My Rant about Strategic Resources

[pcasey]

I think Bad Ax hit the nail on the head when he said players want a fair chance to win. Strategic resources are a deux ex machina factor that can either make your game easy or hard based on a random dice roll.

Oh, you got all the worlds oil and rubber. Ok, you win the game. May as well stop playing now.

Oh, you got no coal at all, and nobody will trade you any. May as well stop playing now because you've lost.

There's not a lick of control the player has over these sorts of things. They're jsut arbitrary reshufflings of the deck.

With that said, yes, I'm utterly, 100% confident I could win any sub monarch game without a single modern strategic resource by pop rushing cavalry. Lets face it though, cavalry pop rushes are the Civ III equivalent of the old Civ I pre-corruption cover the map with size 1 cities strategy. For that matter, I'd probably win half the monarch games as well unless I got really unlucky.

And, yes, I'm also sure I could choose the iroquous and win the game by pop rushing mounted warriors and never make it out of the ancient era or at worst middle ages.

I'm not saying strategic resource make the game unwinnable. I'm saying they're a randomizing act of god. The turn before oil and rubber pop up, you could be doing well. The turn after, you're a doomed empire. You, as the player, can do nothing about this. As a player, everything that happens should be under my control.

If I don't build a big enough army and I get invaded, ok, sure, *my fault*. If I don't build any culture and my cities all change to babylonian, ok, fine, *my fault*. If I dont' get any oil or rubber, its *not my fault*. Its just the game ruining my plans.

[Dis]

increase the chances that coal appears

problem solved

[MarshalN]

With that said, yes, I'm utterly, 100% confident I could win any sub monarch game without a single modern strategic resource by pop rushing cavalry. Lets face it though, cavalry pop rushes are the Civ III equivalent of the old Civ I pre-corruption cover the map with size 1 cities strategy. For that matter, I'd probably win half the monarch games as well unless I got really unlucky.

You can't even pop rush calvary without the necessary resources... what if you only get two horses on the whole map, and they, oh, happen to be within two Civs that are as far away as you can possibly be?? Since each civ only has 1, nobody's gonna trade with you. They go ahead and break everyone's back, and you just sit there and watch.

That's why I think the strategic resources is problematic right now. Especially in huge maps, you can be 100 tiles away from what you need because all the map's rubber/coal/whatever is clustered around that one area, and it's all within one civ's border. Sure, you can trade, but the cost of trading for one of these resources become prohibitively high. Also -- what if you're going to go to war with the civ that has the resource? If they demand something from you (some important tech, whatever you want), and you really don't want to give it to them (say, you're building a wonder that the tech allows -- and you know they can probably beat you if you don't get the lead by keeping the tech). Then what do you do? You can either

1) give it to them and keep them happy, for now
2) war them, which means you lose your only source of that coal/iron/rubber, which means you can't produce your calvary/tanks/whatever

This is why I think strategic resources is a problem -- the games are sometimes too dependent on luck. I was lucky that in this game I'm playing I have a spot of coal reasonably near me, so I conquered the city that owns it and I'm fine for coal -- I still had to go to war over it though because it seems only two civs have coal, and they only have one each (so nobody was willing to sell). Rubber, however, is all within the confines of the French, and their empire is big (different island -- the rubbers are at least 40 tiles away) and they're only willing to give me the rubber for 100 gold per turn. That's 2000 gold, which is not THAT much, but it's a lot of penalty for what is just dumb luck. If, on another equal game, I happen to have all the rubber, I can be selling them each at 80-100 gold per turn, giving me an extra income of 300-400 gold. That's a huge difference in difficulty.

Which is why I, along with some other people who posted here, don't like strategic resources AS THEY ARE NOW. With some changes (like what Bad Ax suggested -- more of them, but with a limit for each) it can be much better.

[MarshalN]

Did I mention that only 3 civs out of 9 have saltpeter in this game? Or how about 4 out of 9 have horses, or 4 out of 9 have iron?

There are only two irons on my island, and there are four civs. I"ve only had one since the beginning, and I'm really worried if it runs out. The other one is conquerable -- and I'm planning on doing it, but as you can already tell by my numbers, the distribution is not very equal at all. The haves and have-nots, especially if the haves have more than just one or two resources, have a great advatage through nothing they did other than building cities in the right places. Most of the resources I see are not in conquered/border territory but in people's heartlands.

