AU Mod: Resource Scarcity

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, you say Sir Ralph could go to war for the resources he needs if he were willing. I say, why should he have to? Why should fighting be the only way the resources can be obtained? The game does not force warmongers to stay at peace when they would rather fight, so why should it be common for players who want to play peacefully to find themselves forced to attack someone?

I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

The key here is 'sufficient numbers'. I think playing on a low difficulty level for your ability (like those here who argue against resource scarcity usually like to do, as far as I can tell) allows you to get those sufficient numbers.

I don't buy that argument. Yes, it is easier to get sufficient numbers when playing on a difficulty level that is easy relative to one's skill. But why would the same difference that makes a fight easy against riflemen but tough against infantry on one difficulty level not make the difference between the fight's being tough against riflemen and its being virtually impossible against infantry on a higher difficulty level? Unless there's a reason I can't think of at the moment, the principle that AIs are more dangerous when they can use up-to-date troops holds regardless of difficulty level.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.


Dominae

So the answer is "because"?

In my opinion, Civ3 is not a hybrid game which needs both war and peace in every game. It is rather a game, where you have to meet the right decision in every situation. But if these decisions are repetitive in every game, it gets streamlined and boring. Look, even if you have the possibility to trade, it's by far not assured, that you actually get the resource by this method. A strategical resource can cost you fairly much, like 50 gpt and more, and not everybody can or is willing to afford this. You can as well be embargoed by the AI, especially in the industrial age. So even if the # of resources makes trade possible, war remains a valid option. You have the choice: war or trade. With resource scarcity, there is usually only one option: war. Thus, the game rule (to find the right decision) is violated, as you don't really have a choice.

You definitely don't make a game more fun by taking options out.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


I answered this above; Civ3 is designed as a hybrid game, not as purely a wargame or diplomacy game. Warmongers do need peace; the Total Eternal Perpetual Forever War AU taught us this. Similarly, the game is more difficult for builders who refuse to fight.

On the contrary, what made Total Eternal Forever War so horribly difficult was the requirement to be at war with all civs at all times. A self-imposed requirement to be at war with at least one civ at any given time would not be anywhere near as crippling. Further, I imagine you or I could hand the AIs their heads pretty much any time we wanted to in a Total Eternal Forever War style scenario playing on Chieftain. Playing even such an extreme dedicated style would merely require adjusting the difficulty level to reflect the inability to use all our tools. (In my case, I was able to take the scenario on Monarch, although I had a rather tough time on that level.)

Similarly, players who decide never to fight except to defend themselves should not expect to be able to compete on the same difficulty levels where they could compete using the full range of tools for both war and peace. But I think that with perhaps a few exceptions due to highly unusual behavior by the RNG, they should have the option of playing that style of game if they are willing to move down to a difficulty level where the inability to launch wars of aggression won't cripple them unacceptably.

Nathan

[alexman]

Originally posted by nbarclay

Unless there's a reason I can't think of at the moment, the principle that AIs are more dangerous when they can use up-to-date troops holds regardless of difficulty level.

Well of course the AI is better off if it has a resource than if it doesn't. That's obvious. I was responding to what you said about the AI being dead meat and the human salivating if he sees such an AI. I don't think it's quite like that.

Without proper preparation, an otherwise strong AI with lack of resources can be a tough nut to crack (especially against other AIs). The diffenrence in economy can be a bigger factor than the difference in unit quality. You need a critical number of units to win a war, and at lower difficulty levels, you will probably have enough units to take on any AI, so you will more likely go for the weaker units to suffer fewer losses. At higher levels it's a bit more complicated, and the resourceless AI might even buy enough time to upgrade its units with the text technology if you don't time your preparation right.

Something else to consider is that if every AI has all resources, the next AI to attack should be obvious from a quick glance of the world map. But if some AIs lack resources, the decision becomes more complex.

[alexman]

Here's my proposal:

-> We increase the frequency of coal, which is the first resource that gives the builder real trouble.

-> We also increase the frequency of rubber, aluminum, and uranium, which are necessary for the spaceship.

That's 4 resources out of the 8 strategic ones. We leave iron, saltpeter, oil, and horses as in C3C.

