Oil is not well

[Zizka]

(rant on)

Ok I am getting a bit fed up with Oil in this game. While overall I like the idea of resources the use/presence of Oil is a bit too unbalanced.

Out of 10 games 5 have eneded prematurely (quit or beaten up ) simply because I had no Oil and there was NO surplus from any civ wiling to trade. Thsi is despite fairly large desert / glacier territories.

Let's face it folks Oil is TOO critical to in the end game for far too many units. It is no FUN to spend hours, even days, at a game just to find yourself over the pork barrel due to some pseudo random resource allocation (often 'clumping' fo one civ gets the lions share.)

For those who would raise the arguments "But Oil is critical strategic resource..." Ye sit is, but i would point out two main counter arguments
1) It is unbalancing as hell in an otherwise fun game.. while everyone cranks out battaleships, bombers and tanks while you are left with cavalry DESPITE being more advanced technologically than anyone.

2) Yes but in the "real" world Oil is Traded!! In Civ there hardly ever seems enough to have much less trade. And if by some miracle someone does have extra .. "cede me 3 cities and I may consider it"
It would be like OPEc saying .. just hand Us New York, Paris and London, all your gold.. and did we forget.. yes BEND over too!"

Could you image the caterwauling in multiplayer!! I might as well play roulette.. strategy smagedy!

Solution 1:
Minor Wonder "Synthethic Oil Facility" -- after a Civ builds 5 labs (research for alternative resources) to count as 1 Oil source

Solution 2
Give workers ability to "search for oil" (dig) in certain types of terrains that may yield 1 oil source for 20 turns (small strike)

Common market (wonder- requires Economics)
Ability to buy resources (on open market - at a slightly higher cost) for 20 turn intervals (except perhaps uranium ..unless really expensive!!)
(this woudl reflect that often greed and private capital may engage in sale for profit..)

I really a m beginning to like this game more despite some serious shortfalls (go patch go!) But this is aspect has moved to the top of my list. Who wants to play a game for age sjust to find out if was all much ado about nothing..

(rant off)

Z

[HugoHillbilly]

Using the editor you can make all the units you long for not require oil to build.

Now before 20 people post "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE TO USE THE EDITOR TO FIX SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE" consider this:

The editor is mainly there so you can edit portions of the game to your liking.

Firaxis has one idea for a great game, you may have another. They gave you their version, if you dont like it edit it. They cant cater to everyone so the editor is there if you dont like the game the way it is.

I like the current game fine, so I wont change anything. If you dont like it, go change it. Its not too difficult.

[Plumbean]

Plumbean

I agree with you 100% Im going threw the same thing their needs to be balance to keep it fair

[ElBone]

It can be frustrating, yes, but on the whole I like the resources. You really MUST go get what you MUST have, and it makes the middle and late game very much more interesting when you have to go invade a friend (or sizeable enemy) to get a resource you must have.

The distribution of the resources is suspect, I agree... whether oil or rubber (the two "killers"). I am playing one right now where my hated enemy the Aztecs have ALL THE RUBBER ON THE PLANET (4 deposits!), and nobody else has any. So, I had to go get me some... has been fun, difficult, expensive, but it makes the game more interesting IMO. Otherwise, you just sit there out tech'ing and out building.

ElBone

[Shiva]

You can also turn up the appearance rate in the editor. Might help a bit since there seem to be a way to do a set number of resources in the editor.

[Peterk]

I've had this little idea:

What if the first Civ to discover a tech that requires a resource automatically gets a permanent access to that resource without it having to appear on the map. This will solve 2 problems:

1. It gives all Civs the chance to get a particular resource in games in which a single resource is extremely scarce.

2. It also kind of makes sense - how could I possibly have developped a technology that requires oil without having used any oil?

[Zizka]

responses

Editing: yes I know you can edit. But the editor is hardly worthy of the name. Moreover, the changes i'd like to make cannot be done with the editor as it stands. Simply changing a save so units do not require oil at all make make sense to you but it does not to me. If you read carefully I said I actually liked the resource system I just want to tweak it so it isnt too unbalanced.

Wars for resources.
In theory thsi is sound but oil is soo unbalancing that to get oil you have to beat an army With oil whose unist and numbers are likely superior. Thsu I have to charge tanks with horses to get tanks.. but if i do not my opponents tanks will rush me sooner or later. eithe way if you have no Oil its a catch - 22.

Resources shoudl limit not put an absolute stranglehold over the development of other civs. By the logic of the game shouldn't we be speaking arabic now..

Z

[David Floyd]

Just thought I'd point out, when the Japanese took the Dutch East Indies in World War 2, they took over 80% of the world's supply of rubber...fact is, resources ARE clumped together. Oil is clumped in the Middle East, Siberia, Alaska, and a couple of other places, rubber is in Indonesia, coal is plentiful, but it's generally in large clumps, such as the Appalachians, uranium is in South Africa...etc.

The resource allocation system seems fine to me. By the way, this coming after my tournament game when I didn't have or acquire a SINGLE saltpeter source the entire time it was useful. I just had to adapt - built pikemen, which are almost as good as musketmen, didn't worry about cavalry, and went straight for Nationalism and riflemen. It was a bit of a worry for me, not having the early gun units or Cavalry, but I dealt with it through diplomacy and other means.