[rflagg]

re: strat resources

Oh, boo hoo. You don't like the resources. Then go back to Civ2.


Here's my point in thinking that it's fair, regardless of map size, # of civ's, #'s of resources, etc:

The game has interest in the mid-late ages. Before, if you were ahead in the tech race, it was over, you win plain and simple. Now, even if you're ahead in the tech race, you can run into problems when coal, oil, rubber, etc, come along. And I say, all for the better! If you're ahead in the tech race, you're the first to discover such resource. So, now you have some deciding to do. Is it necessary to go to war even if the resources are deep inside someone elses borders? Hell no. Wait. When you're a few more tech's ahead (ie, you don't have coal, but you're now discovering refining), sell the civ steam engine. Then, trade another tech - they'll usually gladly take indus. or medicine for coal for 20 turns.

Only 20 turns, you cry, what an outrage! Then you do what I do: All of a sudden, you're entire civ weans their resource. Build build build build build. Even if you can only build the lower end units, you can upgrade them later. Diplomacy can be key here, yes it can. Or, if it's not your cup of tea, or they won't trade with you, start them warring with other nations - puppet time! While the mess is going on with a world war, just plop down a nice little city by the resources, and then fortify the heck out of it.

The game I'm playing now is the most fun I've ever had. It's saytra (sp?) world map, and I'm the Romans with 16 civs, running out of Southern Africa. I started with no Iron. No Coal. Now, No oil. But, I'm surviving. And, it's making the game all the more interesting. I was able to build musketmen by the sake of the Germans, and all 20+ of my cities rushed (with gold, not pop) enough for 3 in each city, amassing one of my better defences, because usually I let the idea of a home defense fall behind. Now, the Chinese control the middle eastern oil, and right now I'm the only one who knows where the oil is. So, by befriending a few neighboring nations, they're going to help me distribute the oil how I see fit.


As far as never being able to start a game you can't win, keep this in mind - the fact that you're playing a game that simulates millions of different livable planets out there, including resources, starting locations, etc, eventually you will get screwed. The last random world I played, I was the babylonians, and I started on a greenland-like continent, with just enough room for 4 cities. fair chance? Not for someone who wants an easy game. But, a fair chance for someone who is willing to fight for their survival.

Just my 2 cents. Resources are right up there with the culture idea, and I think they're both brilliant.

-Rflagg.

[Steve Clark]

Three simplistic solutions...

#1) Play SimCity or the City Building games instead;

#2) Learn to use the very simple editor to change one variable; or

#3) Games should force you into thinking strategically. You are going in with a predefined strategy and expecting the game to accomodate your limited gameplay parameters. That, I think, is the crux of many of the negativity around here; folks expecting the game to play a certain way. That does NOT mean, however, that everyone will or should accept those alternatives, just like I totally reject the concept of EU/EU2. That's fine, there's always those games I mentioned in #1.

Civers have complained that Civ3 does not play like Civ2. It shouldn't and strategic resources are one of the main reasons why. This was implemented to provide a more complex economic model. Without it, everyone would be winning at deity and complaining how worthless the AI is, just like we have been doing for years in Civ2. You wanted a much more challenging game and you got your wish, via strategic resources (among others).

BTW, I haven't respond to much of anything around here, but I had to add to the good points that my friend MarshalN made.

[jbrians]

Originally posted by pcasey
Oh, you got all the worlds oil and rubber. Ok, you win the game. May as well stop playing now.

Oh, you got no coal at all, and nobody will trade you any. May as well stop playing now because you've lost.

1) resource clustering is a factor of world age. Play on an old world to spread them out more.

2) If you take immediate action when a new resource becomes available you can avoid certain death via trading, building outposts, or military campaigns. I am currently playing a game where I had no salt-peter. I managed to survive. Half the time I went without, half the time I traded an arm and a leg for it to upgrade all of my units. I am now past the usefullness of salt-peter and on top.

3) There are enough resources for everyone on the map. The game makes sure to have exactly as many of each strategic resource as there are civs. Look harder, or trade with someone else.

-Brian

[MarshalN]

But Steve -- the game IS making you play a certain way. You have to either conquer for resource, you trade, or you basically forefeit since without some resources a win is basically not possible (on certain settings). I happen to like to play huge maps, and on those maps, if you start out on a resource poor island, very often by the time you discover the other civs on the other island, you're already behind because you had to engage in constant war to fight over the one iron on that island or something along those lines.