As a crazy idea that might preserve the C3C need for trade but without the worldwide shortage, we could turn one of the strategic resources, uranium for example, into a luxury resource (with the proper appearance ratio, of course), so that it appears in clusters on the map. Too big of a change? Probably, but such a solution might satisfy both camps in this debate. I can just imagine the mad scrambling to secure some Uranium as soon as it appears!

The extra happiness would be a problem, but I'm sure there are other ways around that.

[Harovan]

Iron is equally important for railroads and factories, but AFAIK still has enough instances for all Civs by default even in C3C as it stands. Could somebody please crosscheck this, I'm off to bed (1:30am here). Overall, I could live with it.

[alexman]

The increased frequency of coal would bring it up to the frequency of iron as it is now. So you would be equally likely to be without coal as you are now to be without iron.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman

Something else to consider is that if every AI has all resources, the next AI to attack should be obvious from a quick glance of the world map. But if some AIs lack resources, the decision becomes more complex.

The PtW distribution was a lot more complex than just giving each civ an instance of every resource. AIs frequently had various resources missing from within their borders, and they couldn't always come up with the means to trade for what they needed either. Such situations were not nearly as common as they are in C3C, but they did exist.

Further, there is a lot more involved in target selection than just whether a civ has the resources to build up-to-date hardware. The desire to conquer luxuries competes with the desire not to have luxuries cut off as a result of attacking a civ you've been getting them from. Technologically backward AIs can make excellent targets when they would be stuck fighting with inferior hardware. Conversely, targeting a civ that has good technology but is about to get better technology might be a higher priority in certain situations. A civ might have a wonder you want. And so on. The idea that without differences in resources, a quick glance at the map would make the best next target obvious is absurdly simplistic, and I find it hard to believe that a player of your skill and experience would make such a statement.

And what is so strategically complex and challenging about looking for AIs that are missing resources as obvious targets anyhow?

Nathan

[alexman]

This debate has gone almost off-topic. I'm not going to answer to your aggressive tone of argument.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So the answer is "because"?

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

In my opinion, Civ3 is not a hybrid game which needs both war and peace in every game. It is rather a game, where you have to meet the right decision in every situation. But if these decisions are repetitive in every game, it gets streamlined and boring.

The game type you prefer to play, "no warfare and complain when strategic resources are not available" sounds pretty boring to me too. Between the two of us, you're the one that's not adapting.

Civ3 is a hybrid game: to play well, you have to build and you have to fight. Just because you're currently bored of moving units around does not mean that Civ3 suddenly needs to change to suit your tastes. Civ3 is essentially the same game it always was, way back when you loved doing Archer rushes.

I'm not really sure why I'm fighting this fight anyway. Probably because my interest in Civ3 is waning, too, and anything to make it more challenging (other than Sid) strikes me as a good thing. In the C3C games that I've played, the resource scarcity has made things more challenging, and therefore more fun. I hope you understand that this is where I'm coming from, not a desire to ruin your own fun.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
Here's my proposal:

-> We increase the frequency of coal, which is the first resource that gives the builder real trouble.

-> We also increase the frequency of rubber, aluminum, and uranium, which are necessary for the spaceship.

That's 4 resources out of the 8 strategic ones. We leave iron, saltpeter, oil, and horses as in C3C.

I still think the AIs would be better off if we restored all the strategic resources to their PtW levels, but that would be a whole lot better than nothing.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
On the contrary, what made Total Eternal Forever War so horribly difficult was the requirement to be at war with all civs at all times.

Total War ("pure warmonger"): always at war with all civs.
Total Peace ("pure builder"): always at peace with all civs.

Hybrid falls between the two; being always at war with one civ only falls into the hybrid category.

Sir Ralph is arguing that the C3C resource scarcity takes away from the pure builder style of play. I'm arguing that inherent in that style of play is potential resource shortage. A hybrid player is not adverse to going to war to solve this resource shortage problem.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by alexman
This debate has gone almost off-topic. I'm not going to answer to your aggressive tone of argument.

I'm sorry if I got more heated than I should have, but the fact remains that there are a lot of interesting and strategically challenging issues involved in deciding who to fight besides just which civ is missing a resource it needs in order to defend itself. Indeed, when a lack of resources creates an obvious target, that can prevent players from having to examine more complex target selection criteria.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I'm not really sure why I'm fighting this fight anyway. Probably because my interest in Civ3 is waning, too, and anything to make it more challenging (other than Sid) strikes me as a good thing. In the C3C games that I've played, the resource scarcity has made things more challenging, and therefore more fun. I hope you understand that this is where I'm coming from, not a desire to ruin your own fun.

