Resources

[Shurdus]

Actually Ahriman, I'd say its far from confirmed. No-one from Firaxis has actually said "no, luxury & health resources are still infinite. You just had a single writer of a single article making the claim, without any real foundation.
As I've said elsewhere, as far as "finite" luxuries goes, I do want it in-but only in that having more than 1 source (or X sources per Y cities) grants you additional bonuses, rather than inflicting penalties. Otherwise the trade in luxuries & health resources is going to be seriously lacking!

Aussie.

I too thought that they said luxury resources were global - so one dye can keep people happy all over the globe.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

It may well be that way Shurdus, I'm just saying that my reading of all the interviews & previews-so far-don't actually confirm it. The only proper mention of resources so far has been strategic resources, which we know will be finite. One writer made a quick aside about luxuries still being infinite, but it didn't sound like he was talking with authority on the issue. He certainly wasn't quoting any reps or developers.

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

Actually Ahriman, I'd say its far from confirmed. No-one from Firaxis has actually said "no, luxury & health resources are still infinite. You just had a single writer of a single article making the claim, without any real foundation.

From the IGN preview with developers:

One hex of a given luxury resource is now good enough to improve happiness across your entire civ now as well, which should also encourage more trading among civilizations. If you've got two marble and two dye, there's no reason to avoid trading one of each away if you can get access to ivory or spice.

Strategic resources are handled differently. There the quantity is very important. One iron deposit, for instance, will only grant you the right to build and maintain, say, five iron-based units. You can't build any more than that until one of those units dies (or is disbanded) or you get access to more iron. You will be allowed to keep those units in the field if your resource is pillaged, but there's an additional maintenance burden and you won't be able to replace them if they're lost.

This isn't something easily lost in translation or misunderstood by someone who doesn't understand the game. This is a very clear direct statement from a previewer who talked to the developers.

We have far more confirmation of this than we do of most confirmed features.

So what do you mean "without any real foundation"? That's a meaningless statement. The foundation is the discussion and demos that the writer had with Firaxis staff.

I do want it in-but only in that having more than 1 source (or X sources per Y cities) grants you additional bonuses, rather than inflicting penalties. Otherwise the trade in luxuries & health resources is going to be seriously lacking!

This makes no sense. If you benefit from only the first copy of a resource you have, then you should just trade away the excess. If you gain additional bonuses from each copy you have, then you should just keep them.
So there are stronger incentives to trade in the former case than the latter.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

One hex of a given luxury resource is now good enough to improve happiness across your entire civ now as well

That is the way it already was in Civ3 & Civ4, so why is he saying "is now good enough"? That sounds like an awfully mixed message to me, & suggests that he didn't receive the info from the developer.

If you benefit from only the first copy of a resource you have, then you should just trade away the excess. If you gain additional bonuses from each copy you have, then you should just keep them.
So there are stronger incentives to trade in the former case than the latter.

Wrong! If I have 2 sugars & another Civ has 1 sugar, then the other civ won't want to trade with me. How is that an incentive for trade? What I'm saying is that I want a Corporation-style approach to resources, but *without* the need for a corporation. In BtS, once corporations were being built, suddenly all those extra sources of fish & rice & wheat *suddenly* became valuable in trade with other nations.

The question is simply in setting up a system in which its often just as worthwhile to trade your excess resources (for cash, for friendship, for a resource he either doesn't have or would like more of etc etc) than it is to keep it yourself for the bonus-now that *would* create an incentive for trade
.
One way to do this is to (a) have a cap on the maximum benefit multiple copies of a resource can provide &/or (b) have the size of the bonus relate to the size of your empire. This could lead to situations where Civ A: with only 3 cities but 4 sources of gold (& therefore already earning the maximum benefit for this luxury) has a strong incentive to trade 1 or more extra gold to Civ B: which has 8 cities, but only 2 sources of gold, so that they can get the bonus gold/culture the additional gold provides-either in return for cash or in return for a resource that Civ A wants (even if they already have a copy of it).

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

If I have 2 sugars & another Civ has 1 sugar, then the other civ won't want to trade with me. How is that an incentive for trade?