[Pyrodrew]

Appearance Ratio

In Civ there hardly ever seems enough to have much less trade. And if by some miracle someone does have extra .. "cede me 3 cities and I may consider it"
It would be like OPEc saying .. just hand Us New York, Paris and London,

I'm not trying to disagree or agree with you. But, in the editor it says an Appearance Ratio of 160 means there are 2 of that resource to each player. However, when tests are run it tells another story. Horses have an Apperance Ratio of 160, Oil has an Appearance Ratio of 120. Maps with different water% & land types currently make Tiny Maps (4 players) generate 4-6 horses & about 4 oils. Small Maps (6 players) generate 6-9 horses & about 6 oils. Standard Maps (8 players) generates 8-12 horses & about 8 oils. Thus 120 seems to be more 1 resource for each civilization and 160 is up to 1.5 of that resource to each player... contrary to what the "help me" file says. Nevertheless, since the # of resources is not always a fixed amount as demonstrated by the horses I guess it is possible for a game to generate less oils than players in the game, although I've never seen it yet.

[Deathray]

Originally posted by Zizka
responses

Editing: yes I know you can edit. But the editor is hardly worthy of the name. Moreover, the changes i'd like to make cannot be done with the editor as it stands. Simply changing a save so units do not require oil at all make make sense to you but it does not to me. If you read carefully I said I actually liked the resource system I just want to tweak it so it isnt too unbalanced.

Wars for resources.
In theory thsi is sound but oil is soo unbalancing that to get oil you have to beat an army With oil whose unist and numbers are likely superior. Thsu I have to charge tanks with horses to get tanks.. but if i do not my opponents tanks will rush me sooner or later. eithe way if you have no Oil its a catch - 22.

Resources shoudl limit not put an absolute stranglehold over the development of other civs. By the logic of the game shouldn't we be speaking arabic now..

Z

Editing: Instead of making units not need oil, why not edit it so that there are more oil squares on the map, or so that new oil appears more often.

Wars for resources:
The reason you have just stated is why your obsolete units are still capable of lucking out on modern units, and why you can win a battle if you have enough obsolete units. Also, obsolete units are cheaper. The computer unit AI is very good, but its still not quite as good as a human who thinks about their moves and which units to build carefully. Its surprising how effective pairing a musketeer with a longbowman is if used right. Riflemen require no resources and are quite capable of taking on modern armies if in sufficient numbers.

Speaking Arabic: I don't know if you've heard, but a couple of decades ago there was this thing called an 'oil crisis' where the arabs were effectively able to hold a gun to the leaders of developed countries using their oil monopoly. A few years after this, America's was having some (oil related) problems in the Middle East again , and guess what? Its the Gulf War. And since that rather messy business was all finished, America has kept a very healthy interest in Middle East politics, despite stirring up anti-US feeling and going against all of its Democratic principles by supporting oppressive dicatatorships. I wonder what that was all about? Perhaps it was oil?

[Wrong_shui]

What u worried about? carvels beat battleships and cavarly whoop tank's asses

[Stromprophet]

I like how I have seen everyone complain about these things.

I want to see people complain about things that can't be fixed with the editor.

Basically the only thing that has bothered me in this game is the corruption levels. I'm finding it very hard, but I also like that.

In every game you should expect resources to not be there for you. I had a world with only 2 continents, one of them, had absolutely no coal on it, which is the one I was on. So you can imagine as I hit the industrial age I was angry.

Solution, go fight for it. Which I find something that is great in the game, is that either I have to make deals to survive or I have to get it for myself. It's great.

[Easy Rhino]

Random thoughts about this, as my first game is finally approaching the modern era.

Clumping is kind of neat. Then you end up with places like Saudi Arabia, or South Africa (minerals).

There really, really, should be at least one strategic resource square for each Civ.

If the AI has a monopoly on a resource, it would be neat if it occassionally tried to withold it to punish the others. However, it would also have to ROYALLY PISS OFF the other AI's, to the point of starting wars.

I think if one civ discovers a new advance, then they would be guaranteed at least one square of it in their territory (first to discover refining, if no oil present, gets one oil created). That would be neat.

The syntheic fuels idea is an interesting one. Germany did it during WW2 (from coal) but it's really inefficient. Unfortunately, Civ doesn't have a concept of "a little bit" of a resource. But possible with some huge ongoing penalty, it would still work.

ER

[Venger]

A gusher

In my current game (STILL playing my first one) I own an entire continent, pole to pole, a large island, and a sliver of another continent (that is growing as I take ti to the Aztecs...).

I have no oil. Anywhere. I have desert, I have plains, I have tundra. But no oil.

Oil is found on every continent - except in Civ3. Jeez, this is major design problem #812 now...

I wouldn't mind this so much, except that in order to build certain units you have to have oil. This could be removed by allowing units to be traded (come on guys get it together here..., even Civ2 allowed you to give units...).

Civ3 is really becoming a tedious collection of "shoulda coulda wouldas". Let's hope for a tremendous patch or two that spruces up the framework...

Venger

[dexters]

Originally posted by HugoHillbilly
Using the editor you can make all the units you long for not require oil to build.

Now before 20 people post "YOU SHOULDNT HAVE TO USE THE EDITOR TO FIX SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY BROKEN IN THE FIRST PLACE" consider this:

The editor is mainly there so you can edit portions of the game to your liking.
.

The editor is there to provide maximum customization (although there are plenty of areas that's lacking and I hope they fix that soon)

However, I reject completely the assertion that we should use the editor to fix balance issues that shouldn't have been there to begin with. Firaxis has a great game on their hands, but that does not mean throwing us an editor is sufficient reason to slack in playtesting and give us a broken gameplay system.

While I have defended many aspects of the game (the combat system in particular) there is an obvious set of problems with the game. Resource is certainly not broken, but it needs some balancing work. Oil is one such resource.