Ressource monopoly victory

[Naokaukodem]

I think that the strategic ressources are, in theory, a good addition to Civ3 and subsequent sequels, when it does not become frustrating not having a kind of ressource nearly near whether we have a big country or not.

But I think that fights for one spot are not numerous enough. Not to say inexistent. And there is a reason to this : why to fight for a strategic ressource if you don't have this strategic ressource therefore have much weaker units ? Particularly when City States have a higher city defence than the civs.

Therefore, I imagined a very simple way to make ressources fights more interesting : the ressource monopoly victory.

You win the game if you have all the spots of a given ressource (no matters which) of the world.

That can be cattle, spice or iron.

The problem is that it may be more difficult than the conquest victory, where you have to only have the capitals.

 

[Strategia]

The problem with this, the way I understand it, is that "all spots of a given resource" might be easier to acquire than you think. I played a game on a Cool, Dry Archipelago, and when I got Satellites I found that Denmark controlled the only source of Sugar in the world. If a Resource Monopoly Victory was enabled, they'd have won the game over just that one tile. Map setup and starting location can really mess with the spawn rates of some types of resources, which makes a monopoly victory an enormous wildcard.

If you change it so you need all spots of X amount of resources, dependent on map size, you've basically reintroduced the Conquest or old-style Domination victory condition, because you'd probably have to conquer large swathes of every other civ, and get a significant % of the map under your control while doing so. Not to mention that some resources might be hiding in places you'd never think to look - I've noticed a tendency for Uranium to show up in the most inhospitable places right near the poles, and to go back to the above example, Denmark's Sugar was located in a part of the map I hadn't even explored until I got Satellites (I was too busy taking out weaker civs first).

All the other victory types are entirely controllable and in the hands of the players, but a resource monopoly victory is far too dependent on random, uncontrollable factors to really work well.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I would change the ressource distribution then, to makle sure there's not only one spot of a given ressource. Or maybe limit it to strategic ressources, which are sure to spawn regularly for balance purpose. Yes basically it's a conquest system but different in many ways however. Like in Civ5, you don't have to conquer your enemies 100%, only the ressources spots. The fact that you may need satellites sometimes is not a bad point, I figured it out when writing the OP.

 

[Strategia]

Even if it only counts strategic resources (which makes more sense), the thing is that like you said, they're fairly evenly distributed for balance purposes. So in at least 90% of cases, getting all resource spots for a given resource means conquering huge amounts of territory and crippling or outright destroying other civs. At that point, it's much, much easier to just go for their capitals and get a domination victory, which is highly likely to happen anyway.

Requiring Satellites may not be as good a thing as you think. If you've explored the entire world, and control all Iron or Horse sites, but still don't get a monopoly victory (and you're so hell-bent on getting it that you deliberately leave at least one enemy capital standing), having to wait for Satellites to show you the one place you've been missing somewhere on a tiny island in the middle of an ocean is just frustrating and a waste of time.

 

[claestw]

Now there's just that little problem, how do you determine when a civilization possesses all the resources? When at least one civilization obtains (i.e. has the required improvements on) all of that resource? When all civilizations can see that resource?

And no, in the default maps, strategic resources are not distributed in a balanced way unless you select the balanced resources option (I think). There are so many times when I play Continents that I find some AI has all the iron, or all the oil, or all the aluminium. I think once there's only 1 tile with aluminium in the whole world---I looked hard for it after I got Satellites.

Okay, so we make sure every map has an "balanced" distribution of resources. But then that's boring! Random maps are interesting because they're just that---random. If you can expect to find all the strategic resources you ever need within each area, then we'll always aim to expand longitudinally, we'll always aim to claim some of each type of terrain. The games become boring, we'll rarely be hit with a situation where we have no aluminium in the late game.

On top of that, there are so many different types of resources. Take just strategic. You have Horse, Iron, Coal, Oil, Aluminium, Uranium. So in each game, you'd have to go through the world map looking for all of these, and make sure that none of the AIs control all of them. That's not fun. That's tedious. You're introducing a severe overhead for all non-monopoly victories.

I actually don't like these types of victories. The AIs are not smart enough to pursue them in a efficient way. Players know that a Domination Victory is nothing more than being able to conquer the last capital. So all you need to do is wait for an runaway AI to conquer the world, then take his capital. In fact that's how I won my first game when I got Civ V. It was ridiculous. I was in no way a dominant power, yet I won, because the AI had all his forces fighting elsewhere and his capital happened to be on the coast.

I would love to see the AI becoming aware of strategic resources and consider war as an option of obtaining them, though.

 

[Naokaukodem]

At that point, it's much, much easier to just go for their capitals and get a domination victory, which is highly likely to happen anyway.

It would work without this type of domination victory. That's what I figured out.

Requiring Satellites may not be as good a thing as you think. If you've explored the entire world, and control all Iron or Horse sites, but still don't get a monopoly victory (and you're so hell-bent on getting it that you deliberately leave at least one enemy capital standing), having to wait for Satellites to show you the one place you've been missing somewhere on a tiny island in the middle of an ocean is just frustrating and a waste of time.

I think it would be fun. If you are aiming for this type of victory, you just better send one or two caravel early to prevent this type of frustration to happen, depending on the size of the map.

Now there's just that little problem, how do you determine when a civilization possesses all the resources? When at least one civilization obtains (i.e. has the required improvements on) all of that resource? When all civilizations can see that resource?

I thought about it, but i guess the simpliest way would be to consider all ressources beyond which civ does know it or not.

Okay, so we make sure every map has an "balanced" distribution of resources. But then that's boring! Random maps are interesting because they're just that---random. If you can expect to find all the strategic resources you ever need within each area, then we'll always aim to expand longitudinally, we'll always aim to claim some of each type of terrain. The games become boring, we'll rarely be hit with a situation where we have no aluminium in the late game.

Who thinks having no aluminium in the late game is fun ? By the way, the ressources, even balanced, are always subject to a type of randomness. Depends on what the developers allow. It could be just as in Civ5, with many types of ressources all over the world sometimes and sometimes just in some locations. It could be like basic ressources Civ5 (like cows or horses). Or it could be between the two.

On top of that, there are so many different types of resources. Take just strategic. You have Horse, Iron, Coal, Oil, Aluminium, Uranium. So in each game, you'd have to go through the world map looking for all of these, and make sure that none of the AIs control all of them. That's not fun. That's tedious. You're introducing a severe overhead for all non-monopoly victories.

