Growing Resources

Kevin Ar18 · July 25, 2001, 16:40

I was looking at some screenshots of resources and reading about the colonies in the colonies thread, and i was thinking it would be neat if you could grow certain resources.

In other words for things like oil, when the map is first generated at random at the beginning it places all the resources on the map (kinds you can grow and kinds you can mine).

Then in game, the resources like oil and metail you find at certain places on the map.
However, for things that you can grow, like silk, food(grain), etc... etc... you will find them on the map as well.... But then, you can grow them kind of like in SMAC.... Like expand a forest or epand grain growing and perhaps become a major supplier of a certain resource.

This idea may not work with the current Civ3 resource model or it may just add more micromanagement -- I don't know.... It was just a thought.

When you start a game, the map randomly places resources around the map.

The part below added on 26-07-2001 01:33
because of misunderstandings about my post.
Basically the idea is two types of resources - limited and expandable (but you still have to find and get it on the map before you can expand it to more tiles).

When you start a game, the map randomly places resources around the map.
Then as you discover them you can use them.... but once you discover a resource like forest or grain that can be grown, once you get it, you can chose to grow it on nearby tiles as well - so you can build more.

This would alow some civs to become major growers of grain and sell that to people, while others use their tiles to grow forests for wood. Then the two could trade perhaps? Once again, minerals, metals, oil, etc... will ALWAYS be limited and cannot be grown. Thus, like in real life, THESE truly limited resources would be what is fought over, while the ones that can be expanded allow civs to become major growers in an area of their choosing.

Basically the idea would be more like real life... You still fight over limited resouces, but like in SMAC, you have some flexibility on the resources that are a little more flexible (but just like in real life you must find and get that growable resource before you can expand it).

Inverse Icarus · July 25, 2001, 17:09

yea, sounds like a lot of micromanagement.

and i think it takes a major emphasis off land-position.

forcing nations to trade for resources they cannot acquire on their own will make the game a lot harder.

imagine the chinese cutting off your oil supply right before you get mobile warfare.

Col Bigspear · July 25, 2001, 19:53

And then spend countless turns throwing your now outdated army at the Chinese held oil fields

I like the idea but I also believe it would require too much micromanagement

TechWins · July 25, 2001, 20:17

I'm not really worried about the micromanagement part, I'm more worried that it might throw the whole resource idea out of whack. I believe resources have been implemented to improve diplomacy and warfare. With being able to grow whatever resource you want it would mess up the diplomacy (not having to trade) and in messing up the diplomacy it would mess up a lot of strategy in warfare. So no I don't like the idea at all.

Kevin Ar18 · July 25, 2001, 20:33

Quote:

Originally posted by UberKruX
yea, sounds like a lot of micromanagement.

and i think it takes a major emphasis off land-position.

forcing nations to trade for resources they cannot acquire on their own will make the game a lot harder.

imagine the chinese cutting off your oil supply right before you get mobile warfare.

Quote:

Originally posted by TechWins
With being able to grow whatever resource you want it would mess up the diplomacy (not having to trade) and in messing up the diplomacy it would mess up a lot of strategy in warfare. So no I don't like the idea at all.

You all are misunderstanding me.

Anyways, as I said, there are two types of resources - ones that expand and ones that are a set amount.

When you start a game, the map randomly places resources around the map.

Then as you discover them you can mine them, but once you discover a resource like forest or grain that can be grown, once you get it, you can chose to grow it on nearby tiles as well - so you can build more.

This would alow some civs to become major growers of grain and sell that to people, while others use their tiles to grow forests for wood. Then the two could trade perhaps? Once again, minerals, metals, oil, etc... will ALWAYS be limited and cannot be grown. Thus, like in real life, THESE truly limited resources would be what is fought over, while the ones that can be expanded allow civs to become major growers in an area of their choosing.

yin26 · July 25, 2001, 20:59

It's a nice idea in some respects. Like Terra-forming, right? But I would have to wonder, is spening all that time growing wheat really worth it when I can simply take away somebody's gems, or whatever? In other words, if the limited resources are really the beginning and end of most everything important, then developing secondary resources would be a very low priority UNLESS something like stock markets were added to the game whereby you could corner the wheat market and make a ton of money, etc. Keep in mind, too, in the United States we often end up paying our farmers NOT to grow stuff so as to protect market prices...

