Squeezing more info from screenshots

[Harlan]

Hi,
I'm starting to put together a Civ3 scenario in my mind, and need to know which resources are in the game. So, to figure it out, I gathered this image together:



From the website, we know:

"Natural resources are comprised of bonus resources, strategic resources, and luxury resources. Luxury resources are goods that improve the happiness of your cities. Strategic resources are needed to make certain military units (iron, for example, is needed to make the Swordsman or Roman Legion units) Bonus resources are resources like gold that simply produce extra food, commerce, or shields."

Presumably, only strategic and luxury resources can be traded.

* means we know this from an article, the rest are my guesses based on things in the image:

Strategic resources:
Horse*
Iron*
Rubber*
Oil*
Uranium*
white blob (or Uranium?)

Luxury resources:
Silk*
Spice*
Ivory*
Dye
Incense
Beaver

greyish blob
yellow rocks (gold?)
darker rocks

Bonus resources:
Gold*
Game
Grain
Fish
Whale


unknown types:
Wine
Papyrus? Paper?
Gems? Diamonds? (white shining rocks)

Clearly, pictures are changing over time, as one can see with the Incense, Ivory, Wine, Cattle, and Silk graphics at least.

Gold is clearly mentioned in the above quote as a Bonus resource, but there are yellow rocks looking very much like Gold in a queue of Luxury resources. Could it be in both categories?

Rubber took me a while to figure out - what where those dark donuts?? - till I realised it was one tire resting against another.

Beaver must be either Luxury or Strategic cos it appears in a negotiation screen, and I can't see what its strategic use could possibly be, thus is has to be a Luxury resource.

There are no doubt some we haven't seen yet, especially Bonus resources. I'm guessing maybe there are 8 of each kind. I'm also guessing Timber will be a strategic resource needed to build pre-modern ships. Bronze is most likely another. I can't think of any others that make military sense. Anyone have any ideas on some of the questionable pictures?

UNITS

I also threw some units in the picture. It seems to me that either Firaxis is discarding some units that it made graphics for, or there are still surprises in store for us. There is only one North American native civ, yet there are two units for them. Brave #1 looks like a Sioux, and Brave #2 is probably the Iroquois unit. The Iroquois were not famous for horse riding. Then there's what looks like an Arab unit (notice the curved scimtar blade). Even more perplexing, an early shot shows what looks like an AA Gun (modelled on the German 88, it looks like), and a Biplane. Perhaps some of these are for scenarios that will ship with the game, or just got cut.

I also included what I think is the Chinese special unit. I don't know the name, but the Chinese had that style of headgear (as did the Japanese), and shield.

Finally, people were complaining that there's no horse unit after Knight on the tech tree. If you look close at the unit given with Military Tradition, it sure looks like a horse unit to me, probably a Dragoon or Cavalry unit, judging by the time period.

One last wierd thing I noticed. In one screenshot I saw four leaders listed as "available" (shown in the lower right of this picture). Given that the civ in question is the Romans, I'm guessing the second name is Hadrian. What does this pic tell us about the mysterious Leader feature of the game, if anything?

[ajbera]

Originally posted by Harlan
Provost, I think your Saltpetre suggestion must be spot on. The two other ingredients for gunpowder, charcoal and sulphur, are very common, so that must be the limiting factor. But do we know that it looks like a white powder?

Potassium Nitrate (aka saltpeter) takes the form of whitish crystals, which are usually pulverized into powder. I used to steal it from my high school chemical supply closet, so I know of what I speak.

[Quarthinos]

About the horseman with a curved sword.. I know Japan and China both used curved swords, and I think they had horses (or at least ponies). I'm pretty sure that when the Moors came to southern Spain, they also had curved swords, but they might have been Arabic, I cannot remember.

When I saw the demo Infogrames was running at GenCon, the rep did call the old "grapes" terrain "wine", so I can confirm that. (He said they were running a late alpha, and it looked pretty polished to me. Since that was the beginning of August, it can't have been too much different from the beta.)

As to bronze, remember it's not an element, but an alloy of copper, tin, and zinc. The zinc would be found in either copper or tin ores, and both copper and tin have low melting points (electronics solder is mostly tin, with some silver added, and melts at about 400 farenhite, which a wood fire can get if you try hard enough) What I'm trying to say is I'm not sure that bronze would be a resource, as it's not too difficult to find or make. OTOH, iron ores are also very common, but iron has a higher melting point and requires more work to make into a useful artifact.

And as I recall, pitchblende (one of the major uranium ores) is a brownish-black mineral, so the dark rocks could be uranium.

And remember, it's not the potassium, but the nitrate part of saltpetre that's important, and some current gunpowder uses SODIUM nitrate, rather than potassium, although it's still a white crystal. Of course, one of the best places to look is in bat caves or cesspits, because saltpetre precipates out of urine. If you've been keeping horses, digging into the ground under the stables works, too.

[Skanky Burns]

Good work Harlan

Ive heard that Diamonds are in Civ 3, so my guess is the one you've labelled Gems? and the resource between Cattle and Gold are Diamonds.

