AU Mod: Resource Scarcity

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, you say Sir Ralph could go to war for the resources he needs if he were willing. I say, why should he have to? Why should fighting be the only way the resources can be obtained? The game does not force warmongers to stay at peace when they would rather fight, so why should it be common for players who want to play peacefully to find themselves forced to attack someone?

I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

The key here is 'sufficient numbers'. I think playing on a low difficulty level for your ability (like those here who argue against resource scarcity usually like to do, as far as I can tell) allows you to get those sufficient numbers.

I don't buy that argument. Yes, it is easier to get sufficient numbers when playing on a difficulty level that is easy relative to one's skill. But why would the same difference that makes a fight easy against riflemen but tough against infantry on one difficulty level not make the difference between the fight's being tough against riflemen and its being virtually impossible against infantry on a higher difficulty level? Unless there's a reason I can't think of at the moment, the principle that AIs are more dangerous when they can use up-to-date troops holds regardless of difficulty level.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.


Dominae

So the answer is "because"?

In my opinion, Civ3 is not a hybrid game which needs both war and peace in every game. It is rather a game, where you have to meet the right decision in every situation. But if these decisions are repetitive in every game, it gets streamlined and boring. Look, even if you have the possibility to trade, it's by far not assured, that you actually get the resource by this method. A strategical resource can cost you fairly much, like 50 gpt and more, and not everybody can or is willing to afford this. You can as well be embargoed by the AI, especially in the industrial age. So even if the # of resources makes trade possible, war remains a valid option. You have the choice: war or trade. With resource scarcity, there is usually only one option: war. Thus, the game rule (to find the right decision) is violated, as you don't really have a choice.

You definitely don't make a game more fun by taking options out.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.

On the contrary, what made Total Eternal Forever War so horribly difficult was the requirement to be at war with all civs at all times. A self-imposed requirement to be at war with at least one civ at any given time would not be anywhere near as crippling. Further, I imagine you or I could hand the AIs their heads pretty much any time we wanted to in a Total Eternal Forever War style scenario playing on Chieftain. Playing even such an extreme dedicated style would merely require adjusting the difficulty level to reflect the inability to use all our tools. (In my case, I was able to take the scenario on Monarch, although I had a rather tough time on that level.)

Similarly, players who decide never to fight except to defend themselves should not expect to be able to compete on the same difficulty levels where they could compete using the full range of tools for both war and peace. But I think that with perhaps a few exceptions due to highly unusual behavior by the RNG, they should have the option of playing that style of game if they are willing to move down to a difficulty level where the inability to launch wars of aggression won't cripple them unacceptably.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay

Unless there's a reason I can't think of at the moment, the principle that AIs are more dangerous when they can use up-to-date troops holds regardless of difficulty level.

Well of course the AI is better off if it has a resource than if it doesn't. That's obvious. I was responding to what you said about the AI being dead meat and the human salivating if he sees such an AI. I don't think it's quite like that.

Without proper preparation, an otherwise strong AI with lack of resources can be a tough nut to crack (especially against other AIs). The diffenrence in economy can be a bigger factor than the difference in unit quality. You need a critical number of units to win a war, and at lower difficulty levels, you will probably have enough units to take on any AI, so you will more likely go for the weaker units to suffer fewer losses. At higher levels it's a bit more complicated, and the resourceless AI might even buy enough time to upgrade its units with the text technology if you don't time your preparation right.

Something else to consider is that if every AI has all resources, the next AI to attack should be obvious from a quick glance of the world map. But if some AIs lack resources, the decision becomes more complex.

[alexman]

Here's my proposal:

-> We increase the frequency of coal, which is the first resource that gives the builder real trouble.

-> We also increase the frequency of rubber, aluminum, and uranium, which are necessary for the spaceship.

That's 4 resources out of the 8 strategic ones. We leave iron, saltpeter, oil, and horses as in C3C.

As a crazy idea that might preserve the C3C need for trade but without the worldwide shortage, we could turn one of the strategic resources, uranium for example, into a luxury resource (with the proper appearance ratio, of course), so that it appears in clusters on the map. Too big of a change? Probably, but such a solution might satisfy both camps in this debate. I can just imagine the mad scrambling to secure some Uranium as soon as it appears!

The extra happiness would be a problem, but I'm sure there are other ways around that.

[Harovan]

Iron is equally important for railroads and factories, but AFAIK still has enough instances for all Civs by default even in C3C as it stands. Could somebody please crosscheck this, I'm off to bed (1:30am here). Overall, I could live with it.

