C3C : Strategic Resources Scarcity Sucks!

Cort Haus · December 18, 2003, 18:55

3 saltpeter and 3 coal on a 6-civ continent. Interesting perhaps for the wargame, but more like death for the trading game, and a PITA in MP I expect.

In fact, this mod has blown away one of the few viable peace strats in Civ 3. By removing likelihood of any strategic resources coming onto the market, war is now almost mandatory.

A better implementation would have been a user option on the startup - like aggro factor or barb level.

Theseus · December 18, 2003, 20:32

Do we have any hard data on this?

I've read a bunch of anecdotes, and in the one epic game I've played mostly through, I had some real issues as well... no friggin' horses!

vmxa1 · December 18, 2003, 20:39

I can only add my perspective and it seems to be rarer than before C3C. I like the idea of sometimes having to get one resource by hook or crook, but I do not be missing several and they are not on the land mass either.
I want to be able to take them or trade most of the time. It is fair to not get them at all from time to time.

chequita guevara · December 18, 2003, 21:13

I like it rarer.

Jaybe · December 18, 2003, 21:22

Quote:

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I like it rarer.

Ditto. I think it is inappropriate to always be peaceful. The resource scarcity applies pressure that is often not "comfortable", as IRL.

For a thread at CFC with the "facts" on the new distribution, see
Distribution of resources in C3C is TOTALLY different (details)

Shogun Gunner · December 18, 2003, 21:43

Quote:

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I like it rarer.

More interesting when there's not enough to go around.

nbarclay · December 18, 2003, 21:56

The biggest problem I see with the new system is that there is no opportunity to try to outbid an existing trade partner for a resource. Barring war, deals between AIs tend to keep getting renewed even if the human player could (and would like to) offer a vastly better deal.

Many wars have been fought because one nation wanted to get something another had without paying for it. But having to fight a war just because the game's economic system isn't complex enough to let you outbid another civ for something you need or want is another matter entirely. That feels too artificial to me.

Nathan

alva · December 18, 2003, 22:14

Quote:

Barring war, deals between AIs tend to keep getting renewed even if the human player could (and would like to) offer a vastly better deal.

Maybe more of an Civ4 thing but some auction type deal cold be nice.
-
I do prefer the scarcity way

Jaybe · December 19, 2003, 01:12

WHAT I like about the resource scarcity is how, in my current game, I had to take extra care to avoid rioting when I had only 1 luxury. Now I am sharing tech in exchange for 2 more lux, and what a relief!

An added little bit to chase away any tedium....

Cort Haus · December 19, 2003, 05:17

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
I think it is inappropriate to always be peaceful. [URL]

Well, I think it inappropriate to always have to fight wars for resources.

Most countries in the world don't own or control oil regions - they buy their oil on the market. What's wrong with that?

Donegeal · December 19, 2003, 05:51

I have now twice played an epic game all the way through. All settings random (except raging barbs) on Regent. Both times I have ended up on a medium sized continent with some mountians, a little desert, some turndra and a mix of plains/grass (with a fair amount forested). In both cases, no Iron, no Horse, no Saltpeter, no coal, no rubber and no oil (I did have uranium but I always won before aluminum became visable). Frustrating? Without a dout. Interesting? It adds an entire level to the game that you just don't experince if you have the resources. I think I like it.

Donegeal · December 19, 2003, 05:59

BTW, I think it lends itself to be more peaceful if you don't have resources than the other way around. No Iron means no Swordmen. No Horse means no Horsemen. No Sword/horse means no offense. No offense means no war.

In both the cases above, the situation forced me into a builder mentality (I bee lined for lit to get the GL then sent out curraghs to get contacts. While I was slowly working on contacts, I built up my treasurey to rush buy nearly everything I could. By the time I had contact with everybody and got Education, all my cities had built all improvements and were then working on Uni. The tech race was over. The AI could not keep up with perfect cities. Since I had no resources, I just made sure everyone liked me and never fought.)

Mountain Sage · December 19, 2003, 06:08

I just played a few games so far but I must confess I like the scarcity of resources (for now, that is).
No horses? go for swords.
No iron? go for horses.
No iron and horses? archers and play it nice.
No saltpeter? play it VERY nice.
No aluminium? take your old cavs out the mothballs.
No uranium? become Secretary-General.

