What is the most valuable Strategic Resource?

[ErikM]

Originally posted by planetfall
Most valuable is oil. Without oil you will not play in the modern era.

If you want to test value of oil vs XYZ, create a scenario with '0' occurance of oil && XYZ and see which hurts your gameplay more.

You can work around and play a decent game with about any other resource, but not without oil.

Without Iron, you may not be able to make it to the modern era.

As for oil and other modern resources... The game can be won before tanks, not to mention aircraft and other contemporary military toys, come into play.

[planetfall]

Without Iron, you may not be able to make it to the modern era.

Why not? If no Iron exists for ALL civs!!!!

As for oil and other modern resources... The game can be won before tanks, not to mention aircraft and other contemporary military toys, come into play.

True, thus you voted for Horses or Saltpeter?

PF

[Mace]

Originally posted by planetfall
Why not? If no Iron exists for ALL civs!!!!
PF

You might be able to get into the modern era without Iron, but how good would your civ be?

[Last Conformist]

I did get to the modern Era as the #1 civ without Iron (only to lose at the UN ...) in my one and only Warlord game way back when CivIII Vanilla was new. Really annoying to be Persia and never get a GA because I couldn't build Immortals and and didn't get the right wonders.

Despite that, I did vote for Iron. Lacking it basically messes up your entire civ from the mid-Ancient till the end of the game.

Number two would be either Coal or Rubber. Lacking the former messes up you infrastructure in the late game, and missing the later leaves you with a joke for an army post-Replaceable Parts.

[Solomwi]

Definitely Iron. It's the only resource that's crucial from the ancient age to the modern age, or at least late industrial. It doesn't have the "cringe factor" the turn before it appears that Coal, Rubber or Oil do, but that's mainly because when Iron comes up, my games still have plenty of unsettled territory, and if I don't have any right now, I'm confident I can acquire some when I actually need it. In C3C, TOW Infantry makes rubber less valuable, since it is now possible to have a decent army without it, though you do have to wait until the modern era. Don't get me wrong, rubber may well be my favorite resource, since it lets me build marines, but that's different than most valuable.

My ranking would go as follows:

Iron
Coal
Horses
Saltpeter
Oil
Rubber
Aluminum
Uranium

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
I did get to the modern Era as the #1 civ without Iron (only to lose at the UN ...) in my one and only Warlord game way back when CivIII Vanilla was new. Really annoying to be Persia and never get a GA because I couldn't build Immortals and and didn't get the right wonders.

Despite that, I did vote for Iron. Lacking it basically messes up your entire civ from the mid-Ancient till the end of the game.

Number two would be either Coal or Rubber. Lacking the former messes up you infrastructure in the late game, and missing the later leaves you with a joke for an army post-Replaceable Parts.

Could you trade for it? I have had resoure deprivation before, but It only lasts until I find an AI willing to make a deal.

[vmxa1]

Often the AI will not have hooked up excess Iron and then if they do they are not always willing to trade it. It can be done though.

[Last Conformist]

Mad Bomber: The AIs resolutely refused to sell me any Iron. Not getting any RR was a royal pain.

[vmxa1]

No iron by the time of Steam is very stressful, that is for sure. I take it you had no place to capture any.

[timmy84]

I'm gonna say oil. For some reason, its always the hardest to find (even though in my current game, I'm the Middle East of the world), and my war machine doesn't start up until the mordern era (I'm a late bloomer).

Uranium seems to be a pointless resource. Unless you want nuclear plants or subs, or you have no problem angrering every civ (in which case, its the most important to your war machine). However, my civ has finally become complety self reliant (All I need to do is secure some furs and I'm set for all resources).

[DrSpike]

Uranium is handy if you like Spaceships.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by vmxa1
No iron by the time of Steam is very stressful, that is for sure. I take it you had no place to capture any.

The only reasonably nearby sources were the territory of my biggest neighbours, the French. Today, I'd laughed at the numbers and gone bashed some frog-eaters, but, as said, this was early in my CivIII career and I dared not attack a bigger civ.

[The_Unforgiven]

definitely iron, facts and rails

[Lunacy]

I want them to add coffee beans as a strategic resource. In the modern era that should make your civ much more hyper and industrious though you would be facing the risk that if the resource suddenly disappears your whole civ would sink into anarchy ;-)

Lunacy

[LodeRunner31]

Hello out there. I'm somewhat new to this forum but not to the game. I'm normally just a lurker.

Anyway, I normally play a builder style game. Recently, however, I'm trying to become a better war monger as capturing cities gives you more to build! So, in a game over the weekend, I picked Rome and started up a game.

Not a great start location, right on a flood plain so of course I got hit with disease while building my first settler. Guess I should have moved my settler in the first turn. Well, the map ended up being a pangea map and I was isolated on a large isthmus, with no iron and no horses anywhere close by. Lots of mountains and hills, but no iron. I decided to keep playing anyway (you know, for the challenge). It didn't take too long for everyone to start lining up to take shots at me and soon I found myself at war with half the other civs. I managed to hold them off until gunpowder...then, no saltpeter. Ctrl+Shift+Q.

[Last Conformist]

No Iron, no Horses, no Saltpeter? That's murder ...

[gunkulator]

I confess to being a Ctrl-Shift-Q'er if I don't get either Iron or Horses at the beginning. If I have either one, I can just go and get the other . Lacking both puts the kaibosh on any kind of ancient warfare.

