Strategic resources in Civ 6

[Magil]

I'm rather surprised people are so attached to V's system. I never though it was all that great. More annoying than anything, and easily exploitable (selling strategic resources to the AI in small quantities for massive gold).

But it's easy to get the impression that for the duration of production, it does...

That would be a very strange assumption to make, in my view. VI's system is very similar to how it worked in III/IV, except that you need either 2 sources or an encampment (or applicable district/building for the specific type of unit) rather than just 1 all the time, and you didn't need multiple copies of a resource in III/IV to produce multiple units simultaneously.

So basically if you have more than 2 copies of a Strategic resource at any one time, then it's a complete waste other than for trading it away?

Yes. Much like luxury resources (though there doesn't seem to be a reason to even have 2 luxuries).

 

[Calcifer]

AFAIK, with each copy of the same luxury giving 1 amenity to 4 cities, having multiple copies of a luxury gives amenities to more cities.

 

[Mort_Q]

So basically if you have more than 2 copies of a Strategic resource at any one time, then it's a complete waste other than for trading it away?

If you have it, your opponents don't. That's not a complete waste.

 

[Cuneiform]

AFAIK, with each copy of the same luxury giving 1 amenity to 4 cities, having multiple copies of a luxury gives amenities to more cities.

Correct there is an advantage to having multiple copies of a Luxury, even if it's only with larger Empires.

By the same token, there should be some advantage for having more than 2 copies of a Strategic Resource. I still think there's some merit to controlling the amount of Strategic Units you can simultaneously produce, by the amount of Resource you have. It would control the rate that the "Haves" could pump them out at the expense of the "Have nots".

 

[Calcifer]

What about each copy of a strategic resource reducing the cost of their units? Something like -5% for each copy. That is the only idea that comes to my mind. It doesn't seem like a real issue to me anyway, with tiles giving only 1 copy each there won't be all those useless copies.

 

[Magil]

AFAIK, with each copy of the same luxury giving 1 amenity to 4 cities, having multiple copies of a luxury gives amenities to more cities.

Correct there is an advantage to having multiple copies of a Luxury, even if it's only with larger Empires.

By the same token, there should be some advantage for having more than 2 copies of a Strategic Resource. I still think there's some merit to controlling the amount of Strategic Units you can simultaneously produce, by the amount of Resource you have. It would control the rate that the "Haves" could pump them out at the expense of the "Have nots".

I believe this was clarified such that you actually cannot benefit from a luxury multiple times, even if you have two or more sources and enough cities. I'm not 100% on this information but it seems to be the case. So two resources won't benefit eight cities.

This is what I've gotten from the videos and Civilopedia screenshots, but if somebody can prove me wrong here I'd be rather happy about it.

 

[Calcifer]

I believe this was clarified such that you actually cannot benefit from a luxury multiple times, even if you have two or more sources and enough cities. I'm not 100% on this information but it seems to be the case. So two resources won't benefit eight cities.

This is what I've gotten from the videos and Civilopedia screenshots, but if somebody can prove me wrong here I'd be rather happy about it.

There is nothing official about this, but I think the most popular opinion on this forum is that you can benefit from multiple copies. An interesting discussion about it can be found here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/amenities-4-per-resource-or-per-source.576024/

 

[jtakau]

Correct there is an advantage to having multiple copies of a Luxury, even if it's only with larger Empires.

By the same token, there should be some advantage for having more than 2 copies of a Strategic Resource. I still think there's some merit to controlling the amount of Strategic Units you can simultaneously produce, by the amount of Resource you have. It would control the rate that the "Haves" could pump them out at the expense of the "Have nots".

It would actually be quite neat mechanism if you would need one/two copies of strategic resource for each unit in production. So with two copies you could have two cities with Encampments working on such unit, etc.

The overall number would still be limited only by maintenance, but Civs with more resources would be able to produce units faster (produce more simultaneously) than Civs without similar amount of resources.

This would make location more important (should I use the Empire's entire production capacity to push out unit in a city near border but without Encampment or produce two units in further away core cities that have legacy encampments). Of course this would make trade in strategic resources highly unlikely, further limiting the trade dimension.

 

[mzprox]

What about each copy of a strategic resource reducing the cost of their units? Something like -5% for each copy. That is the only idea that comes to my mind. It doesn't seem like a real issue to me anyway, with tiles giving only 1 copy each there won't be all those useless copies.

THis is a good idea, but maybe could work like this: If you have a resource you get +25% prodution boost towards the unit, every other resource increase this boost by +5% up to 50%.
And then maybe you get free maintenance for these units, one for each copy of resource you have.
This way not having these resources doesn't make you defenseless, but worth getting as much as you can. Still you an trade them away if you really have to.

 

[Browd]

There is nothing official about this, but I think the most popular opinion on this forum is that you can benefit from multiple copies. An interesting discussion about it can be found here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/amenities-4-per-resource-or-per-source.576024/

Just because an opinion is popular, doesn't mean it's right.

