Does ALL combat-units need access to resources?

[Provost Harrison]

Steel is made from iron so all metal units like this would come from the iron special resource. Another thing is, what resource is going to allow firearms? There is a white powder resource kicking around on some of the screenshots. I wonder if this could be saltpetre, essential in the manufacture of gunpowder...

[Ralf]

Does each and every combat-unit without exception (even warriors) need access to one or more resources? It cant be just special units because why should egyptian chariots need the horse-resource and standard chariots not?

If so, the low 1-1-2 value for standard chariots makes more sense. There you find horses you probably wont find the resource needed for warriors. So in practice, the standard chariot functions as your very first stop-gap defend/explorer unit. Not much of an attack-unit though. Or maybe warriors are an exception available for everyone regardless resource-access?

Also, is the resource-allocation aware of civ-placement on the map? So that egyptians always seems to have access to the horse-resource? Otherwise perhaps egypt cannot build egyptian chariots because of lack of horses, and before they have made contact with enough foreign civs in search of that resource, the special unit have already become obsolete.

[Rhysie]

I would expect you don't need special resources for all units, but you do for all mounted/chariot units - I'd also expect horses to be very abundant if that is the case.

If they do make it so that normal chariots don't need horses, it can still be explained by saying that the horse resource represents _quality_ horses, rather than run of the mill big donkies, and you need a quality horse for your quality war chariot.

[Ilkuul]

I would certainly hope NOT, otherwise you might spend forever trying to find resources to build ANY units to defend your precious 2-pop-costing cities!

[splangy]

i hope so, i hope all units besides a warior do, it makes sense-

defense.

warior=nothing
spearman=bronze
musketeer= iron (musket)
rifleman=steel (rifle)
moble infantry= steel (guns) oil, rubber

offensive. (2+ moves)

chariot=iron horse (?)
horseman= horse (da! )
knight=horse, iron
crusader (i doubt there in) = horse, iron
elephant=(i doubt there in) = ?
dragoon= hoarse, steel/iron
cavalry= hoarse, steel
tanks= steel, oil, rubber

offensive (1 move)

swordman= iron
catapult= ?
archers= maybe nothing?
cannon = iron
artillery= steel, hoarses(?) to pull?)
marine= steel
howitser= steel

air

all= steel, oil

ships

tireme= free?
carravel= cloth(?) iron (guns)
frigate/gallion=iron, cloth (i saw it but it might be a luxury)
ironclads=iron (gee, who saw that coming )
all ships after,to nuclear subs=steel, oil
nuclear subs= uranium, steel

does that sound about right ?

[Rhysie]

Sorry to be the pedant, but steel is not a resource, it is a manmade product, consisting mostly of iron and carbon. you won't find steel deposits in a mine, you can only make it yourself (or buy it from someone who made it).

[General Ludd]

Is wood in?

If so, I think these changes to your list would make sense:

Chariot= Wood, Horse

Catapult= Wood

Frigate / Galleon=Wood, Iron

Archers= Wood

(maybe)Musketeer= Wood, Iron

Caravel/Tireme= Wood (Figured that making the Caravel use iron too would make seafairing far too dependant on iron)

[Alex 14]

Only about 10 units need resources.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Alex 14
Only about 10 units need resources.

Having believable arguments that can verify/back-up ones 1-line statements always helps.

There are 16 civs and you cant have one civ needing resources for its civ-specific unit and the other one dont. That would unbalance things. So at least 16 units, but I think a lot more - if not (more or less) all combat-units - needs access to resources.

If the english special unit; an 18:th century battle-ship (man-o-war, I think) needs wood (or whatever), why shouldnt ALL wood-ships need the same resource? Or what about german panzer-tanks? What kind of resource does it need, that standard WW2-era tanks (in fact most modern weapons) dont need?

[splangy]

Originally posted by Rhysie
Sorry to be the pedant, but steel is not a resource, it is a manmade product, consisting mostly of iron and carbon. you won't find steel deposits in a mine, you can only make it yourself (or buy it from someone who made it).

no kiding! i hope my troops aren't armed with iron AK-47's it will probably be found only within cities that have a refinery or somthing.

[splangy]

Originally posted by Alex 14
Only about 10 units need resources.

hmmm. well we KNOW these need resources

battle ships
ironclads
hoarsemen
tanks
mobile infantry
all planes (at least 4)
swordsmen
cruisers
destroyers

shall i continue...? these are 12 by themselves, and we KNOW they need them (look at my list above!!)

[splangy]

Originally posted by Ralf


If the english special unit; an 18:th century battle-ship (man-o-war, I think) needs wood (or whatever), why shouldnt ALL wood-ships need the same resource? Or what about german panzer-tanks? What kind of resource does it need, that standard WW2-era tanks dont need?

this is what im saying, you cant build a tank out of leaves and grass!

[Ralf]

Over at the Civilization III Fanatics Center, they say that the number of resources will only be 8 - luxuries not included (gold not an luxurie?).

Iron
Oil
Horse
Rubber
Bronze
Gold
Coal
Uranium

I suspect its a few more then that - at least 10-12. Anyway, its not like 50+ combat-units must find its very own exclusive resource in order to be built. Most units demands more or less the same resources. And we already know that you always have access to at least 3 resources in the beginning - and some new ones can pop up during the tech-tree progress.

[Skanky Burns]

So what exactly is gold useful for, if not for luxuries?? The only practical use is to reflect sunlight in space (on astronaut visors, etc)... But as a useful resource to build armies of units?!?

[Provost Harrison]

I agree, gold would be a luxury, not a resource - or perhaps an extra source of trade for a tile...

[Skanky Burns]

I went to the link Ralf provided. I think they stuffed up somewhat....

Gold is listed in both the Strategic Resources and the Luxury Goods lists

I remember a previous post where there were pictures of 16 resources available, and guesses as to what they were. Ill see if i can locate it

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I agree, gold would be a luxury, not a resource - or perhaps an extra source of trade for a tile...

I think that the gold-resource (and gems) was to weak in Civ-2. Sure it was attractive to have within your city-area, yes. But one mined gold-mountain (or gems-jungle) only represented a couple of ocean fish-tiles worth of trade. Big deal.

In Civ-3 mined gold-mountains should be much more of a trade-jackpot - at least from ancient to- mid industrial eras.

[Ilkuul]

I believe we may now have the answer to Ralf's original question ("Do ALL combat-units need access to resources?") -- in the latest Gamespy preview:

"In addition to required technologies, each unit has a requisite resource you must have or trade for before it can be built."

See http://www.gamespy.com/previews/august01/civ3.

Hmmm. Many of those resources better be pretty easy to come by...!

[Provost Harrison]

Well for ships, it would be better to have the resource 'hardwood' rather than wood per se which could be traded between nations for building some of the ships. Forests will be everywhere which would mean there wouldn't be anything to trade. Unless the have some other special resource needed for ships...

[Swissy]

Bronze was used for cannon, both land and naval, well into the1800's. I do not think that iron was used to much until the benefits of rifling the barrels were discovered. Bronze was also used for the earliest of hand firearms(handgunnes and arquebus).

As for gold, modern electronic uses gold. Most of the critical plug in components in your computer have gold on them. I am sure that if you melted down a F-15 you'd get more gold out of it than you'd think was there.