Resources, or lack thereof

[Catt]

Originally posted by DrSpike

I'm not sure why they changed it though. Perhaps they would consider moving it closer to the way it was before, but tbh as I've said several times here not that many people seem to mind it as it is now.

I don't have a link handy, but they acknowledged here or at CFC that it was a bug relating to the introduction of either volcanoes or the new bonus resources (sugar, et. al.) They haven't confirmed, to my knowlege, that they would restore the original distribution levels, but given (i) it was not intentional, and (ii) the lack of threads along the lines of "New Resource Scarcity is Fantastic!" my bet is that they'll restore PTW or near-PTW scarcity levels. Just a bet; nothing certain of course.

Catt

[DrSpike]

Thanks for that info; since I had not seen such a post here I assumed it was intentional.

It seems they do lots of things without meaning to.

[Jaybe]

... and (ii) the lack of threads along the lines of "New Resource Scarcity is Fantastic!"

But, but ... there have been frequent POSTS indicating the approval of such scarcity!

I hadn't read the non-intentional part, and have been upset about the help documentation not being changed to the "new" appearance ratios. In 2-3 weeks (with the new patch) I may have to get used to the old "abundance" again. Who knows, perhaps at that time I will reduce them in the editor.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Jaybe

Quote:

... and (ii) the lack of threads along the lines of "New Resource Scarcity is Fantastic!"

But, but ... there have been frequent POSTS indicating the approval of such scarcity!

Yes, there have been some posts in favor, but usually such posts are at best tepid support for the change -- I haven't seen a whole lot of gung-ho support for it, myself (some, but not much). And too frequently those posts appear in threads with titles like "What the F*** is Up with Resources?????"

Catt

[lethe]

I just played a short game of PtW. Man, after weeks of C3C I was almost weeping with joy when I netted four luxuries for myself, three sources of iron, and convinced the Romans to stop squatting on my next two luxuries.

Six luxuries in two screens of space. Normal zoom!

Between marketplaces, a rushed in pyramids (rng love for once!), and lots of flood plains my little citizens didn't mind being ground down into swordsmen en masse. There was just no denting their intense happiness levels. At worst I managed to create a merely content citizen. This dissenter off course got tossed into the meat grinder the very next round.

Probably the first time ever I've held off on a switch to republic because pop rushing was too much fun!

Give me back the old scarcity please!

[ErikM]

Originally posted by Catt
@ErikM: there are hundreds and hundreds more examples of where civ departs from a realistic historic simulation -- remember that it is a stratey game, not a historical simulation. The designers weren't trying to model history, they were trying to create an engaging game.

Why bother with Civilopedia entries and so such then? Let Americans build orcs and Spanish - goblins. That will no doubt enhance gameplay experience as it will solve the problem of useless unique units and balance things better.

And if we also get rid of tanks and spearmen, we will also get rid of countless "spearmen beat tanks" threads. Just think of a benefit to Apolyton community

More seriously, I think you underestimate the allure of Civ being "about history". After all, how is it marketed? "Recreate history" this and "build an empire to stand the test of time" that. So many new players, especially Civ II/SMAC veterans, buy the game in expectations of doing exactly that - building an empire, engaging in complicated diplomacy, trade, etc. What they get instead is a linear game where the winning strategy is hitting any guy you've just met with a club (thankfully, clubs do not require any strategic resources).

There is no doubt that Civ III is much more of a wargame then its predecessors. C3C even more so due to resource scarcity. But just as Sir Ralph observed, Civ was/is a very lousy wargame. 10 year old Panzer General for DOS was much better as a pure wargame.

Originally posted by DrSpike
And anyone that posts another will be glared at quite severely.

Glaring I can take

[vmxa1]

Ok, glare coming your way.

Seriously, it is very hard to talk about realism in Civ. It is just a coincidence.

[Drachen]

Most of my recent efforts have been at Sid level and the lack of resources adds another level of difficulty to an already daunting task. If the developers are listening, I vote for a return to PTW resource levels as a first step. Beyond that, I wonder if it would be all that difficult to enable players to choose the level of resources just as we can choose the level of AI aggression. That would add strategic variation and make the game more appealing to players on both sides of the issue.