If ressouces are realistically dispatched, it should not really happen that an AI has all the ressources without actively looking for it.

I actually don't like these types of victories. The AIs are not smart enough to pursue them in a efficient way. Players know that a Domination Victory is nothing more than being able to conquer the last capital. So all you need to do is wait for an runaway AI to conquer the world, then take his capital. In fact that's how I won my first game when I got Civ V. It was ridiculous. I was in no way a dominant power, yet I won, because the AI had all his forces fighting elsewhere and his capital happened to be on the coast.

Precisely, that type of victory would prevent cheap capital wins. It would be like total conqust revisited, or a mix between total conquest and Civ5 domination.

 

[Cyon]

I don't think a pure resource monopoly victory would work, but there should definitely be more initiatives to control many of one resource, some suggestions:

Let supply and demand influence how much gold you get for Iron depending on how much unused Iron there is in the game, and how much every player has, if you have half of the iron in the world should you be able to demand more gold for it.

Let certain wonders/national wonders have resource requirements, make iron works better or drop the build workshops req, and let it instead require 4 iron and one coal. Or you could intriduce new wonders called Ironcorporation, Horse Tradin Inq., Big Oil, Coal & Sons and so on, which each require 51% of a each resouce. And of course should give a huge gold bonus.

I think that the problem now is that for a short time is a lot of concurrence for a resource but that usually passes, and then will you have a lot of unused horses and iron, which is kind of stupid since iron at least still is very useful.

The Swedish iron ore export to Nazi Germany were very important for Wehrmacht , i think that both tanks, ironclads, and battleships should require Iron as well.

And of all the horses, what to do with pony after cavalry is outdated? Send them to Hamburg maybe for a +10% growth in five turns per horse

I think that the next expansion should focus on trade and introduce a pure economic victory (unlike the so called diplomatic one, that now hopefully is fixed) which some part of it demanding a certain resource dominans.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I don't think a pure resource monopoly victory would work, but there should definitely be more initiatives to control many of one resource, some suggestions:

Let supply and demand influence how much gold you get for Iron depending on how much unused Iron there is in the game, and how much every player has, if you have half of the iron in the world should you be able to demand more gold for it.

Let certain wonders/national wonders have resource requirements, make iron works better or drop the build workshops req, and let it instead require 4 iron and one coal. Or you could intriduce new wonders called Ironcorporation, Horse Tradin Inq., Big Oil, Coal & Sons and so on, which each require 51% of a each resouce. And of course should give a huge gold bonus.

I think that the problem now is that for a short time is a lot of concurrence for a resource but that usually passes, and then will you have a lot of unused horses and iron, which is kind of stupid since iron at least still is very useful.

The Swedish iron ore export to Nazi Germany were very important for Wehrmacht , i think that both tanks, ironclads, and battleships should require Iron as well.

And of all the horses, what to do with pony after cavalry is outdated? Send them to Hamburg maybe for a +10% growth in five turns per horse

I think that the next expansion should focus on trade and introduce a pure economic victory (unlike the so called diplomatic one, that now hopefully is fixed) which some part of it demanding a certain resource dominans.

Hmmm... very good suggestions.

For horses, heh, not easy to find a use for them heh ? It could be one building that reqs like nuclear centrals req uranium, horse, like a horse racing building that increase happiness.

And yes, it would be cool that iron stays a major sign of power even in modern times.

Not sure about the monopoly ressources (51%) req for super wonders, unless you want them appear pretty rarely and become a game "breaker". Maybe those would require a certain (finite) amount of them instead.

Or, indeed, it could be played as the super-power bonus like i suggested in another thread, but the AI should need to hate you for it. You could avoid it by selling some ressources not to have this 51% monopoly. It would change drastically the shape of the game though.

 

[Strategia]

It would work without this type of domination victory. That's what I figured out.

No, it wouldn't. I've found that even with unchanged resource settings, I rarely start in a spot that doesn't have horses, iron or both within range of my capital city. Going for a resource monopoly victory based on those, which is probably the quickest and easiest, literally means going for a domination victory. Changing resource distribution so that capital cities are less likely to get strategic resources just means crippling warfare in the early game, or giving certain civs an unfair advantage because they happened to settle their second city near horses or iron when their enemies weren't so lucky.

I think it would be fun. If you are aiming for this type of victory, you just better send one or two caravel early to prevent this type of frustration to happen, depending on the size of the map.

Don't get me wrong, I like games that climb all the way up the tech tree, but if players can't explore a certain area - say, it's blocked off by a hostile empire that refuses to give open borders - you're just forcing players to sit on their thumbs and wait, or just go for another victory type.

Furthermore, right now, it's possible to get at least a domination and cultural victory fairly early on in the game, with diplomatic and space race for the lategame. Resource Monopoly would be all over the place; on a Pangaea map, anyone trying to go for a resource monopoly would get a domination victory before they succeed, but on a Terra-type map (where everyone starts on one continent and the other one is inaccessible until Astronomy - can't remember if it's Terra or not) you're forcing players to wait until the Renaissance just to go for the final resources on the other continent. In the meantime, if they've been diligent about getting the resources on their own continent, they've already won a domination victory.

Who thinks having no aluminium in the late game is fun ? By the way, the ressources, even balanced, are always subject to a type of randomness. Depends on what the developers allow. It could be just as in Civ5, with many types of ressources all over the world sometimes and sometimes just in some locations. It could be like basic ressources Civ5 (like cows or horses). Or it could be between the two.

Having no aluminium in the late game is fun in that it presents more of a challenge. You can't field the better aircraft or Modern Armour, but you can work around that using basic units like Fighters, Bombers, Mechanised Infantry and Mobile SAMs. Earlier on, if you don't have Iron, you can field Spearmen and Pikemen supported by Archers and Crossbows. Sure, you're more vulnerable to civs that do have aluminium or iron, but that doesn't mean they get an instant win over you. It just means you'll have to try harder, and finally overcoming them will feel like more of a victory than just mopping up AI civilisation #472.

I could also turn this around; who thinks making players wait till Satellites before their victory becomes viable is fun?, but I already addressed that above. Also, the randomness you're referring to isn't quite that random - like I said, I hardly build a capital that doesn't have access to at least one strategic resource. If it's truly made more random, or more "realistic", you're giving certain civs unfair advantages, whether based on start bias or just because of random starting location distribution.

