Multiples of the same resource

nato · June 10, 2002, 21:30

Here is yet another idea to throw out there, coming from Trip's resource thread...

Because they are all-or-nothing, having 2 or more of the same resource is worthless (if it cannot be traded). Conquering a new source is worthless, and denying an enemy some-but-not-all of his source is worthless. This problem becomes worse as the game goes on and civs are eliminated, but the number of resources does not.

I think some sort of bonus for having multiples of the same resource is needed. This way each new source would have value, instead of just stacking up uselessly.

How about, for every additional tile of a strategic resource beyond the first, that is not traded, you get 10 gold per turn.

(Another idea is units that require that resource to be built cost 10 shields less, but this might be too powerful.)

One problem with this is that it would discourage trading the resource. To fix that, perhaps trading the resource would give you a bonus 5 or 10 gold per turn, in addition to what the other civ is paying. This would represent the increase in commerce and trading that the trade deal is creating.

I feel that the strategic resources are one of Civ3's best features, might as well make the most of it instead of the "yay, yet ANOTHER source of Iron" effect.

Inverse Icarus · June 10, 2002, 21:41

i still think that it should be "1 resource per 15 cities" or something, and you should have the ability to trade multiples of resources to other civs...

Jethro83 · June 10, 2002, 21:41

I actually like having multiple strategic resources as they are. The exception of course being horses and rubber, since they don't deplete.

I'd like to still have some iron left when one source depletes right in the middle of my upgrade spree from spearmen to pikemen and horsemen to knights. I'd like to still be able to keep cranking out tanks even when one of my sources of oil depletes.

So to me, having multiple supplies of a single resource is sort of like having a safety net, that prevents me from ending up dry of them when I really need them most.

Jon Shafer · June 10, 2002, 22:19

Quote:

Originally posted by LordAzreal
So to me, having multiple supplies of a single resource is sort of like having a safety net, that prevents me from ending up dry of them when I really need them most.

And at the same time, making the resource system of Civ 3 basically useless.

Sava · June 10, 2002, 23:19

I still think it should be more of a capacity type thing, say for instance, if you have 1 iron, you can only build 1 unit requiring iron per turn (or 2) I don't know. It would be like the airport in Civ II. It can only be used once per turn. That way, if you have 10 iron, you can build 10 swordsmen per turn.

Pythagoras · June 10, 2002, 23:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Trip

And at the same time, making the resource system of Civ 3 basically useless.

Not really, it does take considerable effort to have one of every resource. Im not sure how this is done in huge maps though.

nato · June 11, 2002, 00:45

I'm with Trip on this. If resources are very common they might as well not be there. In the vast majority of your games, do you ever NOT have tons of horses and iron?

It really is like musical chairs with more chairs than people.

Resources are a great feature in Civ3, one of its major game features. They should be even more important. When I already have 4 of everything, they don't seem very important. And anyone who expands or conquers a large area (effectively ALL human players) will have 4 of everything.

I like Sava's or Uber's ideas too ... to be honest, I like Trips idea best, but possibly something simpler like this would have a better chance in Civ3.

Theseus · June 11, 2002, 01:33

I hate to beat a dead horse (pun intended), but I think the key issues are:
1) average % of resource tiles per total land tiles
2) clustering (from 3B years)

I would even prefer to see clustering of strategic resources. There are too many horses and too many iron... we should have to fight for them.

Pyrkaige · June 11, 2002, 01:45

If you want a certain level of resource scarcity, there is an easy way to play around with the available resources, just by the options chosen when creating a game. I often choose a wet and warm start on a pangaea, since you get a lot of jungle which give plenty of coal and other resources/luxuries. Since I often use Egyptians or other industrious civs, it is easy to clear off the jungle for fine terrain underneath. However, if your pangaea doesn't touch either pole, you will have little to no tundra or desert. Overall this is nice for city building, but it does limit certain resources, such as oil.

The often quoted statistic for depletable resources of one per civ in the game, is only true as a maximum. I have had a large game with 8 civs that had only one oil resource on the entire map. This makes for some very interesting wars to get to the unique resource!

The Viceroy · June 11, 2002, 03:56

Another way to get that is to change the map settings so that a huge map - 255x255, and then pick only a few players .. you get hardly any Iron at all ..

Is there a way to increase the % of Iron ?? as I never seem to be able to find it on that huge maps unless I play against 16civs ..

Personally, I love the way resources are handled in Settlers (but then, thats settlers not civ) .. I simply like Resources being linked to demand .. no point in having multiple Iron resources if there is no demand for it ..

