Resources - The old way rules

[Allemand]

Badtz Maru, Nexus VI, the rule (in the manual) is there is a chance the resource will disappear when it is connected to your trade net, meaning there is a road to the resource. When there is no road the resource will not disappear. I've tested this and found it to be true.

Anyhow, I'm happy. Haven't lost any oil lately.

[David Weldon]

Nadexander:
I didn't miss the point. In fact, the very next paragraph after the one you quoted addressed that point explicitly. I thought it did a pretty good job, even.

Venger:
We seem to agree in spirit: Resources good, pelnalty for lacking them bad. After that it is of course a matter of personal taste, but I think that your solution is too soft. It makes the possesion of resources not really matter. Tanks with +1? That's an almost irrelevant bonus. Of course the bonuses could be tweaked to taste, but I think that the real effect of not having plentiful resources is that things are more difficult to make, not that they are of inferior quality. Thus my concept of more expensive equivalent units.

I totally agree with you on the real problem being if you have a monopoly, not if you are missing a particular resource. I'm not sure what to do in that case except to make all of the AIs recognize that you have a monopoly and try to tear you down. If only one or two make the attempt, that'll just give you extra GLs as you eat them up, but if the whole world got angry at you, perhpas it would be different...

Others:
I love the concept of resources, and I think the random movement is very important to prevent a stagnant end-game. I actually increase the disappear/reappear chances in my games. I wish that they would move around even without roads built to them. I assume that your society makes use of the resource even if your military is not. The gameplay idea here is to give you something important to do once expansion is over. If you just go get what you need and then never worry about it again, then the idea didn't work in reality.

[MarshalN]

Again, as someone who likes to play large/huge maps, the resource problem show up more prominently. Currently, my game seems to be lacking in rubber, except on this small patch of forests deep in the French Empire... and they have 3 of it. Right now we're still early enough so the rubber doesn't matter much, but I can just see it later on being a pain in the @ss when I need it to build improvements, etc. It's not exactly the easiest spot to get to either, seeing how the French has an empire of about 50 cities, and it's almost smack in the middle of their land.

I guess you can trade, but the thing is, the AI doesn't always want to trade with you unless you give them everything, and even then, you might not be able to trade seeing how sometimes they sell it to another AI before you get a chance to buy it. Worse is, the French in my current game decides that it's ok to just connect one of the rubbers for themselves.... so I can't even buy even though I definitely have the money.

[ranald]

Originally posted by MarshalN
I guess you can trade, but the thing is, the AI doesn't always want to trade with you unless you give them everything, and even then, you might not be able to trade seeing how sometimes they sell it to another AI before you get a chance to buy it. Worse is, the French in my current game decides that it's ok to just connect one of the rubbers for themselves.... so I can't even buy even though I definitely have the money.

That's what colonies are for.

[David Weldon]

ranald:
I'm sorry, but colonies won't help the situation he describes because you can't build one on a resource that is in another civ's "territory".

MarshalN:
In the past I've signed an RoP, and then sent a settler to connect it for them, just so I could trade for the resource I just connected. There are a lot of drawbacks to this approach, but it is a possible solution if you really need the rubber bad enough. The other thing is that they will _eventually_ get around to connecting it, because automated workers will _eventually_ build a road in every square.

I guess you get to decide whether you want to wait or to watch his units roam all over your territory for a few minutes per turn...

[Allemand]

In one game, I used all my cavalry units to create a wall along the border, then did an RoP with my neighbor. He couldn't easily get into my country but I sent dozens of tanks through his to attack the next country.

[ranald]

I'm fairly sure the only requirement for a colony to be
successful is that the tile it's built on not be worked.

ISTR having colonies inside the cultural radius of foreign
cities and not having any problems. Or maybe my memory is
going... Guess I'll have to reload some old saves when I
get home, to check.

[Allemand]

I recall that I wasn't allowed to establish a colony within the AI's city radius. Within the cultural radius should be okay.

[David Weldon]

I recall that I wasn't allowed to establish a colony within the AI's city radius. Within the cultural radius should be okay.

This would be a _very_ important distinction if it's true, even though I think you'll be hard-pressed to find a spot in an AI empire that isn't within a city radius...

I know that when my own cultural border overtakes a colony, the colony disappears even though it's outside of a city radius. It's possible that a different mechanic is used for "enemy" colonies, however, and this should absolutely be tested.

[CampedCrusader]

The nature of being a colony implies that there is no whatsoever culture radius present. As you (and the AI) can work any resource thats in your CR by connecting with a road the only need for a colony is ouside such.

Therefore a colony vanquishes as soon as it lies inside ANY CR.

At least that is what I experienced so far.

Of course i still can be wrong but im pretty sure of this...

[JayKay]

Originally posted by CampedCrusader
The nature of being a colony implies that there is no whatsoever culture radius present. As you (and the AI) can work any resource thats in your CR by connecting with a road the only need for a colony is ouside such.

Therefore a colony vanquishes as soon as it lies inside ANY CR.

At least that is what I experienced so far.

Of course i still can be wrong but im pretty sure of this...

Yes...i think your right, because that's my experience too!
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Portugal
Nation of: Magellan's (from Magellan's Expedition);
Vasco da Gama (Discoverer of the Maritime path to India);
and Pedro Álvares Cabral (Discoverer of Brazil in 1500)

[MarshalN]

Yeah, they did get around to it all right. I'm lucky I got some luxuries that the French want and now am swapping luxuries with them for the rubber (paying them like 10 gold a turn, not too bad). I can see it being worse though if I'm not lucky -- and there's still the problem of the possible and eventual war. Then I'm out of rubber for the duration.

[CubsFan915]

Originally posted by CampedCrusader
The nature of being a colony implies that there is no whatsoever culture radius present. As you (and the AI) can work any resource thats in your CR by connecting with a road the only need for a colony is ouside such.

Therefore a colony vanquishes as soon as it lies inside ANY CR.

At least that is what I experienced so far.

Of course i still can be wrong but im pretty sure of this...

I can confirm this - I lost a crucial iron resource when a French city's border expanded in one of my early games.

[narmox]

I _adore_ resources, even their disappearance. Makes things more interesting, and their disappearance has never been too much trouble for me - except in my latest game where it made things even more interesting, and here I was impressed with civ3:

I was playing on Satya's huge world map, as the Romans, and I had all of europe (except scandinavia and england). Then, in the mid-middle ages, my resources were starting to die out, and I had not many luxuries other civs wanted, and they asked for too high prices for theirs. Result: colonization of america and australia was a _must_ for european nations, just like in the real world! And yes, the world was big enough that still in 1500 it's not all covered in cities...

This made me like the resources even more

[Excelsior]

Originally posted by David Weldon
In the past I've signed an RoP, and then sent a settler to connect it for them, just so I could trade for the resource I just connected.

I guess you get to decide whether you want to wait or to watch his units roam all over your territory for a few minutes per turn...

Actually, you probably don't need a RoP. The AI is pretty tolerant of non-combat units in its territory. Though it will ask you to leave ocassionaly, I've never seen it give you an ultimatum over workers. Thus, you don't have to endure watching the AI "units roam all over your territory for a few minutes per turn...."