Salt

[IAM]

I think salt is an important historical resource that should be considered.

It would need to transition through history as to it's effects. Perhaps salt could double a health meat resoure like cows, pigs, fish, or sheep. It could also boost commerce +1 until granaries then +2 until currency then obsolete it's financial value. It could loose it's health bonus once you reach refrigeration technology.

Well on second thought maybe that's too big a bonus for salt. How about +1 health for every two resources that it preserves?

That being said I think civ 4 does a great job of providing a general realistic simulation.

 

[Merkinball]

Salt should be important right up through history. It's degree of importance should indeed change. But even in the modern age, it should at least provide extra commerce and maybe an extra smily face.

In industrial times, entire cities and regions were running on salt mines. Huge salt mines and salt brines are major sources of industry in WNY to this day still.

It should definitely take precidence over other resources in the game.

 

[Bookworm2007]

I would make it a prerequisite for building granaries, since salt was essential for food preservation in some parts of the world.

I don't think that would be very easy to do because of how important granaries are in the early game. Do you want to have to go find salt first thing in the game just so you can build granaries?

 

[bonafide11]

Salt should be included, and Cotton should be included as well. But it's okay if Civ overlooks a couple significant resources.

 

[Ozymandias]

Salt should be important right up through history. It's degree of importance should indeed change. But even in the modern age, it should at least provide extra commerce and maybe an extra smily face.

In industrial times, entire cities and regions were running on salt mines. Huge salt mines and salt brines are major sources of industry in WNY to this day still.

It should definitely take precidence over other resources in the game.

It should definitely supercede saltpeter, which (literally) can be found in dung heaps.

-Oz

 

[Mango]

Salt is considered a spice. It's not a spice, but it was used to cure meat and thus can be lumped together with the whole "spice" resource. I think this is fair enough.

Besides, too many resources would be bad. Unless of course you're going to have it set to where certain resources appear only every so often. For example, you might not have tea in certain games and other times you might not have dye. Sometimes you'll have cotton and sometimes you'll have salt. Sometimes there will be no incense and sometimes there will be no sugar. I think this could add some flavor to the game while not messing with the balance.

 

[AThousandYoung]

People were making salt by solar evaporation around the Mediterranean in Classical times. I read that book about salt. Very, very good book.

 

[gettingfat]

Salt is a very important resource. In ancient China a quarter of the government funding came from monopolizing iron and salt sales. It's huge.

Another missing resource with strong historical significance is tea.

 

[AThousandYoung]

France had some interesting salt tax laws. Different parts of the country paid different amounts.

 

[cybrxkhan]

salt is now in many of the food of people who live in America. espeically fast food.

 

[Tee Kay]

Salt dominates trade in West Africa, Europe, North America. It keeps the Chinese bureaucracy funded for 2,000 years. Salt march of Gandhi, industrial revolution, et cetera. Yes salt should be a resource.

Other resources that should be added are cotton, tea and coffee.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Other resources that should be added are cotton, tea and coffee.

with salt, those are the four resources that should be in civ. im surprised none of them were ever included.

 

[gettingfat]

with salt, those are the four resources that should be in civ. im surprised none of them were ever included.

I think to some extent the game designer try not to put in too many happiness/health resources in the game for fear of making the constraints of city growth too insignificant. Say if one player can easily have 5 happiness resources in early game nobody will care about researching monarchy or building temple.

I truly believe the resource-hapiness/healthiness system may need a major overhaul in Civ5 (I hope it exist). I'll suggest two directions.

For one, the population-happiness/healthiness demand-supply curve right now is strictly linear. In reality when the pop grows, it will hit a critical mass at some point when the demand for resources become disproportionally high. Maybe when the city grows to 10, each additional pop point will consume 2 happiness point instead of 1 to remain happy? This will allow incorporation of more resources in the game (I'll even suggest producing new "combined resource" if you have the right mix), and makes certain features in the game more important (e.g. those supermarket, recycling plants, environmentalism, using the culture slidebar, etc).

They also need to find a way to include the concept of quantity/limit to the resources. I don't know how. But one single cow can feed people in 40 cities makes no sense, one gold mine does not exhaust after 4000 years makes no sense. Seriously Civ5 IMHO needs more than adding more graphics or other trivial tricks on top of Civ4. A breakthru conceptual change is really required.

 

[Bookworm2007]

Well then there needs to be a way to add the changes that gettingfat were thinking about (which make sense to me) without making the game too complex. That's what i've liked about the civ series is how realistic yet simple it is.

 

[cybrxkhan]

I think to some extent the game designer try not to put in too many happiness/health resources in the game for fear of making the constraints of city growth too insignificant. Say if one player can easily have 5 happiness resources in early game nobody will care about researching monarchy or building temple.

I truly believe the resource-hapiness/healthiness system may need a major overhaul in Civ5 (I hope it exist). I'll suggest two directions.

For one, the population-happiness/healthiness demand-supply curve right now is strictly linear. In reality when the pop grows, it will hit a critical mass at some point when the demand for resources become disproportionally high. Maybe when the city grows to 10, each additional pop point will consume 2 happiness point instead of 1 to remain happy? This will allow incorporation of more resources in the game (I'll even suggest producing new "combined resource" if you have the right mix), and makes certain features in the game more important (e.g. those supermarket, recycling plants, environmentalism, using the culture slidebar, etc).

They also need to find a way to include the concept of quantity/limit to the resources. I don't know how. But one single cow can feed people in 40 cities makes no sense, one gold mine does not exhaust after 4000 years makes no sense. Seriously Civ5 IMHO needs more than adding more graphics or other trivial tricks on top of Civ4. A breakthru conceptual change is really required.

true. they had to kick out some resources in place for others... but would one or two resources really hurt... maybe. don't worry, Civ is a long and ancient franchise, with creativity and glory all along... somehow, somewhere, hopefully we'll get closer to real history. and still keep the simplicity and fun

 

[norse]

At the very least, having Salt should enable the French Fry Wonder, increasing Happiness but decreasing Health in all of your cities.

Pretty funny. Or the margarita resource!