If ressouces are realistically dispatched, it should not really happen that an AI has all the ressources without actively looking for it.

The AI isn't that great at..... well, anything. Getting an AI to actively look for resources isn't as easy as just making resource distribution more "realistic". It'd just cripple AI civs even more, as they completely fail to acquire certain important resources.

Precisely, that type of victory would prevent cheap capital wins. It would be like total conqust revisited, or a mix between total conquest and Civ5 domination.

The way you've laid it out, resource monopoly wouldn't prevent "cheap capital wins", it encourages it. Think about it for a minute; adding a resource monopoly victory wouldn't remove domination victory, yet you're almost certain to get a domination victory while you're trying to get a resource monopoly.

Let supply and demand influence how much gold you get for Iron depending on how much unused Iron there is in the game, and how much every player has, if you have half of the iron in the world should you be able to demand more gold for it.

Let certain wonders/national wonders have resource requirements, make iron works better or drop the build workshops req, and let it instead require 4 iron and one coal. Or you could intriduce new wonders called Ironcorporation, Horse Tradin Inq., Big Oil, Coal & Sons and so on, which each require 51% of a each resouce. And of course should give a huge gold bonus.

The problem with this is that it's a doublewin mechanic. You're letting players who already have a significant advantage over everyone else (51% of any strategic resource in the world) get an even bigger advantage.

----------

I have two points I want to make here, separately from the replies above. First, the raison d'être of the resource monopoly victory. Right now, all victory types are unique in their own way, and going for one of them automatically closes off at least one or two others. Conquering your way across the world for a Domination victory makes your Policies so expensive you can't realistically get a cultural victory anymore, and you're likely to destroy everyone long before the UN or the spaceship can even be built. Buying your way into good relations with City-States for a Diplomatic victory requires so much gold that you'll need a sizeable empire, disqualifying you for Cultural, and spending so much gold on City-States means you can't buy or maintain the army required to go for Domination.

Taking the above into account, what is a resource monopoly victory? Well, it automatically includes conquering vast swathes of the world just to get your hands on resource sites. Once you're going down that route, you're probably already going to take a few capitals, and you're highly likely to get a domination victory anyway because of how most capitals spawn within range of strategic resources and are thus necessary conquests. This means that Resource Monopoly is Domination, only you're specifically leaving a few capital cities alive just so you can get a Monopoly instead of a Domination victory. That alone basically removes the entire reason for adding it in the first place.

Secondly, both the basic Resource Monopoly victory Naokaukodem describes, as well as Cyon's doublewin mechanics based on, well, resource monopolies, heavily encourage and support Wide empires, and in Civ 5 as it is, that means ICS. ICS is already a far too powerful strategy, and adding these features would only encourage it even more. I like how Civ 5 makes National Wonders require certain buildings in every city, rather than just X in the whole empire, and scaling their cost based on how many cities the empire contains; this means that Tall empires are more likely to get these NWs, much cheaper to boot, than Wide empires are, while they provide the same boost. IMNSHO, one of the most important things that needs to be done in Civ 5 is not to penalise Wide empires (though penalising ICS would be a good thing), so much as to promote the viability of Tall ones. The mechanics proposed in this thread are doing the exact opposite; they only encourage Wide empires and ICS even more than the game already does.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Hmm oh well.

I didn't think such a little idea could create such an acerbity.

I will try to answer peacefully (in a first time ) point per point.

No, it wouldn't. I've found that even with unchanged resource settings, I rarely start in a spot that doesn't have horses, iron or both within range of my capital city. Going for a resource monopoly victory based on those, which is probably the quickest and easiest, literally means going for a domination victory. Changing resource distribution so that capital cities are less likely to get strategic resources just means crippling warfare in the early game, or giving certain civs an unfair advantage because they happened to settle their second city near horses or iron when their enemies weren't so lucky.

What I meant was that the Civ5 domination victory (when there's only need of the capitals) should have to be scrapped. I said it ; "It would work without this type of domination victory." And by the way it's not the same thing as domination victory. Play civ5, you will see that iron for example is far from spawning in every city. And that's the same for nearly all kind of ressources. So yes, it would be the new kind of domination victory, but a more interesting one.

Don't get me wrong, I like games that climb all the way up the tech tree, but if players can't explore a certain area - say, it's blocked off by a hostile empire that refuses to give open borders - you're just forcing players to sit on their thumbs and wait, or just go for another victory type.

It's rare that you can't explore the whole globe. In that case, just ROP or DOW... or wait. ytou have plentyu possibilities.

Furthermore, right now, it's possible to get at least a domination and cultural victory fairly early on in the game, with diplomatic and space race for the lategame. Resource Monopoly would be all over the place; on a Pangaea map, anyone trying to go for a resource monopoly would get a domination victory before they succeed

No, because Civ5 domination victory would be scrapped and all cities doesn't have all ressources far from it.

, but on a Terra-type map (where everyone starts on one continent and the other one is inaccessible until Astronomy - can't remember if it's Terra or not) you're forcing players to wait until the Renaissance just to go for the final resources on the other continent. In the meantime, if they've been diligent about getting the resources on their own continent, they've already won a domination victory.

You assume that on Terra map you always are blocked or can't ROP or DOW, which is false.

Having no aluminium in the late game is fun in that it presents more of a challenge. You can't field the better aircraft or Modern Armour, but you can work around that using basic units like Fighters, Bombers, Mechanised Infantry and Mobile SAMs. Earlier on, if you don't have Iron, you can field Spearmen and Pikemen supported by Archers and Crossbows. Sure, you're more vulnerable to civs that do have aluminium or iron, but that doesn't mean they get an instant win over you. It just means you'll have to try harder, and finally overcoming them will feel like more of a victory than just mopping up AI civilisation #472.

Happy that you had such type of pleasures with Civ.

I could also turn this around; who thinks making players wait till Satellites before their victory becomes viable is fun?, but I already addressed that above.

I already said it ; waiting is only an option when you encouter such rare cases.

Also, the randomness you're referring to isn't quite that random - like I said, I hardly build a capital that doesn't have access to at least one strategic resource. If it's truly made more random, or more "realistic", you're giving certain civs unfair advantages, whether based on start bias or just because of random starting location distribution.