[BeBro]

Yes, good work

But would you perhaps also reveal which scenario you are planning?

[monkspider]

I agree, very good work.
My guess however is that the second brave pictured is the unique unit for the Aztecs and the Arab-scimitar-wielding unit belongs to the Persians.
Can anyone else shed any light on this?

[Provost Harrison]

I am curious what the white powder resource is on the top. Now as it is nestled inbetween coal and iron and under the row of strategic resources, I would speculate that is it important in the manufacture of certain units. Therefore I would guess that it could be saltpetre (potassium nitrate), essential in the manufacture of gunpowder and thus units with firearms!

[General Ludd]

nevermind.

[Provost Harrison]

Well I am sure I have seen distinct different resources for diamonds and gems. Diamonds are just white crystals, but I have also seen coloured ones. I am sure I have heard paper mentioned as a special resource before, and definitely incense.

Beaver as a special resource eh? Well pelts were quite valuable I suppose, so yeah, it would certainly make sense as a special resource. One commodity I would think would make a good luxury would be tobacco!

[Urban Ranger]

My guesses are:

White rocks - diamonds
Three mounts of coloured powder - spices
Yellow blobs - gold
Darker rocks - oysters (pearls)

But what about bronze? Have we seen that yet?

[Harlan]

Hi,
Glad ya'll like. BeBro, its a little premature to say what scenario I'm planning now, as its liable to change, and who knows if Civ3 will have the tools I need. But let's just say it involves the Byzantines- I have several different Byz ideas so one of them's should work out.

Provost,
I think your Saltpetre suggestion must be spot on. The two other ingredients for gunpowder, charcoal and sulphur, are very common, so that must be the limiting factor. But do we know that it looks like a white powder? And what does bronze and uranium look like? Bronze may explain one of the yellowish things. Beaver I said was a luxury resource - clothes made from beaver pelts used to be all the rage.

If anyone has heard of diamonds, paper, incense, etc as definitely in, please point out the source. There are probably some screenshots I missed, and I didn't go through articles.

Monkspider,
Check out http://apolyton.net/civ3/images/units/screens.shtml - there is a unit there that looks much more like an Aztec unit. Their warriors tended to get really decked out in gear, especially their elite Eagle Warrior troops, and looked nothing like the braves of North America. Also, the Arab unit could theoretically be the Persian unit, but if so it would be a pretty bad job. A distinguishing characteristic of the Cataphract was horse armor, and the curved sword is an Arab distinguishing mark. Check out the Byzantine Cataphract unit in Age of Empires, which is very close to what the Persian unit would be like:

http://www.gamespot.com/features/aoe2_byz/page4.html

[Harlan]

That's wierd - some of the most recent replies are the "oldest" - the ones from Quarthinos and abjera. Perhaps this thread is so momentous that it actually warped the very dimensions of space and time!

Quarthinos,
Perhaps the Chinese and Japanese used curved swords, I don't know, but certainly cavalry would be the last thing to be a special unit for either of them. And if you saw a demo, why didn't you spill more beans? I didn't hear any if you did.

If one can get saltpetre from any old horse stable, then why can't any civ anywhere make gunpowder? The whole point of Strategic resources is they are limited - is the making of gunpowder geographically limited to certain areas?

[Imran Siddiqui]

I am curious what the white powder resource is on the top.

Cocaine?

[Christantine The Great]

Try salt. Salt was a valuable resource for a long time.

[phoenixcager]

Interestingly, Salt was also a trade good in Avalon Hill's Civilization....

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Harlan
Provost,
I think your Saltpetre suggestion must be spot on. The two other ingredients for gunpowder, charcoal and sulphur, are very common, so that must be the limiting factor. But do we know that it looks like a white powder

Yeah, saltpetre is a white crystalline solid; potassium nitrate to be more precise.

As for salt, yeah, I would agree with it being in the game, but the white powder is listed as a strategic resource with iron and horses and thus important in the manufacture of units. Salt would be a luxury and would not fit this description, hence I reckon it is saltpetre, not salt or cocaine (Imran, I presume a strategic resource as a little 'pick me up' for your military )

[Quarthinos]

I didn't say you could get huge amounts of saltpetre from a stable. Historically, bat caves and bird nesting grounds have been good for nitrates in general, which are also the major ingredient in fertilzer (and as some of you know, fertilzer and a common farm chemical, when mixed, make amfo, a fair explosive.) Stables are useful for testing, if you know about them beforehand, and the older the stable (100s of years is better), the more saltpetre you can get. If you move the stables, which the horses might not approve of...

As to what was shown at the demo, I think I'll start a new thread and go over the few insights given in the 30 minutes there.

[Urban Ranger]

I cannot recall that the Chinese used curved swords similar to the Arabic scimitar. The Chinese sword is straight-edged. There's a common Chinese weapon a bit similar to the falchion, but it's straight on the blunt edge and curved on the sharp edge.

Provost,

What about sea salt? That was very important.