Ways to make late-game resources more useful

[insaneweasel]

Late game, horses and iron are practically useless. Coal isn't a big deal after your cities have factories. Extra aluminum and oil aren't used unless needed. If you have a bunch of city-state allies, it's possible to have huge a surplus of resources.

So how should this be rectified? Should late-game units have multiple resource costs?
Artillery and cannon should definitely use iron (they need it more than catapults!)


I think that new buildings should be added that give a small bonus based on unused resources. Like the stadium would give .2 for each horse. Or the forge would give .25 production for each unused iron.

What do you think?

 

[Naokaukodem]

I think it's a good idea: you would be happy to conquer a city with more iron.

 

[The_Quasar]

The problem comes when you end up with no iron, no horses, no coal, or similar.

I have recently played Rome with no iron and no coal... not easy... I had an abundance of oil, which partly made up for it, but when I realised I had no aluminium either, and neither did anyone else, except for the runaway AI... that rather killed that game!

It is not always possible to get resources you are short of from CS, or by conquering neighbors... if this were so, then perhaps this would be a good idea... however, playing on abundant resources always seems like cheating to me, so I don't do it. Perhaps it should be an option if playing on abundant resources? That would balance it up better.

 

[Redox]

I think core units like infantry and artillery shouldn't use any resources. You need these units simply to survive (and AI probably won't figure out that it needs to ally a particular CS or capture land to get iron).

In my game, I have made Iron the resource of navies, oil the resource of air force and uranium the expensive special-purpose resource (like vespene gas in Starcraft).

Destroyer costs 1 iron, and Battleship 2. No iron? Build submarines.
Bombers cost 2 oil, so I wouldn't be able to wipe everyone out using bombers alone.
Stealth bombers need uranium, cause mass stealth bombers are even more imba than mass bombers.

 

[turtlefang]

Some games, you don't get a lot of resources, so not sure I would like to see the change.

And, as you get further down the tech tree in real life, certain resources just get less important because it's easier to get them. Horses aren't important now like they were 150 yrs ago. Iron and coal are more plentiful now than 150 yrs ago simply because we can mine areas that never could have been mined then. So they are no longer as critical.

AL (which I regard as light metals), oil, and UR are the critical resources now. And modern armies - which much more powerful than WWII armies - are actually much more efficent and much smaller. A single B52 can now carry up to 60K in bombs vs 4K for a B17; a B2 can carry 40K - and these represent "smart bombs" for the most part. So not only do they carry more than than the B17 for less fuel used for a similar scaled mission, they are more effective.

Same for tanks. An M1 simply more efficent and we use less of them than we used in WWII to achieve a much higher bang for the buck.

So not sure that you "need" more resources per unit. And the cost per unit is handled in the increased maintaince (support) cost per unit as you advance through the ages plus the initial hammer cost.

You might want to argue if the relative balance in cost is right - but I think this gets down to balance.

As far as whether a units overpowered - such as bombers - that's another discussion. I would say that in general, if you don't have an airforce AND your running a conventional war against someone who does, your in real trouble. Especially in modern days.

But you can make a case that bombers are over powered. And I do see that point - a few bombers can swing the battle in a big way - maybe bigger than they should.

 

[blasto]

Maybe a policy or wonder that allows you to convert extra resources into hammers, gold or science?

 

[Sonereal]

Steel Mills?

 

[apocalypse105]

I thinx this would help a little but its just my oppinion:


Crosbowman should be upgraded to: mortar

Mortar/should require coal because a lot of early artillery used coal to shoot(look at the game cossacks you needed coal to fire your cannons) They need coal more to shoot!!!!!!

Mortar unit should get the indirect fire ability just like artillery makes it really important to get that coal in the renaissance....

For making cannons and rifleman you dont need any resources for keeping the balance...

Coal should be revealed by Chemistry including the mortar unit...
Rifleling should require chemistry...

They should upgrade the cavalry unit like gets a bonus against infantry... (lancer gets a instant buf)


As result coal is more important... ANd horses are actually used again

 

[binhthuy71]

I would hesitate to touch the current resource system - but then in my recent games I have been Iron-free in about six out of ten goes. There are workarounds for the lack of almost every resource excepting Coal. For instance; the recent patch made Archers, and by extension XBows, much more attractive for dealing with a lack of Iron - especially if you add a few well-placed forts.

As another commenter mentioned above; in the real world many resources have lost value over time. If Civ was to be changed to make, say, horses, valuable in the late game all that would mean is that not having them would give you a hit both in the early-to-mid game and another hit in the late game.

 

[_hero_]

Iron- Steelmills: Increases production by 10% and production speed of (insert most late game units here) by 25%
Horses- Horse tracks: Provides 1 happiness and 5% gold.
Coal- Train Depot: Increases trade route yield by 50% if city is connected to capital via railroad.
(Would also make it far more desirable to build railroad routes)

 

[Sonereal]

Also makes coal more useful since there's only one building you would ever use it for.

 

[starrywisdom]

Would really love for them to take a look at the 'pacing' for both resources and some of the unit 'eras' as well. There's a metric ton of stuff they could do to make pacing a lot better, but I fear we might not see it for quite some time.

 

[Zenstrive]

stock exchange should give +1 gold for each resources in the modern era because of the commodity exchange concept.