Sava · June 11, 2002, 16:38

The problem with messing with stuff like this is that it changes the purpose of the game. If you get rid of resources, or make them harder to get, you might as well rename the game "War for Resources". I think that the game should be called, "Make Irrigation" because that's mostly what you do.

Theseus · June 11, 2002, 20:24

War for resources... yup, that IS the point.

Do you really irrigate all that much? I only do for plains... for me, it's Civ3: The Mining Game.

Sava · June 11, 2002, 20:47

Civ3 :the mining, irrigating, ICSing, resource war game

nato · June 12, 2002, 01:39

I would not mind making "war for resources" more important. Resources are one of the major game features for Civ3 ... they should be very emphasized, I think. Its a lot better than "everyone gets some, so don't worry about it".

About Iron ... I must be playing a different game. Iron, along with Horses, are the two WORST resources if you ask me. There are tons of them! Laying around all over the place! I have never had a game where I didn't have multiple sources of them very early, without trying. They very much might as well not exist for me, they are so automatically acquired.

Also, while it doesn't have to do with resources, I very much agree with Sava that mining, irrigating, and roading comprise too much of the game. If only I could get my idea for zero workers, zero public works accepted...

ALPHA WOLF 64 · June 12, 2002, 02:00

did you guys jack up the frequency that these resources occur? I' like to play between 12-16 civs and theres rarely a game in which every civ gets every resource. iron seems to be my archilles heel as I'm almost never near any and either am forced to expand in a way I dont want or forced to attack a neighbor before they get too strong. If you own half the world and only have 4 or 5 of a resource, that doesnt leave much left for the rest of the civs to fight over. In one game won by domination, there was a LARGE continent, and a smaller one about 1/6 its size. i controlled the entire large continent and did not have more than 9 of any single resource and I was playing with 16 civs.

nato · June 12, 2002, 02:08

Wow, I guess experiences really vary. I am playing the default game, so I didn't up resources, and I always have tons of iron and horses, and pretty much everything else.

For later appearing resources its probably play style. I have about half of the world's land by the time a lot of them show up.

For iron and horses however, I still only have a normal amount of land. And I get tons of them. I am really mystified by comments asking iron to be increased. I think there needs to be less. Maybe even less than 1 per civ.

Martock · June 12, 2002, 10:21

actually Alpha Wolf 64, i did just that many moons ago. i wanted to see just how much trading and such i could get going if i increased the frequency of ALL the resources occuring. clustering turned out to be a big mess with the average of 16 (!!) resources being in just one area. so i toned it down some but still above the defaults. i like the system i have now. lots of resource trading, especially with luxury resources as well as some strategic ones. i also took the liberty to make them all more productive. meaning that some add to food production, others to shield production, etc. lastly, almost every unit now in my game requires at least 1 type of resource, if not 2...some 3 (mostly modern units). in my opinion, it makes for a more interesting and challenging game.

nato · June 12, 2002, 10:41

Sounds like some very cool ideas Martock.

As always, the big question: how is the AI dealing with the changes?

Martock · June 12, 2002, 11:12

actually the AI seems to have little or no problems with the changes. i've noticed that if it lacks one or more of the resources to make, say Infantry (which requires 3 resources), it will offer $$$ thru the roof for it. some units don't require any resources, like riflemen. i did that to prevent archers or warriors, etc from popping up in the modern ages.

in my present game, i'm involved in a big world war with 3 nations per side. i'm currently embroiled in a land war with the Romans on their island (just east of mine) and i've noticed that they have attempted many times to take a smaller city that had oil and a larger city that had rubber. they ignored the other cities, that were not as heavily defended and in one case, just next to a large force. it would appear to me that the AI is trying to reclaim those resources.

star mouse · June 12, 2002, 22:09

Iron and horses are plentiful so you are likely to have some in the early game before the whole map is covered in cities. Uranium is scarcer, one per civ usually, because by the end game the map is all cities and there's usually one or two dead civs.

Imagine if there was only one iron per civ. To get Iron in the early game, you would often had to build a city or colony waaaaaay over there and connect it to the rest of your empire with a reeeeeealy long road. A lot of people wouldn't like it, and any civ who happened to have iron in the radius of a core city would have a huge advantage. Ample supplies of horses and iron make the early game more balanced.

Iron and horses are not really that useless. All resources in the game act like bonus resources, with food, shield and/or trade bonuses. I always love having a core city with Iron in its radius because of the production boost the Iron tile gives.

The Viceroy · June 13, 2002, 03:37

Star mouse,

I have problems with Iron & horses (as you imagined) .. and in many games, there is only 1 per civ ..

I have mod'd the map to be 255x255 for huge, and if you pick just 2-4 civs to play, you get so few resources.. I often never find an Iron source until the modern/industrial era's ..