You know, there are more players than you and me out there. Most of them never visits an internet forum, and most of them aren't typical warmongers either (at the countrary). Do you feel it just to impose your quest for a challenge on everyone who plays this game? Or do you want all of them to change the ratio in the editor.

What concerns you not being sure about your fighting reason, neither am I, since I already stopped to play Civ3 as a whole. Probably because I know, if it doesn't get fixed (not only resource-wise, but all the mess that came with Conquests), I will never return to it. But I'm afraid, Jesse alone is not able to do it. I know from own experience, how hard it can be to maintain the code of others. The AI tweaks definitely call for Soren, who is, however, completely busy with Civ4. If Conquests would remain half-broken until Civ4 is released, I most likely wouldn't buy it. You know, fool me once, shame on you...

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
You know, there are more players than you and me out there. Most of them never visits an internet forum, and most of them aren't typical warmongers either (at the countrary). Do you feel it just to impose your quest for a challenge on everyone who plays this game? Or do you want all of them to change the ratio in the editor.

Neither of us are qualified to speak for the Civ3 masses. I for one am not trying to. Insofar as you think that you're doing Civ3 (the game) a service by arguing that there should not be any resource scarcity, I suppose I feel I'm doing the same by arguing there should be. And yes, it happens to coincide with what makes me enjoy the game at this particular time.

I'm not particularly interested in dredging up the whole "the game should be designed for Chieftain-level players" again.

In terms of the topic at hand, I do expect everyone that uses the AU mod to have visited an internet forum (namely this one). This is a "take it or leave it mod", which we hope, with good design, most players that come here will "take" instead of "leave". It remains to be determined how many players here really do like resource scarcity (speak up!).


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Dominae


Total War ("pure warmonger"): always at war with all civs.
Total Peace ("pure builder"): always at peace with all civs.

Hybrid falls between the two; being always at war with one civ only falls into the hybrid category.

There is no such thing as "always at peace with all civs" in Civ 3 if an AI decides to attack you. Therefore, I don't think comparing a builder style that refuses to engage in wars of aggression with quite such an extreme warmonger style is entirely fair.

Perhaps more importantly, consider how each of those two styles of play relates to the nature of human civilization. Try imagining a real civilization that would always declare war on every other civilization it meets and refuse to ever make peace. I find it extremely difficult to do so, and even more difficult to contemplate how such a blindly and stupidly aggressive civilization could possibly survive. (Not that I see anything stupid about playing that way in a game if that's what a player enjoys, but it is a style of play that should be expected to be exceptionally difficult if the game is at all realistic.)

In contrast, the ideal of never fighting wars of aggression is is much easier to contemplate. The issue of how a civilization might rise to become large and powerful without engaging in aggression is rather problematical, but if a civilization could do so, there is no inherent problem in its staying that way for however long it is willing to - unless a more powerful civilization or group of civilizations would succeed in conquering it. The game reflects that reality beautifully: a civilization that won't engage in wars of aggression (even in response to having been attacked) won't grow in territory, but can prosper to the extent that its ability to grow its economy permits.

Sir Ralph is arguing that the C3C resource scarcity takes away from the pure builder style of play. I'm arguing that inherent in that style of play is potential resource shortage. A hybrid player is not adverse to going to war to solve this resource shortage problem.

And Sir Ralph and I are arguing that there is no reason why the inability to obtain resources even through trade should be inherent in that style of play, except maybe on rare occasions when the map generator is exceptionally uncooperative. Even without the resource issue, a player who refuses to engage in wars of conquest is giving up a lot of potential advantage. It does not take resource shortages to make a hybrid style of play the most effective.

[nbarclay]

For those of us who don't follow all the discussions in Civ-land, does anyone know for sure whether the greater resource scarcity in C3C was deliberate or the result of a mistake?

[SirOsis]

I'm not sure I buy the argument that reduced resources result in the requirement to be a warmonger. Certainly you will not have access to every unit in the game I don't think there are many buildings that require a specific resource.

Your forces will need to be more varied (spear and longbowmen) without iron to defend attacks. The added bombard defense of the longbowmen will certainly help in defending your cities. You should be able to support a large defensive force to support your "builder" style without controlling all resources.

