The Forests are GONE!?!? Depleting Resources

[Exile]

What are some ideas for depleting resources? For the ancient period.

Timber, marine life, and copper and tin are obvious.

Any more?

[jim panse]

Marble, purple fabric, exotic spices ...

[Exile]

Marble is good. I like that.

Not sure that spices or dyes are depletable in the sense that I'm thinking.

More ideas people.

[Harry Tuttle]

Exotic wild life (birds, lions, furs) used in luxury goods.

Salt

Slaves (a bit of a touchy subject, but it is the bronze age)

[Harry Tuttle]

Mrrrr, Frankensense, Gold...

[Exile]

Thanks to something that I saw John Ellis do, Here is the general idea:

How do you represent depletable resources in Civ2?

In the old Microprose (bless 'em!) game Colonization, once trees were cut down, they provided resources, but the land was changed in doing so, and it was never the same again. Good idea. But cutting down forests in Civ2 doesn't work that way.

John created an improvement in StC that simulated this effect. He called it "family gold reserves" or something similar. If you're creating an ancient scenario, chances are good that you're not going to need "air" improvements. No airport. No SAM. No SDI.

However . . . . . .

You can place these improvement in cities, call them something else (like local timber, for example), give it a new graphic, set its support cost to 0 and give it a high "cost." The improvement/local timber can be "sold" at any time, generating gold. But once used, that's it. It's gone, and there may come a time later in the scenario when the use of those resources may be more recommended.

And then it occurred to me that ANY improvement that normally wouldn't see use in an ancient/medieval scenario would also function this way. So now I can add all the various "plants," and the anti-pollution improvements too. Just so long as there is no factory.

This many extra improvements allows me to create a customized, long-term resource pool for various individual cities, thereby making SOME cities MUCH more desirable than normal ones.

Now, back to ideas. . . . . .

[:) Smiley]

Or, you can have units that can be killed that generate gold, parked outside of cities. If you want resources, set the owner to the player and have them have a high shield cost for disbanding.

[techumseh]

Mike Daumen came up with a good idea for his Russian Civil War project. Place barbarian food caravans around the map with 0 movement. If they are bribed by the human player, Leo's Workshop converts them to freight units which do have a movement allowance, and hence can be used to feed starving cities. He was trying to demonstrate that persuasion worked better than force in requistioning food supplies.

This could be used for all manner of trade goods, or generic units useful for shields only. Of course, the down side is that only one civ can have Leo's Workshop.

You could immobilize a 2 mf barbarian unit if it was placed on a fortress. Once you bribe it, you can move it.

[Exile]

More obtuse ways of creating depletable resources;

Unit, "forest," is outside of city somewhere appropriate. It's a friendly unit--your people know their way around the woods, but it's a block for anyone else because it's an air unit. It has no movement. Your settler units ONLY have the "attack air" capability. If they "cut down" the forest, a unit appears in the capital called "lumber." Has no movement, and can only serve the function of disbanding to assist the manufacture of other things.

lol.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Exile
More obtuse ways of creating depletable resources;

Unit, "forest," is outside of city somewhere appropriate. It's a friendly unit--your people know their way around the woods, but it's a block for anyone else because it's an air unit. It has no movement. Your settler units ONLY have the "attack air" capability. If they "cut down" the forest, a unit appears in the capital called "lumber." Has no movement, and can only serve the function of disbanding to assist the manufacture of other things.

lol.

I think this is your best idea Exile. The improvement idea seems to have a very high cost to benefit received ratio, making it something that a player may not bother with.

The Leo Workshop idea is a decent one, but I think it would render to many possible units moot for a player. Of course in a multiplayer game where each player has special abilities this would be a neat thing for Co-op play.

[Exile]

lol, I apparently failed to fully explain the improvement idea.

The improvements (local resources; timber, marine, minerals, etc.) are THERE at start. No one can build them, and they cost nothing to maintain. They simply are resources available to use at any time, via selling them off. They don't do anything and they don't cost anything to keep. Their only purpose is to be sold off. The question, for players, is when?

[Elok]

Maybe I'm just not getting it, but if the forests in your last example are friendly units, how are the player's settlers going to harvest them? And why not just start with helpless, immobile "timber" units in the city if you're going to work the game that way? Especially if the enemy got a certain small amount of gold for every such unit killed. That way, "looting" the city's material riches reduces its population (the natural effect of an enthusiastic horde of ransacking soldiers), but earns
a comparatively minor amount of gold for the enemy.

It makes more sense to have profit from the resource, whatever it is, be in shields. With city improvements it makes sense to just sell 'em all ASAP; it's not like Gold can go stale or anything like that. There'd be no strategy element if the resources gave gold, unless the player were close to hitting the 30K gold barrier every turn.

Maybe caravans? A limited, non-buildable supply of caravans that can be used to rush wonders one time each? I'm not familiar with the limitations of caravan mechanics specifically...

[Exile]

No, you got it Elok. I missed it. The forests would have to be hostile air units with 0 defense so no moving through. That changed, it would work.

I probably won't use it however. It uses too much event space. lol.

About gold going stale; if the tech tree is moving along, and much more powerful units will be available to build sometime in the future, do you build a lot of crap units and attempt to overwhelm your foes, or wait and use the resources to build powerful units when the time is right? The additional variable is the behavior of opponents--what are they doing?

And gold stored in the form of "resources" doesn't appear when enemy armies demand tribute. They only look at the cash you have on hand. Excessive wealth will also attract the attention of aggressive MGE AIs looking for war. The less money you have . . . .

[Elok]

Yes, but gold stored in the form of "resources" can only be liquidated at a rate of one per city per turn, and once liquidated can be used in ANY city, not just the one it was sold from. You mine marble in Corinth, and hundreds of miles away in Cordoba it's used to make a marketplace instantly? It would also make the cities with those resources basically unbribeable, wouldn't it?

True, a unit would too, but only if it were a static unit sitting around in the city. A mobile, expensive, useless unit without support would be a much better "resource" IMO. It would allow more than one of a particular resource per city as well, introduce the problem of transport, etc., giving it all the delicacy of a real, transported trade good, which could be plundered en route by pirates for cash. If you want a geographically limited resource, make it an air unit with limited movement or some such. Units are just much more flexible for this kind of idea.

[Harry Tuttle]

Originally posted by Exile
lol, I apparently failed to fully explain the improvement idea.

The improvements (local resources; timber, marine, minerals, etc.) are THERE at start. No one can build them, and they cost nothing to maintain. They simply are resources available to use at any time, via selling them off. They don't do anything and they don't cost anything to keep. Their only purpose is to be sold off. The question, for players, is when?

Ahhhh, I get it now. It's a good idea then, but I'd back it up with some actual harvesting. I mean you could just call it The King's Stash and tell the player that it's there. I find that the stress of having to make money by attacking units is a good way to make players venture out and get into conflicts. No camping that way and it makes the player attack not when he wants, but when he has to.

So what's this scenario about?