The Exploitation of Resources

[Baron Rakkan]

I don't know if the new Addon BTS will consider this interesting feature:

In the real world there exists a shortage of some resources. e.g. Oil. Many wars in the modern world are because of a severe oil shortage! In Civilization IV this is not considered. If a Civ has only one oilfield in CivIV it's not a problem to build as many tanks as the civ leader wants. I consider this not realistic.

There should be this kind of feature in the new BTS Addon(hopefully): it should be not able for any civ to use a resource forever(of course not mentioned loosing resources because of wars). If a Civ finds a resource, there should be only a certain amount of it to use(I think ths amount should be randomized).
After years of usage the resource should be exhausted(for players who don't like this feature there should be the possibility to disable it in the options menue of course).

My opinion is that this feature will make the game more interesting and realistic! For example, if a civ knows that its oil supplies are going to be exhausted in 10 rounds this civ will probably try, to get the resurce from somewhere else, either through war or diplomacy.

What are your opinions? Does anyone know if Firaxis will consider this in the BTS Add on?

P.S. Like mentioned in a former post, there should be also a new feature of exploring resources(like geologists or something similar)

 

[Thedrin]

Gaius Octavius in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

I don't think that it'll be in BtS. Depending on how well many of the mentioned BtS features (enhanced trade route system, civil wars) are implemented, it may be the last major feature that can be implemented to the Civ engine without making the game unrecognisable from other variants. But it might be to big a change for CivIV. You may be waiting for CivV.

 

[Baron Rakkan]

Probably you are right. But we will see after the release how they have enhanced the resource and trading system.

But I also think we will have to wait for Civ V(Rel 2009) or Civ Empire Deluxe Edition(Release 2012). ;-)

 

[GoodSarmatian]

One of last weeks BtS-articles (don't remember wwhich one) mentioned the discovery of new reseources as a possible positive random event, so I guess it will also be possible that a resource suddenly expires like in CivIII.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

Gaius Octavius in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

I don't think that it'll be in BtS. Depending on how well many of the mentioned BtS features (enhanced trade route system, civil wars) are implemented, it may be the last major feature that can be implemented to the Civ engine without making the game unrecognisable from other variants. But it might be to big a change for CivIV. You may be waiting for CivV.

Yes, Thedrin, you are absolutely right. Come on, you all knew that was coming...

Baron Rakkan, I agree 100% (as Thedrin suggested). And I'm pleased to say Dom Pedro II is currently coding this in the SDK for Warlords. So it looks like it will become a reality after all.

@Thedrin: I promise not to rant anymore about it.

 

[Thedrin]

Go ahead. Nothing (short of 100% satisfactory implementation in BtS) is going to get me to shut up about trade routes and navies. And even then I'll probably end up defending the implementation constantly.

 

[Virulent]

I would really not like to see exhaustible resources. It would make the game more RTS-like than I would prefer it to be and add too much micromanaging as well.

 

[Gaius Octavius]

You can make it quantitative without necessarily being exhaustible.

 

[Thedrin]

I'd like to make an alternative suggestion to quantitative resources. I know that there are other reasons for wanting their inclusion, but as far as I can tell the most popular reason for such a feature is that civs will have to prepare for the loss of non-renewable resources.

How about exploitint the random events engine. Not just simply having a resource disappearing without warning. Consider culture flips. A city never flips on the first revolt but always flips on the third.

So include a random event which causes a non-renewable resource to run out. When this event happens the resource remains in its tile - the event is overruled - but the civ recieves a warning that 'it is believed that [insert resource] cannot sustain its current level of output'. The overruling of this event may happen x times for each resource. After the xth occasion, every time the resource runs out event is triggered there is a chance of it not being overruled. This chance increases with each further overruling until the yth occassion when the event is guaranteed to not be overruled.

In culture flipping x = 1 and y = 3.

This would have many of the same affects of resource loss in a quantitative resource system but with the added simplicity that the player would only have to track resources for which warnings have been recieved. All other resources can be safely ignored.

 

[marioflag]

Quantitative resources would be actually the best system and perhaps in a sequel we could see that system applied.
But the corporation feature has for me resolved the issue, because the worst problem was that surplus resources had really no use except for trade; now you can use it to get another resources or to get bigger benefits.
It is not as realistic as quantitative resources but there is no doubt that all shortcomings of CIV4 resource system have been finally resolved.
War for resources is now an option!