Hmm, you nearly got me. Here are you own words :

Random maps are interesting because they're just that---random. If you can expect to find all the strategic resources you ever need within each area, then we'll always aim to expand longitudinally, we'll always aim to claim some of each type of terrain. The games become boring, we'll rarely be hit with a situation where we have no aluminium in the late game.

So what do you want ? Something that's completely random, so the advantages / disdvantages can't be controlled except by making efforts (that sometimes are impossible -no iron nearly near for example), or something that balance the randomness so you don't have unfair situations ?

Again, it's something between the two : totally random (actual Civ5 iron) or balanced. (actual Civ5 most common ressources like cows, I believe) Something that imbalance a little the incontrolled randomness in favor of a better dispatched distribution.

The AI isn't that great at..... well, anything. Getting an AI to actively look for resources isn't as easy as just making resource distribution more "realistic". It'd just cripple AI civs even more, as they completely fail to acquire certain important resources.

That's the point. AIs may never reach this type of victory if it doesn't look for it. In the state, that would just prevent them to reach this victory type. So no need to monitor them like a little god. If they are made able to do it, then the player would know it, because it would not have a normal behavior (settling in very dispatched areas while usually they do ICS)

The way you've laid it out, resource monopoly wouldn't prevent "cheap capital wins", it encourages it. Think about it for a minute; adding a resource monopoly victory wouldn't remove domination victory, yet you're almost certain to get a domination victory while you're trying to get a resource monopoly.

[A] Again, Civ5 type of domination victory would be scrapped. It would be the kind of replacement, with more focus on ressources.

The problem with this is that it's a doublewin mechanic. You're letting players who already have a significant advantage over everyone else (51% of any strategic resource in the world) get an even bigger advantage.

Except if you're talking about obsolete ressources. (like iron, horses and in some ways oil)

I have two points I want to make here, separately from the replies above. First, the raison d'être of the resource monopoly victory. Right now, all victory types are unique in their own way, and going for one of them automatically closes off at least one or two others. Conquering your way across the world for a Domination victory makes your Policies so expensive you can't realistically get a cultural victory anymore, and you're likely to destroy everyone long before the UN or the spaceship can even be built. Buying your way into good relations with City-States for a Diplomatic victory requires so much gold that you'll need a sizeable empire, disqualifying you for Cultural, and spending so much gold on City-States means you can't buy or maintain the army required to go for Domination.

Taking the above into account, what is a resource monopoly victory? Well, it automatically includes conquering vast swathes of the world just to get your hands on resource sites. Once you're going down that route, you're probably already going to take a few capitals, and you're highly likely to get a domination victory anyway because of how most capitals spawn within range of strategic resources and are thus necessary conquests. This means that Resource Monopoly is Domination, only you're specifically leaving a few capital cities alive just so you can get a Monopoly instead of a Domination victory. That alone basically removes the entire reason for adding it in the first place.

See [A].

Secondly, both the basic Resource Monopoly victory Naokaukodem describes, as well as Cyon's doublewin mechanics based on, well, resource monopolies, heavily encourage and support Wide empires, and in Civ 5 as it is, that means ICS. ICS is already a far too powerful strategy, and adding these features would only encourage it even more. I like how Civ 5 makes National Wonders require certain buildings in every city, rather than just X in the whole empire, and scaling their cost based on how many cities the empire contains; this means that Tall empires are more likely to get these NWs, much cheaper to boot, than Wide empires are, while they provide the same boost. IMNSHO, one of the most important things that needs to be done in Civ 5 is not to penalise Wide empires (though penalising ICS would be a good thing), so much as to promote the viability of Tall ones. The mechanics proposed in this thread are doing the exact opposite; they only encourage Wide empires and ICS even more than the game already does.

If you scrap anything good for wide empires you will soon cry for their comeback.

As to Cyon's suggestions, actually I don't see why it would encourage ICS. ICS is the placement of an infinite number of cities near each others, without distinguishing the ressources. On contrary, Cyon's idea would favorize the distinction of them. No need to place a city in a random spot anymore. you have to focalize on ressources and not plant cities anywhere. If there's no ressource on a nearby toundra or grassland, no need to plant a city if your empire is large enough/you don't want to kill your tall empire strategy.

 

[Cyon]

The problem with this is that it's a doublewin mechanic. You're letting players who already have a significant advantage over everyone else (51% of any strategic resource in the world) get an even bigger advantage.......

.......Secondly, both the basic Resource Monopoly victory Naokaukodem describes, as well as Cyon's doublewin mechanics based on, well, resource monopolies, heavily encourage and support Wide empires, and in Civ 5 as it is, that means ICS. ICS is already a far too powerful strategy, and adding these features would only encourage it even more.....

........the most important things that needs to be done in Civ 5 is not to penalise Wide empires (though penalising ICS would be a good thing), so much as to promote the viability of Tall ones. The mechanics proposed in this thread are doing the exact opposite; they only encourage Wide empires and ICS even more than the game already does.

I think that what a was aiming for is an increased possibilities for specialization and a use for all the obsolete resources. The hole point of having strategic resources in the game is to make the geography more important, limit the amount of the better units, and increase competition. But it is seldom so hard to get iron or horses even with the scarce resources option, but oil, uranium and aluminum seems to be harder to find.

Late game bonuses for having large amount of early resources could also benefit a strategically placed small tall empire. one way to do that is the combination of require 1 Iron per workshop (or some other building) and 6 Iron for Iron works. It would also be interesting if you really have to chose between a really good peaceful bonus for a resource and building one more unit. Like you now can build nuclear power plant or a nuke for you last uranium (but does any one actually build nuclear power plants?)

A 51% requirement is maybe a bit much, I think I will develop my ideas on a corporations and international trade in a separate thread as a suugestion for a second expansion. I think that my general idea is that every era should have the possibility for one civ (or sometimes a few) to found a Porcelain guild/religous icon guild/merchant accosiation/Far east(or west) trading company/Cotton industry - Railroad company/Auto company - oil company - electronic company - media mongulate - film industry/ space industry - bio tech company -nano corporation. Most of those should provide a new type of resources - manufactured resources - which are unique - and gives not only a +3 happines for the first one but +2 second and +1 for the third (beacuse it is more of a resources for the masses, unlike silk, ivory and pearls which are more for a small elite, maybe some of the existing ones such as sugar, cotton and wine could work like that as well)

All of which should have a lot of different requirements, both techs (see this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11496619&postcount=27), culture and resources. Some of the could be made to fit small tall empires better.

