Multiple Resources Per Civ

[Willem]

Originally posted by Tarquelne
(I said I don't think there'd be a problem with resources within "it's territory" - I meant it's borders. It's the resources outside - those that'd probably require military or diplomatic intitiative - that I'm concerned about.)

Well it doesn't really do to bad of a job of it now, though it would probably need to be tweaked somewhat. Rather than only develop the resources it needs, it would have to be programmed to harvest all the resources, at least within a certain range. I think that could be easily adapted into it's algorithim.

How about having the resources still become obsolete so far as creating buildings/units goes, but they're still worth something? A significant amount of gold, or shields or something. (1 shield per city per resource - but only for the first?) So while there might be hoarding of the Resources needed by the current tech, there'd be motivation to trade "obsolete" resources.

But what would be the incentive to trade? Why would I want to make a deal for someone's Iron when it didn't actually do anything? As for hoarding, if a cluster placement was used, as you suggested, then it would be much less easier to do. I might have scads of Iron in my territory, but not much in the way of Saltpeter, so it would be in my own best interests to trade my excess for what it is I'm lacking myself.

A good real life example, but unless the Civ3 diplomatic system is considerably improved (which I greatly desire) I'd be prone to just grab a piece of Kuwait myself. (Real life has far more "brakes" on blatantly aggressive behavior than Civ3.)

Well if it's a large and powerful civ, then that might not be so easy. Especially if it has a number of trading partners that would be more than inclined to make sure their supplies were secure. It might require some changes in the diplomatic system, but not much I don't think.

I'm dubious about Firaxis's ability to pull this off, but it'd be nice. What sort of figures do you have in mind? (Resource frequency, resource "yield" - number of cities that can use 1 resource tile)

I hadn't really though about it much. It seems to me a little bit more than the current maximum would be enough as far as frequency is concerned, which I think is roughly 4 per civ. Maybe 5 or 6 would do, with each one supplying 5 cities, plus the inceases you mentioned with more than two. That would be something which would have to be tested to really get some good numbers.

And yes, the chances are Firaxis is not going to make any changes in the way the resources are handled at this point. That would require a fairly major rewrite of the code.

[QUOTE]I think you'd also need a rule that prevents a player from freely changing which city gets a resource, or the player could just "shuffle" the resource from city to city, using tedious micromanagement to vastly increase the usefullness of a single resource. This wouldn't help in a situation where you want to maximize the production of a particular unit, but it'd be a factor the rest of the time.[QUOTE]

Good point. There would have to be something to prevent that, maybe a turn limit for selecting a city as a priority, say 20 turns, like the current trading aggreements.

What about just having resource availability be based on distance and the transport net? Cities need to be within X if connected by road, X+Y if connected by rail, or X+Z if connected by sea. Simple, vaugly realistic, and I think it'd add some strategic (or tactical) depth. (That's my conclusion after 5 seconds consideration.) Trading might be a problem.... I think you'd have to allow a player to choose which city is recieving the traded resource.

That could probably work. As for trading, maybe being able to select any city regardless of transportation would be an incentive to make a deal. If you have one city that you would really like to give Iron to, but it's nowhere near a resource, you could trade for it and supply it that way. Any domestic sources would be determined by distance.

Have you seen it do that when it didn't already have access to the resource (maybe via trade)? (In my experience the AI has been pretty good about supplying itself.)

I agree, overall it does do a good job, though it can sometimes be stupid about it. For instance, it doesn't seem to recognize that it has access to a resource even though there's no road there yet. There have been times that I've made a healthy deal, though temporary, for something it already had within it's borders, but hadn't linked up to yet.

If my fears are correct it'd magnify the AI's lack of intelligence. This is overly simplistic, but: A resource system that is 5 times as complicated would yield an AI 1/5th as challenging. The inverse of the increase in complexity of the resource system is surely too dramatic, but the multiple-resource system would require that the AI make many more military and diplomatic decisions based on resource concerns. That's many more opportunities for the AI to do something less-than-optimal. Each individual decision would certainly matter less, but each one is also somewhat more difficult - I think the final result would be a significantly less capable AI.

Well I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a usage per city system could be done without making the AI look like a complete idiot. Who knows though, maybe Firaxis has already tried this approach and discovered that the AI can't deal with it, which is why they went for the simplistic system they have now.

I don't see "not even a single resource" of as much as I problem as you clearly do. First, I like it when _I_ have to take some extra effort to aquire a resource.... but I think we're most concerned with the AI-players, right?