I also often pick Archipelligo/mid setting .. what land types are you picking ..

I have had some games where Iron & Horses have been easy come by, but its the exception not the rule .. I can only assume that the mod has done this .. or Archipelligo setting is .. most annoying.

nato · June 13, 2002, 08:14

You have some good points star mouse; let me reply...

Quote:

Iron and horses are plentiful so you are likely to have some in the early game before the whole map is covered in cities. Uranium is scarcer, one per civ usually, because by the end game the map is all cities and there's usually one or two dead civs.

Imagine if there was only one iron per civ. To get Iron in the early game, you would often had to build a city or colony waaaaaay over there and connect it to the rest of your empire with a reeeeeealy long road.

Yes, it has occured to me that iron and horses are super common because they come early in the game.

However, there is one major problem with this logic: the entire world is already colonized very very early in the game! I don't think there would be any major problems getting iron if there was less of it ... actually, shouldn't there be some problems getting it? Doesn't making it easy to get defeat the whole point?

All making them common does is ensure everyone gets one with no trouble. Again, musical chairs with more chairs than people.

Quote:

Iron and horses are not really that useless. All resources in the game act like bonus resources, with food, shield and/or trade bonuses. I always love having a core city with Iron in its radius because of the production boost the Iron tile gives.

That is a good point, also something that has occured to me. My first thought was to significantly increase the food/shield/trade bonuses that they give you. This is probably what I will end up doing someday.

However, corruption is a problem. Unless it is in your core cities, all that bonus will just be corrupted to nothing. That is why I think it would be very cool to have some sort of un-corruptable bonus, like say 10 gold per turn, for every extra resource you control. This way iron and horses in some far off area would still be valuable to you.

Like I say, the resources are there and a major part of the game, lets make the very most of them!

MiloMilo · June 13, 2002, 15:13

I'm not sure there should be less iron or horses... the units they allow are pretty basic, I wouldn't want to totally deny civs the chance to make them... but I would want to make civs work for them. Maybe some amount of clustering would help? As it is, with 12 (or however many) single separate sources of iron for 8 civs, everyone will easily get one. But if they appeared in pairs, suddenly there are only 6 locations for 8 civs... (let's get ready to rumblllle...)

In effect, this would be like decreasing the amount appearing, while increasing the usefulness of each "source" (i.e. you might have one "source" in your borders, but it would give you two tiles to work, use and trade.)

I played a game where only 4 oil sources showed up... and 10 civs were left! My main rival was crashed into the dark ages and gobbled up. It quickly became very boring, and I left it unfinished. Lesson: fewer sources than civs is about as bad as more sources than civs. If those 4 sources provided 8 useable/tradable tiles however... things would have been much more interesting.

YuMMz · June 13, 2002, 16:15

I would take the extra Iron just for the terrain bonuses. I mined iron/coal hill is very nice for production! Even with corruption the resource should get you at least some improvement. Also has anyone ever gotten coal and iron in the same city and built the iron works? I have played about 15 games and I never get coal and iron in one city radius ;(.... ahh someday.

Slax · June 13, 2002, 18:19

I think under standard settings, the resource allocation is about right. On average, I have to fight for one resource per game, while I have the others in my territory. This seems perfect to me.

star mouse · June 13, 2002, 21:09

Quote:

Originally posted by nato
However, there is one major problem with this logic: the entire world is already colonized very very early in the game!

Depends how early in the game we're talking about.

I'm referring to the time when Iron Working and The Wheel are discovered for the first time. It's usual for the map to have plenty of uncolonised squares at that time. Even with plentiful iron and horses, I usually have to stretch to get some quickly.

Quote:

Originally posted by The Viceroy
I have mod'd the map to be 255x255 for huge, and if you pick just 2-4 civs to play, you get so few resources.. I often never find an Iron source until the modern/industrial era's ..

I guess that's your punishment for playing on a huge map with few civs. Try increasing the appearance ratio for these resources if you like playing with only a few civs. I prefer fairly standard settings (standard map, 8 civs), so I don't have resource problems. (In my current game, I only occupy 20% of the land but I have 4 Uranium, half the world's supply!)

Quote:

Originally posted by MiloMilo
I played a game where only 4 oil sources showed up... and 10 civs were left!

This is a common problem with Warm/Wet maps with the latest patch. If you also make Oil appear in Plains and Jungles, as I have, then every map you make will have ample oil. In general, adjusting the resources so they can appear in a greater variety of terrain will make their appearance more reliable.

MiloMilo · June 14, 2002, 18:51

Starmouse, the map was wet, though not warm (I like rivers...). I thought more would show up in tundra...