[ErikM]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Seriously, it is very hard to talk about realism in Civ. It is just a coincidence.

Too bad.

[Catt]

Originally posted by ErikM

More seriously, I think you underestimate the allure of Civ being "about history". After all, how is it marketed? "Recreate history" this and "build an empire to stand the test of time" that. So many new players, especially Civ II/SMAC veterans, buy the game in expectations of doing exactly that - building an empire, engaging in complicated diplomacy, trade, etc.

I don't think I underestimate the allure of Civ being "about history" and that's not what I argued. All the historical references of Civ III form the very soul of the game -- my point was that the historical references and touches are directed at the immersive aspects of the game, i.e., drawing the player into the fantasy world of managing one's own empire, rather than an attempt at faithfully recreating history.

My prior post might be put another way: Civ's realtionship to our own historical reality is an extremely powerful aspect of the game's allure, but the designers freely departed from realism when to do so made the game more alluring -- i.e., when faced with a choice between realism and interesting strategic choices, interesting strategic choices won out just about every time. Your post, the one I commented on, highlighted a bunch of aspects of Civ that don't mimic history or depart from current reality; rather than address each in turn I simply fell back to the point that the designers deliberately deviated from history / reality and did so for gameplay reasons. The only alternative explanation, it would seem to me, is that the designers actually tried to model reality but failed because they believed (rather improbably?), to use some of your examples, that cavalry are more mobile than tanks, aircraft carriers appeared in history before human flight, there are only a few dozen rivers on the entire globe, resources such as iron, coal, and rubber are not only rare, but they appear in very specific and limited locations only and when they do appear are of unlimited use until a sudden and unexplained depletion event occurs, etc. In other words, my point was, and is, that the fundamental design of Civ III was not about modeling history, it was about making and interesting and immersive strategy game. All the points in your post seemed to focus on the game's departures from historical fact but didn't at all address why such departures might have been made.

What they get instead is a linear game where the winning strategy is hitting any guy you've just met with a club (thankfully, clubs do not require any strategic resources).

That's a bigger discussion than I'm willing to go into here. Suffice it to say that I disagree, but I'm just not going to enter that fray.

There is no doubt that Civ III is much more of a wargame then its predecessors. C3C even more so due to resource scarcity. But just as Sir Ralph observed, Civ was/is a very lousy wargame. 10 year old Panzer General for DOS was much better as a pure wargame.

I never played Civ I or Civ II, so can't comment. But I'll repeat my view that I remain unconvinced that C3C's resource scarcity makes warfare significantly more necessary than prior versions of Civ III, and would vigorously contest the view that C3C's resource scarcity requires warfare.

Catt

[Harovan]

It doesn't require warfare. If you are an exceptional good player, you can do without railroads and factories and will do well defending yourself with spearmen vs cavalry, because the AI tactics sucks. But a game like this is hardly fun. In fact, it sucks.

[MrWhereItsAt]

First and foremost - I agree with SR, just not as passionately. The resource scarcity in PtW was pretty good, IMO, and if there was just one change to make C3C the best consistent playing experience it could be, it would be the return to this scarcity model. However I see that they were trying, with the introduction of more scarcity and the new resource-less units, to encourage builder strategies as being better than just difficult. Unfortunately, although I do not play MP beyond a PBEM or two (some of us live in countries where it is almost impossible to find a time for play that would suit almost any other player ), I can see that the extra scarcity makes war the best and often ONLY way of winning an MP game. Can we think of some other changes they could make to encourage the feasibility of builder-style games in both SP AND MP games? Perhaps by introducing resource-less unit equivalents for many of the key resource-dependent units the balance could be redressed. To make resources still valuable perhaps the resource-less units could be made a little inferior to the resource-dependent ones.

