Agreed I would rather have more than fewer resources as long as they have meaning. So I would say more resources that make a difference. Resources that are very interesting to claim without being gamebreakingly strong.

Your metal example seems like a good system. But I also think that things should only work like this for 'basic' resources like metal, wood, stone and food (meat and wheat). It's fair to say that every nation would have access to those basic resources. Luxury resources or magical resources is a different kind of thing though.

Therefore I don't agree with you on the second part Lord Frogboy. Twilight honey would be a magical resource in my book and I don't think factions that do not control such a resource should be able to use that kind of resource. It's probably harder to balance but it makes up for a much more varied game I think. IF you really want to make that resource available to all factions (albeit that it takes longer to research), I think that you should at least research a technology (or two) to be able to use the resource.

I think there should be many resources, some of which you only see on the map if you have researched the right technologies ore even maybe some that need a particular spell to reveal.

I do agree you should be able to produce Iron weapons even if you don't have an iron mine, but I think it should take much, much longer as you would have to gather iron from trace amounts and trade.

There should be as many different resources in the game as possible. That should be a given. Researching them should allow you to use them in various ways. Some resources should be combinable to form other, rarer, resources. Perhaps they can be combined through "Alchemy". The system you have outlined there sounds good to me, But, I don't think units should be allowed to use a technology or resource you haven't researched yet.

Another thought, if Resources by Themselves are going to give bonuses, what about making magical items that give bonuses? Will that still be in the game or will it be thrown out because the resources themselves already give bonuses? There should be plenty of ways to give bonuses to units in the game. Magic Spells, Magical Items (swords armor), and some units should have "natural" bonuses and weaknesses to some things.

Anything that adds further Customization and design aspects is a good thing. Just make sure you don't throw out other more refined systems for one in favor of a broader base system. The more systems the better. If a player doesn't want to micromanage that aspect of it they can simply delegate it or use the "default" pre-made units.

I'm all for more ressources, however they must not be empty ressources. Moreover it must not be god like. If I find 10 ressources of 10% hp more for my troups at some point some archers m,ight become more powerful than a dragon and I would not want to see that kind of imbalances.

But Iron that gioves a generous bous to create than I love.

I don't know how the spell research thing has been decided upon but I would like to see certain resources (Mercury, Sulphur etc) play a part in the ability to research the higher level-spells, and also perhaps needed for the casting of the most powerful spells. I get very irked in fantasy strat games when all spells near the end are Death-spell uber-doom stuff. At least have a rare ingrediant needed to cast them or rely on lesser spells if you've been out in the field too long.

Idea's for Resource Types:

(Cloth and non metals)

Wool: sheep farm requires grazing land

Cotton: requires planting fields

Leather: made from animal skins

(Basic Metals)

Bronze: base armor modifier

Iron: Better the Bronze

Steel: Better then Iron

(Rare Metals)

Coldstone Ore: Base armor modifier plus Resistance to heat and fire attacks. This Ore gives off a permeating Chill.

Lavarock Ore: base modifier plus protection against cold and ice attacks. This fiery ore gives off heat to the touch.

Mithril: Base modifier plus extra resistance to magical damage

Granatite Ore: Base modifier plus enhanced physical damage resistance, but, it adds a Weight penalty that reduces movement speed. This Ore is incredibly heavy. It provides GREAT protection but is very heavy to wear slowing down the wearer.

Palladium Ore: Base modifier plus resistance to Death Magic.

Bloodrock/Blackrock Ore: Base modifier plus resistance to Life Magic.

As you can tell I think I made some of those up. Hope those help with some general ideas.

I'd like to suggest that you use resource points as a cause for war outside the cities.  Too many of these games end up as constant city sieges.  To do this resources must be independant from cities and players must be able to garrison enough troops in cities (i.e. reduced upkeep) that they can sally a defense.

I have several things to state on this topic.

More resources are always a plus, but they need to have varying degrees of usefullness and requirement. Most all towns should have access to a small amount of basic resources, (i.e. wood, leather, metal, food), and it should allow them to create most units. However, it should take longer, and they should not have any bonuses (aside from racial ones of course). Gaining access to magically infused crystals, dense iron deposits, or gold, should give noticable bonuses to the Empire/Kingdom and/or your units (that use items/equipment that can utilize the bonus).

Trade should be required in order to give your Empire/Kingdom access to those resources (i.e. a new town you've built, several turns away by fastest scout, shouldn't be able to utilize any bonus resources unless it has a road to the rest of your land). Likewise, trade between players would matter, since exotic, or rare resources would give large bonuses to units/Empire/Kingdom/costs.