[Last Conformist]

Well, Archer/Spear/Catapult stacks do work, with a bit of luck.

[Dry]

Originally posted by LodeRunner31
I managed to hold them off until gunpowder...then, no saltpeter. Ctrl+Shift+Q.

Exactly.
That's why I made a difference between the most valuable resource (iron) and the one I pray all gods of the civ pantheon for (saltpeter).
No Iron? You discover that early in the game. If you don't want to take the challenge, Ctrl+Shift+Q and you start again, the evening is not spoiled.
No saltpeter? Man, you spent so many hours, to discover that so late , that's not fair.
No Coal? Great! You have a few turns before the infantries show up to 'take' some with your cavalry.

[LodeRunner31]

The lack of saltpeter was basically the straw that broke the camels back in this game. My strategic options were dwindling in number. Rome wasn't built in a day for a reason, Rome sucks as a peaceful builder. I was in a good defensive position, but it would have been hard to go on the offensive that late in the game. I was falling behind in techs and lacked the infastructure to catch up both militarily and in research.

I have gone through games successfully without saltpeter, however. As a builder, by that time I should have a pretty sizable empire and be kicking out new techs relatively quickly. I feel that I can hold out until the Industrial Era. I do love cannons and cavs, though.

[MrWhereItsAt]

After some initial uncertainty, reading this thread convinced me - Iron for sure. You often don't need the military in the early game, as there can be games with plenty of time/room to expand peacefully. HOWEVER, Iron is required for RRs, THE top improvement for the industrial/modern ages, and a number of city improvements in those times as well. Coal is needed for RRs and a few improvementsa as well, but militarily you can live without it, and you wouldn't feel any effects from a lack of Coal until much later. Oil is pretty crucial in the modern era, but at the same time there are alternatives and my games tend not to last that long.

So for overall necessity, over the entire panoply of history in the game, Iron is necessary for good military and domestic strength.

[Theseus]

I've been changing my views on this...

Just before AU 502, I was playing a Celts game just for practice. I got the early game triple-whammy: No iron, horses, or saltpeter.

And ya know what? No problem. It's doable, albeit hard.

I'm starting to think in terms of the direst emergencies... what do you need to TAKE the resources you don't have, especially if forced into an intercontinental invasion?

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well I must promote my precious...

No horses? Hope for the SoZ. Several 1.00 games of C3C I got this deal - no Horses but Ivory, and the SoZ solved that problem. By the time it went out of date I had conquered at least 1.5 civs and had Horses too.

Theseus - did you have no Iron for the whole game, or did you pick it up somewhere along the line? No Iron at the start is a b*tch, but doable if you have some luck. I don't like to think about what no Iron for the entire game would be like though...

[Jaybe]

I went bananas.
The most valuable resource(s) are the ones you don't have. Especially if they are obtainable (by plowshare or by the sword).

[Dis]

good point. even aluminum is important if you are going for space ship victory. good luck winning that way without it.

[spy14]

It all depends on what era ur in and what strategy you prefer (smaller high-tech force or hordes or cheaper lower-tech units?)

Personally a like a highly mobile high tech force

[Theseus]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Theseus - did you have no Iron for the whole game, or did you pick it up somewhere along the line? No Iron at the start is a b*tch, but doable if you have some luck. I don't like to think about what no Iron for the entire game would be like though...

I took each resource that I needed, of course... it was just an uphill battle. And that's exactly my point: what resource, in the lack thereof, is most likely to prevent that uphill battle? In a typical mid-difficulty game (say, emperor or lower), I think that home continent conquest is almost always possible, so the question should be framed for necessary resources that require an IC invasion.

[bongo]

C3C armies has somewhat lessened the lack-of-resource agony. I started without iron/horses/ivory on a huge archipalego map. Even with the lighthouse trading were impossible.

My closest neighbour, the zulus had horses, the great wall and most important, tradelanes which could connect a lighthouse owner to the rest of the world. In PTW this would have been a very slow and painful war. But a couple of longbowmen armies, supported by tons of longbowmen/spearmen/trebuchet were able to make me forget the lack of resources.

[Cerbykins]

We're looking on iron. Once I had to do without oil, so had the curious navy of nuclear subs to replace the normal ones I couldn't have, and went into space ANYWAY - getting the other civs ot fight the wars for me
I just had a situation where I had 50% of the map and no coal, with the rest of them having -3-
That would have been unfunny if that'd kept up, but no iron would have been worse. No swords...BAAAAAD...see the avatar...
Next age. No medi infs, no pikes, no knights. Again, at a time I normally want and need them.
Industrial age. No iron, no factory, so no plants in turn
No rails either, not that you care with no coal

Agreed, if no-one else has it, it's not so bad. But it cases where they do, iron is by far the most vicious, with coal following.

Lack of rubber may be bad, but in 2 years I've never suffered it. It just doesn't seem to be scarce, and doesn't deplete anyway AFAIK.

[Mad Bomber]

I would like to extend a thanks to all of those who have replied.

As of this writing Iron leads Coal 81-38 with Oil and the Banana option tied for third with 17 votes. My largest surprise of this poll is that the Nuclear club did not score more than 3 votes.

In retrospect I probably should have included Horses and SP.

The debate in the thread has been excellent, it was exactly what I was looking for when I opened this thread.