Originally posted by Catt

I don't have a link handy, but they acknowledged here or at CFC that it was a bug relating to the introduction of either volcanoes or the new bonus resources (sugar, et. al.) They haven't confirmed, to my knowlege, that they would restore the original distribution levels, but given (i) it was not intentional, and (ii) the lack of threads along the lines of "New Resource Scarcity is Fantastic!" my bet is that they'll restore PTW or near-PTW scarcity levels. Just a bet; nothing certain of course.

Catt

I don't know how this would be the case, as you CAN increase the appearance probability in the editor and come up with something approaching PtW levels, so either they didn't take this into account or there is another reason... Perhaps the effort to encourage less war-driven strategies was the impetus for the extra scarcity, as I mentioned above....

And Catt - I imagine the reason you are not seeing so many strong defenses of the current scarcity levels is because there is little need to defend it to those people - they have what they want right now. People will let you know if you do something wrong, but if it ain't broke there won't be any reason to talk about it!

[DrSpike]

I am also confused as to why they haven't altered it if the change was a mistake. However, the distinction between bug and feature these last few months has often been which side of bed Soren got out of.

[Tall Stranger]

Originally posted by Jaybe
But, but ... there have been frequent POSTS indicating the approval of such scarcity!

As one of the people you are likely referring to (since I did post a defense of the current system here), let me reiterate that I remain of two minds on this issue.

YES, I do think that strategic resources SHOULD be somewhat rare. I don't think that a player should ALWAYS be able to count on easily getting or trading for a strategic resource. If it's always easy to get, it's NOT particularly strategic.

On the other hand, I don't want to get to a point where warfare is the only option for getting a resource. Some believe we have reached that point. I strongly disagree.

Originally posted by Catt
Yes, there have been some posts in favor, but usually such posts are at best tepid support for the change -- I haven't seen a whole lot of gung-ho support for it, myself (some, but not much). And too frequently those posts appear in threads with titles like "What the F*** is Up with Resources?????"

Catt

Exactly. "Tepid" is a good descriptor. I think we're all looking for the right balance. I think making them somewhat more rare than PTW is probably an overall good thing. Whether it needs to be as scarce as it currently is, I honestly don't know.

I am intrigued by the idea of allowing at least some units/improvements to be built without the "required" resource. Maybe a 30-40% increase in shield cost/ turns to railroad?

[lethe]

I've read the editor help files, and they seem to imply that the resource change is a mistake. IT says a value of 160 will give 2 of a resource per player in a 8 player game.

Off course, this was _never_ true. In Vanilla/PtW it meant that there would be 1.6 resources per player. (Which in an 8p game gets rounded down to 12.)

In C3C an appearance ratio of 160 with 8p will net 9 of that resource. Presumably the formula was R*N/100 in PtW R being Ratio and N number of players. And presumably it's R*N/133 in C3C.

All hard work done at Civfanatics.

Now, the real question is, what is the design intent? Is the help file actually correct and there should be two iron per player? (Then, did some mathematically challenged intern change the denominator in the wrong direction?)

Just for fun I'll attach two scenarios. One is with PtW level resources. One is with the "land of plenty" resources that 2 iron per player would provide.

Fun nugget: Both maps I genned to see that it did provide the right number of resources had a starting position that was Iron Works capable. I drool at the though of an Iron Works capital.

[Catt]

SR, it is not that one must play without iron, coal, or saltpeter - it is that acquiring a source peacefully is potentially more challenging; I haven't played a "PP" game yet where I didn't get to build factories and RRs even if I didn't have iron and/or coal. Securing iron in the early age can be very tough if you don't have a local source, but mainly, IMHO, beacuse of very immature trade networks in the early age. Later resources seem available, for the most part, for me.

Pehaps I've been unusually lucky, but I haven't run into one of those oft-reported games where there is only one or two coals in the whole world or one or two oils -- I can usually either find an extra source or create one on the market -- and while it may cost me an arm and a leg to trade for one, that's an arm and a leg I didn't have to pay to build and support a military force sufficient to take and secure a supply. Most of my standrad maps games have 5 or 6 coal supplies, 5 or 6 oil supplies, and 3 or 4 uranium supplies.