This would obviously entice people to go to war for certain resources, however, taking a town, even if it is roaded to your Empire/Kingdom, should take a certain number of turns to allow the infrastructure to start working for your Empire/Kingdom (say three turns before you gain the bonuses). That way people wouldn't just temporarily take a city or town and try to gain peace by offering the city or town back. It'd be neat to be able to chose sack for a town to destroy the town or hamlet (I don't think you should be able to completely destroy large cities, without a magical destruction), and gain a certain amount of said resource (i.e. your Empire/Kingdom makes 1.5 points of mythril, so your stores are only at 80, you sack a major mining town that you know is too far out from the rest of your Empire/Kingdom, and sack it, gaining 300 mthril).

The system for resources should be based on a certain amount per turn, (i.e. .1 for trace amounts, .3 for deposits, .6 for major deposits, 1.2 for a developed major deposit) and build up a pool (i.e. which could be held in storage buildings, which would also make raiding useful, likewise, attacking trade units could allow you to gain say 1% of a(n) Empire/Kingdom's resources). This would give greater flexibility, and allow you to stockpile for campaigns, while being fairly simple and not too complicated. All cities of a certain size should share resources, but new towns, captured property, and unroaded towns should either only have what they create (and thus not share it with the rest of the Empire/Kingdom), or at least have greatly reduced rates and building power.

Love this idea, although I think the cost should be gold.  The whole point of smugglers is that they get the resources out without anyone knowing.  Finding out that an empire is smugling your resources out of your country could be a result of espionage, which could THEN influnce diplomatic ties.

Definately not a fan of the 'as little micro management as posible' aproach.  Half the fun of galciv was making new ships, and I'm looking forward to the same in elemental.  Whats the point of designing units if they all get upgraded/downgraded automatically?  auto built/upgraded units should be a setting, not a rule.

More resources are better in my book!

This should be the mantra of Resource Development.

To make this happen I think you should be able to SEE the a level or resources on the map before you research the tech to make them useable.

Example - If the levels of metal working are Copper, Bronze, Iron, and Steel you should see the Copper Resources on the map before you have researched the Tech needed to use them.  Once you research what you need to use Copper, Tin appears on the map (Required along with Copper for Bronze), Once you research what you need to use Bronze, Iron resources should show up on the map, etc.

Sammual

Seems like you could make the forest/river/moutain spaces usefull for your resoures.  Ie. just having a Mountain hex in your city radius gives you a small Metals production.  Throw in some occasional Special Metal areas for bonuses.  This way even non-owners of the Special hex can make up for it by building cities with lots of the underlying terrain bonus.

 Don't forget that the Mana stuff is also likely to be the Critical resource.  I'd also worry about too many resources (ie. every 3rd hex has a special output), might clutter up the map a lot.

Ren

You wouldn't know as a nation, that once you research x resource that you would want x amount and that it would be in location y. So, it's only after you research steel, that you discover you need to expand north to find deposits for it. This forces expansionism, and is good for the game anyways (plus trade would be a bigger focus this way).

I was reading this morning in the Wikipedia about Bronze as an example (for myself) of how metals could work in the game. Altough the Wikipedia isn't always 100% correct, I'll do as in this case it really was (and let otehrs correct me/it in that case). But iron per se wasn't so strange (uncommon) as copper or tin. The problem is that copper and tin deposits were usually quite far appart from each other. But you could work it better than iron and it was stronger... at least until some circumstances (trade rutes going kaboom?) forced to favor iron. And once reached the point of forged iron, bronze wouldn't be so useful (except for ships).

So in game terms, copper, tin and iron are equally common but iron requires more research to be made better compared to the research of Copper + Tin = Bronze. Also, Steel common? Well, compared with Mithril I suppose it is.

With Random map generation and placement of Factions, using towns with Resources in them or very near by getting Better Bonuses could create a slippery slope scenario.

Research should allow materials to be created, but that creation requires access, directly to said resource. Otherwise if I/My Team land on an Iron Mine deposit and my opponent(s) don't or have to wait any number/many of turns to get a similiar deposit up and running, then obviously I/We have been granted a HUGE advantage in the early stages of the game for which simple "random luck" was the sole reason.

Now I am as competetive as the next guy, but FREE bonuses just because of Luck suck the Fun out of games.

If you want an Iron Mine? Go find one. Then build it and begin shipping ore to town. Then also be prepared to defend both the Caravans and the Mine because I might find it way easier, and way cheaper, to just to take yours away from you after you spent the money to get it up and running. LOL