You do think that Civ3 ressources are so cool?

[Naokaukodem]

I do think they do suck. And it enhances big territories importance and so war and systematic big scale conquests.
Plus it does not give strategical wars really, or so rarely that I personnally never experienced it in a hella bunch of games. I know any game should be unique, but I don't want to play 1000 games in order to play an interesting ressource or so intrigue. Gameplay experiences should be maximised for, maybe not each game, but a way better probability ratio, like we should be able to fight for ressource, or so, in 1 game from 5.
Finally it is simply very uncool to see that we lack iron and coal so we will not be able to do railroads... and in this case, we rarely can take over an enemy to grab it.

No really, do you think that Civ3 ressources model is essential, and why?

 

[Graadiapolistan]

once in the very early ages, i just discovered iron, I built one swordsman, and it was gone. i found another source that lasted the whole game

the resource system needs a little bit of work in my opinion

 

[Mordack]

I used to be a peacenik

now a warmonger

nuff said

 

[Trade-peror]

The Civ3 resource system, while certainly a step forward from previous versions of Civ, is still EXTREMELY lacking. A significant amount of work in the current direction would transform Civ into a far more dynamic and multifaceted game.

For now, however, the "Civ3 resource system sucks!"

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I agree with Trade-Peror-no suprise there ! Though the introduction of discrete resource deposits, and tying them to the construction of certain improvements, wonders and units, was a HUGE step forward, but the way in which they appear and disappear needs a LOT more work.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Rambuchan]

I agree that the reliability and longevity of resources leaves a lot to be desired but resources are "cool" IMO. I do find that there are often struggles for control of certain resources and this breeds the warfare that I love. This also makes things a little bit realistic as resources have often made the difference between one nation's wealth and power and another's poverty and weakness. This is also the case when you have civs who hold rich resources in their lands yet cannot use them for monetary or technological reasons.

Resources have transformed Civ and I support any further efforts they make with implementing them further.

 

[dexters]

Well most of the resources (luxuries + strategic) in Civ3 never disappear. After balance and playtesting, the propensity for a resource disppearing (mainly coal, saltpeter, iron, oil, aluminum and uranion) has been reduced.

I agree with the sentiment of players who feel this random element is detrimental to the game and should be revised. Resources as they currently are is fairly straightforward.

I remain unimpressed with the various models put forward, most of which propose a byzantine system of sub-rules, menus, functions etc. which would take a casual players months to unravel. There's something to be said truly about simplicity of the current model.

The only area that could be integrated more fully is the idea introduced in Civ3:Conquests and Play The World where units such as the Guerilla and the
TOW Infantry was introduced as a way to balance the game further in favour of defense (Civ3 is a fairly defensive game).

What could be tweaked here is instead of giving the poor man's units (ie: Guerilla for lacking rubber) a more interesting approach would be to allow variant technology paths allowing players and AI alike to compensate for a short term lack of a resource by researching slightly differently and acquiring a unit of comporable usefullness.

With indication that the tech tree in Civ4 will be greatly revised, it would be interesting for example to see a technology path an early 'ironless' player could pursue to remain competitive for the middle-term (20-40 turns) without being run over in an early war.

This doesn't not negate iron completely as it will become impossible to avoid not having it in the long term (50-200 turns) but it allows humans and especially the AI players to field a comparable army by pursuing a variant technology tree in the middle-term, to remain competitive and buy time while they figure out a way to acquire this resource. The same idea applies to other resources such as rubber, oil etc.

 

[dh_epic]

Dexters, I'd have to agree with your argument about "byzantine system of sub-menus" (I've never heard byzantine used as an improper adjective).

But it's not so much because of the lack of simplicity. Obviously Soren wants to keep the relative level of complexity between Civilization 3 and Civilization 4 the same. But you could cut out a few things from Civ 3 and make room for this economic system if it were truly a good thing.

The problem is it's not much of a good thing when you focus on what the player actually does. You gain one or two valuable high level decisions -- "should I practice conservation, or should I spend my limit and try to acquire more?", or "should I get what I need, or more than what I need and leverage it in trades?" But you lose in the form of dozens of low level decisions like "can I make 387 oil, instead of 382?" \

Ultimately, you add slight rewards for strategists, but huge rewards for micromanagers. That's not a good addition.

 

[Che Guava]

The only major issue I have with resources is the infinite amount that seems to arise from one source. If your empire stretches across the globe, could one hill really supply all your iron needs? I think once you get a resource, you can use it in up to ten cities of your choice that are attached to the resource by land/sea route (this # of cities could perhaps go up and you develop better and more efficient technologies). If city 11 wants to build a swordsman, you're going to have to pick a fight or trade with someone to get some more iron.

 

[mastertyguy]

The ressource system needs improvement, but it is not so bad

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As I have said elsewhere, resources should have a 'size' rating, which determines how many of your cities it can 'feed', free of charge. After that, the resource deposit has an increasingly greater chance of disappearing from the map. This will help to make resources even MORE important-even when a nation has a deposit of it.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[Elrohir]

I thought the resource system was a good idea, although the resources needed to be more plentiful. There are been several times when I have 20%+ of the World's land inside my borders - and no coal or uranium. Once I was playing on a Huge map, had around 24% Territory, and 28% Population - and there was one coal resource on the entire continent, and of course it was inside another nations area. (But, that city radius that it was in was completely surrounded by mine - so I took 'em over )

So keep resources like that, just make them more common.

 

[Winston]

The resource system is a step in the right direction but no where near enough detail or strategic importance unfortunately