As for the luxuries, it makes the game more challenging. How many times were you able to trade for all of the luxures and have more happy smileys in your city than pop points?
Now you have to think carefully what you want to trade and with whom. Marketplaces and the Sistine become more mandatory (!).
And if you feel yo're screw...?
well, play differently and post on the 'I might be losing' thread

Cort Haus · December 19, 2003, 07:12

No coal?

geniemalin · December 19, 2003, 09:27

Needing iron and coal to build Railroad means if you don't have and can't trade for either of them, you're in trouble (as developing through the industrial/modern era basically assumes you have railroads - not to mention the military advantages they convey....)

In the games where I haven't had Coal (I've funnily enough never had a no-iron game) I've been forced to launch a war to get it.

Cort Haus · December 19, 2003, 09:38

Thankyou, geniemalin

Yes, it's possible to get by without certain resources - but not without coal. If there's less coal than there are civs, then the civs without are doomed. I don't disagree with anyone who says that they find it fun to go hunting - my point is that the players options are now more limited. Perhaps only 10% of players are builders, so democratically I suppose it's understandable that the game is more designed for war.

Arrian · December 19, 2003, 09:46

I like the idea of scarcity, but perhaps it's been a little overdone? I haven't played enough epic games to really make a judgement on that yet.

I've played as the Maya: iron and horses, but I went a REALLY long way to get iron (and fairly far to get horsies). I only got iron because I blew the AI away in REXing (Monarch level). On a higher difficulty, I would have had horses but no iron (but I also had ivory... and well, we know what that allows).

I played the Iroquois and had horses. I captured iron (archer rush). That game ended up as an Ultimate Power game.

I played another Iroquois game and had both iron and horses on my island (lucky, I know), and by the time other major resources were discovered, I'd conquered large territories off my island. Still, I barely had coal.

My most recent game, as Greece, also provided me with both iron and horses. I had coal, but wouldn't have had it if I hadn't conquered large territories that weren't mine to begin with.

I've done quite a bit of fighting in each game, so I often don't notice shortages of resources. It's iron, horses and maybe ivory that matter the most. With them, you can get the rest.

-Arrian

Donegeal · December 19, 2003, 10:27

In the games I was talking about, getting RR is not that difficult, you just have to time it right. The first thisng you do when you discover you don't have coal, is look to see if someone has an extra source. You will also need an extra source of Iron somewhere as well if you don't have it (like in my games). If you don't have a trading partner, you have no choice but to fight (Lots of Trebuche/Cannon and Longbowmen

). If you do have trading partners, bee line for replacable parts IMMEDIATELY!!!!! Note: do not attempt to trade for coal at this time. Once you have gained Replacable Parts, trade tech, Lux or whatever you need to get the vitial Coal and Iron. The reason to wait to get RP is because your workers work twice as fast once you get this tech. You will now have 20 turns to RR as fast as possible. If you have a large empire, use stacks of workers to connect your cities with rails first. Once all your cities have been connected then RR the flat tiles (Desert/Plains/Grass). DO the flat tiles first cause you can rail a flat tile in one turn with 2 native workers (ie, they are the easyist). Once this is accomplished, Rail hills/Mountians in only the productive cities first using stacks of workers. If you start to get close to the 20 turn limit of the deal, break up the stacks and go with one worker per tile to be RR (once the worker starts an action, it won't stop just because the resource ran out, just like production). Using this no Coal/Iron Strat, I have been able to RR my entire empire in 8-12 turns.

Reguarding city Productions, I would recomend switching all builds to Factories immediately (for me it was always all cities because between Palace/FP placement I did not have very many corrupt cities) and I would rush buy as many as you can just before the 20 turn limit is up to start on Coal Plants (if you decide to go with Coal plants that is. I usually go for Hoovers and don't have much need). Once this is all done, or at least started, don't worry about the coal supply running out. Your Factories and Coal plants don't actually need coal to operate, you just need it to start building.

Cort Haus · December 19, 2003, 10:40

Quote:

Originally posted by donegeal
In the games I was talking about, getting RR is not that difficult, you just have to time it right. The first thisng you do when you discover you don't have coal, is look to see if someone has an extra source.

donegeal, you gave a fine account of how to approach RR without coal in PTW. From my limited experience, in C3C there's less likely to be anyone with a second source to trade - unless a killer AI is on the loose.

vmxa1 · December 19, 2003, 13:31

I think the real issues is not that a given civ does not have a given resource. That can be dealt with, it is if the resource is scarce world wide that options are limited.

In a world as it is now, you do not have to have oil as many do and are willing to trade it. What happens when it is monoploized?
I am fine with say 8 civs in the game and there is 5 or 6 oil deposits, but if there are only 3, that is a big problem for the game.