Is there an AU course that just requires building and defense with no active attacks? Such a course would certainly be interesting with the current resource levels.

[nbarclay]

From a builder perspective, the question of being able to build particular types of units is less of an issue than two other things. One is the fact that if coal (or, more rarely, iron) cannot be obtained either natively or through trade, the civ's production capacity will be seriously undermined because it cannot build railroads. The other is that if one or more of the resources needed for spaceship components is unavailable, a space race victory - which I understand to be the most traditional form of builder-style victory - will be impossible.

Alexman's idea for a possible compromise was to increase the frequency of the resources involved in those two issues but leave the other resources at their lower C3C values.

[ducki]

My goodness!
So much I want to reply to, particularly Nathan's posts, but I am too tired to actually do the cut & paste routine from so many different people's posts, so I'll just stick to the one argument that struck me the hardest and the one argument that tempers is the most.

nbarclay finishes with: (4) In the real world, I can only think of two times when nations that do not have a strategic resource natively are unable to obtain what they need (especially for military purposes) through trade: (a) if they are cut off by war or embargo and (b) if they cannot afford to purchase the resources. I've never heard of a nation that couldn't build infantry no matter how much they were willing and able to pay because the world did not have enough rubber to go around, or that could not build tanks because the world had too little oil, or that could not build spaceship components because the world had too little aluminum. Thus, while I consider the local and sometimes regional shortages found in previous versions realistic, I regard the worldwide shortages in C3C as highly unrealistic.

Dominae later one responds to a different post with: Civ3 is a hybrid game:

Nathan, that one piece won me over more effectively and was far more convincing than anything else in this entire thread having to do with balance, playstyles, gameplay, anything.

By the same token, Dom is right. It is a game. About building an empire. And winning or losing or learning. Emerging victorious over all other empires in the game.
It's not really a sandbox, though it serves as a fair substitute. It is a game. With warfare, diplomacy, resource management(!), commerce, development, strategy, tactics.

And I think alexman has found a fair middleground. Don't forget, the AU Mod is a changing thing. Sometimes we think that if we "lose" a debate on a change now that we'll never get another chance to argue the point. But that's why we have the AU Courses(in part) - so we can have a semi-controlled environment to test the changes we make, to see if they fit our mission.

And Sir Ralph - I'm apologize if I/we made you feel unwelcome - we get pretty heated on some of the issues, and this issue in particular is very polarizing. Just because we argue/debate against what you say doesn't mean we're not listening or that there's noone else that supports your viewpoint - today it probably just meant that they were still at work/school and don't get to post during the day.

So, to sum up, Nathan's "realism" argument won me over to the peaceful player's side, but not completely, because it is a game and needs conflict of some sort some of the time, and alexman did a nice job of splitting the issue down the middle and finding something I think is at least worth trying out in the next version of the mod.

Good arguments all.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
One is the fact that if coal (or, more rarely, iron) cannot be obtained either natively or through trade, the civ's production capacity will be seriously undermined because it cannot build railroads.

So? Ever won a game without Coal? Me neither...I sometimes had to work my butt off to get a source, and it was fun. Ever organized wars among the AIs so that an extra source would free up, available to you by trade? It's fun. Coal appears to be the one Strategic resource that most players must-have else they complain. So it's not really strategic, is it?

The other is that if one or more of the resources needed for spaceship components is unavailable, a space race victory - which I understand to be the most traditional form of builder-style victory - will be impossible.

Yes, that is annoying. Then again, expecting to win the Space Race is just like expecting to get Coal. It's perfectly within one's grasp to rectify the situation (or just avoid it...win by UN), but players choose not to.

In short, SirOsis has the right idea in that the game is not "ruined" because you have to work for your resources. At least, not for me.


Dominae

[Theseus]

I'm with ducki... damn, this thread and all of the intensity of arument came outta nowhere!

Good stuff, but, fer chrissakes, calm down.

Considering where we are, let's just go back to the original goals of the AU Mod (and yes, remember that the target audience is, in fact, those who are the audience by virtue of finding this fourm ).

[This thread, while interesting and engaging, just wore me out... g'night.]