Why *should* there be an incentive for another civ to trade away its only sugar? That civ should want to keep it.

Trade should favor you trying to get some of as many different resources as possible, not multiple copies of the same resources.

That's how real life works; specialize in production, generalize in consumption.

What I'm saying is that I want a Corporation-style approach to resources, but *without* the need for a corporation.

No we don't. We want you to trade excess away. Corporatio-style encourages hoarding.

Suppose I have 2 sugar, and you have 2 wine.
What we *want* is a system where the optimal thing to do is for me to trade my sugar to you for a wine. We don't want a system where you're just as happy keeping your 2 sugar to yourself.

We want having 1 sugar + 1 wine + 1 dye to be more valuable than having 3x sugar.
That is what drives incentives for trade.

One way to do this is to (a) have a cap on the maximum benefit multiple copies of a resource can provide &/or (b) have the size of the bonus relate to the size of your empire. This could lead to situations where Civ A: with only 3 cities but 4 sources of gold (& therefore already earning the maximum benefit for this luxury) has a strong incentive to trade 1 or more extra gold to Civ B: which has 8 cities, but only 2 sources of gold, so that they can get the bonus gold/culture the additional gold provides-either in return for cash or in return for a resource that Civ A wants (even if they already have a copy of it).

We've been through this before - and all of the allocation problems entailed by a finite system.
Anyone interested should check out the other thread.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=357742

The reason that the Civ4 system fails to encourage enough trade is more to do with the number and map script allocation of resources; there aren't enough incentives for trade because its too likely that different civs have the same resource - in which case there is no scope for trading that resource.

The right way to fix this is to make most resources rarer, so if you actually have 2 wine then you really are going to be able to trade one of them away for a resource that you don't have.

 

[Pazyryk]

Agree with Aussie for the most part here. 1) It's fun to try to interpret preview comments but it is pretty darn unreliable. The new mechanic may be quite different than the old system, and the previewers just allude to one piece of the new mechanic without much understanding (by our standards) of how the system works or even how it used to work in civ4. 2) My apologies for not reviewing the whole thread pointed to by Ahriman, but it seems to me that there are ways to implement finite luxury resources a) without being too complex, b) without adding to micromanagement burden, c) while still maintaining motivation to trade excess resource for other civ's resources, and d) not really (for the most part) contradicting the previewer statement. I'm not saying this is the case. But who knows?

 

[Schuesseled]

Actually Ahriman, I'd say its far from confirmed. No-one from Firaxis has actually said "no, luxury & health resources are still infinite. You just had a single writer of a single article making the claim, without any real foundation.
As I've said elsewhere, as far as "finite" luxuries goes, I do want it in-but only in that having more than 1 source (or X sources per Y cities) grants you additional bonuses, rather than inflicting penalties. Otherwise the trade in luxuries & health resources is going to be seriously lacking!

Aussie.

yes they did, strategic resources = finite troops, luxuries = happines/health or whatever for all your population and cities.

 

[Ddude97]

Yes I remember something about strategic being finite and luxury being "infinite"

 

[timtofly]

I heartily approve of a system that ensures that 1 resource deposit is not sufficient for all your empire's needs. A lot of wars & trade is often not about acquiring a resource you don't have at all, but acquiring *enough* of a resource to meet all your needs. For example, the US has sufficient oil within its territory to be represented on a Civ map, yet how much of modern politics is driven by the need of the US to acquire sufficient oil to meet its needs? In a Civ3 or Civ4 game this simply wouldn't occur.
That said I'm 50:50 on the variable sized resource suggestion. I mean, to extend the oil analogy, the US oil deposits are small, wheras I'd say the oil deposits of the Middle East are significantly larger-something I don't think could be adequately represented by simply having multiple deposits in the Middle East. Still, I can see where Ahriman is coming from in regards to ease of play. If there was a way that different sized deposits could be done in a way that was easy for a player to see just from looking at the screen, then I'd be for it. Otherwise, I'd have to go for the gameplay trumps realism argument !

Aussie.

According to the news today, one "well head" has almost ruined half of the Gulf of Mexico after one month. Maybe they should not have tried to "cap" it.