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
I don't know how this would be the case, as you CAN increase the appearance probability in the editor and come up with something approaching PtW levels, so either they didn't take this into account or there is another reason... Perhaps the effort to encourage less war-driven strategies was the impetus for the extra scarcity, as I mentioned above....

Yes, you can. But if something else in the code unexpectedly resulted in greater resource scarcity, why would Firaxis revisit the editor values? I'm just reporting what I've seen -- that the resource scarcity was not a deliberate change made by Firaxis - the fact that the editor values remain unchanged would seem to imply either that (i) Firaxis intended an undelying change in availability, or (ii) Firaxis intended no such thing and didin't realize the change occured (and therefore didn;t compensate by changing editor values).

Catt

[patcon]

Why not make everybody happy?
Some people like huge maps and some like tiny, some like pangea and some like archipelago, some like hot/dry and some like cold/wet, so Firaxis gives the option of making these decisions in the new game startup menu.
Since some like plentiful resources, some like scarcity, some like to be surprised, and some like to try different options. So why not allow these choices when starting a new game? I know you can go to the editor and change all sorts of game parameters, but since Firaxis has chosen to give us some game start options without going through the editor, why not include these options as well.
Something like "Resource availability - high / medium / low / random". I would gladly give up the rather pointless (in terms of effect on game play) option of planet age, if the issue is space on the new game startup screen.

[smellymummy]

i personally prefer this scarcity vs the old model.

scarcity for me means important wars and valuable trading allies. the old model for me was simply isolate myself (asides from tech trades) until cavalry and then game over.

:up: for the c3c resource model/bug/feature

[lethe]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I am also confused as to why they haven't altered it if the change was a mistake. However, the distinction between bug and feature these last few months has often been which side of bed Soren got out of.

Atleast he talks to us. Which is HUGE. And he isn't condescing of his fan base. I played Everquest, and their early community managers seemed to really look down their noses at the losers that played.

Other game developers never really talked to their fans.

[pvzh]

I personally would support C3C model if the calculation of the price of stratigic resource would be changed. Currently, resource cost directly proportional to number of cities and number of units and worker actions allowed by this resource. Thus, if you have rather large empire due to lucky REX or some early wars you have lots of corrupt cities that cannot possibly produce any units, yet they contribute to the resource cost as much as productive cities. This means you have to go to war: purchase of resource if it is available would be too expensive.

In regards to formulae of resource distribution.
The formulae that are listed in civ fanatics are just an approximation. I doubt that they are exactly like that in the code.
You need to held in mind one thing that any resource (stratigic, luxury or bonus) have terrain restrictions (listed in the editor and civilopedia) and spatial restrictions that are not listed anywhere, but you must have noticed them if you generated many random maps.
1. Bonus and luxuries are clastered resources, i.e. there could be 2 cows or 2 ivories in the neigbouring tiles.
2. Stratigic resources do not cluster (have not seen any in Civ 1.29 and up): no 2 irons in the neighbouring tiles.
3. All resources exclude other resources in the immediate vicinity (1 tile radius), so if you have cow it would not be any game (another bonus resource), incence (luxury) or iron (stratigic resource).

Thus adding new bonus resources decreased the amount of usable space for luxuries and stratigic resources. Upping appearance ratios can help only to large and huge maps with above average land.

So there are two things to be done:
1. Take out 1 tile radius of dead space aroud all resources.
2. Adjust stratigic resource price by corruption somehow. For example charge per usable shield output (excluding civil engineers, obviously).

These 2 would take care of unintended scarcity and make trade an option.

[Jaybe]

pvzh, resource clustering is mainly a function of world creation parameters that you specify (achipelego ... pangea, ocean percentage, age of world (3 ... 5 billion years)).

