"Strategic" resources -- too little conflict or too much?

[Grey Knight]

Personally, I find strategic resources generally aren't. In my games, aside from small actions, there is little strife over resources. The idea of trading for them is a joke! Personally, I'd like to see them harder to come by, but of more "value". Instead of having 2 tiles per civ of a resource, have 1 "tile", but have that tile count as 2. This would mean lots of trading would be required! To make things even more exciting, have some resources be <1 per civ and worth 3 or more! i.e. oil -- this would make for some great wars!

Cheers,
Shawn
(Then again, I think horses should move too -- they were imported to the Americas to begin with, and they are easy to make "disappear")

 

[Dutchman]

I agree, and luxeries are even easier to come be, now i'm playing on regent and I have 6 luxeries on my own and trade the other 2, and this was the situation since 200 bc now in 1000AD!!

 

[Magnus]

Try playing 16 civs on a standard map (using civmod): bonus resources almost entirely disappear and there are not enough luxuries to go around for everybody, I have never gotten all 8 in this type of game and usually max out at 5 or 6.

 

[MrFrodo]

I think the game does a good enough job spreading the
resources out, but it would be cool in you could adjust
the frequency in the editor (or maybe you can and I haven't
noticed). Then if you wanted a game with minimal resources
(but not 16 civs ona standard map) you could.

 

[Beamup]

I think they should have had the strategics clump somewhat, instead of being so uniform. As is, resource trading is really just humans giving resources to weak civs to make them better allies. You can never export resources (they always have them all, at minimum from trading with the other AIs) and importing them is a joke... the prices are just impossible.

If they clumped, you might have one civ end up being coal broker to the world... but lack iron and rubber, say. Much more interesting.

 

[Grey Knight]

You can change the appearance factors in the editor. 100 appearance ratio equals 1 per civ, 200 2 per etc. Disappearance is a 1 in XXX. The standard values are:

Horses    160   0
Iron      160 800
Saltpeter 120 800
Coal      120 400
Oil       120 200
Rubber    120   0 (???)
Aluminium 120 400
Uranium   100 100

Rubber is weird - I guess you figure by that time sustanable management is in place. Horses seems silly to me -- I changed the disappearance to 100 -- should make for some fun Uranium is obviously meant to be a limiting resource.

Finally, what you can't set is the "value" of each resource - it is always valued at 1. I'd like to set the appearance probability to less than 100 and have the resource be worth 2 or more (meaning you automatically have a surplus, as if you were connected to two squares in the current game).

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[Zouave]

I long ago changed the idiotic resource values that came with the game - far too rare (esp iron and coal), and coal disappears too easily.

Now, they are rare - but they are not so rare you have to continuously fight wars over them.

With the ridiculously extortinate trade demands from the AI with 1.17, changing these values is especially needed.

 

[ETO_Peregrine]

Originally posted by Grey Knight

Rubber is weird - I guess you figure by that time sustanable management is in place.

Actually, natural rubber literally does grow on trees. As with horses, it's a renewable organic resource that depends on climate and terrain. The other resources occur in finite deposits. Makes geological sense.

If the disappearance rate for iron is really 1/800, take me to Vegas. I had my iron disappear on me twice within the same age during one game. :crazyeyes

 

[Gregski]

Personally, I'd like the resources running out depending on usage, e.g. if you've built 300 shields worth of units/improvements instead of the random disappear concept. This way you would have to carefully plan what to do with the precious little oil you have, for example build 1 battleship, or 2 destroyers, or 1 destroyer and sell the remaining oil, or whatever.
This way resources could be more freely distributed, with each civ having various amounts of most resources, but having to think about how to use them.

 

[Heffalump]

I like the idea but I'm not a big fan of the current resource system. Maybe a more market-oriented approach would be more realistic. One should never NOT be able to build a unit because they lack resources. Instead it should just be very expensive.

Look at the real world. Even nations under embargo can come up with a bit of oil.

So I would suggest a system where:
0 of required resources means the unit costs 50% extra,
1-2 of the required resources means it costs as normal,
3+ means things are 25% cheaper.

Not that I'm sticking to those numbers, but just as an idea.

Of course that's a pretty big overhaul and probably beyond the scope of a patch. But such a system would reduce some of the absurdities that come about when a modern nation is reduced to producing primitive units because they lack the required resources.

 

[Dralix]

Originally posted by Heffalump
Look at the real world. Even nations under embargo can come up with a bit of oil.

How? Don't they trade someone for it? Someone who is not participating in the embargo? That option is available now.