I think for people who play small or tiny maps, it's much easier to deal with a lack of resources because of the smaller scale. I expect that, at the very least, that Civ3 should be as playable under huge map settings as under small or tiny. I understand that there are certain differences, but I don't agree that the extra difficulty of getting strategic resources that are way over is one of them. I'm not saying strategic resources is bad per se, but I think as implemented there are better ways to do it.

In Civ2, when you play on random maps and you start out on a small island (on huge maps) you still have a good chance to win . Now you start on a huge map on a small (10 city ish) island, and you're pretty much doomed because you'll have no strategic resources (or very few), maybe one or two kinds of luxury, and by the time you can actually get off the island to go somewhere else, you'll probably have very little room to expand. The AI thinks you're weak because you're small, and they take advantage of that. Your culture sucks compared to others (less cities = less culture long term) and you can only support a army so big. My experience with those games is that by 1000 AD, you're hopelessly behind because everyone has 50 cities, a bunch of luxuries, and all the strategic resources, and you still only have 15 or maybe 20 with very few resources. Trading is an option, but you do need money/goods to use to trade, and because of the new science research formula, you're most likely NOT ahead in tech to trade techs for anything else. Of course, there's someone who's played enough and good enough to win those games anyway. I agree there's always a randomness to the starting of a game, but sometimes it's just too much for the game to be fun.

I'm still playing my current game without rubber, I just traded a luxury plus some gold for it. That's not a big problem, but I just don't think all the world's rubber should be in one civ's hand within a radius of maybe 20 tiles area. This is on a 5 billion years old map too.

[Steve Clark]

MarshalN, I understand and agree. But aren't there a number or two in the editor than can be changed to alleviate this challenge?

Personally, I'm waiting for the scenarios. That's where the true joy of playing Civ will be, imo. (And unless it's one where strategic resources are the objectives, like oil in the Middle East, then most of the scenarios you don't have to concern yourselves with such resources. Isn't that something to look forward to?)

[MarshalN]

Na, I don't like scenarios much... and I don't like tweaking games. I mean, I can just make the 100.100.100 Jag warriors..... that's still a tweak

I think the reason why people say "bah, to hell with you because you don't like strategic resources" is because they don't understand the pain of being geographically handicapped on a huge map. It makes all the difference.

[Bad Ax]

Originally posted by Steve Clark
MarshalN, I understand and agree. But aren't there a number or two in the editor than can be changed to alleviate this challenge?

Sure, Steve, you can change numbers so that every other possible tile has coal on it, if you want. There's nothing you can do about dispersion. And maybe that's fine if you don't want to play with resources at all. Hell, you can just edit all the units to remove their prerequisites if you want.

I however, think that resources are a *great* idea. I think they *should* be in the game. My argument has never been that we should be able to play without them. My point is that the present implementation of resources is bad, and that this in turn has forced programmers to decrease the quality of other game aspects, like devolving combat to the old spearmen-beats-tank loophole problem, just to make the game moderately fair. This in turn cascades into other areas. Because the units have too much parity across ages, the AI feels no need to upgrade, so we see spearmen marching the plains in 2000AD. This in turn allows tactics like the cavalry rush, which further hurt gameplay.

The implementation I've suggested answers a lot of these issues. Increasing the availability of resources but further limiting their usefulness means you don't have to make combat allowances for civs that have no upgrade capability. This in turn allows age-based combat differentials that reward players and AI for advancing their military technology. This in turn smacks down cavalry rush. It also adds a new dimension to strategy. Players have to pick and choose where and when to build resource-requiring units and buildings, which means you can't just choose to build cav in all your cities to support the rush tactic. Even better, it improves economic strategy approaches. You can implement your own version of the lend-lease program, supporting England with your spare oil while they're at war with Germany, defeating a foe without causing war weariness at home. You can sell your spare iron to the highest bidder on either side of a war. Yet at the same time, you have to balance these actions against your own needs. The result overall: better combat, deeper gameplay, more economic options.

[Padmewan]

Just a quick word on clustering and replication: Firaxis purposefully put these two characteristics in to encourage trading. If it's true that there is one resource per civilization, then it's theoretically possible for every civ to have every resource. Then the strategy comes in with (a) making sure your civ gets its fair (or unfair) share, and (b) denying your enemies that share.

This makes trade embargos meaningful.

Also, the way the resources are placed makes it probable that civs with surpluses in the early game will have deficits later, and v.v.

