Still no salt as a resource?

[Kamamura]

Salt was one of the most important resources in both ancient and medieval times. Several words originated from it - like salary, idiom "he is worth his salt", and so on.

I am amazed that it never appeared in Civ - instead, we have resources like banana. Duh!

 

[Tennyson]

Salt is so important that you wouldn't really find a civilization without it.

 

[westward]

Salt was one of the most important resources in both ancient and medieval times. Several words originated from it - like salary, idiom "he is worth his salt", and so on.

I am amazed that it never appeared in Civ - instead, we have resources like banana. Duh!

Bananas are more intuitive then salt is. Bananas = food. Easy. What would salt be? Production? Commerce?

A player should see a resource and know, at first glance, what effect it has on the game. Salt doesn't fit that description. Duh.

 

[Kamamura]

Salt was tremendously important, since it allowed preservation, and hence stockpiling of food. Therefore, it should count as a food production bonus, reducing spoilage.

Easy enough to understand - duh.

 

[Revoran]

While technically not a spice, it is a condiment - I guess you could pretend it came under spices?

Anyways you could easily mod it in or ask someone to mod it in. Hell, i'd like to see alternatives to Wheat in other tile-sets (I remember them saying they had different textures for Africa, Asia, America and Europe). Corn in the Americas and Rice in Asia.

Bananas would be better off being called "Tropical Fruits" or just "Fruits".

I'd say salt should confer an economic bonus as even though it's original use was to preserve meat it's economic importance came to eclipse it's actual importance.

Having Coal used for slightly more things and having Tin (which is rarer than copper) required for units between bronze working and iron working would be nice. Though it would only work if they moved Bronze Working to earlier in the Ancient Era.

 

[matt112986]

Salt was tremendously important, since it allowed preservation, and hence stockpiling of food. Therefore, it should count as a food production bonus, reducing spoilage.

Easy enough to understand - duh.

I would've thought of it more as a commerce tile since it doesn't actually give any food.

 

[Scramble]

Salt seems (to me) to fall under the category of "well duh"...
A good chunk of "well duh" resources aren't included in civ games... Like Lumber and Stone. Lumber was a huge resource for very many civs IRL, but there is really no "Lumber" resource. It is kinda implied with things like "lack of production" and such. Usable stone was used in Civ IV but not in civ V.
Thats how i justify it anyway.

 

[Kamamura]

Salt reduces spoilage, because it acts as a conservant - that was the most important property of it, not just improving taste. So it does "give" food in a sense, because less is wasted.

Long-lasting food supplies make settlements less prone to famines and seasonal anomalies.

Unlike bananas, that are just a seasonal food source and never contributed to rise to any significant civilizations. There were no caravans transporting painfully bananas for large distances, but there were salt caravans that were very important.

You must understand that salt was hard to come by for inland, pre-industrial nations. You had to mine it, and that was laborious and expensive enterprise.

 

[Lancor]

Salt is so important that you wouldn't really find a civilization without it.

This.

It just doesn't really fit into the ressource system by it's nature...
Salt is everywhere accessible. Sure, there are greater depots at some spots in the world, but for the everyday care, before globalization and capitalism checked in, or even before the Hanse days, people only created bigger settlements where they could find at least a bit of salt which was enough for their needs. Salt is everywhere for this needs...

So only a greater depot would make sense as a commerce ressource. But we only gut luxury and strategic ressources at the moment.

 

[smileylad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQggo3AfP30

 

[Kamamura]

You might for example read this

http://mygeologypage.ucdavis.edu/cowen/~GEL115/salt.html

to better understand.

You cannot really comare it to lumber - lumber was plentiful and accessinble in all temperate areas. Salt was not.

 

[Terrance888]

An entire city formed out of what was previously waring tribes due to salt.

It was called Halsatt.

 

[Kamamura]

This.

It just doesn't really fit into the ressource system by it's nature...
Salt is everywhere accessible. Sure, there are greater depots at some spots in the world, but for the everyday care, before globalization and capitalism checked in, or even before the Hanse days, people only settled where they could find at least a bit of salt which was enough for their needs. Salt is everywhere for this needs...

So only a greater depot would make sense as a commerce ressource. But we only gut luxury and strategic ressources at the moment.

Salt was NOT accessible everywhere. On the contrary, it was relatively rare.

 

[westward]

Salt was tremendously important, since it allowed preservation, and hence stockpiling of food. Therefore, it should count as a food production bonus, reducing spoilage.

Easy enough to understand - duh.

The fact that you need an explanation as to why it's a food and not a luxury proves it's a poor choice for a resource. It's nonintuitive. Bananas are food. Cows are food. People didn't sit around at dinner and eat mounds of salt. I'm not saying salt wasn't important; using it as a resource would be a poor design choice.

 

[Terrance888]

Easy, give salt a Percentage bonus. +5% food storage rate per salt resource.

 

[Kamamura]

Well, I assumed the game is targetted to relatively educated audience.

There were wars for salt. There was no war for banana, or mutton. Duh.

 

[matt112986]

Extending the life of food and increasing the total amount of food is not the same thing. Since your empire is constantly producing food you never run out, instead you reach a point where you are consuming all you produce. Salt isn't used for all food either. Your example may make more sense if it increased the food output of certain tiles such as pig - maybe a building that increases those plots for a city.

You could also say it allows you to get food from further away since it can be preserved, allowing you to get food from tiles further away.

 

[stealth_nsk]

There's a freakillion things not included in Civ. You can't have them all. If you think a feature is absolutely needed - make a mod.

 

[Kamamura]

Besides, the game has "sugar" as a resource, but not salt. Ridiculous.

 

[VikingMaekel]

Salt today has no longer the relevance it used to have, it's no longer expensive or rare. Would be kind of strange for a modern civilization to war over salt