Help a newbie become a knowbie!

[TheHobbit]

It's a real simple question:

Q: I build a city and the surrounding area has resources..of course. But do I have to build a road to something for it to get the resources from that square or do my little citizens do that for me. I think I'm confused because you have to link roads to certain things but not others. Please help explain to me when and when not to make roads to nearby tiles for resources. Thanks

[cassembler]

Strategic and Luxury resources need two thing to be "claimed" by a city:

1) a road connecting it to a city
2) for the resource to be within your cultural borders OR claimed by a colony.

some notes:
Only cities connected to the resource can use it
Bonus resources don't need these two things.
examples:
Luxury resources: Furs, Wine, Ivory
Strategic resources: Iron, Horses, Saltpeter
Other resources ("Bonus resources"): Fish, Whales...

[Dis]

if it is a food resource such as cattle. you don't need a road. your city will recieve the bonus from cattle just by having a worker work that square. If you put a road on that cattle square you will recieve 1 extra trade coin however.

eventually you will want roads on everything. It looks ugly, but it gives you 1 extra commerce in that square. although if the road is out of your city radius, you don't need the road unless that road is linking you empire to a strategic or luxery resource.

that explanation looks even more confusing.

[Akka]

Originally posted by TheHobbit
It's a real simple question:

Q: I build a city and the surrounding area has resources..of course. But do I have to build a road to something for it to get the resources from that square or do my little citizens do that for me. I think I'm confused because you have to link roads to certain things but not others. Please help explain to me when and when not to make roads to nearby tiles for resources. Thanks

There is several ressources in Civ 3.
There is the basic ressources : food, commerce and shields (build power). These ones are gathered each turn by the population of the city working on the tiles in the city area : you can see which tiles are worked on by opening the city screen (double-click on the city).

The bonus ressources are special bonuses that appear on a tile. They simply add to the three basic ressources (ie, gold found on mountains add to the commerce, while wheat found on grassland add to food).

Lastly, the luxury and strategic ressources are just like bonus ressources, the only difference being that if they are linked with a road to your cities, they can give to all the cities linked some special bonuses : luxury ressources add to the happiness of the cities, while strategic ressources allow them to build some units and to the worker to do some improvement.
BTW, the strategic ressources only show on the map when you have the appropriate technology (ie : iron working allow you to see iron, refining for oil, etc...). Know that once set, a luxury/special ressource never move, so if coal is on a jungle, you can cut the jungle and the coal will stay here. Though, from time to time, a ressource used by your civ will exhaust and diseappear, supposedly while another spot of the same ressource will appear somewhere in the world.

[Lord Cannager]

yes uhave to have a road to a strategic resource

[smellymummy]

everyone of the above posts, I'm sorry to admit, is wrong.

the answer can be found in the manual though. probably in one of the chapters.

[reds4ever]

i concur

[Sevorak]

If ANY RESOURCE is within your CITY RADIUS, you may EXTRACT FOOD, SHIELDS and COMMERCE from that square. You can do this without a road. This includes STRATEGIC and LUXURY RESOURCES.

If a STRATEGIC or LUXURY RESOURCE is within your BORDERS (which may or may not be within your CITY RADIUS), you may ACCESS that resource, which gives you happy faces if it is a LUXURY, or allows you to build certain things if it is STRATEGIC, by building a road to it. If it is not inside anyone's borders, you may access it by building a COLONY on it and linking that COLONY to your TRADE NETWORK by ROAD.

-Sev

[Dis]

I'm sorry to say, but I'm not wrong. I may have explained it wrong, but I know how the system works in the game (I have actually read the entire manual and civilpedia)

[Akka]

Mmh, well, I am not wrong.
But the fact is, I was not very clear
So my mistake