Originally posted by Heffalump
But such a system would reduce some of the absurdities that come about when a modern nation is reduced to producing primitive units because they lack the required resources.

What about primitive nations? During ancient times, I think it is perfectly reasonable that without iron, you can't make swords.


I understand where you're coming from here, but I think the current approach is a good compromise between realism and gameplay. I think the strategic resources add a whole new dimension to the game. I love the concept of going to war over resources. The editor makes the scarcity customizable, for those who would prefer more or less conflict over resources.

 

[Eric The Fish]

I like the fact that there are strategic resources in the game as well. I think strategic resources should be clumped, like the lux resources are. This would be fairly realistic. Some areas would have lots of coal, some would have lots of oil. This would lead to more trading and wars. Each resource could have a "clumping factor" that could be changed in the editor.

 

[The_Newbie]

It's a bit of an anachronism to get rubber from jungles as all the units that need rubber come from times when artificial rubber was made.

 

[cegman]

Originally posted by Dralix


How? Don't they trade someone for it? Someone who is not participating in the embargo?

Ever hear of the black market ifso then you should know where they got it

 

[Marzipan]

I think I'd prefer to have it so all civs don't necessarily have all the resources, but you can buy an sell units instead of just a resource. So if I didn't have any iron I could buy battleships from a civ that does have iron. It would be nice if I could buy things that I can afford but don't have the strategic resource or technology for. That way if I have a country with lots of gems and silk to export, I can use the money from these trades to buy weapons.

 

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Heffalump
I like the idea but I'm not a big fan of the current resource system. Maybe a more market-oriented approach would be more realistic. One should never NOT be able to build a unit because they lack resources. Instead it should just be very expensive.

One of the causes of WWII was the Allied embargo of Japan. Japan's military was running out of the resources they needed to continue their conquest of Asia, so they hit America and made a play for the resources in southeast Asia.

 

[marshal zhukov]

Zachriel is right and not only Japan but Germany lacked oil so they had to transform coal into oil to support their war effort in WWII. And lack of oil was one of the reasons for Germany to invade the USSR. Stupid miitary mistake that made germany lose the war horribly

I support the current resource system it gave the game a new side made the game more complex. For example on my recent game I had to start a world war and send the whole world into the dark ages because I needed coal so I declared war on a IA in order to get it.

On Civ4 they should add even more resources to make the game seems more like reality, the other resources should be:

Copper - would be required for you to build ships and planes ( radar )
Ammonia - would boost farm production working as a fertilizer ( not sure of that)
Titanium - To build stealth planes

And things like that but the way the game deals with resources is just very nice indeed

 

[planetfall]

It would have been better if poll was between strategic resources and luxury resources.

I am not French, but wine should appear in much more frequency that currently. Almost every country has local liquor production, well maybe not iceland. Don't know if this really makes people happier or so mellow they don't care about war, etc.

I have noticed if improve strategic resources about 1.25 or 1.33 the games are more fun. Wine
is the only lux resource I increase.


The problem with the current strategic resource level is it is too difficult to trade or obtain access to strategic resource without starting war.
I would rather have 1 or 2 strategic resource problems, than more than 2.

With the slightly changed frequency of key strategic resource {coal/oil}, some civs may only have one instance of a resource while others have many. What seems to happen is wars focus around location of strategic resources rather than just becoming a territory grab.

Not really a big deal as it is fun playing different "scenarios" by modifying the frequency and then seeing change in game play. Only problem is understanding exactly how the numbers in the editor correspond to number of appearing resources. Variables seem to be: 1) number of civs playing, 2) distribution of terrain types, and 3) type of world map.

An improvement would be to modify the trading for either missing or short strategic resources, so an increase in X.gold would provide access to a resource if civ does not have it.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Strategic resources were never a problem when I played with 16 civs on a huge map. But in my current game I am playing (huge map with only 8 civs) the strategic resources have been a huge factor. I got lucky with saltpeper. Normally saltpepper is not a problem at all, but in this game, even though I had twice the land size of everyone else (about 50+ cities), I only had 1 saltpepper! And that was just barely in my territory (from a city I wedged in between 2 American cities). Thank goodnes for my culture to claim that one tile!

I am currently selling iron to one civ, oil to another and uranium to yet another (only 4 other civs left in this game). Normally I can't sell any strategics to anyone else, because the strategics are in such abundance.

Luxuries are irritating me now. When there are only two continents, it's always 4 on one half of the world, and the other 4 on the other side of the world. So now I have to invade the other continent to get the luxuries for free, so I won't have to keep buying them.