If you want realism, there should be an even distribution of oil all over. Whether you choose to use it would be up to each individual player. Iron may be harder to come by since it is not a liquid or gas. You have to mine it, not just drill for it.

 

[Ahriman]

If you want realism, there should be an even distribution of oil all over.

Uhh... what?

Significant, accessible oil desposits are found in only a few places on earth.

 

[Schuesseled]

Uhh... what?

Significant, accessible oil desposits are found in only a few places on earth.

althought oil is avaiable everywhere through the oil companies, it's the countries that control those deposits that matter when a war breaks out. very easy to stop your countries oil companies from supplying the enemy.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Why *should* there be an incentive for another civ to trade away its only sugar? That civ should want to keep it.

Trade should favor you trying to get some of as many different resources as possible, not multiple copies of the same resources.

That's how real life works; specialize in production, generalize in consumption.

Um, where did I say that the other civ should trade away its only sugar? I said that just because CivB has 1 sugar, this shouldn't automatically lead to a situation where he doesn't want any of the excess that CivA has. The binary nature of Civ4 resource trades actually leads to enormous hoarding in the game (trust me, I see it *all* the time). By contrast, contrary to your claim, the post-Corporation trade situation is much more flexible, & hoarding ends up being significantly reduced. The reason is that human & AI players alike often want the bonus provided by a resource they have less of, so are prepared to trade off 1 or more copies of their excess resources in order to get it. So just because CivA already has 1 marble, if they have Creative Constructions in their cities (where marble gives bonus hammers), then they will seek out CivB (who has 2 or 3 sources of marble) to see if they will trade. Now if CivB has Sid's Sushi (where fish gives bonus food), then there is a better than even chance that CivB will swap 1 marble in return for 1 fish-even though civB already has fish. It largely depends on what yields or commerces each civ values most highly at the time.

So on the one hand you have a binary situation which-more often than not- automatically leads to "hoarding" vs a situation that is more flexible & reduces the level of hoarding inherent to the earlier part of the game. This is not only unrealistic, it is also UNFUN!

Now I'm not saying that it should be *exactly* like corporations. There should be incentives that discourage *excessive* hoarding on the one hand, & encourage trade of surpluses on the other-& the extra bonuses probably should be scaled to the size of your empire-so that demand for extra copies of resources are automatically greater-allowing for smaller, resource rich nations to trade their surpluses to larger nations-even if the larger nation already has a copy of that resource.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

yes they did, strategic resources = finite troops, luxuries = happines/health or whatever for all your population and cities.

As I said, though, this has only come from a single source-no one else has repeated the claim, & nor has it been confirmed by anyone within Firaxis. So its not as certain as-say-1upt, or the removal of Civ4 style religions, or the existence of City-States.

Even if it had been confirmed, this refers only to the health & happiness aspects. What I'm talking about is my hope that having multiple copies of a resource will actually *matter*, both domestically & for trade purposes. As it stands, having surpluses is mostly pretty pointless because once your neighbour has even 1 copy of that same resource, all trade in said resource automatically becomes impossible. As I said in my previous post, this Binary Trade System is not only unrealistic, but is also BORING-because it significantly reduces trade opportunities which might otherwise exist.

Lets not forget that the removal of Commerce, as a separate Yield, also opens up the opportunity to have other sources of Culture, Science & Gold which would otherwise come from dividing up the commerce yield. Why is it so difficult to believe, then, that resource trade (& general trade routes) might not be a source of said commerces?

Aussie.

 

[StittsvilleJame]

As I said, though, this has only come from a single source-no one else has repeated the claim, & nor has it been confirmed by anyone within Firaxis. So its not as certain as-say-1upt, or the removal of Civ4 style religions, or the existence of City-States.

I think it means what it means, luxury resouces are shared throughout the civ. IGN didn't make it up, and it's not like it was mentioned by "Crazy Eddies PC game blog and supersite". IGN is usually pretty accurate when they explicitly state something. It probably hasn't been mentioned elsewhere as most articles tend to point out new and radical changes, not static features from the last game.

As was stated previously, that single comment in that single article is about as much evidence as many other "confirmed" features. If you only counted multiple articles mentioning something, the only confirmed features would be the three you mentioned above.