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This should probably belong to some CivV "What do I want it to be" forum, but I have not found one. Feel free to relocate it if I am wrong.
The issue I want to discuss is how resources should be modeled in the game. The reason is that in real life some resources are variable and semi variable, while in CivIV they are nearly fixed or fixed.
Examples:
1) Horses can breed in various places (e.g. American Great Plains), as soon as they can travel to those places. This means that in real life Civilization (Spanish) can bring them to another location (America) and breed them. Then they can trade horses to Sioux, who would after some time breed them their selves, and trade to Spain would be abandoned. In CivIV horses either exist in America, or they do not. To make them "happen" in America you have to involve some programming (if this is ever possible).
2) Gold can be discovered in the process of exploration. Whether resource is available depends on mining techniques available, and effort put into prospecting for gold. Resource can also be depleted. Major gold mining areas were different in different times: Egypt and Nubia (ancient), Mali and Zimbabwe (before Columbus), Peru and Mexico (before Spanish), Zacatecas and Brazil (Colonial) California and Yukon (19th century) and so on. In CivIV gold is rather static resource, which you do not prospect for, you know it exists as soon as the land is discovered, and it does not disappear.
3) In real life you mine for a resource, and farm for a resource, in CivIV you can mine and farm areas having no resource whatsoever.
The suggestion is to have a model with resources being more flexible around Earth, flexibility depending upon whether the resource is 1) farmed 2) hunted or 3) mined. Because the resources will be more abundant (can be replanted, transported, and prospected) they should have smaller bonus, and work as a prerequisite, rather than a nice-to-have for farming or mining.
1) Farmed resources, such as horses, wheat, maize and potatoes, should originally happen on Earth as wild and not domesticated. Assuming you have technology to farm or domesticate animals you can create farm in such location. After some turns in the game the resource should be yours to use (you learned wheat farming or horse breeding). Then you can create more farms of this type depending on need and the geographic possibility of plant/animal to live in certain area. Need should be a function of use by population, so given fixed population in the short-term drastic increase in tobacco production should lead to decreasing marginal effect of each subsequent farm, unless you decide to trade tobacco to the Civs living in Greenland and Sahara (where it does not grow). Need for horses and sheep can also depend on the army (military units) you have - more militant nations would have to have more horse and sheep farms to support larger army. Similarly food crops are needed to satisfy health requirements and the higher the population, the higher the need should be. Also, wherever planting cash crops and breeding horses is not economical, food crops should be planted to increase food available and allow population growth, which in turn will increase demand for cash crops.
Trading farmable resources then will have to be at higher cost, because eventually after x turns of trading nation receiving such resource should learn to farm it their selves, and as soon as they will meet their demand internally, trade will cease.
This then also means, that
a) All resources will have to have "potential habitation area" - squares on which hey can be planted, if domesticated,
b) One unit of resource will increase happiness or increase health for only a fixed number of people. As city grows, or number of cities grow, more cash and food resources of the same type are needed, and
c) Having several food resources available (wheat and maize) being farmable in one area, it would be better to grow both, because of diminishing returns from growing one resource only.
2) Mined resources - they should also be function of demand. They should however be 1) prospected 2) depleted. Prospecting can be a simple cash outlay for this task, or some random event, but one way or another resources should appear with their discovery, not with the discovery of some technology (like iron working). One should have few resource locations known at start, more of them will be found later, and even more will be depleted.
One unit of resource should also meet a demand of a certain number of people, after which its trade benefits should decrease and go down until zero benefit is obtained. Resources allowing military units should have demand function depending on number of military units as well. This means that resources will also be traded based on need basis - those resources, which are lacking will be traded for those which are available in excess, providing extra cash in return. Government should not interfere much - who cares how much marble or stone is sold abroad - and specific quantities of items traded should be dependent on market. Government however can forbid trading some items (to some countries) for strategic reasons, thus losing any cash benefits from trade. Finally, if there is too much of a resource (no domestic need and need for export), the hill will be farmed
3) Hunted resources (fish, whales, game, and furs) should be available in many more areas then now, but with increased experience in farming hunting should decrease (be less attractive). They should also disappear forever once the terrain is forever changed (jungles or forests cleared, farms constructed, etc.). Full annihilation of wildlife (by farms and mines) should be disadvantageous for the reasons of 1) limited but existing high demand for small amount of hunted items 2) environmentalism in contemporary world. Also hunted resources can be overhunted under non-sustainable governments (e.g. 19th century capitalism), and such overhunting should actually be possible to make more choices for the game. Why not to overhunt whales, if they are of no use in the later game anyway?
