Oil is not well

[Zizka]

(rant on)

Ok I am getting a bit fed up with Oil in this game. While overall I like the idea of resources the use/presence of Oil is a bit too unbalanced.

Out of 10 games 5 have eneded prematurely (quit or beaten up ) simply because I had no Oil and there was NO surplus from any civ wiling to trade. Thsi is despite fairly large desert / glacier territories.

Let's face it folks Oil is TOO critical to in the end game for far too many units. It is no FUN to spend hours, even days, at a game just to find yourself over the pork barrel due to some pseudo random resource allocation (often 'clumping' fo one civ gets the lions share.)

For those who would raise the arguments "But Oil is critical strategic resource..." Ye sit is, but i would point out two main counter arguments
1) It is unbalancing as hell in an otherwise fun game.. while everyone cranks out battaleships, bombers and tanks while you are left with cavalry DESPITE being more advanced technologically than anyone.

2) Yes but in the "real" world Oil is Traded!! In Civ there hardly ever seems enough to have much less trade. And if by some miracle someone does have extra .. "cede me 3 cities and I may consider it"
It would be like OPEc saying .. just hand Us New York, Paris and London, all your gold.. and did we forget.. yes BEND over too!"

Could you image the caterwauling in multiplayer!! I might as well play roulette.. strategy smagedy!

Solution 1:
Minor Wonder "Synthethic Oil Facility" -- after a Civ builds 5 labs (research for alternative resources) to count as 1 Oil source

Solution 2
Give workers ability to "search for oil" (dig) in certain types of terrains that may yield 1 oil source for 20 turns (small strike)

Common market (wonder- requires Economics)
Ability to buy resources (on open market - at a slightly higher cost) for 20 turn intervals (except perhaps uranium ..unless really expensive!!)
(this woudl reflect that often greed and private capital may engage in sale for profit..)

I really a m beginning to like this game more despite some serious shortfalls (go patch go!) But this is aspect has moved to the top of my list. Who wants to play a game for age sjust to find out if was all much ado about nothing..

(rant off)

Z

[HugoHillbilly]

Using the editor you can make all the units you long for not require oil to build.

Now before 20 people post "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE TO USE THE EDITOR TO FIX SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE" consider this:

The editor is mainly there so you can edit portions of the game to your liking.

Firaxis has one idea for a great game, you may have another. They gave you their version, if you dont like it edit it. They cant cater to everyone so the editor is there if you dont like the game the way it is.

I like the current game fine, so I wont change anything. If you dont like it, go change it. Its not too difficult.

[Plumbean]

I agree with you 100% Im going threw the same thing their needs to be balance to keep it fair

[ElBone]

It can be frustrating, yes, but on the whole I like the resources. You really MUST go get what you MUST have, and it makes the middle and late game very much more interesting when you have to go invade a friend (or sizeable enemy) to get a resource you must have.

The distribution of the resources is suspect, I agree... whether oil or rubber (the two "killers"). I am playing one right now where my hated enemy the Aztecs have ALL THE RUBBER ON THE PLANET (4 deposits!), and nobody else has any. So, I had to go get me some... has been fun, difficult, expensive, but it makes the game more interesting IMO. Otherwise, you just sit there out tech'ing and out building.

ElBone

[Shiva]

You can also turn up the appearance rate in the editor. Might help a bit since there seem to be a way to do a set number of resources in the editor.

[Peterk]

I've had this little idea:

What if the first Civ to discover a tech that requires a resource automatically gets a permanent access to that resource without it having to appear on the map. This will solve 2 problems:

1. It gives all Civs the chance to get a particular resource in games in which a single resource is extremely scarce.

2. It also kind of makes sense - how could I possibly have developped a technology that requires oil without having used any oil?

[Zizka]

responses

Editing: yes I know you can edit. But the editor is hardly worthy of the name. Moreover, the changes i'd like to make cannot be done with the editor as it stands. Simply changing a save so units do not require oil at all make make sense to you but it does not to me. If you read carefully I said I actually liked the resource system I just want to tweak it so it isnt too unbalanced.

Wars for resources.
In theory thsi is sound but oil is soo unbalancing that to get oil you have to beat an army With oil whose unist and numbers are likely superior. Thsu I have to charge tanks with horses to get tanks.. but if i do not my opponents tanks will rush me sooner or later. eithe way if you have no Oil its a catch - 22.

Resources shoudl limit not put an absolute stranglehold over the development of other civs. By the logic of the game shouldn't we be speaking arabic now..