Footie Mad · July 25, 2001, 21:09

How about depleting natural resources? That oil supply aint gonna last forever you know

TechWins · July 25, 2001, 21:22

Ok, I think I get it now. I thought you were talking about resources that are already in the game because of your statement "silk". I thought that you meant that you could produce silk, ivory, wool, etc... without the resource but instead terraforming the ladn. So these are resources that you could produce. What exactly would these resources ("grain" and "wood") do for you? That's why I don't understand it's importance.

TechWins · July 25, 2001, 21:24

Quote:

How about depleting natural resources? That oil supply aint gonna last forever you know

That has been discussed a lot. There isn't any confirmation on that yet, though.

LaRusso · July 26, 2001, 03:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Wille
How about depleting natural resources? That oil supply aint gonna last forever you know

well, texan scientists actually discovered that the supplies of oil are unlimited. also, in another reserach, it produces absolutely no pollutants when burned

i am not sure that the gamespan is long enough to warrant depletion of oil fields. given the scale of the game, oil 'fields' are rather big and there are not many big areas that went dry lately...at least i reckon

Grumbold · July 26, 2001, 07:33

One thing that always bugged me about Imperialism II, where developing the land resources is more of a feature than in Civ, was that certain resources ought to be easy to spread and yet were not. You could buy 100 horses in trade but could not establish your own horse ranch to then breed your own stock. If you had barren hills but a shortage of wool you still could not stock them with sheep.

I'm a micromanagement fan and would love to be able to do more with the land tiles than just irrigate or mine them. The spread of civilisation and growth of industrial capacity could be tied far more to the amount of food you could produce from slowly improving agricultural methods. How fast you transformed the tilled land from subsistence farming to intensive agriculture would matter more and could replace the nonsensical 'expanding grain bin'. Planting special crops like cotton, tobacco or vines could allow you to tailor your economy. I recognise that this is not to everyones taste and would make multiplayer even slower.

tniem · August 2, 2001, 02:15

Just to comment on two comments made above:

1) Sid said in an interview that there will be a chance of discovering a new resource every turn that a worker is working a field. So in a way there is a growing of resouces in Civ III

2) I believe Dan said that resources do deplete if you overuse them

meriadoc · August 2, 2001, 03:06

First of all, yes I did read somewhere that if resources are overused then they will deplete. On the other side of the coin, there will be a chance to discover a new resource every so often.

Now, as for micromanagement, I enjoy it for two reasons. The first reason is that I don't trust the computer to run my civ anymore than I trust it to take my non-existant girlfriend out on a date for me. Face it, the same AI that we complain about not being able to run the enemy civs is also the same AI that would be running mine if I didn't do everything.

Secondly, Civ is a game where you build an empire and try to live for 6000 years. In my opinion, that means that you should have to do a lot of things, from keeping an eye on the cities, to building roads. After all, that's what a real empire has to do. Besides which, I like trying to squeeze that last little ounce out of my civ....

Grumbold · August 2, 2001, 09:55

Quote:

Originally posted by tniem
Just to comment on two comments made above:

1) Sid said in an interview that there will be a chance of discovering a new resource every turn that a worker is working a field. So in a way there is a growing of resouces in Civ III

2) I believe Dan said that resources do deplete if you overuse them

Having a random chance of finding a new resource by working tiles isn't quite what I had in mind about a planned attempt to develop your economy. All it does is encourage you to make sure that 100% of the landmass is farmed by a city, not left empty. You can't search for wheat specifically, or deliberately raise horses etc.