4) On trading resources. The known fact is that before railroads the cost of transporting (trading) bulky goods across land (as opposed to seas and rivers) was high. So in the ancient times there should be limited possibility to transport wheat and maize across continents and oceans to meet the health requirements of cities in jungles or in tundra. Each area should focus on farming everything nearby until the age of advanced capitalism comes. The same should be true of some minable resources, such as stone. How to assign cost to internal and external trade is an interesting question, but at the end trading in silk products across Eurasia is possible, while trading of stone along Great Silk Route is not. This all should become easier with railroads and airports.
5) On trading goods. Resources are used to produce goods. Goods are produced in the cities by improvements you have. It would be a great NICE TO HAVE to be able to sell "iron wares" as well as "iron" itself. As long as you have improvements in place
6) On technological progress. Industrialization should greatly increase demand for resources and people (to be used and employed by factories), and more people will require more resources for food and happiness. This can be covered only by increased productivity of mining and farming, which should improve along technology tree. Actually it is a shame, that CivII farms disappeared in CivIV - farming at the end of 19th century greatly increased the food production by farms. Also underground mining in 19th and 20th century is so much different from mining in 16th century - think of machinery, electricity, etc. all of which allow prospecting better, mining deeper, etc.
7) On mining maps - there should definitely be "areas" in which resources can possibly be found. However probability of finding it should be attached, making some tiles with resources (or even areas of tiles with resources) being possible to prospect only with modern technology.
8) On initial starting points: Obviously to become a Civ you have to know at least some resource utilization technology when you start (wheat farming, horse breeding, fishing, or some such), and you should start where such one resource exists. E.g. Incas appeared in the Andes, because maize and potatoes and llamas existed there, and because nothing exists in tundra, no Civ ever appeared from there.
Conclusion:
We do not mine if there is nothing there
We do not farm if there is nothing grows there
We trade when there is demand, and wherever trade is cost effective.
HATE HAVING HORSES NOT TRANSPORTABLE TO THE AMERICAS.
AND MAIZE NOT TRANSPORTABLE TO UKRAINE
This should probably belong to some CivV "What do I want it to be" forum, but I have not found one. Feel free to relocate it if I am wrong.
The issue I want to discuss is how resources should be modeled in the game. The reason is that in real life some resources are variable and semi variable, while in CivIV they are nearly fixed or fixed.
Examples:
1) Horses can breed in various places (e.g. American Great Plains), as soon as they can travel to those places. This means that in real life Civilization (Spanish) can bring them to another location (America) and breed them. Then they can trade horses to Sioux, who would after some time breed them their selves, and trade to Spain would be abandoned. In CivIV horses either exist in America, or they do not. To make them "happen" in America you have to involve some programming (if this is ever possible).
2) Gold can be discovered in the process of exploration. Whether resource is available depends on mining techniques available, and effort put into prospecting for gold. Resource can also be depleted. Major gold mining areas were different in different times: Egypt and Nubia (ancient), Mali and Zimbabwe (before Columbus), Peru and Mexico (before Spanish), Zacatecas and Brazil (Colonial) California and Yukon (19th century) and so on. In CivIV gold is rather static resource, which you do not prospect for, you know it exists as soon as the land is discovered, and it does not disappear.
3) In real life you mine for a resource, and farm for a resource, in CivIV you can mine and farm areas having no resource whatsoever.
The suggestion is to have a model with resources being more flexible around Earth, flexibility depending upon whether the resource is 1) farmed 2) hunted or 3) mined. Because the resources will be more abundant (can be replanted, transported, and prospected) they should have smaller bonus, and work as a prerequisite, rather than a nice-to-have for farming or mining.
1) Farmed resources, such as horses, wheat, maize and potatoes, should originally happen on Earth as wild and not domesticated. Assuming you have technology to farm or domesticate animals you can create farm in such location. After some turns in the game the resource should be yours to use (you learned wheat farming or horse breeding). Then you can create more farms of this type depending on need and the geographic possibility of plant/animal to live in certain area. Need should be a function of use by population, so given fixed population in the short-term drastic increase in tobacco production should lead to decreasing marginal effect of each subsequent farm, unless you decide to trade tobacco to the Civs living in Greenland and Sahara (where it does not grow). Need for horses and sheep can also depend on the army (military units) you have - more militant nations would have to have more horse and sheep farms to support larger army. Similarly food crops are needed to satisfy health requirements and the higher the population, the higher the need should be. Also, wherever planting cash crops and breeding horses is not economical, food crops should be planted to increase food available and allow population growth, which in turn will increase demand for cash crops.
