Strategic resources like Iron kinda rare?
- Thread starter Hakuoh
- Start date
It's all on RNG. I've had starts where there were 3 horses just in my capital, and mountains of iron nearby. I was swimming in niter etc.
And other games where I had literally none. Anywhere. I've had to settle cities in deep snow, not even tundra, to get a resource or 2.
Worse comes to worst, AI seem pretty reasonable with trading them.
And other games where I had literally none. Anywhere. I've had to settle cities in deep snow, not even tundra, to get a resource or 2.
Worse comes to worst, AI seem pretty reasonable with trading them.
criZp
Emperor
The system clearly needs reworking so that everyone can build/upgrade to units that as of now require strategic resources.
Letting cities that control said resources build at a significant reduced cost, like has been proposed before, seem like the right way to make them aid one's combat effort without messing up anyone without such luck.
They could also get rid of professional army policy and allow you to upgrade given units at half price if you have at least one of the given resource, so that they are also relevant if you have a bunch of units to upgrade, rather than needing to produce fresh units to benefit.
Letting cities that control said resources build at a significant reduced cost, like has been proposed before, seem like the right way to make them aid one's combat effort without messing up anyone without such luck.
They could also get rid of professional army policy and allow you to upgrade given units at half price if you have at least one of the given resource, so that they are also relevant if you have a bunch of units to upgrade, rather than needing to produce fresh units to benefit.
Boris Gudenuf
Deity
Civ VI, for me, has so far been the fastest of any of the Civ games to finish:
start the game, no horses anywhere in sight.
Reach Bronze-Working, no Iron in sight.
Reach Gunpowder, no Nitre in sight.
That gives me three chances to end the game and go off and do something useful before I get more than a third of the way into the game.
ANY So-Called 'Strategy' Game that makes the player rely on Pure Luck to obtain what they need to stay competitive is no longer a game, it is an infuriating, poorly-designed, un-play-tested, amateurish exercise in frustration. Unless, of course, the designers intended to create a game that made players want to never, never, buy anything that they ever design again, in any genre.
End of Rant - for now.
The decision to make basic units like Swordsmen and Musketmen reliant on the Luck of the Map is not only bad design, it betrays an utter ignorance of history. Quick Lesson:
NO ONE who knew how to work iron had any trouble finding enough iron ore to make hand weapons and body armor. The limitations on iron (one of the most common substances in the earth's crust) come when you need thousands of tons of the stuff to build railroads, battleships, and skyscrapers.
NO ONE who knew how to make gunpowder had any trouble finding the ingredients: charcoal and saltpeter ('Nitre') are both easily produced anywhere you have trees to cook and people to piss, and sulphur, like iron, is very, very common in the quantities required.
These are artificial limitations crammed down the gamer's throat by designers who didn't know any better.
You want Historical In-Game Limitations?
Swordsmen take a lot more upkeep: training time especially, which needs to be paid for or compensated for - make the per-turn upkeep of an swordsman about 3 x that of the equivalent spear/pikeman, and players will have to think hard about what they want to build. BUT IT WILL BE THEIR DECISION of what to build, not a decision artificially forced on them by the game and the map.
Likewise, 'musketmen' are cheap to produce and pretty easy to train, in time required (musket barrels actually require a lower grade of metallurgy than spring steel crossbows, for instance, and Frederick's Highly Trained Prussian Fusiliers and Grenadiers spent half of each day off duty, working second jobs!)) BUT they require a continuous supply of gunpowder and bullets - so, again, jack up the per-turn Upkeep cost, and let the Player decide just what percentage of his army can afford to throw away their pikes/swords and convert.
start the game, no horses anywhere in sight.
Reach Bronze-Working, no Iron in sight.
Reach Gunpowder, no Nitre in sight.
That gives me three chances to end the game and go off and do something useful before I get more than a third of the way into the game.
ANY So-Called 'Strategy' Game that makes the player rely on Pure Luck to obtain what they need to stay competitive is no longer a game, it is an infuriating, poorly-designed, un-play-tested, amateurish exercise in frustration. Unless, of course, the designers intended to create a game that made players want to never, never, buy anything that they ever design again, in any genre.
End of Rant - for now.