[Ision]

I for my part do not see any need to tinker with resources - the so-called resource scarcity is highly overblown. The moderate resource change made from PTW to C3C was a positive and welcome step by the designers. Let us not be so quick to forget our PTW experiences which if anything - indicated an over abundance/availability of resources. Changes to the resource % should not be considered for the purposes of any particular person(s) play style preferences. Pure warmongers, pure builders, pure... anything... playing at the extreme end of the game - will always result in a desire to tinker with the game in order accentuate the enjoyment of that particular 'extreme'...

Dominae is completely correct in stating that the game was designed primarily as ' hybrid' builder/warmonger game. That standard should always act as the 'center point', with the players that choose to play the extreme end of either spectrum, having to adjust to the 'standard' - what is being proposed is a change to the 'standard' in order to adjust to the extreme end player.

Ision

[Aqualung71]

While I enjoyed the approach that the strategic resource scarcity in AU501 forced me to take, I'm a little ambivalent about the issue overall. Luxury resource scarcity is fine.

I played 2 demigod games back-to-back recently: in the first I lacked Iron, Saltpeter and Coal and given that I'm not a regular demigod player it sucked to say the least. In the second game I fortunately had the resources I needed. However, the second game was substantially more difficult due to other factors such as inadequate territory size, terrain and the relative closeness of a nasty KAI.

My point being, there are other random game factors that probably play just as big a part in the overall game experience you will enjoy. I am not saying the resource scarcity has no impact on strategy in the majority of case - it clearly does. Just wanted to weigh in with another angle, since I think both sides of the argument have already been pretty well documented.

[Aqualung71]

As an aside, this debate illustrates that the resource aspect of Civ3 is ridiculously simplistic, and something I hope is addressed in Civ4.

Nathan's comment about resource acquisition in real life is spot on. The resource model should be changed so that it's not simply a case of whether or not you have a particular resource to build a building/unit/improvement, but how much of that resource you have available. And there are plenty of RTS games that can show the way in that regard.

I know that doesn't help the current debate, so it's merely an observation.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Dominae
In terms of the topic at hand, I do expect everyone that uses the AU mod to have visited an internet forum (namely this one).

You forget, that the decision of the "experts" here will most likely have impact on whether the bug will be fixed by Jesse or not. He lost the support of his company and will somewhat rely on what's spoken here. So you probably will impose your understanding of "fun" on every new player until Civ4 comes out.

This is a "take it or leave it mod", which we hope, with good design, most players that come here will "take" instead of "leave".

No, it is not. It is a "take it as basis and mod it until you like it" mod. I modded back Alexmans nerfed Republic in the PtW versions, because I couldn't bear it. I will have absolutely no qualms to mod the current version, too. I am aware, that in this case I can't participate in AU courses and post in comparison threads, but this is a downside I take with ease.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph

No, it is not. It is a "take it as basis and mod it until you like it" mod. I modded back Alexmans nerfed Republic in the PtW versions, because I couldn't bear it. I will have absolutely no qualms to mod the current version, too. I am aware, that in this case I can't participate in AU courses and post in comparison threads, but this is a downside I take with ease.

Another approach would be to put up with aspects of the AU Mod that one strongly dislikes in AU games but play with a modified version of the Mod the rest of the time.

[Arrian]

Yikes, this can get a little... abrasive at times.

I still agree with SR & Nathan, although I have my own "I don't know why I'm fighting this" thing: I have used the AU mod all of once, in a PTW game. That being said, I think I'm going to use it in the future.

The key issue here that sways me is that, from the builder perspective, it's not so much that you have a right to expect to HAVE coal or some other resource, but that you want a decent shot at TRADING for it.

Personally, I will almost always elect to go fight for the resource, but that's my choice. I wouldn't like it forced upon me because there were a total of 5 sources of a resource in the world and they were spread amongst 5 AI civs (thus, no trade possible).

I like the idea of increasing half of the strat resources, per alexman's proposal. Give that a try and see how it works.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Right. The fun part is not the fighting per se, it is to meet the right choice in the right time. Dominae greatly misunderstands me here. In the right situation, i.e. if I want to cut the wings of that particular civ to prevent to get it too strong, I will also rather take the resource than by all means trying to trade for it. On the other side, if the civ in question is small and weak, I may not want to weaken it more.

It's the process of decision-finding, what makes this game exciting. But you can't meet decisions, if you don't have options. Leave more options in the game, people. Firaxis has streamlined it enough.