Trading farmable resources then will have to be at higher cost, because eventually after x turns of trading nation receiving such resource should learn to farm it their selves, and as soon as they will meet their demand internally, trade will cease.
This then also means, that
a) All resources will have to have "potential habitation area" - squares on which hey can be planted, if domesticated,
b) One unit of resource will increase happiness or increase health for only a fixed number of people. As city grows, or number of cities grow, more cash and food resources of the same type are needed, and
c) Having several food resources available (wheat and maize) being farmable in one area, it would be better to grow both, because of diminishing returns from growing one resource only.
2) Mined resources - they should also be function of demand. They should however be 1) prospected 2) depleted. Prospecting can be a simple cash outlay for this task, or some random event, but one way or another resources should appear with their discovery, not with the discovery of some technology (like iron working). One should have few resource locations known at start, more of them will be found later, and even more will be depleted.
One unit of resource should also meet a demand of a certain number of people, after which its trade benefits should decrease and go down until zero benefit is obtained. Resources allowing military units should have demand function depending on number of military units as well. This means that resources will also be traded based on need basis - those resources, which are lacking will be traded for those which are available in excess, providing extra cash in return. Government should not interfere much - who cares how much marble or stone is sold abroad - and specific quantities of items traded should be dependent on market. Government however can forbid trading some items (to some countries) for strategic reasons, thus losing any cash benefits from trade. Finally, if there is too much of a resource (no domestic need and need for export), the hill will be farmed
3) Hunted resources (fish, whales, game, and furs) should be available in many more areas then now, but with increased experience in farming hunting should decrease (be less attractive). They should also disappear forever once the terrain is forever changed (jungles or forests cleared, farms constructed, etc.). Full annihilation of wildlife (by farms and mines) should be disadvantageous for the reasons of 1) limited but existing high demand for small amount of hunted items 2) environmentalism in contemporary world. Also hunted resources can be overhunted under non-sustainable governments (e.g. 19th century capitalism), and such overhunting should actually be possible to make more choices for the game. Why not to overhunt whales, if they are of no use in the later game anyway?
4) On trading resources. The known fact is that before railroads the cost of transporting (trading) bulky goods across land (as opposed to seas and rivers) was high. So in the ancient times there should be limited possibility to transport wheat and maize across continents and oceans to meet the health requirements of cities in jungles or in tundra. Each area should focus on farming everything nearby until the age of advanced capitalism comes. The same should be true of some minable resources, such as stone. How to assign cost to internal and external trade is an interesting question, but at the end trading in silk products across Eurasia is possible, while trading of stone along Great Silk Route is not. This all should become easier with railroads and airports.
5) On trading goods. Resources are used to produce goods. Goods are produced in the cities by improvements you have. It would be a great NICE TO HAVE to be able to sell "iron wares" as well as "iron" itself. As long as you have improvements in place
6) On technological progress. Industrialization should greatly increase demand for resources and people (to be used and employed by factories), and more people will require more resources for food and happiness. This can be covered only by increased productivity of mining and farming, which should improve along technology tree. Actually it is a shame, that CivII farms disappeared in CivIV - farming at the end of 19th century greatly increased the food production by farms. Also underground mining in 19th and 20th century is so much different from mining in 16th century - think of machinery, electricity, etc. all of which allow prospecting better, mining deeper, etc.
7) On mining maps - there should definitely be "areas" in which resources can possibly be found. However probability of finding it should be attached, making some tiles with resources (or even areas of tiles with resources) being possible to prospect only with modern technology.
8) On initial starting points: Obviously to become a Civ you have to know at least some resource utilization technology when you start (wheat farming, horse breeding, fishing, or some such), and you should start where such one resource exists. E.g. Incas appeared in the Andes, because maize and potatoes and llamas existed there, and because nothing exists in tundra, no Civ ever appeared from there.
Conclusion:
We do not mine if there is nothing there
We do not farm if there is nothing grows there
We trade when there is demand, and wherever trade is cost effective.
HATE HAVING HORSES NOT TRANSPORTABLE TO THE AMERICAS.
AND MAIZE NOT TRANSPORTABLE TO UKRAINE
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