Z

[David Floyd]

Just thought I'd point out, when the Japanese took the Dutch East Indies in World War 2, they took over 80% of the world's supply of rubber...fact is, resources ARE clumped together. Oil is clumped in the Middle East, Siberia, Alaska, and a couple of other places, rubber is in Indonesia, coal is plentiful, but it's generally in large clumps, such as the Appalachians, uranium is in South Africa...etc.

The resource allocation system seems fine to me. By the way, this coming after my tournament game when I didn't have or acquire a SINGLE saltpeter source the entire time it was useful. I just had to adapt - built pikemen, which are almost as good as musketmen, didn't worry about cavalry, and went straight for Nationalism and riflemen. It was a bit of a worry for me, not having the early gun units or Cavalry, but I dealt with it through diplomacy and other means.

[Pyrodrew]

In Civ there hardly ever seems enough to have much less trade. And if by some miracle someone does have extra .. "cede me 3 cities and I may consider it"
It would be like OPEc saying .. just hand Us New York, Paris and London,

I'm not trying to disagree or agree with you. But, in the editor it says an Appearance Ratio of 160 means there are 2 of that resource to each player. However, when tests are run it tells another story. Horses have an Apperance Ratio of 160, Oil has an Appearance Ratio of 120. Maps with different water% & land types currently make Tiny Maps (4 players) generate 4-6 horses & about 4 oils. Small Maps (6 players) generate 6-9 horses & about 6 oils. Standard Maps (8 players) generates 8-12 horses & about 8 oils. Thus 120 seems to be more 1 resource for each civilization and 160 is up to 1.5 of that resource to each player... contrary to what the "help me" file says. Nevertheless, since the # of resources is not always a fixed amount as demonstrated by the horses I guess it is possible for a game to generate less oils than players in the game, although I've never seen it yet.

[Deathray]

Originally posted by Zizka
responses

Editing: yes I know you can edit. But the editor is hardly worthy of the name. Moreover, the changes i'd like to make cannot be done with the editor as it stands. Simply changing a save so units do not require oil at all make make sense to you but it does not to me. If you read carefully I said I actually liked the resource system I just want to tweak it so it isnt too unbalanced.

Wars for resources.
In theory thsi is sound but oil is soo unbalancing that to get oil you have to beat an army With oil whose unist and numbers are likely superior. Thsu I have to charge tanks with horses to get tanks.. but if i do not my opponents tanks will rush me sooner or later. eithe way if you have no Oil its a catch - 22.

Resources shoudl limit not put an absolute stranglehold over the development of other civs. By the logic of the game shouldn't we be speaking arabic now..

Z

Editing: Instead of making units not need oil, why not edit it so that there are more oil squares on the map, or so that new oil appears more often.

Wars for resources:
The reason you have just stated is why your obsolete units are still capable of lucking out on modern units, and why you can win a battle if you have enough obsolete units. Also, obsolete units are cheaper. The computer unit AI is very good, but its still not quite as good as a human who thinks about their moves and which units to build carefully. Its surprising how effective pairing a musketeer with a longbowman is if used right. Riflemen require no resources and are quite capable of taking on modern armies if in sufficient numbers.

Speaking Arabic: I don't know if you've heard, but a couple of decades ago there was this thing called an 'oil crisis' where the arabs were effectively able to hold a gun to the leaders of developed countries using their oil monopoly. A few years after this, America's was having some (oil related) problems in the Middle East again , and guess what? Its the Gulf War. And since that rather messy business was all finished, America has kept a very healthy interest in Middle East politics, despite stirring up anti-US feeling and going against all of its Democratic principles by supporting oppressive dicatatorships. I wonder what that was all about? Perhaps it was oil?

[Wrong_shui]

What u worried about? carvels beat battleships and cavarly whoop tank's asses

[Stromprophet]

I like how I have seen everyone complain about these things.

I want to see people complain about things that can't be fixed with the editor.

Basically the only thing that has bothered me in this game is the corruption levels. I'm finding it very hard, but I also like that.

In every game you should expect resources to not be there for you. I had a world with only 2 continents, one of them, had absolutely no coal on it, which is the one I was on. So you can imagine as I hit the industrial age I was angry.

Solution, go fight for it. Which I find something that is great in the game, is that either I have to make deals to survive or I have to get it for myself. It's great.

[Easy Rhino]

Random thoughts about this, as my first game is finally approaching the modern era.

Clumping is kind of neat. Then you end up with places like Saudi Arabia, or South Africa (minerals).

There really, really, should be at least one strategic resource square for each Civ.

If the AI has a monopoly on a resource, it would be neat if it occassionally tried to withold it to punish the others. However, it would also have to ROYALLY PISS OFF the other AI's, to the point of starting wars.

