Too many of the same resource

[TotesFabulous]

Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster. Every game of Civ5 I run into the same...problem? Say I start the game with a gold and gem mine within a few tiles of each other....that's awesome! I build there and luckily I have bananas or cows for food. As I start to expand I realize that I have 20 cow tiles and gold/gem tiles. I was played a game that was 90% dye tiles.

Three Part question. Do I gain any bonus from multiple luxury and food resources, like 10 cow or dye tiles? Is there away to get more of a spread of resources? Is this even a problem or just the way the game is set up?

 

[Mudrac]

No you don't get any bonus from multiple luxury, bonus or strategic resources. You get from the tile each one is on and that's it. Although you can sell luxury and strategic resources to other civs for extra gold. If this is the answer that suits you? I didn't really understand the question: "Is there away to get more of a spread of resources?'' ? So could you please rephrase?

 

[phillipwyllie]

Just remember all strategic resources can be sold for 2gpt a piece, 5 strategic resources for a duplicate luxury. Unless they don't want anymore or they don't like you.

 

[TotesFabulous]

I mean is there a way to have a variation of resources instead of the collection 20 of the same type.

 

[HerrDoktor]

I actually try to expand so to encompass all sources of the same resource. A monopoly means you can sell it to all the other civs. Also, it works great if you have a Pantheon selected for that resource. Gold, in particular, also means money producing tiles.

 

[njmfff]

hmm, too many duplicate luxuries can be trouble in a long run.

but I wouldn't complain about Gold or Gems. Gems mean 2 faith per turn, and Gold means culture\faith gold per turn, plus extra gold with Mint.

oh and I would love to get that start sometimes: gold\gems\load of cows. every cow means you can drop academies\holy sites\manufacturies and still get good food while working that title... but nope, I get stuck with either Tundra\Plains\Jungle\Desert with no real food titles.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

I mean is there a way to have a variation of resources instead of the collection 20 of the same type.

in advanced game settings, you can choose 'Strategic Balance' for resources. it generally means your starting area will be balanced but sometimes you cant initially see how balanced it is because you havent yet revealed resources like coal/aluminum/etc. it also doesnt guarantee that other parts of the map wont have a surplus of those resources. but you can at least see what luxes you have. in the times i used it i usually had 2-3 unique luxes and no more than 3 of any one kind.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

HerrDoktor's right- establishing a monopoly on a lux means you can sell/trade to everybody. This can be just as effective in raising your happy cap, as having three silver and trading two of them for furs and ivory provides the same amount of happiness as having one of each naturally in your terrain, but with better exploit possibilities (pantheon, etc.) The only difficulty is that I find the AI to be very quick to sell/trade off their excess to other AI civs and relentlessly renews their trades- if you miss the small window of them having duplicate copies, you may be out of luck for the entirety of the game.
I've noticed on several occasions that the total number of luxes on the map = total number of civs, that might be coded in...

 

[GKShaman]

Generally if there is a duplicate like gems, gold, silver, marble, wine, or incense - there are no issues regarding what to do with that.

Just pick religious idols, festivals, stone circles, or tears of god and soak in all that faith and/or culture.

The problem is when u get tons and tons of cotton all around u and a civ stands in the way of you expanding further. That really sucks.

I've had it happen where I only have access to one super duplicated resource and two uniqes in either capital or in another city location. That annoys me since I need to spend extra gpt to carry unhappiness whereas Id prefer to have several different types of luxuries to give more gold on routes and flexibility on trades.

 

[tomplum68]

luxury resources, for the most part, tend to be clustered. most of the dye will be in one area of the world, gems will be someplace else. what this is intended to do is make resource trading necessary and to promote expansion

 

[tide15]

luxury resources, for the most part, tend to be clustered. most of the dye will be in one area of the world, gems will be someplace else. what this is intended to do is make resource trading necessary and to promote expansion

That's why I tend to get into warmonger trouble late game. If a AI Civ has something my cities are crying for and I can't trade for it I usually take it.
Heaven help them if they have a lot of strategic stuff like aluminum

 

[GWashington]

Actually, if you go down the commerce tree, the last policy has a bonus (+2 happiness per luxury, I believe?). And as the others said you can also trade the multiple luxuries to other civs for gold, GPT, and their luxs.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I'm fairly certain that policy is referring to unique luxuries. So basically each unique luxury provides 6 happiness rather than 4.

 

[Pietato]

I'm fairly certain that policy is referring to unique luxuries. So basically each unique luxury provides 6 happiness rather than 4.

I think it gives it to every luxury, duplicate or not.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Three Part question. Do I gain any bonus from multiple luxury and food resources, like 10 cow or dye tiles? Is there away to get more of a spread of resources? Is this even a problem or just the way the game is set up?

Others have answered this question from a trade perspective. You can also leverage resource bundling based on tile bonuses. This is where it becomes relevant what type of resource we are talking about. The rule of thumb is, is there a type of building that modifies this resource? If so, settling cities where they are bundled usually is a good thing.

Plantation resources for example are very weak to work, because they only provide gold, whereas you really want all your citizens either working food tiles or mining tiles. A cotton tile only feeds the citizen that works it, so it's an opportunity cost vs working a farm and growing more citizens.

Meanwhile, mining luxury tiles are great, because you always need to work some mines anyway, so the extra gold yield is on top of that. No opportunity cost.

But of those, Silver and Gold are best because because the Mint adds value per tile (and is a relatively cheap building, only 100 hammers to build). So you clearly benefit from these being clustered whereas a bunch of dyes gets you nothing special.

Similarly, pastures are great when bundled together, because they benefit from a Stables. Sea resources are fantastic when bundled, because they benefit from two different buildings. Quarries are very very good when bundled, if city is not founded on a plains.

All of these types of tiles can be modified somewhat evenly by pantheon beliefs, which is another obvious benefit to having bundled resources, but still leaves mines and pastures looking better than plantations.

 

[Browd]

I think it gives it to every luxury, duplicate or not.

Nope. Just +2 happiness per unique luxury.