To found a certain amount of corporation or to make your corporation spread some how, togheter with a certain amount of gold should lead to a economic victory.

The hunt for getting those last 3 iron to found the Steel company in a late game where all iron already are taken, could would be more interesting than just having 9 unused iron in top of the screen.

 

[Strategia]

What I meant was that the Civ5 domination victory (when there's only need of the capitals) should have to be scrapped. I said it ; "It would work without this type of domination victory." And by the way it's not the same thing as domination victory. Play civ5, you will see that iron for example is far from spawning in every city. And that's the same for nearly all kind of ressources. So yes, it would be the new kind of domination victory, but a more interesting one.

Which brings me back to one of my previous points; why does this need to happen? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", so don't just scrap an existing victory condition and replace it with one based around resource monopoly just because..... well, just because. I just don't really see the need for a victory of this type, and I certainly don't see the need to remove the current domination victory.

You assume that on Terra map you always are blocked or can't ROP or DOW, which is false.

No, I mean that on Terra, everyone starts on the Afro-Eurasia-analogue continent, and the Americas-analogue isn't accessible until Astronomy (unless you get lucky with a polar passage). It's entirely possible to conquer the entire starting continent and destroy all other civilisations before that time. You'll earn a fairly quick domination victory. However, if domination is removed (once again, I don't understand why you'd do this), you're forced to wait until Astronomy just to find the last spots of Iron on the new continent before you can claim victory.

Happy that you had such type of pleasures with Civ.

.....what?

Hmm, you nearly got me. Here are you own words :

Those aren't my words, they're claestw's.

So what do you want ? Something that's completely random, so the advantages / disdvantages can't be controlled except by making efforts (that sometimes are impossible -no iron nearly near for example), or something that balance the randomness so you don't have unfair situations ?

Again, it's something between the two : totally random (actual Civ5 iron) or balanced. (actual Civ5 most common ressources like cows, I believe) Something that imbalance a little the incontrolled randomness in favor of a better dispatched distribution.

It's not (entirely) about balance, it's about control. The current victory conditions are entirely controllable; you conquer enemy capitals, or you build up your culture, or you drop gold into city-states, or you research the required techs and build the spaceship parts. You can do any of this regardless of the map. A resource monopoly victory, however, would be uncontrollable and dependent entirely on the map. You're taking agency away from the player in favour of random (or semi-random) chance, namely resource placement.

That's the point. AIs may never reach this type of victory if it doesn't look for it. In the state, that would just prevent them to reach this victory type. So no need to monitor them like a little god. If they are made able to do it, then the player would know it, because it would not have a normal behavior (settling in very dispatched areas while usually they do ICS)

Wait, I'm confused - are you talking about this victory condition or about AI behaviour? Where does the "little god" part come from?

[A] Again, Civ5 type of domination victory would be scrapped. It would be the kind of replacement, with more focus on ressources.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record; Why? Whenever you make a suggestion for a change, especially a sweeping one such as this, always ask yourself why it should be changed. So I'm going to ask you to think about and explicitly state the following;

Why should the Domination victory type be removed?
Why should the Resource Monopoly victory type be added?

If you scrap anything good for wide empires you will soon cry for their comeback.

I explicitly said I didn't want to penalise wide empires. I just want to try and avoid adding more features that benefit them specifically, in favour of features that benefit Tall empires.

As to Cyon's suggestions, actually I don't see why it would encourage ICS. ICS is the placement of an infinite number of cities near each others, without distinguishing the ressources. On contrary, Cyon's idea would favorize the distinction of them. No need to place a city in a random spot anymore. you have to focalize on ressources and not plant cities anywhere. If there's no ressource on a nearby toundra or grassland, no need to plant a city if your empire is large enough/you don't want to kill your tall empire strategy.

Cyon suggested changing National Wonders from "requires building X in all cities" to "requires X amount of resources". The first option, the way it's currently in-game, National Wonders are a great boon to Tall empires, but become incredibly expensive for Wide empires, and ICS specifically; however, the second option makes them viable for both types of empires, when they're specifically meant as a boost to Talls. Wide empires (ICS being the idea of a Wide empire being taken to its logical conclusion) will by nature have plenty of resources within their borders, while Tall empires might struggle more to acquire resources. By making National Wonders require a flat amount of a particular resource, they actually become more viable for Wide empires, since they can spend that many resources easily; for a Tall empire, giving up a significant chunk of their resources in return for a building that provides +8 Production or +8 Gold would be an incredibly bad deal.

I do agree with the idea of making "obsolete" resources more viable later on, but not this way.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Which brings me back to one of my previous points

Pardon me, but where before did you formulate such a point ?

; why does this need to happen? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", so don't just scrap an existing victory condition and replace it with one based around resource monopoly just because..... well, just because. I just don't really see the need for a victory of this type, and I certainly don't see the need to remove the current domination victory.

Because it is a more interesting domination victory, which could, with a semi random ressource dispatch system, trigger interesting ressource fights.

No, I mean that on Terra, everyone starts on the Afro-Eurasia-analogue continent, and the Americas-analogue isn't accessible until Astronomy (unless you get lucky with a polar passage). It's entirely possible to conquer the entire starting continent and destroy all other civilisations before that time. You'll earn a fairly quick domination victory. However, if domination is removed (once again, I don't understand why you'd do this), you're forced to wait until Astronomy just to find the last spots of Iron on the new continent before you can claim victory.

Well, by 'Terra' i meant random continent, which is not the same. Got a little confused here... Well, I don't really know what is Terra maps, but they seem to be more of an Earth map I believe... I don't even use them. As to random continents, yes Astronomy would be needed but it's not as if it's a too far away tech, and by the way, you are conquering the world to win so it wold be weird you don't need to know it even if there would still be culture but hey nothing's perfect i guess.

Those aren't my words, they're claestw's.

Oh... indeed. The thing is that you answered so promptly to the answers I gave him that i confused the two. lol.

