Things That Don't Make Sense!!

[axehaxe]

Well its just a game so anything could happen but I don't get why some things appear the way they are. For example, why is only oil needed to make bombers and not iron along with it? Same with tanks. Why is rubber so important to making infantry with 2 points higher offense than rifleman and 4 points higher in defense? Wouldn't oil be necessary to make infantry because petroleum is used to synthesize kevlar bulletproof vests?? Riflemen require no resources, so the riflemen must use compressed air or something lol? That one I think I can let go though since more powerful explosives were chemically synthesized after the advent of blackpowder. However, the entire oil and rubber dealy doesn't hit the bull's eye. Oh well its a game after all and for heck they could have made the tabacco "food resource"??? a luxury that gives 5 happy citizens to all cities.

 

[gunkulator]

I'm not sure what answer will satisfy you, however the short answer is game balance. Yes, in reality iron is needed for pratically every industrial and modern unit however this would make the iron resource too powerful for game balance purposes. New resource types are discovered at different points during the game and older ones fade in importance. If you find yourself lacking a resource, there's still hope that you can snag the next one without being completely crippled the entire game.

I like your tobacco idea however to make it fair it should also cause disease fairly often.

 

[admiral-bell]

you could mod all this stuff in

 

[warpstorm]

Rubber is important for boots. Without boots you just outa luck.

Tobacco was a luxury during the Conquests beta test. It was removed from that status because of balance issues. It was very easy to get cities to maximal happiness with the introduction of just one more luxury type.

 

[Breunor]

Well its just a game so anything could happen but I don't get why some things appear the way they are. For example, why is only oil needed to make bombers and not iron along with it? Same with tanks. Why is rubber so important to making infantry with 2 points higher offense than rifleman and 4 points higher in defense? Wouldn't oil be necessary to make infantry because petroleum is used to synthesize kevlar bulletproof vests?? Riflemen require no resources, so the riflemen must use compressed air or something lol? That one I think I can let go though since more powerful explosives were chemically synthesized after the advent of blackpowder. However, the entire oil and rubber dealy doesn't hit the bull's eye. Oh well its a game after all and for heck they could have made the tabacco "food resource"??? a luxury that gives 5 happy citizens to all cities.

I can't speak for the designers, but this is how I understand it:

For bombers, in the modern age iron is abundant. Of course iron is needed, but it really isn't starategic anymore. In the ancient world, this wasn't true. Oil however is still strategic (see Japan and Germany in WWII).

For infantry, I think the infantry here with the 6-10 rating is WWI -- WWII infantry. Kevlar isn't part of the equation.

Rubber is harder to say; Infantry clearly should be stronger than riflemen, which I'm guessing as the advance from musket men meant true rifles with grooves being prevalent. Infantry probably includes automatic weapons, which includes several advances needed, maybe represented by the rubber. Or maybe it includes the slight mechanization that WWII infantry had.

The riflemen probably also don't need resources because by the time they were prevelant, like the 19th century, again there were few resource constraints. The Confederacy in the US Civil War was short of everything but produced rifles.

Tobacco was considered a luxury for a long time throughout the world.

Anyway, just trying to help!

Breunor

 

[cleverhandle]

Tobacco was a luxury during the Conquests beta test. It was removed from that status because of balance issues. It was very easy to get cities to maximal happiness with the introduction of just one more luxury type.

What would have been cool IMO would have been to make it a "local" luxury only affecting the city that works the tile. Maybe something like two happy faces. Would be a nice little bonus in the ancient era, allowing you a bit larger city than you could generally support, without being outrageous later on. Of course, then you'd need similar luxuries for other terrain types, but that seems pretty easy - lobster for the coast, perhaps?

The other thing related to tobacco (though only tangentially related to this thread) would be to have era-related game changes. For example, with the tobacco, it might lose its luxury status during the modern era due to increased public health campaigns. Where I'd really like to see this kind of thing is with pollution - once you get Ecology, I think pollution should cause unhappiness. That would give some pause to people that blast through Ecology to get Syn Fibers and MA. Might even lead someone to research Recycling. Similarly, I think you should get a massive AI attitude hit or worse for razing a city in Modern Times. It's pretty hard to imagine a modern nation utterly destroying a metropolis and enslaving its population. All of my stuff is really Modern Times, I guess. But it should be simple enough to come up with other things. It would just be cool to have eras play differently rather than just being a new tech screen and city graphic.