Depleting resources are interesting, but lets face it, we didn't run out of iron, tin and copper in the early days and we haven't run out of coal, oil or uranium in the modern age. Resources would have to be unnaturally scarce for this to be a significant problem.

Sabre2th · August 2, 2001, 10:09

Whether depletion is 100% accurate or not, I don't care. It would add an extra little challenge to the game.

Bigger challenge = Bigger fun.

tniem · August 2, 2001, 12:55

Quote:

Originally posted by Sabre2th
Whether depletion is 100% accurate or not, I don't care. It would add an extra little challenge to the game.

Bigger challenge = Bigger fun.

Agreed.

It will force you in late game to trade or build out to get certain resources that you have over used over the years like some type of luxury. That way you can never simply stay isolationist in the game - you will have to interact with other nations throughout the entire game.

Kevin Ar18 · August 2, 2001, 14:22

I don't like the idea of resouces depleting -- except for those ones that are growable - like my suggestion, but for oil, uranium, I don't think they should deplete. It is both realistic and more fun that way - you can isolate yourself if you so choose, but also remember, as you discover new techs you may find you'll have to contact others to get newer types of resources so you won't be able to be isolated forever.

Nikolai · August 3, 2001, 05:14

Quote:

Originally posted by Grumbold
Depleting resources are interesting, but lets face it, we didn't run out of iron, tin and copper in the early days and we haven't run out of coal, oil or uranium in the modern age. Resources would have to be unnaturally scarce for this to be a significant problem.

That's right, but if a civ in Civ3 started to use oil in, let's say 1400, then the oil problaby would be away in our times!
This is about rewriting history you know...

Grumbold · August 3, 2001, 06:58

Oh yes, sure. If it is balanced carefully then it will work just fine. I just don't want to see situations where the whole world regularly runs out of enough oil or coal to build modern units, only for more to suddenly pop up later as if by magic. Having a race to develop the space ship before WW III breaks out over ownership of the last remaining oil fields would certaily be a challenge.

Solver · August 3, 2001, 08:48

That running out of resources could happen in sloe future. Predictions are, some resources will be depleted during 21st century, which actually means NOW. However, I believe that the technological process will enable us to re-create the resources, without having to build bases on, say, Moon, to get iron.

Dauphin · August 3, 2001, 15:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Solver
However, I believe that the technological process will enable us to re-create the resources, without having to build bases on, say, Moon, to get iron.

We won't run out of resources of things like iron, aluminium (etc..) we just won't have them in an easily accessible fashion. Basically we will have to recycle. This will happen when recycling all the old junk like cans, cars, (etc) becomes cheaper than (or less expensive) than mining scarce ores.

And as you say, technology will allow us to synthesise fuels, materials (etc...)

In conclusion, tile resources may deplete, but the ability to produce resources through things like recycling should not.

Lots of etcs there.

Solver · August 4, 2001, 08:03

Yes, this is why the resource depleting isn't a critical issue to include in Civ III, to me.

Jon Miller · August 4, 2001, 10:53

how about the fact that increased science allow snew sources of the resources

such as when Iron was first used, only a few people had it because you had to get it from meteorites and the like (where it was easily getable out of the soil)

this made the Hitites king i n th middle east

when their pile started going out and others began getting iron their power fell

Jon Miller

Dauphin · August 4, 2001, 14:07

Not sure about the Hittite thing, I thought it was based on the possession of the "chariot rush", and they lost power when other civs stole the wheel.

However I fully agree with the sentiment.

Quote:

Originally posted by Jon Miller
how about the fact that increased science allows new sources of the resources

Or that science finds new uses for a previously unused resource. Oil or coal wasn't that useful until the industrial era when it found its prominent role to play. You shouldn't really find a resource until your civ knows that it is going to need it and so actively looks for it.

Sabre2th · August 4, 2001, 14:20

Quote:

Originally posted by Big Crunch
You shouldn't really find a resource until your civ knows that it is going to need it and so actively looks for it.

I'm pretty sure this is the case already.

i.e. You can't see uranium until you discover fission.