Should Civ 4 reflect generalized resource shortage?

[whereagles]

In today's world, oil and other non-renewable resources are becoming more and more scarce. Civ, as it stands, does not reproduce this reality. Resources are basically unlimited. You may have to fight for one or two, but once you get it, it's permanent (provided you don't lose the territory.. lol).

The question is whether in Civ stuff like oil and uranium should deplete after, say, 100 years of usage, leaving the players of post-oil-crash without the chance to build tanks, fighters, bombers and stuff, and shutting down production bonuses from coal plants.

Implementation would be simple: resources vanish from the map, and production increases would be based mainly on solar plants. As players research future technology, the solar plants efficiency would increase productivity. Start from, say, 25% production increase + 1% per each 3 or 5 levels of future technology). This would also encourage players to keep funding research after the final techs have been researched.

A small fleet of tanks and bombers could be mantained via some tech advance like "alternative fuels" (in today's world this means biodiesel, hydrogen cells, etc.). Again, something like 1 oil-based unit per 3 or 5 levels of future tech.

Of course, to reflect civil unrest, from the period of oil shortage to the period of reliable clean technology, we would have massive uprising in towns, say 5 extra unhappy citizens, -1 per each 10-15 levels of future tech.

This would definitely affect playability, but would be very realistic.

What do you think?

 

[Reinhard]

An interesting idea. In a typical game everything just gets better and better. It would be nice to have a peak point where everything is just fine and dandy and from there on it's downhill all the way to the bitter end!

 

[Axord]

I've had iron sources run out on me before, and I've found new resources by clearing a forest. Very rare events, though.

I wouldn't mind that kind of thing happening more often.

As for the realism of a transfer to alternative sources of energy, it's a path that the world is yet to really take. And Civ tends to deal with history more then predictions. Solar and geothermal might be the future, or perhaps cold fusion, or maybe the oil really is produced by living microbes rather then dino graves, and is thus renewable.

 

[Ivan the Kulak]

This would be neat given a quantified resource system. Up through the early industrial age, new resources could constantly be discovered. However, by 2000 or so the game would be putting less and less resources onto random tiles for the player/AI to discover. While you wouldn't run completely out, getting enough oil/steel/coal to maintain the huge army civ3 players are accustomed to having would be problematic.

 

[SniperDevil]

There have been a few occasion while playin C3C where my iron and oil has been depleted.

 

[whereagles]

Of course running out of stuff would be problematic It's one *really* big problem the real world will have to solve. And it will have to solve it soon! (Just look at gas prices soaring..)

If scarcity were implemented, Civ itself could become the first testing ground/simulator for what would happen in a world scale economy. Politicians could even learn something from it!!! Like for instance plan things in advance.. lol

 

[Crazy Eskimo]

On one hand, I see a lot of potential in this idea. A lack of certain resources (such as iron) definitely affected how certain civilizations developed their weapons.

On the other, I see potential problems, due to how limited the available resources in Civ are. For instance, I'm sure is the supply of a certain resource was especially tight (let's say, oil), then the leader of that nation would try to find an alternate resource, such as solar power or natural gas. Yet, as things stand, there's no way to switch to solar-powered tanks or something similar.

If you're going to work in depletion into the game, you also need to somehow simulate how adaptable the human race can be. That could be difficult.

 

[I am the Future]

It would be nice if they had it possible for oil and other resources to run out but they would have to have a tech that would make them obsolete. I meen even the ing that dont run out arnt needed any more. look at rubber. Or Aluminum. These resources are vital but easily obtainable. So by havening a future tech called Alternative fuels oil would be obsolete. Now as for uranium it should stay obsoleete. Also the ability to stock pile should exist allowing you too keep these obsoleete resources for a few more turns.

 

[GoodGame]

Just use CIVEDIT. The ability to adjust appearance and disappearance rates of resources is already there for CIV3C.

 

[Urederra]

They could implement a technology that allows you to look for oil and other resources. So, the number of oil deposits that appear when you discover combustions is limited and it depects after certain time. Then, you discover oil prospection and you have to build a prospector (special worker unit for land or ship for coast/sea/ocean?) and spend one or two turns per tile looking for hidden resources inside your territory.

