Figured out a little detail on how luxury resources work

Akron · October 8, 2001, 15:59

I was looking through a bunch of city screen screenshots and noticed an interesting thing about luxuries. Unlike I had previously thought, they don't add a specific number of happy faces based on scarcity. Instead, the first 2 give you one happy face each, the third and fourth give you two happy faces each, the fifth and sixth give you three happy faces each, and finally the seventh and eighth give four happy faces each. That means if you get all of them, you can get 20 happy faces. Also, as you collect more and more of them, the rewards get bigger and bigger.

I hope this hasn't been posted yet...

Crouchback · October 8, 2001, 16:07

Well spotted Akron.

It sounds as if this would act like a monopoly bonus, corner the market in a certain luxury and your people go wild? But it seems a little quirky. After all it is in trade and commerce that monopolies usually give an advantage.

David

Provost Harrison · October 8, 2001, 16:55

I would expect that a monopoly on these things would give you a considerable cash bonus. Basically you'd be able to charge what you like for the things...

Akron · October 8, 2001, 17:08

The one major problem I see with the resource system is that it promotes ICS. Though there is a happiness penalty for a large empire, the luxury resources may be powerful enough to negate the penalty. And then there are of course strategic resources too, which you could sell or trade off if you have a surplus. Hopefully, there wil be enough other things that hurt large empires.

TVA22 · October 8, 2001, 21:12

I agree completely! ICS, or at least the unbeatablitiy of it, is in my opinion one of the major gameplay flaws of older civ versions, and civ rip-offs (ctp). As civ3 has gone gold now, it's too late to make any changes...
I just hope, as you said, there are other features to...if not discourage large empires, at least handicap them in some way that smaller ones can still be competative.

dainbramaged13 · October 8, 2001, 21:26

in order to receive all the benifits of luzury resources you must have your cities connected to that resource by road. How many ICSers do that?

Akron · October 8, 2001, 21:39

Roads are no problem. With all those cities I'm sure an ICSer will be able to find a few to crank out workers.

Sarxis · October 8, 2001, 22:29

Good observations Akron

I think I will go review the screens.

Akron · October 8, 2001, 22:50

Another thing I noticed on civfanatics is that growth to the next size for cities size 1 and 2 will require 20 food, and after that until at least 12, each size increase will require only 40 food (and granaries as before can cut this in half)! This will make larger cities able to expand even more rapidly, given that they have the right terrain and infrastructure. At least this will give perfectionistic civs (like me

) an advantage. Though this does make ICS less attractive in comparison to perfectionism, it will still help a large perfectionistic empire.

Sarxis · October 8, 2001, 23:01

Is this for certain? Wow! That is a big step in another direction for city development.

Hmm, not sure how I feel about it, but I am leaning a little to the 'good change' side.

Urban Ranger · October 9, 2001, 02:09

Quote:

Originally posted by Akron
The one major problem I see with the resource system is that it promotes ICS. Though there is a happiness penalty for a large empire, the luxury resources may be powerful enough to negate the penalty. And then there are of course strategic resources too, which you could sell or trade off if you have a surplus. Hopefully, there wil be enough other things that hurt large empires.

It's not that easy though, since one can only harvest resouces within one's cultural border or with colonies.

LaRusso · October 9, 2001, 04:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Akron
I was looking through a bunch of city screen screenshots and noticed an interesting thing about luxuries. Unlike I had previously thought, they don't add a specific number of happy faces based on scarcity. Instead, the first 2 give you one happy face each, the third and fourth give you two happy faces each, the fifth and sixth give you three happy faces each, and finally the seventh and eighth give four happy faces each. That means if you get all of them, you can get 20 happy faces. Also, as you collect more and more of them, the rewards get bigger and bigger.

I hope this hasn't been posted yet...

do those faces appear fatter and fatter? if so, it's a perfect simulation and should satiate the appetite of those who crave for 'realism'

Jason Beaudoin · October 9, 2001, 08:47

Wow Akron! I'm really impressed! Good work!

Solver · October 9, 2001, 09:01

Excellent work! I trust, though, it will be very hard to get much luxuries in a city.

Jason Beaudoin · October 9, 2001, 11:09

BTW, can someone please tell me what ICS is? I'm trying desperately to figure out that acronym, but it's kiling me!

Thanks!

Be Quicker · October 9, 2001, 11:19

Quote:

Originally posted by Jason Beaudoin
BTW, can someone please tell me what ICS is? I'm trying desperately to figure out that acronym, but it's kiling me!

Thanks!

I thought it is Infinite City Sleaze/Sprawl/Strategy etc. (making a gazillion small cities)

Sava · October 9, 2001, 11:25

Nice work Akron, I'm excited to learn that larger cities grow faster than smaller ones!

It's more realistic

Akron · October 9, 2001, 15:46

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban Ranger

It's not that easy though, since one can only harvest resouces within one's cultural border or with colonies.

Maybe you could build the cities on the resources and then you'd get them automatically.

Good that you bring up culture, though. It appears that this part of the game will severely limit the power of ICS, and maybe even of large empires in general. If the amount of corruption for large empires is increased, the increased strain on the economy brought by military support may make it difficult for large empires to develop culture throughout the empire, due to upkeep cost. Maybe this feature will make controlling a very large empire very difficult, at least in the early game. It certainly was in history.

Jason Beaudoin · October 9, 2001, 15:57

I agree Akron. It probably won't be as beneficial as it was in previous CIV games. There could be many negative effects of doing the ICS.

BTW Akron, I must say once again: very nice observation. It's almost like getting news from Dan of Firaxis.

Can you do that some more?

Crouchback · October 9, 2001, 16:07

The Forbidden Palace small wonder might ease the inefficiency/corruption strain. Plus putting cities close together might ease the difficulty of maintaining and protecting roads, which would make a large empire vulnerable to raiders.

I think Akron is right about being able to get resources by putting a city right on top of them, but you'd have to uses a settler costing 2 pop points so a road an colony sounds easier. Then there is the problem of culturally weak boarder cities defecting, and the impossibility of getting all the resources a developing economy needs purely by expansion.

On the whole I'm more optimistic on the ICS front than before, but it's finely balance.

David

Sirotnikov · October 9, 2001, 20:31

Hey, ICS should be a valid possibility.

It shouldnt' be as powerful, and should be much harder to support, but after all it is realistic.

Though the idea of 20 size 1 city being more productive than one size 20 isn't right, but 4 size 5 cities are mostly better than one size 20 city, unless it's some megapolis such as NY or HK.