 

[Josephias]

I know, but it's like: what's the point? The encampment just seems like a weird requirement. You're not always going to have access to two of a particular resource, and if you do, you're more than likely going to build an encampment anyway to build strong units. Is it just there to allow players to trade away the extra resources they may have? But if you only need one resource anyway, who's gonna want to trade? And it's still gonna feel bad not having a particular resource. Especially since certain resources seem to dominate certain eras. You'll just be stuck with bad units at those times.

The encampment requirement is not weird if you consider it a mean of efficiency. That is, to have a valid army with a base town, you will need two copies of the resource, because out of training accidents, misuse, overprotection... there is more than one single resource amount used to get the unit up and running.

Now, you have an encampment, there you concéntrate the people that know how to use the weapons, and that know how to make them. You have proper training leading to less resources being wasted. You have combat experience coming in and telling the weaponmasters where to put the resource and where it is not necessary.... then, the amount of resource to get the same army is reduced, to the point you only need a single copy.

BTW, as it has been also commented in the thread. As it is stated since Civ III, this is the same reason you don't need "basic" resources for more modern units: i.e. of course Niter and Iron are needed for any unit using guns. However, at some point in the technology tree, you are knowledgeable enough with these resources to build the units making very efficient use of them, not needing to secure a major source.

Back to the current discussion in the topic: I don't think it would be in the game (they may be afraid it could be too complicated), but I think I'd be in favor of copies being "used" during the time you are building the unit, therefore limiting your unit production capability if you have the mínimum amount of copies necessary.

 

[Calcifer]

Just because an opinion is popular, doesn't mean it's right.

I was just saying that without an official source, we can only make speculations. Most of them lean towards that theory. Of course that does not make that theory automatically be true, but more likely to be (depending on how much you trust this forum's opinion, obviously).

 

[Browd]

Well, I've seen too many instances where the forum's sentiment favored one outcome, but the developers nevertheless decided otherwise -- so much for the "wisdom of the crowd". Personally, I would favor limiting use of luxuries as an amenity "crutch" as much as possible, forcing players to develop other amenity sources (including, yes, actually devoting hammers to entertainment districts and their buildings).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I believe this was clarified such that you actually cannot benefit from a luxury multiple times, even if you have two or more sources and enough cities. I'm not 100% on this information but it seems to be the case. So two resources won't benefit eight cities.

This is what I've gotten from the videos and Civilopedia screenshots, but if somebody can prove me wrong here I'd be rather happy about it.

Actually the "clarification" suggested the opposite (but was not 100% certain at doing so)

 

[Cuneiform]

Just because an opinion is popular, doesn't mean it's right.

Wow, did you steal that one from Sean Bean?

I think popular opinion has it correct this time.

 

[Magil]

Actually the "clarification" suggested the opposite (but was not 100% certain at doing so)

Well if you're talking about the "confirmation" from FilthyRobot after watching some of his videos I don't trust much he says about Civ VI

But it is good to know.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well if you're talking about the "confirmation" from FilthyRobot after watching some of his videos I don't trust much he says about Civ VI

But it is good to know.

I'm talking about the Developer live stream where they talked about amenities. (where they said they didn't need a second source because they had 4 or fewer cities)

 

[Browd]

That's not precisely what they said. When they discussed trading away their extra tea luxury, this was the exchange:

Anton: And because we have one Tea, we're getting all of the amenities we can out of it. So those extra Tea are sort of bonus Tea that we can go, that we can kind of wheel and deal...

Ed: Yes, it's not too dissim ... in Civ V a luxury good gave you 4 points of happiness.

Anton: Right.

Ed: Um, and we kept that number 4 as the number for luxury goods. But what that means is that 4 of your cities can benefit from each luxury good in terms of getting an amenity. So it is, if you're stacking up a lot of luxuries and you're building really tall cities, all those luxuries will go to the same cities. If you're building a wider empire you might be ... have more trouble divvying out amenities for everybody because your luxuries will be kind of spread a little thin.

Anton: Right, yes, like we have Tea and Citrus in our Roman empire, among other things, and we have 3 cities and so ... and Gypsum over there and Tobacco as well, so all 4 of those luxuries -- they have 4 amenities to give and there's 3 cities, so they each get one. But once we, if we have like 20 cities...

Ed: Once we take Knossos we'll still be fine, but, yes, if we start going past that and then we'll have to spread the luxuries out.

Anton: Or get some entertainment complexes going that kind of help bolster ...

And then they were off to war with Pericles.

 

[joncnunn]

That's not precisely what they said. When they discussed trading away their extra tea luxury, this was the exchange:

And then they were off to war with Pericles.

Note that they only had 3 cities at the time; capturing their primary target would give them 4.

 

[Stauffenberg]

If the strategic resources are truly rare then the current civ 6 system might actually work. If strategic resources are as common as in civ 5 then they don't really serve a function since every decent civ will get the numbers they need to produce anything.

I would love to see the strategic resources clustered so if you're lucky you might have some to trade while your neighbours are envious of you. They can either hope to get a good deal with you or go to war with you to grab some resources for themselves.

What I would like to see is that strategic resources is something you can't hope to get all of in every game. You should get some, but you need to trade or make war your way to the others or try to deal with not having them.

Some of the Youtube games are quite promising since e. g. iron seems to be quite scarce on the map. So no swordsmen for some players. That would also make the unique units more valuable since they can be built without strategic resources.