 

[TruePurple]

I don't care how suddenly common place irons suppose to become, it should be required for tanks (bombers too I suppose), especially when they are made of literally tons of it. I see no real reason for a strat resource to suddenly fade away in use. Its not like they spoil like ripe fruit if they have been needed in the game too long. All mods should consider adding it as a requirement IMO.

Anyways iron is common place enough. Needing oil for everything modern on the other hand can be a real pain in the rear.

 

[TruePurple]

oops double posted

 

[Frollo]

you could mod all this stuff in

Oh, that is such an easy answer!

Don't get me wrong, it's nothing against you personally. But I'm just getting tired of people always saying 'just mod it in!' when someone is disappointed about functionality that is poorly implemented in the game, or is not there at all.

Look here, I can only game for 3-4 hours a week, tops, due to work, study and social life. So all I'm asking for are games that are great fun and work correctly right out of the box. Sure, I immensely enjoyed building Doom levels back in 1994, but right now, I haven't got the time to get used to another editor. I just want to play games. I don't want to have to download and install additional content to make a game interesting, and I certainly don't want to have to mod it myself.

I guess I'm the only human being on Earth that is not excited about the modding capabilities of the forthcoming Civ IV. I can only hope that Firaxis delivers a game that is great by itself, and that they don't rely on the community to make it something worthwile.


Okay, I'm done

 

[Padma]

Frollo, I'm with you on the point that I don't want to mod, I just want to play and enjoy the game.

OTOH, game developers make the game they want to play. Just because a relatively small segment of the people who buy the game disagree with some of their decisions doesn't make those decisions wrong. If we feel really strongly about it, well, that's why they gave us an editor.

Now, having been a beta-tester for Conquests, I came to an even greater understanding of the importance of gameplay and game balance. Sure, some things are not "realistic", but they are done in a way to keep the game balanced, and to maximize the enjoyment of *most* players. I much prefer a game that is fun to play, over one that is "realistic" but a chore to play, or has too much extraneous "stuff" that detracts from gameplay.

 

[jgoodguy]

I love to code and have done it for nearly since the crust of the earth hardened-back to 1967. But I do not want to code my game stuff.

I hope that Civ IV (CIV) will not become another moo3 where a good game died because of complexity and sutff.

There is danger and opportunity in the mods. The danger is that there will be wildly different versions of the game so that the community fragments too much or that there are buggy versions.

The opporunity is that this forum could have its 'standard' mods that make the game more interesting to play and maybe extend its life. Even the AI could be enhanced depending upon how the game is designed to be more challenging, correcting things that the current analysts and programmers did not foresee. Or even correcting errors and 'strangeness'.

I actually hope that this is a trend, so that games never get stale.

 

[Masrim]

We use iron in so many things today, have you ever heard of an iron shortage?
The reason is because it is no longer a difficult resource to acquire. With our improved mining and smelting processes you can produce a fair amount of iron from a small source.
Thus limiting its importance as it is very abundant.

 

[Aegis]

The Civilopeida clearly states that Riflemen do not require saltpeter because it is already in abundance.


Oil would not be required for Infantry because they did not have kevlar/bullet proof vests during WWI. Rubber would be for the boots, but I cannot think of what else it could be for.

Tank and bombers would not necessarily be needed to be made out of Iron, however I agree that they should be.

And if you really want to get technical, Paratroopers would need Silks for their parachutes, now wouldn't they?

 

[Desertsnow]

Tank and bombers would not necessarily be needed to be made out of Iron, however I agree that they should be.

Tanks, yes, but if I'm not mistaken most aircraft are made from aluminum as iron would be too heavy. Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway (back on topic) building the Pyramids creates the equivalent of a granary in every city connected by land to the host city. What would Pyramids or building them have to do with your empire's food supply?

 

[jgoodguy]

Tanks, yes, but if I'm not mistaken most aircraft are made from aluminum as iron would be too heavy. Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Anyway (back on topic) building the Pyramids creates the equivalent of a granary in every city connected by land to the host city. What would Pyramids or building them have to do with your empire's food supply?

The time span of an age can confuse the issue. For example bombers do not need aluminum, but jets do.

In WWI bombers were wood and fabric and even in WWII there were still wood bombers. However by the end of WWII most bombers were aluminum even before jets.

