[Mod] New resources: Coffee, Salt, Tobacco

[rjwoer]

I sent a suggestion to Firaxis this weekend, that they include the resources COFFEE, SALT, and TOBACCO in Civ 4. I admit this came from watching too much History Channel (LOL!). Nevertheless, I really think these resources should be included.

So until they recognize the brilliance of my idea and can work it into the next patch, I thought I'd implement my own versions of the resources, and share them with the Apolyton community.

There are six files in this download, plus a “read me” file which includes details and instructions for install and uninstall.

I have spent many hours testing my changes and everything is working smoothly, now that I’ve tweaked a few things. Because I wanted to keep the aesthetics of the game as Firaxis developed them (no cheesy hand-made art), I used art files for existing resources (Incense for Tobacco; Stone for Salt—it’s a mineral, remember; Spices for Coffee). The other resources remain intact and unchanged, including Incense, Stone, and Spices.

The zip file includes city building (grocer, market, etc.,) tweaks to incorporate the resources in a realistic and full manner, along with Civilopedia entries for each resource. Here are the details you’ll probably be interested in before downloading/installing:

[EFFECTS]

COFFEE
The tile receives: +1 gold. With plantation: +1 gold (in addition to existing +1); +2 hammer
The empire receives: +1 happiness
SALT
The tile receives: +1 food. With quarry: +1 food (in addition to existing +1); +2 gold
The empire receives: +1 health
TOBACCO
The tile receives: +2 commerce. With plantation: +3 commerce (in addition to existing +2)
The empire receives: +1 happiness


[BUILDING INTERACTION]

COFFEE
+1 happiness for cities with a GROCER
SALT
+1 health for cities with a MARKET
-1 health for cities with a SUPERMARKET
(Why? Well, in the earlier stages of food production--a la, "Market"--food was preserved and bacteria kept at bay by salt. Later--a la, "Supermarket"--as is the case in today's world, salt tends to be overused, resulting in high blood pressure which leads to numerous health problems such as chronic renal failure and heart disease. Keep in mind, the original +1 health bonus is retained, so salt still provides benefit to your empire . . . just not as much as in earlier times, as is the case historically.)
TOBACCO
+1 happiness for cities with a GROCER
-1 health for cities with a GROCER


[TECHNOLOGY AND/OR IMPROVEMENT REQS]

COFFEE
Requires PLANTATION
SALT
Revealed by MINING tech
Requires QUARRY
+1 food, +1 gold with CHEMISTRY tech (for city working the tile only)
TOBACCO
Revealed by AGRICULTURE tech
Requires PLANTATION


Suggestions are always welcome, as are questions or criticism. I think these resources are very important and are quite lacking in the box version of Civ 4.

Enjoy!

[Lafferty]

Yay! Good work. I'm looking forward to try that out...

[Mylon]

I personally think salt should provide a commerce bonus to the square it occupies, since salt was a commodity. It's not nutritious by itself, but it is beneficial, so the +1 health makes sense.

Thanks for the resources and I'll probably include them in my own mod which makes resources even more important.

I wonder if Coffee could be considered a strategic resource and net a +5% production bonus with my mod... Heh.

[rjwoer]

I personally think salt should provide a commerce bonus to the square it occupies, since salt was a commodity.

Yes, I've made it a +2 gold (commerce) to the tile because it definitely was a high-trading commodity. I'm also considering adding a +1 trade route bonus for salt, but I'm still working on the coding for that.

[rjwoer]

I wonder if Coffee could be considered a strategic resource and net a +5% production bonus with my mod... Heh.

I originally wanted to make workers work at +10% normal (non-cumulative) with coffee--I know most of my friends work 10% quicker with coffee, and I certainly do--but again the coding was being stubborn. If you come up with a way to increase productivity beyond the +2 hammer (productivity) bonus for the coffee tile, I'd love to use it.

Thanks for the productive feedback. I'll keep an eye out for your mod, too.

[rjwoer]

By the way, I now realize I used both "commerce" and "gold" in my description. They are the same thing.

[Gramphos]

Please read the rules for posting files. You should submit this to the directory, and prefix it with [Mod]

[rjwoer]

Many apologies, Gramphos. I will not make this mistake again. Thanks for correcting it for me.

[Mylon]

Here's a sample of code from my mod, taken from onCityDoTurn function in CvEventManager.py:

#               Check this city for bonuses 0 to 8 (Alunimum, horses, coal, oil, ect)
                if (not pCity.isDisorder()):
                    for i in range(9):
                        if pCity.hasBonus(i):
                            ProductionBonus += 0.05
                    ProductionBonus = int(pCity.getBaseYieldRate(YieldTypes.YIELD_PRODUCTION) * ProductionBonus)

This code gives a +5% production bonus for each strategic resource available. I'm not sure how this works with more than the default resources added, but it can be changed to use gc.getInfoTypeForString('BONUS_OIL') type commands which I'll do when I incorporate these extra resources.

[JDexter]

Any new graphics for the resources?

Nice idea, although I think coffee shouldn't give +2 hammers and salt +1 more commerce (and definitely the +2 food it gives now, it was such a huge advantage to be able to store food for the winter and sea travel it would be really wrong to take it out).

[Martinus]

Nice idea.

You could also add a function for workers to (irreversably) turn an area into desert when you have access to salt (in the same vein as they salted the place where Carthage used to be)

[Optimizer]

Salt should give a production bonus too, since it is a valuable industrial resource. The bonus could come with Factories.

Sodium is, for instance, used för soap and detergents. Chlorine is used for PVC and water purification.

[Mylon]

And cow lard is used is detergents too. I think you guys are making salt out to be this kind of super-resource... Even oil isn't that powerful (in the game, anyway).

[Optimizer]

Well, Salt will not be that super if its health effects are cancelled out by Supermarkets - and it isn't needed for buildings either.

[rjwoer]

I wanted salt to be a balanced resource. For now, I think it's pretty good. Remember, the health effect isn't completely cancelled out, ever ... just the additional health bonus from Market. Salt will always give you a plus one health, and for a period of time (with market in your city) two health bonus.

Any new graphics for the resources?

No new art files. In fact I'm still testing to make sure the balance is right for these resources. I think I will have to increase the likelihood of the appearance of salt (I left it the same as stone because I didn't want it popping up everywhere--but I think it's too infrequent in the first build).

If anyone wants to try making art files I'd love to include them. Particularly, for the tiny images in the city detail screen--although I haven't found the code which manages those tiny images, and using redundant ones only caused problems during testing.

Here's a sample of code from my mod, taken from onCityDoTurn function in CvEventManager.py:

Thanks for that. I will start digging into the python script, and this is a neat place to start.

Nice idea, although I think coffee shouldn't give +2 hammers

I know it seems a little strange, to have coffee provide hammers, but this is meant to represent the increased productivity coffee has generated during its use (think industrial revolution). An alternative I'm still working out is increasing worker productivity by 10% ... if I can get that down, maybe I'll remove the hammers.

Thanks for the feedback. Perhaps soon there will be a revised build of the mod on this thread.

Art files anyone?