How Resources should be done...

[MattPilot]

I will mainly be talking about STRATEGIC resources, but i guess it could also apply to other types.


Tiles with Resources should have a Quantity atribute, which is randomly assigned when the map is created.

Say for example you have rubber. YOu assign the quantity of 65. Then you have a second source of rubber which has a value of 25. This gives you a total of 90 rubber points per turn.

How this affects your own unit building: Say you want to build an infantry unit. Besides shields , they would also cost a certain rubber quantity. Lets say in this example they would cost 10 per unit.

What does this mean? It means you can have a maximum of 9 infantry units in production at any given time. Once an infantry unit is completely built, it frees up resources which can be used to build other units.


Another example: Lets say Marines cost 25 units of rubber per turn. Thus, you could have one marine and perhaps 6 infantry units in production at any given time.


SO how does this affect trading? This is actually one of the main reasons for this idea. For example, say you are a OIL rich country, but very small, and have only 1 resource of oil, but with a huge quantity attribute, say 200. In Civ3 you only had the option of giving away your entire resource, or nothing at all. Under this system, you could give away, say 150, and keep 50 for own production needs. You could use those 150 resources to trade in other resources you can't find in your little country.

Example, you can trade in some rubber, steel, and aluminium and start building tanks, planes and infantry. Albeit, only in a small quanity per turn.




What other uses are there?

It can also be also be applied to building buildings. As long as a building is being built, resources are being tied up .

You could also use it for Unit Upkeep. Say a tank requires 2 units of oil per turn. Or infantry requires 1 unit of steel (iron) per turn (ammo, just an example).

Besides money, resources would then also play a major role in controlling force size. See the game Axis&allies RTS to see how ammo & oil affects number of units in game.



I will let your mind wander off now with the possibilities this system would provide

Comments, suggestions?

[Bkeela]

Sounds too complicated and fun decreasing.

[MattPilot]

??

you're kidding right? Its a simple concept.


Picture a numerical value superimposed on a resource on the map. If this resource is within your boarders, it gets added to your resource stockpile, which could possible be displayed at the top of the UI, telling you how many resources you have total and how much is still available.

Ex: Iron: 35/80 Gunpowder: 20/45 etc...

perhaps replace text with icons....


I don't suppose you have an arguement against this, other than an opinion? Please elaborate on the complicity and the fun decreasing factor.

[Chimura]

sounds realistic? completly
adds complexity,
it will add another layer of management to the game, and it has to be viewed from 2 perspectives:

the newbie, and the warlord of earth

from the perspective of the newbie, it will be frustrating at first unless it is carefully explained in a turorial (especialy if you dont know that you must mine 5 iron per turn for each ironclad for ammo and harvest lumber/coal to feul the boiler for the ironclad to move)

for the warlord, who already knows about this because hes researched this feature extensivly, will applaude this feature because they can cut their opponents off from vitial resources with sergical strikes/carpetbombing.

that being said, i lean toward the warlord side of things as this leads toward more realism.

[MattPilot]

Quick clarification before this gets to complicated.

The Unit upkeep idea was me just wandering off.

The basic idea is summarized under the first 2 bold headings. The third one, about buildings & unit upkeep could also be considered, but is not the basic idea.

The idea was sparked by making trading more 'useful' and indepth and by putting a limit on production at one time. The rest just came an i went along.

[Adagio]

Sounds like a great idea

I do understand how this could be annoying for newbies, but I believe it'll be easy to just make it optional (in the easiest diffeculty it's off by default) and when it's off it plays the same way as in Civ3

[Proteus_MST]

Sounds great to me, too

Maybe this could be combined with a "total quantity",
which says how many Resource-Points you can use before the resource gets depleted
instead of the system in Civ3 where this seemed to be rather a random event, than something calculated on the real use of a resource.
For example if you have a total quantity of 5.000 of iron and could get 50 irton per turn out of it, the resource would last for 100 turns, but if you don´t use the resource to the full extent, maybe just 25 units/turn, it would last for 200 turns.

This would also give the resources a varying strategic value, with resources of high quantity and high total quantity having much more worth than resources with low quantity which are alsmost depleted.

You could also have a special unit named "Prospector". In the beginning you only know that there are certain resources on a certain map tile (iron, oil etc.), but you don´t know the (total) quantity. You have to move a prospector to the location to examine it before the informations about the (total) quantity are displayed. (this would apply only to certain types of resource, i.e. resources which are mined, like coal/iron/oil)
You could build a colony/city there and mine the resource even if you haven´t examined the resource yet (as you would only be able to build a prospector after the discovery of a certain technology like "advanced mining"), but until examination by a prospector you wouldn´t know the total quantity of the resource and the examination would increase the number of resource points you would get per turn as well (for example before examination by a prospector you would get only 20 Iron-Points out of it, and after examination this would be 40 iron points).

You could also have random events like "new Oilfield discovered" which increase the "total quantity" of the resource and perhaps tile improvements which increase the quantity you get per turn (for example mines increasing the quantity/turn of an iron resorce)

[Adagio]

Having a quanty for each resource (and a unit to find out how much it is) is good

One thing I would like to change in the ideas mentioned is how much oil (or whatever) you can use each turn. This number shouldn't be based on how much oil there is on the tile, but what 'type' of mine is used:
At the beginning of the game you can only build one type of mine (the cheapest). This one doesn't give much resources per turn (maybe like 5 or something). Later you'll be able to build more advanced mines which gives 15 resources per turn, You'll still be able to build the cheap mines (which can be upgraded) or you can build the advanced mines from the beginning. Cheap mines are much faster to build, so they can be useful if you're in a hurry and need some oil ASAP

[MattPilot]

This number shouldn't be based on how much oil there is on the tile, but what 'type' of mine is used:

Good idea. This would also enhance the basic concept and provide more gameplay options.