Resource cost in trading is largely related to difficulty level and relative size of civs.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Catt
Pehaps I've been unusually lucky, but I haven't run into one of those oft-reported games where there is only one or two coals in the whole world or one or two oils -- I can usually either find an extra source or create one on the market -- and while it may cost me an arm and a leg to trade for one, that's an arm and a leg I didn't have to pay to build and support a military force sufficient to take and secure a supply. Most of my standrad maps games have 5 or 6 coal supplies, 5 or 6 oil supplies, and 3 or 4 uranium supplies.

Standard sized maps are designed for 8 civilizations. Thus, "5 or 6 coals on the map" translates to "2 or 3 civilizations are seriously screwed". Since the human player will never be the screwed one (he will secure the resources he needs by all means... in the war game C3C that's war, surprise, surprise...), it means 2 or 3 either dead or hopelessly powerless (= de facto dead as well) AI civs by the mid of the industrial age. I don't know if this is a desirable goal. For me it isn't. I loved to play games keeping all civs alive, forming alliances, helping the weaker against the bullies, bully the stronger myself, trading or denying resources and advances, in a word - be the machiavellian bastard. These games are history. PtW was the last fun version of Civ3, sad but true.

Overall I have the unpleasant impression, that for the sake of the AI the last bit of fun is sucked out of the game. And it's not even improving it. Improving the AI would mean "Let's teach it what it can't do well". The Firaxis way to solve this is "Let's take this option away from the human". So the AI can't efficiently place the FP and ends up with rampant corruption and a crappy empire? Let's weaken the FP and impose that rampant corruption on the human as well! So the AI can't effectively use ZoC (Civ2 and CtP style)? Away with it! So people complain about late game tedium? Let's force them to wage wars for resources! An approach like this may make the AI more competitive. But it doesn't make the game more fun, au contraire. And it kills multiplayer (online or PBEM). If you invest six months in a PBEM game and see that you're without coal and can't even trade for it, because there are four sources for six players on the map, you will shout "Hosianna" and "Praise Firaxis". Not.

[DrSpike]

Ralph, I don't disagree with many of your thoughts, but I have to disagree with your timing. All of Civ3 from the beginning has been about making SP more challenging by taking away options from the human that the AI cannot handle properly. The FP change is just an extension of that policy. (although of course, that was the way it was meant to work all along right?

As for resources I sympathise. I hope they change it back closer to the Vanilla/PTW situation.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Ralph, I don't disagree with many of your thoughts, but I have to disagree with your timing. All of Civ3 from the beginning has been about making SP more challenging by taking away options from the human that the AI cannot handle properly.

That's true, but until PtW I still could bear it. The Conquests FP issue made me seriously upset and moved me to a 50% support/50% resistance status. The resource scarcity issue tipped this balance clearly towards resistance. I don't want to rant about the game. I still hope very much, that it's a bug and will be fixed. If it won't, I will uninstall Conquests and ebay the CD away. I mean it.

[Grond]

I still say not getting 1 SR increases strategy, not getting 3 greatly reduces strategy.

[CerberusIV]

I'm not sure it kills MP, certainly not PBEM. It makes it far more important to have an ally who does have the resource and is willing to share it.

One of my PTW PBEM's is 6 players on a standard map with normal settings. It put 5 players on one continent and me on the other with the 2 vacant slots (I have 3 luxs). My continent has NO saltpeter. It may be rare in PTW but not impossible to be short of a resource like this.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
I'm not sure it kills MP, certainly not PBEM. It makes it far more important to have an ally who does have the resource and is willing to share it.

Doesn't work for coal. While railroading, you need the coal for every worker assignment.

[SirOsis]

It is possible to adjust the scarcity in the editor but how about allowing for adjustments from the start screen much like ai aggressiveness. There could be 5 levels of scarcity.

Slim Pickings
Scarce
Normal
Abundant
Lap of Luxury

This would allow for greater gameplay challenges and more variety. It should also appease those who don't feel the current resource distribution is "right".

I don't think this would be very difficult to implement since all that would be adjusted is the values in the editor. However, I don't think that it would adjust the luxury distribution only the strategic resources.

[Grond]

That's exactly what I'm asking for. The current setting would be Slim Pickings?

[DrSpike]

More like waiflike pickings.