I think if one civ discovers a new advance, then they would be guaranteed at least one square of it in their territory (first to discover refining, if no oil present, gets one oil created). That would be neat.

The syntheic fuels idea is an interesting one. Germany did it during WW2 (from coal) but it's really inefficient. Unfortunately, Civ doesn't have a concept of "a little bit" of a resource. But possible with some huge ongoing penalty, it would still work.

ER

[Venger]

In my current game (STILL playing my first one) I own an entire continent, pole to pole, a large island, and a sliver of another continent (that is growing as I take ti to the Aztecs...).

I have no oil. Anywhere. I have desert, I have plains, I have tundra. But no oil.

Oil is found on every continent - except in Civ3. Jeez, this is major design problem #812 now...

I wouldn't mind this so much, except that in order to build certain units you have to have oil. This could be removed by allowing units to be traded (come on guys get it together here..., even Civ2 allowed you to give units...).

Civ3 is really becoming a tedious collection of "shoulda coulda wouldas". Let's hope for a tremendous patch or two that spruces up the framework...

Venger

[dexters]

Originally posted by HugoHillbilly
Using the editor you can make all the units you long for not require oil to build.

Now before 20 people post "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE TO USE THE EDITOR TO FIX SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE" consider this:

The editor is mainly there so you can edit portions of the game to your liking.
.

The editor is there to provide maximum customization (although there are plenty of areas that's lacking and I hope they fix that soon)

However, I reject completely the assertion that we should use the editor to fix balance issues that shouldn't have been there to begin with. Firaxis has a great game on their hands, but that does not mean throwing us an editor is sufficient reason to slack in playtesting and give us a broken gameplay system.

While I have defended many aspects of the game (the combat system in particular) there is an obvious set of problems with the game. Resource is certainly not broken, but it needs some balancing work. Oil is one such resource.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by dexters
However, I reject completely the assertion that we should use the editor to fix balance issues that shouldn't have been there to begin with. Firaxis has a great game on their hands, but that does not mean throwing us an editor is sufficient reason to slack in playtesting and give us a broken gameplay system.

I sorry but I reject that there is a balance issue with oil. Not once in any of the games have I not been able to lay my hands on oil one way or another and seeing that only a few people are up in arms about it I dont think that most people are having a problem either. You know how this forum is, if there is a problem there would be thread after thread after thread about it. Its not happening so I think that the silence speaks volumes.

If you think that its broken then please show us some evidence that isnt hearsay. Every time I play, or generate a map in the editor I just dont see a problem.

[Infanteer]

I know the frustration, I am playing as the Romans right now and I am on a continent with NO iron....where are Caesar's legions now?
I am wondering if setting the age of the world to 5 billions years has any affect on dispersing the resources at all?

[mrbilll]

The resource idea is fine, in concept and execution. In real life, civilizations DO get hosed, and/or go to war over resources.

But this IS a game, and I agree with Zizka. You shouldn't ever reach a point where you have no options simply because the resource generator didn't roll your way. Especially in the late part of the game, where you've got a lot of time invested. I've had games where I had no horses, despite vast plains and grasslands in my territory. You can roll with that. You can survive. But with no oil, you hit a wall, and hit it hard.

Zizka's solutions are both fine, and not out of line with the game. How about another one, which I'm sure has been brought up somewhere else-

To simulate unreliable, black market dealing, when no official trading is possible, let the needy civ build their tanks anyway- but at an enormous production penalty that will make the units in question precious assets.

[Zizka]

re Oil crisis
Yes I have heard of it. However it did not stop the US from building any more Tanks, cars, warships or KY jelly now did it?

Distribution
Thans for the figures guys, but I am looking to try and find playable fix. Indeed if we increase the # of oil but given the "clumping" tendency of resources -- wouldnt that actually just increase the size of the clumps rather than just spreading it out?

Re Editor
I agree with the assertion that editing is for customization but we should not have to do the play balancing. I have no idea in soem cases whether a change in X will have ricochet effect on teh game and unbalance other things. I would prefer someoen more knowledgeable over the games inner mechanics such that the tweaks made would BALANCE the game not ske wit in one direction or another too far.

It seems to me its to easy to cry "use the editor.." Its too much liek buying a car and expecting the new owner to make sure that the car runs properly and doesnt have serious problems. We're not all mechanics you know. Joe average may get the windshield viper fluid to a different colour but do you really expect them to replace a carburator every time they use it.?