The decision to make basic units like Swordsmen and Musketmen reliant on the Luck of the Map is not only bad design, it betrays an utter ignorance of history. Quick Lesson:
NO ONE who knew how to work iron had any trouble finding enough iron ore to make hand weapons and body armor. The limitations on iron (one of the most common substances in the earth's crust) come when you need thousands of tons of the stuff to build railroads, battleships, and skyscrapers.
NO ONE who knew how to make gunpowder had any trouble finding the ingredients: charcoal and saltpeter ('Nitre') are both easily produced anywhere you have trees to cook and people to piss, and sulphur, like iron, is very, very common in the quantities required.
These are artificial limitations crammed down the gamer's throat by designers who didn't know any better.
You want Historical In-Game Limitations?
Swordsmen take a lot more upkeep: training time especially, which needs to be paid for or compensated for - make the per-turn upkeep of an swordsman about 3 x that of the equivalent spear/pikeman, and players will have to think hard about what they want to build. BUT IT WILL BE THEIR DECISION of what to build, not a decision artificially forced on them by the game and the map.
Likewise, 'musketmen' are cheap to produce and pretty easy to train, in time required (musket barrels actually require a lower grade of metallurgy than spring steel crossbows, for instance, and Frederick's Highly Trained Prussian Fusiliers and Grenadiers spent half of each day off duty, working second jobs!)) BUT they require a continuous supply of gunpowder and bullets - so, again, jack up the per-turn Upkeep cost, and let the Player decide just what percentage of his army can afford to throw away their pikes/swords and convert.
KmDubya
King
You can still build an effective army without the strategic resources, its just a little harder.
Want an early rush but no horses or iron?
If you make everything available without the resource it defeats the whole purpose of having resources.
Want an early rush but no horses or iron?
- Spears with battering rams and archers. The spears will kill off any horses and the archers kill everything. With a few promos spears can be really effective against melee or even better defending support units.
- Upgrade the spears to pikes and the archers to crossbows and carry on the conquest. Add in some catapults/bombards as siege is what you'll be needing for the city taking.
If you make everything available without the resource it defeats the whole purpose of having resources.
godeater
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2010
- Messages
- 20
Is there a display showing where certain strategic resources are on the map? As England in a game I have a shortage of nitre. I'd like to continue the game, but it's annoying to try a visual scan of the entire world to figure out where to settle/conquer.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
No... and this is something they seriously need, "minimap lenses" for things like strategic resources and artifacts (as well as continents)
SheckyS
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2005
- Messages
- 102
I dunno if it's that those strategic resource are more rare, or if the engine that builds the world is just not doing enough to spread them out. But I have definitely noticed that it's much more common to end up with none of them close to you than it was in Civ V.
But, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that you really aren't as limited geographically in Civ VI. Distance from your capital doesn't matter as much and you don't pay maintenance for roads, so if there is no iron in your immediate vicinity, it's not a totally bad idea to build a city on the opposite side of the world where there IS a resource you need.
But, this is mitigated somewhat by the fact that you really aren't as limited geographically in Civ VI. Distance from your capital doesn't matter as much and you don't pay maintenance for roads, so if there is no iron in your immediate vicinity, it's not a totally bad idea to build a city on the opposite side of the world where there IS a resource you need.
criZp
Emperor
Except that some civ on the opposite side of the world will just kick your butt and make sure he gets that iron
stormtrooper412
Peacemongering Turtlesaur
is there not an equivalent of the "strategic balance" kind of start which means you are guaranteed Iron and Horses
smartcanuck1988
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2016
- Messages
- 276
From my uneducated reading of the map scripts, it seems like the script first assigns tiles with resources based on certain frequencies. Then it deletes some of the assigned resources for a number of reasons (e.g. too many different ones clustered together).
I don't know how it worked with V, but I feel that since the game is deleting them not moving them elsewhere, that we end up with much smaller number compared to the original frequencies. A better logic would be to add a resource on the map only when the tile meets those rules. Not add then delete.
But again, I am by no means educated in that field of mapscripting. Someone else could look into it and see if what I am saying is appropriate.
CrispyCritter
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2006
- Messages
- 65
Why? That's unrealistic - resources like iron is why a lot of early wars took place. Getting easy iron was rare.