It's not (entirely) about balance, it's about control. The current victory conditions are entirely controllable; you conquer enemy capitals, or you build up your culture, or you drop gold into city-states, or you research the required techs and build the spaceship parts. You can do any of this regardless of the map. A resource monopoly victory, however, would be uncontrollable and dependent entirely on the map. You're taking agency away from the player in favour of random (or semi-random) chance, namely resource placement.

To conquer capitals you have to go through the land, enemies are not at your door. So you have to make efforts in order to reach them. It's the same with resource victory. You have to plant settlers near them, or conquer the cities which have them. You don't conquer blindly anymore, you want them because they have a resource that interests you. You want some cities, you are not interested by some others. That puts interest on particular areas of the map, which become highly strategic. IT would be interesting particularly in multiplayer.

Cyon suggested changing National Wonders from "requires building X in all cities" to "requires X amount of resources". The first option, the way it's currently in-game, National Wonders are a great boon to Tall empires, but become incredibly expensive for Wide empires, and ICS specifically; however, the second option makes them viable for both types of empires, when they're specifically meant as a boost to Talls. Wide empires (ICS being the idea of a Wide empire being taken to its logical conclusion) will by nature have plenty of resources within their borders, while Tall empires might struggle more to acquire resources. By making National Wonders require a flat amount of a particular resource, they actually become more viable for Wide empires, since they can spend that many resources easily; for a Tall empire, giving up a significant chunk of their resources in return for a building that provides +8 Production or +8 Gold would be an incredibly bad deal.

I do agree with the idea of making "obsolete" resources more viable later on, but not this way.

You are reasoning too much with the big theories. If, as suggested Cyon, the Workshop needs only 4 or 6 irons, then you will have to plant an additional city near a source of iron. That does not favorize wide empire over tall ones, that's just one more city, in order to make obsolete resources more valuable for example. That's all.

 

[Strategia]

Pardon me, but where before did you formulate such a point ?

The last bit of my previous post, where I talked about the raison d'être of the resource monopoly victory.

Because it is a more interesting domination victory, which could, with a semi random ressource dispatch system, trigger interesting ressource fights.

Domination as it is can already be interesting. claestw pointed out in his first post in this thread that it can allow smaller empires to win simply by sniping the capital off of a larger, more dominant empire, like it says in the Civilopedia. It's quite easily avoidable for the larger empire, but it still allows smaller empires to remain somewhat competitive when it comes to a military victory. It still has all of the trappings of the old Conquest victory (destroy your enemies) without all the tedious mopping-up of finding every last iceball city hidden away in the arctic somewhere. Resource Monopoly would reintroduce that aspect in a different way; you'd have to go over the entire map just to see if you missed any random spot of iron, and you could claim victory just by settling a completely worthless, nonviable city there, which makes no sense if you've already rampaged all across the other empires to take their resource deposits. Furthermore, it wouldn't trigger "interesting resource fights" because the AI can't handle it and all players need to do is keep the city's defences up-to-date and keep a few cavalry units nearby to flank and destroy enemy siege.

Well, by 'Terra' i meant random continent, which is not the same. Got a little confused here... Well, I don't really know what is Terra maps, but they seem to be more of an Earth map I believe... I don't even use them. As to random continents, yes Astronomy would be needed but it's not as if it's a too far away tech, and by the way, you are conquering the world to win so it wold be weird you don't need to know it even if there would still be culture but hey nothing's perfect i guess.

Like I pointed out before, it's quite possible to completely conquer everyone by the Middle Ages, and even if you don't, by the time a player going for a Domination victory gets Astronomy he'll already be far enough ahead of everyone else to basically be able to destroy everyone without too much trouble. Then why would he be forced to settle cities in random spots on the other continent near iron deposits just to get a supposed military victory?

"but hey nothing's perfect i guess", you're right about that. Domination is by no means perfect. But it works the way it's supposed to. There's no reason to replace it, certainly not with a system like this, which takes the fairly simple and straightforward Domination and replaces it with a mildly confusing, convoluted, and quite frankly annoying system of having to go over the map with a fine-toothed comb just to find resources because..... reasons.

To conquer capitals you have to go through the land, enemies are not at your door. So you have to make efforts in order to reach them. It's the same with resource victory. You have to plant settlers near them, or conquer the cities which have them. You don't conquer blindly anymore, you want them because they have a resource that interests you. You want some cities, you are not interested by some others. That puts interest on particular areas of the map, which become highly strategic. IT would be interesting particularly in multiplayer.

But you will still conquer blindly, since any city that doesn't have a strategic resource can still be a threat, and at the very least is an enemy asset that must be denied to him. "Certain areas of the map" wouldn't become highly strategic, because to get a proper victory, you'll still need to conquer everything. Sure, you could race through enemy territory to reach the one desert city that has Oil, but once you've taken it, you're deep behind enemy lines surrounded by cities that can pump out enough Infantry or Mechanised Infantry to retake the city easily. So you still end up conquering everything in your path. This would happen especially in multiplayer compared to singleplayer; the AI is stupid and probably wouldn't be able to capitalise on an advantage like that, and if you're powerful enough might even hand over the last of his other resource cities in a peace agreement. It's human players who absolutely won't do that, and whose other cities you'll need to take over as well in order not to get swamped with rushbought units.

You are reasoning too much with the big theories. If, as suggested Cyon, the Workshop needs only 4 or 6 irons, then you will have to plant an additional city near a source of iron. That does not favorize wide empire over tall ones, that's just one more city, in order to make obsolete resources more valuable for example. That's all.

That I'm "reasoning too much" is not an argument against me, it's a sign that I'm thinking my arguments through. Especially since what I say, well, is true and makes sense. Here, lemme break it down;

Wide empires emphasise expansion over city development. Tall empires emphasise city development over expansion. The current system benefits Tall empires; if you only have three or four cities, you only need to build three or four buildings and the National Wonder will be fairly cheap. In a Wide empire of let's say 20 cities, you'll need to build 20 buildings and the National Wonder will be more expensive (and might not even be worth the upkeep for the 20 buildings required). Wide empires, because they expand wherever they can, will have plenty of resources to spare. Tall empires, because they're smaller and more focused, will have fewer resources and must balance their needs accordingly. One common victory type for Tall empires is culture; the fewer cities they have, the cheaper policies are and the sooner they can get their cultural victory. If they suddenly need 6 Iron for an Ironworks, settling a new city just for that can increase policy costs by 15% just like that, let alone the fact that good city sites are likely to be taken already by the time they reach Machinery, and building the Ironworks suddenly becomes a very bad deal for them. However, since Wide empires have many more resources at their disposal, 6 Iron for the Ironworks is something they can easily spare without affecting their other needs too much. The current system of National Wonders favours Tall empires over Wide ones, in a game where Wide empires have almost everything else going for them; changing it to this system would make it favour Wide empires over Tall ones.

