Salt

[Rain]

saltpeter is potassium nitrate - it ain't a spice.

heeh used in explosives manufacturing in the early days - a salt with a different flavor. Actaully saltpetre was a resource in civ 3 or some game i played maybe CTP - i think required for gunpowder.

Salt is an essential resource but in the same sense as food in general - no salt - you dead - so i think its really covered under the basic food tile - but it is an interesting point.

 

[Rain]

Perhaps the presence of salt as a resource should be allowed to create Heart Disease, which is only cured by the presence of a building called The Graveyard.

I think if folks died from eating a lot of salt - the population of the earth would be half what it is - the problem derives what they put it on which nowadays tends to be greasy food whereas in older times it was meat and fish for the most part.

 

[Haiku_42]

I also believe the game needs to increase the gold production in sea or oceanic tiles later in the game. The advantage of cottage over sea is just a bit too much.

Good point. We could have a late "balneal station" improvement that increase the coastal tile by +1c

 

[Master Lexx]

So, I introduced 9 new bonus resources in GreenMod! http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=144428

Salt, "Tea", Sulphur, Cotton, Lemons, Potatos, Coffee, Pearls

All with new icons, and 3d textures.

 

[zeeter]

Isn't the English word Salary derived from "Sal" or salt or something like that because the latin speaking romans would pay their soldiers with it?

Yes - "salary" comes from being paid in salt.

 

[zeeter]

For once I've got to agree with this whole salt notion. It is a HUGE natural resource. Salt mines have been around for centuries and are very common in areas that used to be underwater. Lakes would form when the plates merged and cut off parts of the ocean. Those lakes would dry up and the salt would be deposited. Plates would continue to merge and the salt deposits would be underground.

There is at least one major church in Europe that was carved out of a salt mine. Salt mines were also used as air-raid shelters during WWII.

 

[Kamamura]

There was also "Old Salt Route" in Germany:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Salt_Route

Phoenicians were the first to extract salt from seawater, and when they started selling it, it cost more than gold in some areas!

 

[BadHorsie]

Ok, I think you guys have read a little too much into salt. Or maybe it's just because it's first thing in the morning

All the same, I agree that it would be a good resource to have in the desert, as the terrain is pretty much useless for anything else. I don't know about a prerequisite to granaries though, as they're a pretty important basic building.

 

[King Flevance]

It should simply be a food resource like cows if they brought it in.

 

[Rince]

Isn't the English word Salary derived from "Sal" or salt or something like that because the latin speaking romans would pay their soldiers with it?

Straight from Merriam Webster:

Salt: Etymology: Middle English salarie, from Latin salarium pension, salary, from neuter of salarius of salt, from sal salt.

Greetings,

Rince

 

[Meffy]

This is also the origin of the term "worth his salt" meaning "worth what we pay him." I suspect "salt of the earth" is from the same root; doesn't seem likely to be a Carthaginian phrase. =8-O

Lexx: "Tea" with scare quotes? :-D

 

[Phantom_Lord]

salt could give you extra health from seafood or perhaps cattle, just like granary gives extra health for grains

 

[bornfromanegg]

saltpeter is potassium nitrate - it ain't a spice.

i saw an apparently very good recipe for some kind of porridge that included gunpowder as a spice that Napolean's troops ate when they had no food in Russia. It also included axle grease from thier carts. i dont think it could've tasted that good.

amber is another luxury resource for modding in, if you like lots of resources. i wonder if there is a limit to the number of resources you can add to the game.

 

[Brighteye]

I think if folks died from eating a lot of salt - the population of the earth would be half what it is - the problem derives what they put it on which nowadays tends to be greasy food whereas in older times it was meat and fish for the most part.

The problem is how much exercise people do and how much fluid people drink. Salt screws you like a pillaging soldier does a native woman. Eating grease just makes it a whole lot worse.
The problem nowadays is the lack of exercise that people do, and also that people don't drink enough water. In older times people actually did strange things like walking.

 

[Meffy]

Yet More Useless Trivia: Napoleon III was responsible for the invention of margarine. He sponsored a prize for whomever could come up with a usable replacement for butter, cheap enough to feed to the military... and the poor. =9_9= Ah well, such are the ways of progress! Wonder whether it was the memory of toasted bootsoles with lashings of axle grease that inspired him?

 

[Yooka]

Hey, I normally don't necro old threads, but seeing as how time is a major factor for me, I just wanted to know if there were any mods out there the community could recommend for me. I wanna play a mod with salt as a resource, that works with Warlords, and isn't as totally game changing as, say Amra's Modpack. Anything? Very much appreciated.

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

Salt was an important resource, and yes, wars WERE fought over it, but still, the problem was that most civs did find ways to obtain it somehow. The reason why other resources were included instead was because they were ONLY locally produced, and some parts of the world simply CANNOT produce them. That, and the coastal tiles thing.

However, with the same logic, I believe:
- dye does not need to be included (grouped under silk)
- sugar should be grouped under spices
- tea needs to be included if wine is

But overall, the luxuries were well-done because the ones chosen were of historical significance. Only gripe is their obselence. Sugar and spices (and everything bad) are contributors of bad health today, but in the past, they were preservatives or actual dietiary supplements. Actually, obselence need not be technological, but social.

My suggestion: scientific method should obselete salt, sugar, spices, tea and wine, dye, silk.

 

[Ozymandias]

Salt was an important resource, and yes, wars WERE fought over it, but still, the problem was that most civs did find ways to obtain it somehow.

In medieval sub-Saharan Africa, gold dust was traded on a 1:1 basis with salt. To mod this, I would suggest making salt a necessity for Settlers for any civ located between desert and jungle.

BTW I agree with you as to when to make them obsolete.

Best,

Oz

 

[obliterate]

Seeing as salt was mainly used as a presevative up until the early twentieth century and still is today why not make refrigeration obsolete salt.

Also salt is used as a resource in the 'Unification of China' scenario.

 

[Ozymandias]

Seeing as salt was mainly used as a presevative up until the early twentieth century and still is today why not make refrigeration obsolete salt.

Good point. Taking matters to an extreme, for a Medieval European scenario, I've been mulling over making fish a strategic resource, and making fish and salt necessary to build cathedrals (meatless Fridays in the Middle Ages meant eating fish, no matter how far inland you might have been).

-Oz