[alexman]

The increased frequency of coal would bring it up to the frequency of iron as it is now. So you would be equally likely to be without coal as you are now to be without iron.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

Something else to consider is that if every AI has all resources, the next AI to attack should be obvious from a quick glance of the world map. But if some AIs lack resources, the decision becomes more complex.

The PtW distribution was a lot more complex than just giving each civ an instance of every resource. AIs frequently had various resources missing from within their borders, and they couldn't always come up with the means to trade for what they needed either. Such situations were not nearly as common as they are in C3C, but they did exist.

Further, there is a lot more involved in target selection than just whether a civ has the resources to build up-to-date hardware. The desire to conquer luxuries competes with the desire not to have luxuries cut off as a result of attacking a civ you've been getting them from. Technologically backward AIs can make excellent targets when they would be stuck fighting with inferior hardware. Conversely, targeting a civ that has good technology but is about to get better technology might be a higher priority in certain situations. A civ might have a wonder you want. And so on. The idea that without differences in resources, a quick glance at the map would make the best next target obvious is absurdly simplistic, and I find it hard to believe that a player of your skill and experience would make such a statement.

And what is so strategically complex and challenging about looking for AIs that are missing resources as obvious targets anyhow?

Nathan

[alexman]

This debate has gone almost off-topic. I'm not going to answer to your aggressive tone of argument.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So the answer is "because"?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

In my opinion, Civ3 is not a hybrid game which needs both war and peace in every game. It is rather a game, where you have to meet the right decision in every situation. But if these decisions are repetitive in every game, it gets streamlined and boring.

The game type you prefer to play, "no warfare and complain when strategic resources are not available" sounds pretty boring to me too. Between the two of us, you're the one that's not adapting.

Civ3 is a hybrid game: to play well, you have to build and you have to fight. Just because you're currently bored of moving units around does not mean that Civ3 suddenly needs to change to suit your tastes. Civ3 is essentially the same game it always was, way back when you loved doing Archer rushes.

I'm not really sure why I'm fighting this fight anyway. Probably because my interest in Civ3 is waning, too, and anything to make it more challenging (other than Sid) strikes me as a good thing. In the C3C games that I've played, the resource scarcity has made things more challenging, and therefore more fun. I hope you understand that this is where I'm coming from, not a desire to ruin your own fun.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Here's my proposal:

-> We increase the frequency of coal, which is the first resource that gives the builder real trouble.

-> We also increase the frequency of rubber, aluminum, and uranium, which are necessary for the spaceship.

That's 4 resources out of the 8 strategic ones. We leave iron, saltpeter, oil, and horses as in C3C.

I still think the AIs would be better off if we restored all the strategic resources to their PtW levels, but that would be a whole lot better than nothing.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
On the contrary, what made Total Eternal Forever War so horribly difficult was the requirement to be at war with all civs at all times.

Total War ("pure warmonger"): always at war with all civs.
Total Peace ("pure builder"): always at peace with all civs.

Hybrid falls between the two; being always at war with one civ only falls into the hybrid category.

Sir Ralph is arguing that the C3C resource scarcity takes away from the pure builder style of play. I'm arguing that inherent in that style of play is potential resource shortage. A hybrid player is not adverse to going to war to solve this resource shortage problem.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
This debate has gone almost off-topic. I'm not going to answer to your aggressive tone of argument.

I'm sorry if I got more heated than I should have, but the fact remains that there are a lot of interesting and strategically challenging issues involved in deciding who to fight besides just which civ is missing a resource it needs in order to defend itself. Indeed, when a lack of resources creates an obvious target, that can prevent players from having to examine more complex target selection criteria.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'm not really sure why I'm fighting this fight anyway. Probably because my interest in Civ3 is waning, too, and anything to make it more challenging (other than Sid) strikes me as a good thing. In the C3C games that I've played, the resource scarcity has made things more challenging, and therefore more fun. I hope you understand that this is where I'm coming from, not a desire to ruin your own fun.

You know, there are more players than you and me out there. Most of them never visits an internet forum, and most of them aren't typical warmongers either (at the countrary). Do you feel it just to impose your quest for a challenge on everyone who plays this game? Or do you want all of them to change the ratio in the editor.

What concerns you not being sure about your fighting reason, neither am I, since I already stopped to play Civ3 as a whole. Probably because I know, if it doesn't get fixed (not only resource-wise, but all the mess that came with Conquests), I will never return to it. But I'm afraid, Jesse alone is not able to do it. I know from own experience, how hard it can be to maintain the code of others. The AI tweaks definitely call for Soren, who is, however, completely busy with Civ4. If Conquests would remain half-broken until Civ4 is released, I most likely wouldn't buy it. You know, fool me once, shame on you...