That's not "reasoning too much with the big theories", that's understanding what I'm talking about and understanding the ramifications of this change.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Domination as it is can already be interesting. claestw pointed out in his first post in this thread that it can allow smaller empires to win simply by sniping the capital off of a larger, more dominant empire, like it says in the Civilopedia. It's quite easily avoidable for the larger empire, but it still allows smaller empires to remain somewhat competitive when it comes to a military victory. It still has all of the trappings of the old Conquest victory (destroy your enemies) without all the tedious mopping-up of finding every last iceball city hidden away in the arctic somewhere. Resource Monopoly would reintroduce that aspect in a different way; you'd have to go over the entire map just to see if you missed any random spot of iron, and you could claim victory just by settling a completely worthless, nonviable city there, which makes no sense if you've already rampaged all across the other empires to take their resource deposits.

Domination as it actually is more a total wipeout of civs that it would be with resource victory. Indeed, capitals are never out an empire, you have to conquer many cities in order to reach them. The only exception is when they are coastal.
With resource victory, you could as well conquer a small city on the limit of that civ, and be happy with it.

Furthermore, it wouldn't trigger "interesting resource fights" because the AI can't handle it and all players need to do is keep the city's defences up-to-date and keep a few cavalry units nearby to flank and destroy enemy siege.

Oh now you are telling that it coudln't be interesting because the AI can't be interesting in fights ? Sorry to say you that, but the AI could be competitive in battles, particularly if you are playing to a difficulty level that suits you.

Like I pointed out before, it's quite possible to completely conquer everyone by the Middle Ages, and even if you don't, by the time a player going for a Domination victory gets Astronomy he'll already be far enough ahead of everyone else to basically be able to destroy everyone without too much trouble. Then why would he be forced to settle cities in random spots on the other continent near iron deposits just to get a supposed military victory?

LOL. No, if you play a difficulty level that suits you, you barely don't be '"far enough ahead of everyone else"... So, if you have all the iron deposits of your continent which distribution would be semi random, you could grab the victory with the conquest of the new world.

But you will still conquer blindly, since any city that doesn't have a strategic resource can still be a threat, and at the very least is an enemy asset that must be denied to him. "Certain areas of the map" wouldn't become highly strategic, because to get a proper victory, you'll still need to conquer everything. Sure, you could race through enemy territory to reach the one desert city that has Oil, but once you've taken it, you're deep behind enemy lines surrounded by cities that can pump out enough Infantry or Mechanised Infantry to retake the city easily. So you still end up conquering everything in your path. This would happen especially in multiplayer compared to singleplayer; the AI is stupid and probably wouldn't be able to capitalise on an advantage like that, and if you're powerful enough might even hand over the last of his other resource cities in a peace agreement. It's human players who absolutely won't do that, and whose other cities you'll need to take over as well in order not to get swamped with rushbought units.

No ! You will not conquer blindly, on any maneer. Basically you are saying that in Civ, anyone conquers blindly because remaining cities are a threat. (so even actual Domination would be blind, which has a part of truth i must say) It's very often that when you conquered a city the AI propose a peace deal for example. Don't bring the whole Civ in your contradictory deliriums please.

That I'm "reasoning too much" is not an argument against me, it's a sign that I'm thinking my arguments through. Especially since what I say, well, is true and makes sense. Here, lemme break it down;

you are not "reasonning too much", far from it be assured of it, you are "reasonning too much with the big theories without seeing the simple facts".

Wide empires emphasise expansion over city development. Tall empires emphasise city development over expansion. The current system benefits Tall empires; if you only have three or four cities, you only need to build three or four buildings and the National Wonder will be fairly cheap. In a Wide empire of let's say 20 cities, you'll need to build 20 buildings and the National Wonder will be more expensive (and might not even be worth the upkeep for the 20 buildings required). Wide empires, because they expand wherever they can, will have plenty of resources to spare. Tall empires, because they're smaller and more focused, will have fewer resources and must balance their needs accordingly. One common victory type for Tall empires is culture; the fewer cities they have, the cheaper policies are and the sooner they can get their cultural victory. If they suddenly need 6 Iron for an Ironworks, settling a new city just for that can increase policy costs by 15% just like that, let alone the fact that good city sites are likely to be taken already by the time they reach Machinery, and building the Ironworks suddenly becomes a very bad deal for them. However, since Wide empires have many more resources at their disposal, 6 Iron for the Ironworks is something they can easily spare without affecting their other needs too much. The current system of National Wonders favours Tall empires over Wide ones, in a game where Wide empires have almost everything else going for them; changing it to this system would make it favour Wide empires over Tall empires.

No need of big theories to counter such an argument : the 15% more would be 0% if you prevent yourself to plant your final cities until you discover Iron Working, like it is used to do. Then, you would have cities with iron.

 

[Strategia]

Domination as it actually is more a total wipeout of civs that it would be with resource victory. Indeed, capitals are never out an empire, you have to conquer many cities in order to reach them. The only exception is when they are coastal.
With resource victory, you could as well conquer a small city on the limit of that civ, and be happy with it.

Except for the fact that no human player is going to let you get away with their only source of whichever strategic resource you're going for. That means you'll have to destroy them anyway in order to win. Let alone the fact that any kind of decent empire, even a Tall one, is unlikely to only have one peripheral city with that particular resource, so conquering a small city on the border is unlikely to be the bare minimum of what you need anyway.

Oh now you are telling that it coudln't be interesting because the AI can't be interesting in fights ? Sorry to say you that, but the AI could be competitive in battles, particularly if you are playing to a difficulty level that suits you.

Take a look around the forum. The AI is fairly universally acknowledged as weak. It can't handle 1UPT nearly as well as a human player can, and it is absolutely dreadful at anything regarding the navy. (I once played a game where the entirety of the American navy was about 20-30 empty Carriers, all huddled together near their coastline. They also kept sending Mechanised Infantry on suicide landings against a city-state I was allied with, despite perfectly good landing grounds being available just below it.) So no, the AI isn't competitive on its own.