Now to the saltpeter issue; it is a fact that blackpowder which required saltpeter was needed for muskets, but that was phased out in the late 1800s so that the rifle cartgages that came in use were powered by nitrocellulose which is based on acid reacting with cotton and thus saltpeter is not used.

So riflemen do not need saltpeter.

The rubber for infantry is a puzzle., unless it was for the tires on transport trucks, but that needs oil also. However the icon for rubber in the game is tires. So I'd bet that the rubber if tires for the transport trucks.

 

[Desertsnow]

Yeah, I knew about early aircraft being wood, but that kind of slipped my mind.

 

[Slyk]

Most have answered this in one form or another but:
- each age had it's dominant or vital resource...bronze, iron, oil, rubber, etc.
- with each 'age' of science/exploration, etc. man has found better ways to detect and mine ore, synthesize oil and rubber and so on.
- take iron for example: in the early ages man relied on finding the ore laying on or near the surface. As technology and techniques improved, man learned to mine for the ore, thus making it more widely available and making the surface deposits less of a strategic importance. The same principal applies with rubber and oil. Germany had large scale synthetic processing plants running during the 1940s to try to compensate for a massive lack of both materials. War drives invention and science more so than nearly any other human stress condition. We have plastics, plexi-glass, and numerous other synthetics due to WWII.

In short, the tech trees and resources are very accurate, imo, and what is lacking and frustating to players is the lack of explanation of why elements such as iron are no longer necessary to build bombers and tanks. I simply believe the 'presumed' technological advances of your civ, although unseen in game display, account for the resources no longer being needed or considered strategic...they are only strategic if your tech is not advanced enough to move beyond them.

 

[Nate1976]

[ir]Origionally posted by meisen[/i]
One overlooked strategic resource is wood. A lack of large trees caused the ancient Egyptians to import wood from abroad. One need of their's was for shipbuilding. And this lasted long after ancient times. The British imported pine from Norway and North America for masts and spars, and teak from South Asia as suitable native oak was used up. Spain used so much Cuban mahogany for their ships that it's gone now. Getting back to the iron age, wood (for charcol) and coal (for coke) were invaluable as iron smelting fuel. Most of the early ironworks regions were sited more for their access to a ready fuel supply than an abundance of iron. And this carried on through to the industrial age. So making wood a strategic resource in iron's place might make more sense.

in my upcoming mod,wood is a stragegic resource, required to build archers, logbows, all wooden ships, catapults/trebuchets, chariots, etc. Really adds a new element to the game..if you don't get wood or iron your screwed...but makes it fun. I have it being the most abundant resourse of them all, available in forest and jungle.

 

[jgoodguy]

Most have answered this in one form or another but:
- each age had it's dominant or vital resource...bronze, iron, oil, rubber, etc.
- with each 'age' of science/exploration, etc. man has found better ways to detect and mine ore, synthesize oil and rubber and so on.
- take iron for example: in the early ages man relied on finding the ore laying on or near the surface. As technology and techniques improved, man learned to mine for the ore, thus making it more widely available and making the surface deposits less of a strategic importance. The same principal applies with rubber and oil. Germany had large scale synthetic processing plants running during the 1940s to try to compensate for a massive lack of both materials. War drives invention and science more so than nearly any other human stress condition. We have plastics, plexi-glass, and numerous other synthetics due to WWII.

In short, the tech trees and resources are very accurate, imo, and what is lacking and frustating to players is the lack of explanation of why elements such as iron are no longer necessary to build bombers and tanks. I simply believe the 'presumed' technological advances of your civ, although unseen in game display, account for the resources no longer being needed or considered strategic...they are only strategic if your tech is not advanced enough to move beyond them.

So as an age ends, the need for that must have resources also ends.

Resources show in by age:

Ancient age = iron and horses
Middle age = saltpeter
industral = rubber and coal
modern(never really ends) = oil and Aluminum and Uranium

Iron and horses seem to be the exception for some units extending from ancient through middle.

Rubber also an exception industral and modern for some units.

One importance of this is what resources to eliminate first when invading an opponent's home land.

So in Modern, eliminate/pillage oil, aluminum and uranium first
then coal
then saltpeter
finally iron and horses.

 

[gunkulator]

So as an age ends, the need for that must have resources also ends.

Resources show in by age:

Ancient age = iron and horses
Middle age = saltpeter
industral = rubber and coal
modern(never really ends) = oil and Aluminum and Uranium

Oil is an industrial age resource, actually.