I agree with mr. bill. I dont have problem with resources per se.. indeed most resources end of being obsolete or have workaround (ie nationalism) but Oil is just too critical (i'm not arguing history but game balance here). yes older units CAN take out more modern units sometimes .. but not always.. and besides some strategic option become inaccessible (air power,carriers, long range battelship shot, heavier transports...) Funny though you can build airports but not air units HAHAHA

Additional suggestion submitted to me. It seems silly that Oil is NOT required for the units to exist only to build them. I found that if I get oil on one turn I fill up my Queue with oil unist and THEY all get built and run despite my lack of oil. Shouldn't this be the other way around. (to teh guy who posted the blurb about the oil crisis - heh didnt stop car production.. just running them!). Perhaps Oil should be treated as .. if you have oil all of you oil unist move as normal. If you do not.. all movement is reduced to 1.

I still personally prefer the synthetic oil facility a sbeing more in flavour of the game..

Z

[jackshot]

Perhaps this isn't a resource imbalance at all, but a unit imbalance. Maybe there should just be some modern alternatives to oil-neccessary units, inferior but allowing options for the oil-less civ.

I shudder to think of this "feature" in multiplayer.

[Zizka]

Excellent point jackshot. They idea of alternative units is a nice one. People complain about the petty whining now.. could you image multiplayer...

Z

[Pyrodrew]

Originally posted by jackshot
Perhaps this isn't a resource imbalance at all, but a unit imbalance. Maybe there should just be some modern alternatives to oil-neccessary units, inferior but allowing options for the oil-less civ.

I agree with this too. All the resources are fine. There simply needs to be an non-oil unit or 2 for the oil-less civs. The unit should not only be more expensive & weaker, but the technologies to get these units should be dead-end techs - this will keep oil still extremely valuable and most of all... strategic.

This only needs to be done for oil. ALL other strategic resources are fine.

[Jack_www]

Resources the way they are in Civ3 are just fine. Say you dont get oil, there are many things you can do to get it. If the computer has a surplus they will trade it to you if you have something it wants. If the computer is unwilling to trade you can go in and take the oil before they have the tech to build tanks. Works just fine for me.

In one game I had no coal, and you know what I did? I did not start to complain how bad the game was and how it is unblanced on here, no I did something about. First I was able to trade for it with the Zulus who had one surplus of coal, but that got depleted after a short number of turns. I then saw that thus one civ had some, but did not have the tech to use it, so I went in and took the city, it was easy.

In anther game I was playing as the americans but had no horses, so I traded with the Greeks for it. Then I was able to buy a city form Japan that had their only source of horses in it. I did this by renogiating our peace treaty, got it very cheep that way.

If you were to change how resources are in the game as they are now to what you want it would take most of the fun out of the game.

Also anther point the world map that comes with the game has lots of oil in it.

[Apolex]

Yeah... just go get the oil, one way or another. It's realistic and involves STRATEGY, not just having everything handed to you on a platter. I look forward to having to make strategic decisions when I find out I don't have any iron, coal, whatever. It adds nice depth to the game.

[smellymummy]

stop it with the oil, I can't ever find iron!

but I don't stop the game and restart until I start with iron. in fact I don't even research iron first, i go for monarchy...

point is, sometimes you'll have the resource, and other times you won't. Looks to me like the ARSE is applied until the game starts "perfectly" but then when theres a lack of essential goods in the late game... woops! too late to hit ctrl-shift-q now is it?

My last game, I had no resources except one horse. This was on a large map. I eventually conquered my neighboor for the iron, but then I was stuck on a huge island with only horses and iron no luxuries either. Things seemed to be getting worse when I didn't have gunpowder, no coal.

however in the end I had plenty of uranium, alum and oil. The other AIs where paying bigtime for it, and it felt good

You need to trade, and you need to improvise. Each game is going to be different. If you want to keep it the same, then I guess you can use the editor and make a map/rules/etc to how you want to play

Lack of resources is not the fault of the game, it's not a broken feature - it's the lack of skills by the player.

you can get your oil, it's possible no matter what. Go capture an AI city. Sell techs. Force the AI at gun(err sword?)point for the oil. read this thread for a handfull of other solutions.

Why does everyone feel the need to cry out for a patch, to address their own personal dislikes with the game. It's a very selfish attitude, and I've read too many of it now

Originally posted by Jack_www
Also anther point the world map that comes with the game has lots of oil in it.

i agree, there is plenty of oil on it... which is bad IMO. It ruined the endgame for me.

[Robert Plomp]

Civ3 should've been like this:

New Game
You have become the leader bla bla bla..............
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE WON !

THAT would be fun !
But as long as that won't happen I just want to be sure that I have all resources in my territory and my enemy doesn't have any so I can trade it with them for much money.