It could be, and I wholeheartedly support that, but it's not going to magically change if you alter one of the possible victory conditions. That has nothing to do with AI behaviour.

LOL. No, if you play a difficulty level that suits you, you barely don't be '"far enough ahead of everyone else"... So, if you have all the iron deposits of your continent which distribution would be semi random, you could grab the victory with the conquest of the new world.

Except for the fact that owning all the iron deposits on the old continent automatically puts you in a position to dominate everybody else, if you're still hanging around in the Middle Ages or early Renaissance. I know I said before that it's possible to win against an iron-equipped civ without iron of your own, but that's at least partially because the AI just isn't that good, and if the AI doesn't have iron but you do, you have a humongous advantage over them.

No ! You will not conquer blindly, on any maneer. Basically you are saying that in Civ, anyone conquers blindly because remaining cities are a threat. (so even actual Domination would be blind, which has a part of truth i must say) It's very often that when you conquered a city the AI propose a peace deal for example.

Yes, and since the AI can't properly comprehend how valuable certain cities are, it's possible to conquer one half of an AI civ's iron cities, and get the other half in the peace deal, earning you a victory through treaty. It's way too open for abuse.

Don't bring the whole Civ in your contradictory deliriums please.

Don't make personal attacks.

you are not "reasonning too much", far from it be assured of it, you are "reasonning too much with the big theories without seeing the simple facts".

No need of big theories to counter such an argument : the 15% more would be 0% if you prevent yourself to plant your final cities until you discover Iron Working, like it is used to do. Then, you would have cities with iron.

You're missing my point. Yes, it's possible for Tall empires to cough up the resources required. It's just not a good idea. Wide empires naturally have more resources at their disposal, and they can always spare 6 iron to build an Ironworks somewhere. Tall empires naturally have fewer resources, and so it's more important for them to use the resources they do have for military units to keep the Wide empire off their back. A Wide empire with 30 Iron can spare 6 Iron for and Ironworks without a second thought. A Tall empire with 10 Iron could cripple their military if they use 6 Iron for an Ironworks. That's not "without seeing the simple facts", those are the simple facts. Quite aside from the fact that "simple facts" are meaningless without "big theories".

 

[Naokaukodem]

Except for the fact that no human player is going to let you get away with their only source of whichever strategic resource you're going for.

If they are not an immediate threat i don't see why I should care. After all I would have beaten their army in order to take only one of their cities, so I would be quiet for a certain amount of time. And, I could just defend for the future if they become agressive again, which is less likely to happen and probably went for a peacefull victory, not to mention the fact that the ressource may have become obsolete except for domination. And if that happens, fine it's the goal of the idea : to have interesting resource fights.

See, all what you do is finding excuses that can't stand a first fire. I wonder what you will find next time.

That means you'll have to destroy them anyway in order to win. Let alone the fact that any kind of decent empire, even a Tall one, is unlikely to only have one peripheral city with that particular resource, so conquering a small city on the border is unlikely to be the bare minimum of what you need anyway.

It is as much unlikely as the semi random resource generation would allow. To let you figure it out well, just imagine that you need to have all iron of a Civ5 game. It's far to be the same thing than conquering any single bit of cities.

Take a look around the forum. The AI is fairly universally acknowledged as weak. It can't handle 1UPT nearly as well as a human player can, and it is absolutely dreadful at anything regarding the navy. (I once played a game where the entirety of the American navy was about 20-30 empty Carriers, all huddled together near their coastline. They also kept sending Mechanised Infantry on suicide landings against a city-state I was allied with, despite perfectly good landing grounds being available just below it.) So no, the AI isn't competitive on its own.

It could be, and I wholeheartedly support that, but it's not going to magically change if you alter one of the possible victory conditions. That has nothing to do with AI behaviour.

Well then it would change nothing, the AI is not more able to establish a plan in order to take or liberate a taken capital nowadays that it should be able to elaborate a plan in order to take a resource city. It would change nothing, except in multiplayer.

By the way, the only thing AI have to fight against domination in Civ5 are diplomacy modifiers. One can easily imagine that a diplo modifier would apply if the player starts to have a lot of one given resource.

And, if your goal with resource victory is to have more resource fights, you will sure be sure that the AI can handle them. The Ai landing on a hostile CS territory is only a problem of pathfinding, that the player has also. (city states can be go through even when at war with, that's a pathfinding rule for every civ even the players' ones.)

Except for the fact that owning all the iron deposits on the old continent automatically puts you in a position to dominate everybody else, if you're still hanging around in the Middle Ages or early Renaissance. I know I said before that it's possible to win against an iron-equipped civ without iron of your own, but that's at least partially because the AI just isn't that good, and if the AI doesn't have iron but you do, you have a humongous advantage over them.

You know, the new continent is populated also. And in Civ it's rare that the other civ are stuck as Aztecs and the like were stuck without gunpowder.

Yes, and since the AI can't properly comprehend how valuable certain cities are, it's possible to conquer one half of an AI civ's iron cities, and get the other half in the peace deal, earning you a victory through treaty. It's way too open for abuse.

When the civs propose in peace deals cities, it's that they are fairly beaten anyway. Most of the time it just make things faster, and yet, it's yet to be prooven. (sometimes yes sometimes no because peace treaties are pretty long)

You're missing my point. Yes, it's possible for Tall empires to cough up the resources required. It's just not a good idea. Wide empires naturally have more resources at their disposal, and they can always spare 6 iron to build an Ironworks somewhere. Tall empires naturally have fewer resources, and so it's more important for them to use the resources they do have for military units to keep the Wide empire off their back. A Wide empire with 30 Iron can spare 6 Iron for and Ironworks without a second thought. A Tall empire with 10 Iron could cripple their military if they use 6 Iron for an Ironworks. That's not "without seeing the simple facts", those are the simple facts. Quite aside from the fact that "simple facts" are meaningless without "big theories".

Then you'll have to choose between military and wonders. After all it's not like you wouldn't be able to beat the AI without iron. Would make much a feeling of achievement. Seriously I believe that 4 iron is enough to take the AI away, you don't need catapults to defend, crossbows are better on the field. Plus you could delay your wonder until you have gunpowder. The solutions are numerous.