bump

For resources, I'd like to have quantities of resources instead of I control spot X so I can build X-based stuff at X*constant speed. (While I control spot X I gather that amount of said resource, which also allows to have different qualities of spots, some giving more than others which will create strategy objectives). Speed would be more dependant on how experienced are my workers and how good are my workshops.

I said it in another thread, but I like recipes

1 fur -> 1 leather (+ some amount of gold)

2 leather -> 1 leather armor (+ some amount of gold)

1 leather armor + 1 unit of iron + 1 unit of coal -> 1 studded leather armor... (+ some amount of gold).

Recipes are discovered by research and maybe rare recipes are discovered in lairs ?

Even better, i'd like to use the bones of the 25 soldiers of another's player faction I just slaughtered to make 25 archers with human bone bows/arrows... So that in multiplayer I can shoot my enemy with them You can do that in Dwarf Fortress to some extent It's useless (and ineffective, steel would do better) but a nice customisation touch and fun Like outfitting all your dwarves in kitten clothes you butchered in your fortress. That kind of stories make the good memories.

Like in multiplayer : "Remember your dragon I killed and the 10 dragon skin units I got from it ? I used them to make shields for protecting my troops against your newly-born dragon's fire. You don't want to know what weapon I made with its bones, who is using it and who I am targeting with it..." Spider venom, spider silk, etc, etc... Obtaining resources by killing stuff would be cool, especially if it can causes spider near-extinction making it less available afterwards in the game.

Just ideas

I think being able to have a "trickle" of every nessessary resourse is a must.  Learm from Civ4's mistakes: I've played Civ4 for years, and I can't tell you how really bad it is for gameplay to not have oil, or horses, or iron, and you absoulutely can NOT make a unit if you don't have the resourse.  On the other hand, if you get more than one resourse of each type, it's near useless, which gives no incentive to aquire and hold more resourses.

Perhaps a marketplace where players can buy needed resourses at a much higher price, and/or even the ability to put their own extra resourse on the market to make a profit. 

This was a dynamic of the game I actually liked - it was supposed to entice you to expand early and form alliances with people who had resources you need so that you could keep up. I recall reading that one of the focuses of Civ IV was to ensure no one player had access to all resources - the idea was to promote conflict, which creates for far more interesting and fun games than if every player had access to every resource.

I understand what you mean about necessary resources, and to this point I sort of agree - however, I believe we are differing on our definitions of necessary. Food sources to allow growth and copper were really the only necessary resources in Civ IV - right up until you reach Iron Working and gain access to Swordsmen, you had what you needed. If you didn't have Iron, you should forge alliances with people who do, or take them by force. Once I have Theology, I usually have my alliances that will stand for the entire game in place, or my military has begun it's campaign to take what I need. This is something, in my opinion, that Civ IV perfected.

ofc

strongly disagree

maybe NOT EVERY SINGLE resourse should be a prerequisite, that could work

but some resourse NEED to be

dont  like it so much

maybe there should be normal and upgraded versions

like researching metal weapon will allow you to craft generic metal sword always

but having copper deposit will enable copper sword  thats a bit stronger than metal sword

otherwise resourses are just SAD if they just provide some + production or something

In MOM there were only 3 resources: Food/Mana/Gold.  Food was an important limiting factor but didn't do much to add to the enjoyment of gameplay. 

Mana and gold had an excellent interplay because with alchemy you could convert gold to mana or vise versa. 

Without getting into the nitty gritty; I think there should be a diversity of resources to make the game interesting and create advantages for having one thing or the other, but at the same time there could be a trading subtheme to accomplish certain goals; I think of settlers of catan and how you can always trade at 4:1 resource rate, but if you have certain improvements, you can get enhanced trading rates... 3:1 for anything or 2:1 for certain commodities.  At my gut level I'd say tracking up to 10 resources would be fine, tracking many more than that would get tedious.

I also the bonus object idea; one additional option would be defining if an object was critical to troop development or optional; so if I loose my mithril it'll complete ruin my deathknight but if I loose my honeycomb i'll be bummed but continue on with the troop just the same.

Since we are on the topic of resources; in so far as city development goes, I'd rather not see a mana crystal or an iron mine taking up a city expansion slot.

