resources

[civheel]

I thought tobacco and the other new resources were going to be luxury resources. Kinda disappointed that it's not. Doesn't seem to add anything to the game, now.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If the game had many more luxury resources, it would become horribly unbalanced.

That being said, it would be nice if Tobacco did a bit more (maybe a bunch of commerce).

 

[civheel]

I see your point, but I figured they'd adjust for that by making all the luxuries more rare. I think it's a great expansion pack overall, but I'd still argue that tobacco and sugar should be tradeable, happiness-inducing resources.
What would be funny is if you had a monopoly on the tobacco supply, and started trading it with another civ, and they become addicted and could never cancel the deal! ;-)
I've started playing on two maps so far, and I seem to have an excessive amount of sugar on both. Even more sugar than wheat. Is sugar that common in the real world?

 

[Little Raven]

It seems to me like bonus resources are a little out of hand now, especially on plains/grassland. I mean, on one map I started, it seemed like every other square was a wheat/cow/tobacco/sugar. Ideally, I'd like to make tobacco very lucrative (+2 or 3 to commerce) but more rare. Unfortunately, I haven't found anyway to adjust how often bonus resources appear.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

You could set it up like the Age of Discovery scenario. For Sugar, Tobacco, Spices, Silver, etc. you build a city near the resource (as long as it is in the city radius) then build an improvement such as Tobacco Factory. That city improvement produces a "treasure" unit every so many turns. You take it back to your capital and gain gold and victory points. It's pretty cool!

 

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by Louis XXIV
If the game had many more luxury resources, it would become horribly unbalanced.

Err ... why? As long as the total number of luxuries on map is balanced with the number of players, I can't see why it would unbalance game.

It would only have required very minor tweaking of the map generator to achieve this, but I guess Atari was unwilling to invest in that

 

[Faboba]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
You could set it up like the Age of Discovery scenario. For Sugar, Tobacco, Spices, Silver, etc. you build a city near the resource (as long as it is in the city radius) then build an improvement such as Tobacco Factory. That city improvement produces a "treasure" unit every so many turns. You take it back to your capital and gain gold and victory points. It's pretty cool!

Here's what confuses me about this -

I thought the 'can only build x if y is in city limits' only worked with Strategic and/or luxury resources. Was I wrong? Has this changed.

If the answer is no and no then how does the age of discovery scenario work? Does it have sugar tabacco and so on as luxury resources?

If the answer to either question is yes then - if we ignore for a minute the possibilty of making 'beef farm' city improvements - surely we could set wonders and so on to be only buildable with new resources in the city radius. This means on a real world map you could limit wonders to certain regions ( i.e Great Wall requires Silk which only China, India, Mongolia, Korea and Japan has ).

 

[Zamphyr]

Originally posted by CyberChrist

Err ... why? As long as the total number of luxuries on map is balanced with the number of players, I can't see why it would unbalance game.

It would only have required very minor tweaking of the map generator to achieve this, but I guess Atari was unwilling to invest in that

Your assuming that this wasn't tried out already

 

[warpstorm]

No matter how you set the map generator, humans can arrange to get a large number of luxuries making the game too easy.

You can easily test this in the editor yourself (admittedly, you'd need quite a few games to prove this to yourself).

 

[crazybeard]

Originally posted by Faboba
If the answer is no and no then how does the age of discovery scenario work? Does it have sugar tabacco and so on as luxury resources?

Conquests are more than just short versions of the Epic game. They are, in effect, mini-mods. Many Conquests have rules, units, or abilities that do not exist in other scenarios.

For example, in Age of Discovery, Conquistadors and Medieval Infantry have the Amphibious Attack ability.

 

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by warpstorm
No matter how you set the map generator, humans can arrange to get a large number of luxuries making the game too easy.

Not sure if you misunderstood, I am talking about a total recoding of how the mapgenerator works - not just some fiddling with settings for the current map generator.

Anyway, I have been playing DYP only for ages now and last PTW version have 14 different types of luxuries and I never noticed anything that felt unbalancing about that.

If you are able to scoop up 8 luxuries - regardless of how many different luxuries there are in the game - you are already close to a winning position.


Of course this all depends on what you consider as being unbalancing, but I for one just can't spot anything about it fitting that description

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by crazybeard

They are, in effect, mini-mods.

Some of these are not mini-mods. Some are quite extensive reworking of the game rules. Middle Ages and Age of Discovery for example.

 

[warpstorm]

The problem isn't really in the map generator, but rather the system of luxuries.

Say there are 4 players, and 4 luxury types 3 tiles of each (the map generator tends to give less luxuries than there are players). Given a fairest distribution each gets 3 different luxuries. A lucky or aggressive player potentially gets 4 different luxuries.

Now say there are 6 luxuries 2 tiles of each (same total number of tiles). A fair distribution still gets each player 3 different. A lucky or aggressive players gets 6 different. 6 different is much better than 4 (assuming you've built marketplaces).

Now say there are 12 different luxuries, one tile of each. Fair distribution, the same as before. A lucky or aggressive player has 12 (any more than 8 is wasted, IIRC). This also implies that taking just one other player's territory is likely to give you 6 different luxuries. This is why more luxuries = easier game play.

In all examples there were the exact same number of luxury tiles.

 

[CyberChrist]

Heh, well I normally only play with 31 civs, so luxuries wont be so easy to come by as you describe there

EDIT: You are btw contradicting yourself, first saying it isn't a matter of the map generator then going on to describe how the current map generator distributes luxuries. Were they to change how it does that then increased variety of luxuries would not matter ... at least not as you describe it.

 

[cgannon64]

As others have said, it would destroy the happiness model, making it way to easy to keep your citizens happy.

Go to Sulla's website, he pointed this out in his beta test reports. They originally had them as luxuries, IIRC.

I like them as bonus resources though. Its nice to have a few more.

 

[statusperfect]

I nice twist would be letting tobacco be a lux that goes obsolete with medicine.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by Faboba

I thought the 'can only build x if y is in city limits' only worked with Strategic and/or luxury resources. Was I wrong? Has this changed.

They are set as strategic resources. If they are in your city limits (and you have a road to it --at least for gold, silver, and gems), you can build the "spice factory" or "tobacco factory" and gain a treasure unit every so often. It's actually a lot of fun. My wife and I are REALLY enjoying the Age of Discovery scenario.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Originally posted by statusperfect
I nice twist would be letting tobacco be a lux that goes obsolete with medicine.

It would be VERY nice to be able to obsolete resouces. Spices a luxury in modern age? Give me a break.

 

[CyberChrist]

People keep saying that, but one thing people adamantly ignore/overlook is that the reason adding more luxuries to the core game rules seems too radical is because they didn't also change the way the map generator ditributes these luxuries.

 

[CyberChrist]

Originally posted by Colonel Kraken
It would be VERY nice to be able to obsolete resouces. Spices a luxury in modern age? Give me a break.

Rofl - so you wouldn't be any less happy, if you didn't access to pepper for your steaks or curry for your chicken in the future?