Well it could always be a preference. I'm not sure whether you ever played Railroad Tycoon or not, another good Sid Meiers game, but you could select the complexity of the economic system. The same could done for Civ, for those of us who would like to get a bit more complicated that way.

First, I havn't seen this happen very often. Hmm.... actually, I can't think of a single time I've seen a civ with more than a dozen cities lacking a critical resource for a "crippling" amount of time unless it lost its supply due to warfare. The civs seem to be pretty good about trading for it.

Well like I said, I had a game recently where my two nearest neighbours were lacking in key resources, and I became thoroughly bored of being top dog in the region. They weren't much of a challenge for me after a certain point. I could have wiped out both the Japanese and the French without to much of a problem. Not much of a contest pitting Longbowmen agaist Cavalry and Infantry, which is how it ended up.

Yea, and for all my objections, I certainly would like to try out multiple resources system. And I agree with korn that it's simplicity is one of civ's strengths, but I'd enjoy considerably more complexity in the Resource system (and the Cultural rules too, btw.) As long as the AI wouldn't be degraded too much, of course.

Like I said, it could always be set as an option.

Something that might, from my point of view, save a multiple resource system is that it might be fairly easy for the programmers to come up with some effective and relatively unobtrusive "cheats" for the AI to use.

It would be very, very easy to give the AI some advantages using a multiple resource system. The AI gets 6 or 7 cities per site, while the human only gets 5 for instance. That alone could create a challenge for the human player.

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by Willem
I think that could be easily adapted into it's algorithim.

I hope you're right.

But what would be the incentive to trade? Why would I want to make a deal for someone's Iron when it didn't actually do anything?

Because it's still worth gold or shields. (And one of the possibilities I mentioned - +1 shield per city - might be very attractive.)

As for hoarding, if a cluster placement was used, as you suggested, then it would be much less easier to do. I might have scads of Iron in my territory, but not much in the way of Saltpeter, so it would be in my own best interests to trade my excess for what it is I'm lacking myself.

IF Resources don't become obsolete, yes. Maybe. "Cornering" a strategic resource would certainly be easier, and so hoarding could become much more effective. Most units would need multiple required resources, too. (I think thats something you mentioned eariler.)

And what if I capture someone else's cluster? If Strategic resoruces are clustered they'd better be at least somewhat "looser" than Luxuries, or it'd probably be too easy to "corner" multiple resources.

"Not much Saltpeter" - If we're back to minimaxing resource usage again, I think humans are going to be much better at this than the AI, (So once again we're back to me just not believing the AI could handle the new system well.)

That would be something which would have to be tested to really get some good numbers.

First: I agree with that.

Maybe 5 or 6 would do, with each one supplying 5 cities, plus the inceases you mentioned with more than two.

hmmm.... if I had my share of Iron in my territory I could supply 25 cities - many more if the Luxury style increases were used. I think that's way too many. (Though what size map are you assuming?) I, at least, very rarely build that many units at a time. (So the resource limit wouldn't be a limit.)

I think, umm.... 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 13 for "my share" of the resources. (Standard map.) might be better. Even 1 less than my share would be only 9. 1 more and I'd get 18 cities supplied.

Based on distance:

As for trading, maybe being able to select any city regardless of transportation would be an incentive to make a deal.

Ooo, I like that idea.

Well I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a usage per city system could be done without making the AI look like a complete idiot. Who knows though, maybe Firaxis has already tried this approach and discovered that the AI can't deal with it, which is why they went for the simplistic system they have now.

[looks around].... I don't suppose a game AI programmer (esp. a Firaxis one) would like to make a comment?

Maybe the best thing about Civ3's resouce system is that it'll lead to more games with similar (but more developed/complex) systems.

Well it could always be a preference. I'm not sure whether you ever played Railroad Tycoon or not, another good Sid Meiers game, but you could select the complexity of the economic system. The same could done for Civ, for those of us who would like to get a bit more complicated that way.

That'd be nice - I think it's great when games give options like that. (I wonder if developers often have trouble justifying such things to the publisher.)

It would be very, very easy to give the AI some advantages using a multiple resource system. The AI gets 6 or 7 cities per site, while the human only gets 5 for instance. That alone could create a challenge for the human player.

And relaxed city assignment rules.... and hmmm.... I dunno.... Actually, a significant increase in the AI's "smarts" vis a vis warfare and diplomacy would make me far more optomistic about how well it could handle multiple resources. (AI less likely to embarrass itself if it goes after some extra resources.)

What about increasing the (oft despised) chance of a resource moving to somewhere else on the map? I think that'd help trade - I know I'd be less likely to hoard if I thought the situation might be reversed later in the game.