I agree that resources should be a driving factor in conflict and trade, but slamming the door on the option to build or recruit something because the player forgot to negotiate or is in a bad position can be highly frustrating for the player and quite "un-fun".  That said, the costs (either in time or money) of building something for which the player has little or no resources should be crippling.  This I think would be the best of both worlds: spurring the player to seek out necessary resources while keeping open the option of building it should he *really* want to.

You could always do a trading system in which a city produces gold, and you could buy a resource at a bad rate, that way the .1 per turn could be avoided all together. Then you could have a black market where you could trade metal for wood at a better price than say metal for money, and actually create an economic system of supply and demand.

Perhaps here should be minor and major (Greater and Lesser?) Resources, or some resources that are region specific/hard to export.

You could for example make a certain type of unit that has certain types of armor and certain weapons. Maybe you want their armor to be an especially strong form of steel (That requires special coal/craftsmanship) or a special kind of wood.

Rather than letting an entire empire fill itself with soldiers armed and armored with rare resources, perhaps some resources are naturally more scarce, and so you can 'omit' them in the creation of a unit.

I personally would also like the option of being able to form an empire /without/ a certain resource and with another, and I don't really like the idea that EVERY Empire should be dependent on, or require certain resources. That sounds a little too linear to me, like civ.

It'd be nice if you could have a rich trade empire that's mainly about wood, and leather, and silver, and copper, and doesn't have gold or iron, except from imports, and functions fine.

(Reposted from another post on the same issue)

Totally agree. Percentage modifiers feel very empty. +4 'beakers' or -2 'hammers' is much more clear for a player than 'this increases our research by 2 percent'. It's not forbidden to use percentages, since this is obviously a neccessity for a game of this scope. But percentages should be easy to translate for a player. The suggested gamecards should really help for this.

My only issue with having a lot of resources is that right now the only way to actually harvest a resource isi to build a city near it. If there are lots of resources, you may need a ton of cities.

I agree with prevailing opinion of more resources is better and that they should be prerequisite (ie no bonuses).

But obvioulsy more resource which all would be absolutely neccesart wouldnt be probably too much fun, however what about further resource cathegories (apart from food/insudtry/luxury)

so this way we can have resources in same cathgeory requiring only little or no extra research to utilise them but they would add certain flavour to the game. For example

1. metals - copper, tin and iron (i know that iron is much better than rest, but for sake of argument, lets pretend it isnt THAT better).
2. rare metals - mithril, adamantium, whatevertium, randomil
3. mounts - horses, overgrown lizards, frog
4. big mounts - elefants, bears, raptors
5. etc...

Now from unit design point of view (which is the target, because we need to utilise resource somehow) there wouldnt be too drastic difference between resources within same cathegory - obviously iron swords will be better than copper, but not in 1:10 ratio.  But to really make a difference, you would have to use rare metal instead.

Some resources groups may differ more in special abilities - ie lizzard mount may attack on its own as well, while horses are fastest from. Frogs on the other hand are able to jump over enemy fortifications...

Advantages of this system are that there are lot of resources and yet they are cathegorized to not-so-many groups. This makes game still acceptably playable without deep insight into system. Obviously you want to acquire best one (iron) within cathegory, but you can do it with copper/tin swords as well, so you wont be completly screwed if you wont succeed.

One further advantage of having multiple similar resources system is that each one can have different graphics (I know, we can play in ascii - dwarf fortress ftw), and this might help to add some extra flavour to unit design. (something which was done nicely in GalCiv, but I have hard time to imagine in Elementals, since people are just... identical)

delete me - double post

Agreed. Civ4's resource system was quite good actually. If you had no X resource type, you couldn't build Y unit. I have no problems with that. This system could work very well, but like someone has said, it should be tweaked a little bit. Like implement a special building [marketplace for example], so the player will be able to buy resources for a high price, even if he/she has no access to a given resource type. = Problems solved, and the resources will have serious strategical value this way.

Like in HoMM in fact, no? The more markets you get, the easier it's for you to get resources.

Anyway i'm in for some diverse resources, but not too much. Special things should be created thanks to combination of basic resources ( adozen resources could be enough if you start combining them to get what you want)