The basic concept being that resources have a numeric quantity which can be traded and which are being tied up by production processes.

[Trifna]

Independently from what I'm saying below, I'd just like to mentin first that I would prefer icons to numbers, less problematic to most players. But here's the rest, with the lastb poaragraph seemingly yummy :



Well... the thing is that unused ressources can be stocked, should it be wood or petroleum (Hitler, Saddam?). Ok, there is a limit to stocking but still the stocks can last quite a while without reaching this limit.

The problem is that normally, an economy would go towards intensivity (everything being used) while players tend to stock lots of something with the intention to use it later. This phenomenon makes Matt's idea not bad at all... But wouldn't it bring some incoherences?

Or... there could be Matt's system + the unused surplus being mostly swallowed into the economy (and of course with corresponding bonus! Civil cars instead of tanks, etc.). As a way to integrate ressources in the economy, this would be... awesome!!!

[MattPilot]

Or... there could be Matt's system + the unused surplus being mostly swallowed into the economy (and of course with corresponding bonus! Civil cars instead of tanks, etc.). As a way to integrate ressources in the economy, this would be... awesome!!!

Actually.. that is awesome.


Say, the more resources the player does not use per turn himself on unit production, will be swallowed by the local economy.

What effect does that have? Well, for one, it COULD affect the strength of the countries currency. The more resources being used by the "people", the better the currency. An effect of that could be that the tax income is better.

On the other hand, if the player decides to use up all the resouces himself, because of an impending war, the currency could become weak, thus the tax income per turn will also fall.

There are many more additions, but again, isn't the basic concept just incredibly cool?


edit: btw, i'm totally against the concept of stockpiling.

[diablovision]

I have mixed feelings about the idea. On one hand, I think the current handling of resources is inadequate, but the scheme proposed here is getting complicated fast. I can see that getting closer to simulating real economies would be a neat twist, but realistically, isn't civ a game about conquest, domination, and well, civilization, and rather not about micromanaging an economy?

[MattPilot]

I have mixed feelings about the idea. On one hand, I think the current handling of resources is inadequate, but the scheme proposed here is getting complicated fast. I can see that getting closer to simulating real economies would be a neat twist, but realistically, isn't civ a game about conquest, domination, and well, civilization, and rather not about micromanaging an economy?

What micromanagement?

The idea posted in my last post is all automatic and based on a simple principle. You build a lot, your tax money goes down (since you are using up your own resources). You don't build a lot, your tax money goes up (since the people are buying from you). Simple. of course the formula that would calculate the modifier for tax wouldn't be so simple and must be well balanced.



Quick summary of the entire concept:


You explore the world. You find a resource (say IRON). Once acquired within your boarders, you find out this resource has an attribute of 40 tons? per turn. You build a road to the resource and start getting its benefits. Now you can build Units that require Iron. Say swordsman. Lets say one swordsman ties up 10 iron tons per turn. This means you can build a maximum of 4 swordsman at any given time in your cities/towns. Soon you have discovered the technology "mining". Now you are able to build primitive mines. You send a worker over to the resource and build a primitive mine. Your output is increased by 20%. Now, this resource puts out 48 tons per turn.

Soon you discover your on a island with one other country. You have the only resource of iron, and he has the only resource of horses. Well, you decide you don't need 18 tons of iron and can spare that in turn for some horses. By only giving him 18 tons, you still have 30 and therefore can outproduce him if necessary. Anyway, for your 18 tons of iron, you may be able to acquire 15 tons of horses in a trade. So lets assume horsemen tie up 10 tons of horses per turn. Hurray for you, because now you can build horsemen, although in a limited number at any given time. SO you have successfully traded a single resource without giving up the benefits you enjoyed. This is not possible under Civ3.

So now we move on the the economic part. Say you don't feel like building a military force to conquer the world. You want to try a different approach - you want to dominate the world financially. Therefore, you concentrate all your acquired resources to help build your currency. You acquire lots of cash and "corner the world market" as in alpha centauri - or a similar concept.

Whats that i hear? You can now win this game in more than one way besides conquering?

Just a thought...

[The_Aussie_Lurker]

OK, I have posted this idea elsewhere, but would like to rehash it here. It kind of works like MattPilots idea, but requires less player management.
Essentially, ALL resources-from iron to wheat (maybe)-will have a 'quantity number' from either 1-10 or 1-20, say. This number influences the disappearance chance of that resource (i.e. higher the number, the less chance of it vanishing).
However, the more cities you have 'connected' to the resource, the greater the chance of it disappearing. The more units and improvements you build-with that resource prerequisite-the greater the chance of it disappearing. Lastly, the more units and improvements you have that require the resource on an ongoing basis.....well, you get the picture. One of the benefits of this system is that it might well help to curb the Snowball effect-which directly links success to the amount of land you control. In my system, a relatively small nation could control very large deposits of a single resource, and end up cornering the market !
The other issue with resources is that they should not simply 'APPEAR' when you get the right tech. Instead, discovery of a resource should depend on WHERE the resource is located (within your borders, within your city radius), the size of the resource deposit, presence of terrain improvements, ownership of appropriate techs, and the amount of money you invest into 'resource discovery'. Again, I think this will help decouple success from land-possession.

Anyway, I hope that made sense !

EDIT: The link between # of cities and disappearance rate of the resources represents what was described above about resources being 'swallowed up' by the local economy.

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

[MattPilot]

but that still leaves the trading problem. How would you trade a single resource without giving it up yourself?