Orz · December 19, 2003, 15:49

Absence of BOTH iron and horses makes your life quite difficult during ancient and early middle ages unless you play greeks or build the Statue of Zeus. The coal is not so necessary because of the units and coal plants but RRs are something you really really want to have. I think that salpeter, uranium and rubber are things you CAN do without but not iron and coal.

That's why I put a lot of iron and coal on my maps

Shogun Gunner · December 19, 2003, 22:03

Quote:

Originally posted by nbarclay
The biggest problem I see with the new system is that there is no opportunity to try to outbid an existing trade partner for a resource. Barring war, deals between AIs tend to keep getting renewed even if the human player could (and would like to) offer a vastly better deal.

I think this is a valid point. If the the AI diplomacy/trading was more sophisticated, then you would have more options to remain peaceful (which is Cort Haus' point).

In the Civ4 list threads (Civilization General/Future) there have been some good debates about these issues.

You can always make your own maps.... I know, that's a pain when you just want to fire up an epic game.

Catt · December 19, 2003, 23:51

I don't know what to think of it yet. My initial reaction was positive -- i.e., the scarcity imposes additional challenges. But I'm not sure that the scarcity isn't too much -- it could unduly hinder a peaceful game by the human, and it could really mess up AI performance. For the undecided, like me, it is certainly something to keep an eye on as the collective experience with C3C grows.

Catt

Donegeal · December 20, 2003, 09:56

I haven't actually checked, but I think that there is susposed to be a minimum number resources as there are civs. So in the end, it should work out.

Quote:

Originally posted by Cort Haus
donegeal, you gave a fine account of how to approach RR without coal in PTW. From my limited experience, in C3C there's less likely to be anyone with a second source to trade - unless a killer AI is on the loose.

This was done with C3C, but I get your point.

Snotty · December 20, 2003, 16:09

I really like the resource scarcity. I just won a MP ladder game as Japan having no horses or iron. There was only one of each on my continent and they were held by the other two players. Greece and I trashed the horse guy, and I was faced with the prospect of taking on Greece with only archers! I absolutely had to take him on before he got to feud. Things would have got messy otherwise. Hair raising but exhilarating that I managed to pull it off.

I am a dyed in the wool warmonger so paradoxically it makes it easier for me to tolerate the scarcity.

petermarkab · December 22, 2003, 17:56

To conserve the apparent scarcity of some strategic resources, but to ensure no civ is too disadvantaged, why not always have as many strategic resources as there are civs, but cluster the resources, in much the same way as luxuries are currently.

This way, a small number of civs can in theory control a lot of the resources, but at the same time, other civs can trade for them. All that remains to be done is for the price demanded by the AI to other AIs, (and all other permutations) is related to the availability of known resources, through map visibility, and the trade screen.

Whaddya think?

regards,

Pete

ps. I've not experienced anything like the resource scarcity described in this thread.

steven8r · December 22, 2003, 19:24

I'm currently playing a game where there seems to be no Horses on my continent (at least not that I can see), and I guess I'm the only one with Iron

I used my Swords against Scandinavia's Archers and Spearmen and Berserk (they are waay ahead of me in techs). I had just taken over thier Ivory and started the SoZ, but the Americans beat me to it (I haven't even found them yet).

I was just about to start extorting some techs from Byzantium when they 'found' Iron AND Horses. They have Knights now. I'll have to hurry and get Samuri (won't need the Horsies until Cavalry).

The lack of Stragegic Resources makes the game harder--especially if one is required for your UU.

However, my warmongering style is starting to improve.

Shogun Gunner · December 22, 2003, 23:11

agreed steven8r. It takes some thought and *gasp* strategy! It does make it interesting. That game you described is a perfect example how the game strategy isn't boiled down to a set formula.

The name of this thread needs to change to Strategic Resources Scarcity Rocks! If someone doesn't change it, I'm opening a parallel thread with this new title and inviting everyone to it!

MrWhereItsAt · December 23, 2003, 01:31

The scarcity of strat resources in my games so far has ended up killing the AI more than anything. As soon as I know where the only source(s) of Iron or Horses are, I ensure I get them at all costs. The AI hasn't quite the resolve I have about this, and they tend to disappear quickly without either of these crucial resources.

It's an all or nothing deal. Either you are unlucky and unable to get the resources and YOU are screwed, or you get the resources and the AI is done.

Cerbykins · December 23, 2003, 01:46

I'd have to agree - if anything I want resources to be even more scarce...largely because I like making the AI suffer in return for basic resources

On the other hand, if I get caught short - archer time

Later in the game it never seems to matter so much. Probably an effect of my enslaving half the planet

I have been caught short in the midst of spaceship building once, but it was over a year back...