ok, i take bakc most of the bad things i've ever said about strategic resources...

[a2b2c3]

only most, it still sucks when you don't have some of the resources and they are all bunched up by one ai... but there are sometimes good moments... story time...

i'm pretty sure i was having my best civ3 game ever. i was expanding well, i was getting some key wonders, i was technologically advanced, all my cites had defensive guys and walls.... next thing i know rome starts sending legions into my territory... ask them to leave, rome has a polite manner to me, they say ok...

next turn they are still advancing, oh **** i think. move some spearmen around. ask em to leave again, bam! war is declared. ok so it's time to mobalize my troops. i start pumping out swordsmen. bybthos, or whatever it's name is was taken by the romans. they have too many legions. i start pumping out swordsman tring to hold em off. pretty soon i realize swm arn't going to help, they are made too slow.

I remember a trick the computer used on me. the aztec's jaguar warrior with it's withdraw abilty was pretty efficient. so i look at what i have that moble. horsemen or war chariots. the war chariots were less costly so i started building them. they are doing a pretty good job of slowing the roman invasion, but i'm running out of swordmen.

So i start producing some more swm hping to still defeat the romans. by this time i'm no longer advancing as fast due to this damn war. anyways i start maniging some of my cities between buildings and units. then i realize something, rome only has one source of iron, the only other source is outside their culture, i prepared a galley and 2 swm only to have the galley lost because i pushed the move arrow too fast and it fought with another roman galley. so i work again to make another, only this time i've discovered feudalism so i use 1 pikeman and 1 swm.

by this time rome is getting a little lighter on their legions, the original city they captured has defected back to my side to i move all my troops there. my galley has successfully landed it's cargo. the pikeman has defended itself againt a few of rome's legions and now is gaurding the iron. the swm is still sitting tight after taking out the road. One of rome's cities Veii has been destroyed rather than trying to hold on to it. it looks like this war has turned. i only wish i had more time to kill these romans for making me fight this war. Also they seem to have sold large amount of tech to the other 6 civs who were very, very inferior. i don't know why they did it. we had a huge lead and now eveything has gone to hell!! damn cesair or however his name is spelled... he made my perfect game hard again!!!

[Badtz Maru]

What I love about strategic resources is that they often force you into an offensive war, which would be too easy to avoid otherwise.

You know the situation - you've got a technological lead on the other civilizations, good relations with almost all of them, and the best defensive units you can build guarding all your cities. You are in the perfect situation to just sit there and build up your empire, victory is assured, whether it is cultural, diplomatic, or space.

Then you make an advance that opens up a new resouce that's needed for your nifty new units and realize you don't have any. You still have your lead, but you know eventually the AI is going to get to your point and start building stuff that you can't. And what do you know, there's a nice big patch of saltpeter/coal/oil/aluminum/uranium not too far from your borders. What are you going to do? You can give the tech needed to be aware of that resource to your neighbor and then try to buy some (if they have more than one), but you know in five turns everybody in the world is going to have the secrets of Gunpowder/Steam Power/Refining/Rocketry/Fission and THEY aren't reliant on trade to use it.

Makes the game a lot more interesting to have strategic resources.

[Nakar Gabab]

My roommate is a heavy-handed, brutal conqueror... but I have to admit, he's never once complained about lacking resources the way I, the peaceable sort, so often do...

[Redstar]

hi

ques: You can deprive your enemies of a strategic resource just by destroying railroad/roads on that resource --is that right?

Yup, i love this concept also.

[Libertarian]

Someone in the strategy forum mentioned this. He likes going straight to the enemy's capital, and rather than launching an immediate attack, surrounding it instead, and pillaging its roads. Instantly, the entire empire loses its resources. This can send large cities into disorder very quickly, and effectively cripple any attempt by the enemy to mount a counterattack.

It's an especially good tactic for an industrious tribe with workers at the ready.

[xane]

I had a wonderful game going as the Germans until I realised I was the ONLY civilization with neither Oil or Rubber, no Panzer for me And by that time the world was so set in Democracies and cuddly MPPs that it would have been madness to try and get some by force.