Now we're on it, the AI actually builds wonders I want to build,
that must be patched !

[Apolex]

Originally posted by CyberShy
Civ3 should've been like this:

New Game
You have become the leader bla bla bla..............
CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE WON !

Haha yeah... "You have become the leader of the Zulus. Your people have mastered the art of irrigation, mining, roads, NUCLEAR FISSION, SPACE FLIGHT, ..."

[Barchan]

I disagree that oil, or any other strategic resource, needs to be balanced. Maybe you have it, maybe you don't. Sometimes that's just how things work.

Oil is absolutely essential for large-scale modern armed conflict, and has been the focal point for a number of wars and military operations. So was rubber, although synthetics have reduced the need for natural rubber these days.

But look, the war in the Pacific was started because Japan needed both of these resources to continue its war against China. The Western allies controlled pretty much all the rubber production in the world (kudos David Floyd for the 80% stat) and the US was the major supplier of oil to Japan. When the US and Western allies, tired of Japan’s ceaseless aggression in Asia, imposed a trade embargo on Japan in the summer of 1941, Japan absolutely had to have these resources to continue its fight. This is why it declared war on the US and the Western allies and sprung a series of sneak attacks to secure as many sources of these resources as possible. Japan never expected to conquer the US or the UK, but it did hope to wage a quick war to secure the resources it needed. It would then fortify its perimeter and hope to force an acceptable peace agreement.

Interestingly, had the Japanese not panicked and sent a third wave of bombers into Pearl Harbor to destroy the millions of gallons of oil reserves stored there, they would likely have forced the US to operate from thousands of miles away in San Francisco until sufficient reserves could have been built up again. Had they taken out the Pacific oil reserves, Japan might very well have been able to fortify their "co-prosperity sphere" perimeter enough to hold much of their gains.

Anyway, the point is that these strategic resources are exactly that. You will have to adapt your overall strategy to the fact that you either have them or you don't. If you do, sure, you're in the driver's seat and life can be easy. If you don't you'll have to try to get them, either by trade or by force, and failure will result in almost certain defeat. And if you can’t get them, well, maybe you’ll just have to lose with dignity or resign and start again.

Now, might this ruin an otherwise pleasant game? You bet; as the Romans I frowned when I had no saltpeter on my continent (which I wrested at cost from the Egyptians and an unholy alliance between them and, at times, everyone else). No worries, said I, I'll just skip Musketmen and go right to Riflemen. Not having Cavalry would be a short-term problem, I thought. More modern units would be on the horizon. I swore out loud when there was no rubber on the continent, either. Well, I thought, perhaps I can rely on the old Riflemen for a bit longer. Tanks and Battleships will have to be my salvation against the growing might of my larger enemies. When I discovered I had no oil either, I screwed myself into the ceiling. I was totally boned, destined to having Ironclads and Riflemen as my best units in the field. A war to take someone else’s oil was out of the question, since other countries were already fielding infantry and commissioning destroyers, and no one would trade oil with me, not for any price. So I restarted. Next game, as the Japanese, I have all the oil, and the others have squat.

Sometimes, that’s just how it goes. I think it should stay that way, too. It adds an extra level of depth to the game that, IMO, really helps keep things interesting from time to time.

[Pyrodrew]

I wouldn't mind if oil stayed the same, but I wouldn't mind if 2 additional dead-end techs were made for synthetic oil which would create inferior (slower, weaker, & more expensive) units. Either way, this seems like a minor issue.

Iron complainers - Iron has a higher Appearance Ratio than Oil.

[Zizka]

This is game people not historical realism 101. Just because X happened in history doesnt mean that its represented in the game. Look, I dont think anyone is arguing historical points but rather game balance. Nor ar ethey asking to "have everything on platter."

For the historical purists. Yes resources ARE scarce but they are seldom in such scarcity that few nations are limited 0 sources. I would not complain about oil as much is it were simply TRADED on tehopen market (as it has an will be ). Yes Japan had US embargoes and limited access to oil , but that didnt mean she had NO oil. What were the planes and carriers they sent against PH powered with..FRUIT JUICE?

The point is few nations have ever been completely cut off from resource. It was usually available for trade or an alternative was found. It is interesting to note that many of the examples for situatiosn where nations were cut off from oil or another major resources was during wartime. Germany and Japan and many other nations had no problem getting oil during peacetime. Indeed Germany wa sbuying a lot of oil from Russia (and Roumania) right up until the invasion!!

I don not think anyone is asking for "easy" victory , but more like requesting that defeat is not inevitable.

Z