As others have said, if you don't have iron, you develop other strengths. The whole notion of Civ 6 is that you're not supposed to have a set recipe for your play. You can't build everything everywhere anymore; geography, leader traits and civ traits should dictate your game.
Assault Lemming
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2016
- Messages
- 19
Perhaps I'm alone, but I like that strategic resources have rarity value. I've literally invaded my enemy just to secure their oil, it felt right!
ltccone
Prince
Taking a page from HOI4, if you don't have a strategic resource, you should be able to build units that require them anyway. It should just take a lot longer. This is doubly important considering you can't build obsolete units.
I like the rarity of strategic resources. Makes the whole experience better for me, as some other people pointed out in this thread.
But it is indeed a problem that you might not be able to build melee units at all if you research the Musketman tech and have no niter since you cannot build Swordsmen anymore. But my wished for solution would be different: a tab to build obsolete units that can be opened in the production menu.
FurballRocker
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2016
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- 77
I am liking the lack of resources i am finding in my games and the door swings both ways with it. If you reveal the resource first you can then settle to control it to ensure you have the military power edge. It has also give me an extra reason to DoW a civ to provide myself with a resource (realistic) and also a reason to be friendly with a civ to gain access to the resource (realistic) as well as feeling a need to expand late game, often into remote areas to gain access to late game resources(again realistic).
When i first saw that you could have infinite units with a single copy of a resource again i was heavily disappointed but once i realised those resources were actually quite rare now i was again excited as they are now worth fighting over, trading for and thus being nice to other civs to gain a reliable source, expanding [late game] for etc.
It also brings up some interesting quandaries such as, do i rush forward settle right one the border of a know aggressive AI to gain the only source of iron on our continent which will give me a greater chance of fighting them off easily and possibly conquering them to get them out of the way but they are likely to DoW me a lot earlier and when i am less prepared or do i hold back to allow them to take the iron and then likely have to fight them when they have stringer units than me.
It also provides for some more strategic thought.e.g. in a recent game i was fighting an AI who had horsemen which were running around causing havok with my archers in particular as well as being much stronger than my melee units so i had to choose to try the standard rolling tactic of taking the next city closest to my borders which also had walls and was therefore able to fire on my troops so i couldn't just wonder past them but get constantly attacked in the rear by their horsemen and possibly not be able to take the city without massive casualties or do i take the long way around to take the second city which had the horses which would effectively leave my cities defenseless if they actually decided to counter attack.
There is often a third option there also which is another good thing which is cavalry units are now much more useful as i could have sent some horsemen to pillage their horses to solve the problem but i didn't have any myself.
Yes it makes things a bit more difficult but also interesting.
When i first saw that you could have infinite units with a single copy of a resource again i was heavily disappointed but once i realised those resources were actually quite rare now i was again excited as they are now worth fighting over, trading for and thus being nice to other civs to gain a reliable source, expanding [late game] for etc.
It also brings up some interesting quandaries such as, do i rush forward settle right one the border of a know aggressive AI to gain the only source of iron on our continent which will give me a greater chance of fighting them off easily and possibly conquering them to get them out of the way but they are likely to DoW me a lot earlier and when i am less prepared or do i hold back to allow them to take the iron and then likely have to fight them when they have stringer units than me.
It also provides for some more strategic thought.e.g. in a recent game i was fighting an AI who had horsemen which were running around causing havok with my archers in particular as well as being much stronger than my melee units so i had to choose to try the standard rolling tactic of taking the next city closest to my borders which also had walls and was therefore able to fire on my troops so i couldn't just wonder past them but get constantly attacked in the rear by their horsemen and possibly not be able to take the city without massive casualties or do i take the long way around to take the second city which had the horses which would effectively leave my cities defenseless if they actually decided to counter attack.
There is often a third option there also which is another good thing which is cavalry units are now much more useful as i could have sent some horsemen to pillage their horses to solve the problem but i didn't have any myself.
Yes it makes things a bit more difficult but also interesting.
TomKQT
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2010
- Messages
- 525
I don't know yet how it works in Civ6, but in Civ5 when you had a strategic resource, built some unit requiring it and then lost the resource - the unit didn't disappear but got a penaly to combat strength.
Maybe it could be an idea that you would be able to build units even without the resource, but it would have this penalty from the start (and could be of course removed later if you finaly got the resource).
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