There is something realistic about this setup. Nations rise and fall because of their ability to control natural resources.

[vmxa1]

Oh, I understand the pain alright. I just abandoned my game (large prince with max civs) after going all the way to replacement parts and not getting a single new resource. I had one horse to start and it took me for ever to get to a city that I could take that had iron. In the mid 1700's I founded a city inside of a recently aquired ones borders to get saltpetter. No coal, no rubber. I had to pay heavy for saltpetter to upgrade units and then coal to build RR's. I looked around and saw no rubber even close and said I have had enough. That is not say I could not win, but it was becoming work, not fun. You should not have to go through iron/saltpetter/coal and rubber and get none of them. I never even got the random find of a new resource. Maybe I should have not choose max civs. Every time I try to play the Germans I have problems. I just wanted to try out the panzers.

[rflagg]

First off, the only thing I like to play is huge map, 16 civs. And I thank Firaxis everyday for having that feature available. I can't wait for Civ4 when we can play on a map that's *really* as big as the earth.

Secondly, I understand and sympathize that the game can be extremely hard sometimes (hence my Earlier tale of the babylonians) - well, don't you also sometimes die when you play Aliens v. Predator 2, or perhaps find a unwinable game of solitare, or maybe even find yourself being beaten by the computer at chess? That's why games are fun - because sometimes, they *are* work. I used to play Lakers v Celtics for the ol' Genesis, and would only try to accomplish one thing - have a certain player get 100 points. It was all too easy to win, and it got boring pretty fast after beating it once. Is that what you want? Maybe you should be playing Doom then on "Hey, not too rough", or tetris then.

Of course the resouce race makes it rough, but you learn to do one of three things: Accept it, and mold your style of play to fit the game that was created for you; Alter the game so that it fits your style of play; Stop playing the game because something about it bugs you.

But, realize this - at least it's more realistic than civ2, or civ1. What happened when the US realized it purchased Alaska for a song, then found out it was overflowing with oil? Luck, pure and simple. What happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait in attempt to control more oil? Wars. What happened to the civilization that once existed on Easter Island, or to the Roman empire? They fell and were destroyed. The thing that makes the game fun is that you have some control of whether your civilization will collapse or be great, but random luck is random luck, good or bad or ugly, and once in a while you'll be doomed from the start. That's when you say "Hey, well, what can you do? It's a game and it's for entertainment purposes, and I lost this time plain and simple. Let's try again!".

As far as the game I'm still playing where I'm Rome controlling 90% of Africa, I found (the hard way) that if you invite civs into an alliance, make sure you stay in the war for 20 turns, or they'll not be too friendly with you afterwards, and most likely won't enter another war with you. Which, therefore means I must fight the Chinese for the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, which is fine with me. Otherwise, I'd be playing my Civ2 isolationistic (is that a word?) style, and building myself up, not caring about the world until I was powerful enough to crush them in one fell swoop. And, honestly, that got boring after awhile.

So, enjoy the game, change it, or stop playing it, plain and simple.

-Rflagg.

[MarshalN]

I think VMXA's problem is exactly what I'm trying to get to -- some games just become work and are more frustrating than anything else. I'm still stuck with one iron in 1700 even though I control about 50 cities. I hope it doesn't run out, because if it does, I'm in deep doo-doo.

Bad Ax's solution is much better -- I still don't like spearman defeating tanks. I think the combat (in terms of realism) in Civ2 is far superior, with virtually no chance of a tank losing to a spearman unless the tank is way low on hp. Now, the chances are much closer and it's really unsettling to know that even if you're hitting something from 4000 years ago, you can still lose with full HP. That's just not right no matter what you say, there's no excuse for such a step backward in game design. Sure, a spearman (say Zulu Impis) can defeat the British riflemen, but that's VERY rare, and when you enter the tank territory when tanks are ATTACKING spearmen.... I seriously doubt if the spearman can possibly lose, especially in a city siege.

Padmewan -- the current game I play the resources are not too clustered -- on one of the two big continents, there's only one coal (mine now) and three irons. There's only three saltpeter, and there's only two horses. This is a continent on a huge map -- emcompassing about 100 cities' area. That's a large size for so little resources. Maybe it just happens to be a resource poor map, but still, Indians right now have no horses, Japanese have no iron, nobody has coal, etc, and they all have to trade for it if they want it. That's a big problem if the person needing the trade (and having the back luck of resources not showing up in your area) is you.