Lack of resources: good or bad?

[MyOlde]

Thanks kring. Very thorough. Has there been any discussion that Firaxis might adjust the formula in the next patch?

[Brundlefly]

Lack of resources adds to the challenge of the game. It may force you into war sooner than you want. You can always play on a larger size world and/or with fewer opponents if this is a big issue for you.

[thorpey]

Originally posted by bfg9000
Lack of resources adds to the challenge of the game. It may force you into war sooner than you want. You can always play on a larger size world and/or with fewer opponents if this is a big issue for you.

I agreee. It can change a game significantly if you find yourself without saltpeter etc.

In my current game (conquest only) I had planned out who I was going to take out first, second etc and then I discovered gunpowder and realised I had no saltpeter. It changed my whole approach when I found that the civ I was going to deal wiith last had the only available/reachable supply.

That's why I love this game!

[Fatwreck]

one thing I noticed is that cattle very often are clumped together like lux resources are...

was it always like this? at least I don´t remember it being so

[justjake73]

I just discovered Steam Power, and I did a ctrl shift m. I might have passed one over, but it appears that I have the only Coal in the entire world.

I don't want to to restart so far into a game, but the AI won't have RR's or Factories....won't be as fun.....

[vmxa1]

Remember resources can deplete and be "discovered" (I know some won't). So it is possible that coal will appear elsewhere at some point.
I will say I do not see much of that anymore.

[Fatwreck]

doesn´t new resources just appear when they deplete somewhere else?

[Cort Haus]

Kring - thanks for reposting that info.

I posted my opinions at length on this thread on the strategy forum. In short, I feel that the resource scarcity has abolished peaceful building at a stroke and damaged the balance of the game. It's good for killer AI's, but not everyone likes those. I for one prefer numerous competing Civs rather than a couple of superpowers and the rest irrelevant.

[Jaybe]

If the new resource allocation has abolished peaceful building, it has ALSO taught that a nation's survival/prosperity is built on Tough Choices.

Rome was not (initially) after an Empire; they were only concerned with security and external threats to what they already had.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Fatwreck
doesn´t new resources just appear when they deplete somewhere else?

I am not sure any more. In the early days of CivIII it seemed that a resource depleted and then reapeared some place in the same turn most of the time.

In PTW it seemed less frequent and they did not always reappear.

Now I am not seeing it much at all.

So I am not sure what the mechanics of it are at all. I only tossed that out a possiblity.

[Fatwreck]

I have only seen one resource appear in C3C, (oil)... I remember a resource beeing depleted in that same game... can´t recall if that was oil too tho...

[vmxa1]

I had one resource deplete and reappear last night. So it seems to still work as it alwyas has, but just less frequently. This game was just hitting the modern era and that was the first one.

[pauli]

i gotta say, i bumped up the resource appearance rates to c3 levels before starting my 31 civ game, and honestly, i wish i hadn't. the map is CRAWLING with resources (yes, i know it's cause there are so many civs).

for instance, incense and silk. i found the island (i'm playing on pangaea, so there's always that one small island...). two bass ackwards civs, the vikings and the japanese. they've got incense and silk ALL OVER their island. i counted: 18 silk, 17 incense!

and yes, i'm going to invade, just as soon as the crazy people on the mainland stop attacking me

[Antrine]

Pauli that is the fault of the map generator itself not the set level of resource appearance. Small islands must be manually 'joined' by a land bridge and then have the editor 're-calculate' resources and you find the distribution evened out.

[pauli]

what i'm saying is, that's representative of the other resources on the mainland - on the island, i could actually count them, but elsewhere they are about the same. russia is sitting on a VAST field of diamond mines, the central jungle has great big jets of dyes shooting up out of the ground, well over a dozen grapes are spread around the west coast, and you should SEE the elephant herds all over. i've got four or five horses, just in my core cities. iron? everywhere. there's even copious amounts of saltpeter.

i'm not anticipating much difficulty when i go looking for coal.