites for old ressources.

second, you could up to a certain limit determine how much of the ressource you want to harvest, but you will have to live with the fact that it will run down faster. this means that compared to the status quo you could both use one iron source for yourself as well as trade it with one or two partners in exchange for other stuff and use these benefits for military, economy or whatever. but then you will be dependent on finding new sources, which may in effect drive you to war. again, its a descision to be taken and that should after all be the heart of the game.

 

[Suspiria]

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Yes Shadowhal those ideas are great. And yes I agree that you should perhaps have the option to how many units of a mineral resource you want to mine each turn. If you want to increase production you have to commit more manpower to the efforts. However the mine will run out much quicker, risking you being without the resource at later times instead of having a steady production. So essentially you would have to manage how much you commit to mineral resource output.

 

[spikeyperson]

I like the idea a lot. What do you reckon about the the enviromentalism civic and recycling centre building interacting with it? For instance a recycling centre could now be used to minimize wastage in the manafacturing of units and increase resources through recycling, therby very slightly increasing production?

 

[Suspiria]

Thats a great idea spikey. The recycling centre could give you 30-40% back of certain resources, but it would cost you. I also like the idea of there being some sort of war time civic to represent WW2 rationing where most of everything was saved and recycled for the war effort.

 

[Shadowhal]

I like the idea a lot. What do you reckon about the the enviromentalism civic and recycling centre building interacting with it? For instance a recycling centre could now be used to minimize wastage in the manafacturing of units and increase resources through recycling, therby very slightly increasing production?

yeah, that was kinda like what I had in mind with new techs or civics increasing the available amount of a ressource.#

edit: hmm, actually this enables us further specialisations of civs by making certain civs have bonuses for various ressources, say they can supply more cities or units or they use up less from the total amount for the same effect or some other benefit you can think of. greeks for example could benefit from copper, US maybe from oil or cattle chinese from rice, though of course it would have to be balanced.