I managed to get one to agree a deal on Rubber, but I declined for the moment as it would have tekn all my spare cash, so I built up reserves and established MPPs with everyone to curry favour, even gaining a few techs that everyone wanted.

Could I get anyone to give me Oil or Rubber ? No "deal possible" everywhere - argh !

Not only did I not have my beloved Panzer, no Mech Inf, etc.

[Patient English]

Libertarian said:

Someone in the strategy forum mentioned this. He likes going straight to the enemy's capital, and rather than launching an immediate attack, surrounding it instead, and pillaging its roads. Instantly, the entire empire loses its resources. This can send large cities into disorder very quickly, and effectively cripple any attempt by the enemy to mount a counterattack.

Nice strategy. A real killer. But how does this map to anything that might have happened in "The Real World"? Of course, Civ III is only a game, but I like to try and convince myself that things that happen in Civ could have happened for real. This seems like just another exploit to me. Another example of clever gamesmanship spoiling the "feel" of the thing.

The resource model is a nice idea (if a bit flakily implemented) but the idea of resources only being usable to an Empire if a road leads from them back to whichever city happened to contain the Emperor's Palace at that time - well, that forces supsension of disbelief a bit too far for me. You can build swordsmen all over your Empire, then a road to Rome is pillaged and suddenly you can't?

[xane]

I didn't think the palace had anything to do with it. You can only build the appropriate units in those cities which had access to the resource, regardless of the capital.

[Kekkonen]

Originally posted by xane
I managed to get one to agree a deal on Rubber, but I declined for the moment as it would have tekn all my spare cash, so I built up reserves and established MPPs with everyone to curry favour, even gaining a few techs that everyone wanted.

Could I get anyone to give me Oil or Rubber ? No "deal possible" everywhere - argh !

The "no deal" that other civs give you initially doesn't necessarily mean that they won't sell you the resource. Sometimes they just don't want to give you offers, but may go for something you cook up yourself. Be prepared to pay through the nose, though.

[Redstar]

its 50/50

if you sever links to the capital..all foreign trade will be lost. so if that includes resources...gone

otherwise, you must sever the road/railroad on the actual local resource. Just do it to your own capital and u will see that this is true.

This is not a great thing against computer ai...as it is much like an exploit.

Bit in multiplayer, it would mean you have to build fortresses on your resources and defend them like crazy.

This would be a good thing

[Patient English]

Redstar,

So trade is stopped by the Capital seige (including traded resources) but to totally remove - say - Iron from a Civ, you need to capture all linked resouce squares or pillage the roads to them?

I other words, break all roads leading to the Capital and a resource can still be used if there is a road from it to ANY of a Civ's cities?

Have I got that right now?

Thx

[Redstar]

err mostly.

A resource must be within 2 squares of a city to use.

A resource must have a road connected between it and the city.

Break the road and you break the resource.

The easiest way is to just remove the road/railroad on the resource itself.

----------------------------------


The capital must be connected to another capital to TRADE.
as soon as you break the connection, trade is lost.

That's why they talk about blockading a seaport.

But by far the easiest way to break the connection is to pillage the 9 squares around the capital so there are no road links.

However,,it will still FOREIGN trade if it has an airport or harbour --that just occured to me. So u would also have to get rid of the airport.

or airport and harbour if capital was on the coast

I will have to go test that last part out now

[Redstar]

ok its confirmed

what i said is true..and you do have to blow the airport/harbour also.

[senowen]

Re: err mostly.

Originally posted by Redstar
A resource must be within 2 squares of a city to use.

Just one small nitpicky thing there Redstar. A resourse does not have to be within 2 squares of a city to use. It only has to be inside your borders or a colony outside your borders and connected by a road to a city to be in that cities resource or trade network. Any city that city is connected to also gets to use that resource for trade or building units, etc.

[xane]

For non-traded resources, I assume you are restricted to building the appropriate units only in those cities that have access to the resource, I always thought you did not need the capital involved in this (unless you wanted to build the unit in the captial itself).

How about non-unit resource restrictions ? Like building railways needs a coal resource, does this mean you can connect ANY city to the coal resource, or does the actual square you are building the railroad in have to have access ?