So, at the beginning, you don't see the resource, but, after prospecting, the resource appears if that particular tile has that particular resource you are looking for. They can be deplected after certain time, as well.

Is that a good idea or what?

 

[bkwrm79]

I agree, the game would need to allow you to synthesize artificial substances, adapt, etc.

And things like solar power are complex... indeed, all forms of clean power save nuclear are unreliable. Solar, wind etc. vary constantly in energy production, and thus cannot be relied on to power a city, and cannot be miniaturized to power a tank. (They can play important roles in charging hydrogen fuel cells, as that technology advances.)

Powering cities requires either burning fossil fuels or using nuclear energy. There's nothing even remotely in development that will change that. And nuclear energy has its own problems, of course.

 

[vbraun]

I rember hearing something about being able to make oil later in the game.

 

[The_Architect]

Yeah! Nice idea. Implementable too.
And btw, resources do disapper randomly based on probability set in the editor.

Then oil should be replaced by synthetic oil. A clever player wuold start using synthetic oil soon after he researches it and keeps his reserve for selling to technologically less advanced nations and earn lots of $$$$ !!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

My biggest problem with the resource model is two-fold. (1) There is no sense of how large a resource deposit is. It would be great if resources came in different sizes, because then it would allow even a small nation to get a virtual monopoly on a resource-just because he got a couple of good sized deposits of them.
(2) The chance of a resource appearing or disappearing have no relation-whatever -to player actions. I would love it if a player did not automatically see all resource deposits when a tech was discovered, but actually had to invest money into turning them up-perhaps with a bonus if the resource is on a worked tile and/or within a cities radius or a nations border.
With disappearance, how much is being used should determine that. The number of cities the civ has, the total number (and combined sizes) of the deposits, and the number of units the player has that are dependant on the resource should all play a role in whether or not a resource disappears. Not simply some random number generator.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[whereagles]

Indeed. The resource shortage idea is open to a large debate as to how it should be implemented. However, it probably won't be a feature of Civ 4 (except for modders), but it may be something to think about for Civ 5. A setup button for shortages ON/OFF would be interesting to see.

 

[CyberChrist]

Resources that 'depletes' in Civ3 don't disappear as such from that game - they merely appear as a 'new' source on another location on the map. So while it can be annoying to loose a resource you can always go invade the country where it reappeared.

I sincerely hope they have improved the resource system and made it more realistic - and non-binary.

 

[NP300]

Resource shortages are only an issue for energy resources, especially for the fossil fuels. For non-energy resources, the stores in the Earth's crust are so vast that we won't be running out of them anytime soon. Even then, they could simply be recycled.

As for uranium, the stocks are vast enough that they could meet the entire planet's energy needs for billions of years, provided that breeder reactors are used: http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/cohen.html

Coal stores are enough for several hundred years. Oil is the only resource that may start to go scarce in the near-future. Even then, oil can be synthesized, albeit at a high cost.

Since civ ends in 2050, resource depletion therefore shouldn't be an issue in the civ time-scale except perhaps for oil.

Here are the results of an interesting bet between Ehrlich, a prophet of scarcity, and an economist:

http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/People/julian_simon.html

 

[farting bob]

I think each resource should have a set amount that caries from tile to tile, and wheras some would be able to be replenished (food, etc) other wouldnt (oil, other minerals). So it would be possible to find 1 tile with only a few turns of oil on, but another where it could have 200 turns of oil on.
And to make it more realistic, the resource could deplete faster the more units you have that requrie that resource. that would surely stop people from building 500 tanks and just leaving them in a stack for 20 turns.
Of course, there would have to be a way of finding more, otherwise by the time everyone hit the modern era, alot of the resources would be totally gone.

 

[Himalia]

I think that limited resources would be a great add on. Something i hope dwould happen when Civ III came out. Oil does not last forever just to make one example. The same goes for gold mines etc. Also the amiunt that lets say an Iron mine can produce in a turn is important as you will need these resources to build whatever it is you currently want that requires Iron. So even when a mine does run out you could still have a stockpile to use for a while or prehaps even trade with someone.

 

[CiverDan]

I sould say no in the core game, simply because the game only goes to the present time, and no such shortages currently exist (when this would happen in reality is for another thread...) Also, I dont want the game to end with no one able to build tanks. on planes.