Energy Proposal Final Draft
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A New Energy Model for Civ 3
An energy resource model could and should be implemented in Civ 3, as distinct from the current production resource model in Civ 2. Where production resources would remain as SHIELDS, energy resources could be depicted as BARRELS.
Energy could be derived from animal power, wood, water, wind, coal, oil, uranium, and solar, depending on your current level of technology. The map would seed certain Special Energy Resources according to their energy yield potential. E.g., the more profitable the resource is to exploit, the less frequently it would appear on the map. Perhaps Uranium, which might yield the most barrels per site of all, would be the hardest to find.
The use of Energy in the game would be in combination with production shields to create units. Some units, like battleships, could not be built without HUGE volumes of energy barrels, the kind of volume a lower-yield resource like coal couldn't begin to provide. The balance of the game should dictate that building a unit like a battleship, and supporting its movement (see below), would require that the player locate, secure and exploit a resource with no lower yield ratio than oil. It is suggested the production model be changed such that one energy barrel would now be needed per shield to build. This could be modified by certain improvements and wonders. Any ratios suggested here are of course subject to practical testing.
Various areas of the game that would be effected:
Trade and Trade Routes - first, trading energy or buying and selling it outright will help players who missed the exploration and resource grab; secondly, even those who succeed in controling resources should have to initiate trade routes (made instantly with a small fee) from their oil producing colony to their production heartland. It should therefore be possible to make a blockade against an enemy. This would finally give players a reason to have a navy - to protect their own energy trade routes while disrupting their enemy's.
Diplomacy - includes negotiating trades of energy barrels, resource rich land, the outright buying and selling of energy barrels as mentioned above.
Transportation - The game would require each road tile and highway tile to consume energy barrels, thereby adding a strategic cost to unchecked city expansion; rail tiles should be free to maintain, but movement on them would now cost a certain amount of energy (see "Unit Movement" below).
Exploration - a new game feature: locating resource deposits.
Technology Tree - discovery is needed before the player is able to locate/use a resource.
ICS - it will cost more to have more infrastructure, thereby helping to restrict unbridled expansion.
Unit Movement - a new movement model whereby modern units consume energy barrels to move; on undeveloped terrain moving one space would require one barrel of energy, so a tank moving three spaces across a field would require 3 energy barrels. This cost would be modified by, going highest cost to lowest, road, highway and rail -- for instance, a tank moving 11 spaces on a highway might require 3 energy barrels, where a railroads would require either much less or a fixed amount of barrels as a "fee", while a stealth fighter flying 11 spaces through the air would require 11 energy barrels.
Land Control - necessitates the need to explore, control and defend resources.
Game Interface - energy "barrels," or another icon, would now be tracked alongside production shields.
Map Tiles - new tiles for Special Resources.
Early Energy Sources
oxen ranch (grass and plains, animal power, greatest energy production)
lumber jack (forests, uses wood, high energy barrel production)
mills (river tiles, uses water, medium energy barrel production)
wind mill (hills, uses wind, medium energy barrel production)
Later Energy Sources
open pit uranium mine (uranium squares, greatest energy barrel production)
oil well (oil squares, high energy barrel production)
coal mine (coal squares, medium energy barrel production)
dam (river tiles, medium energy barrel production)
solar panels (desert tiles, low energy barrel production)
wind power plants (hills, low energy barrel production)
Pollution - energy barrels should be the sole determinant of pollution; energy barrels might produce pollution on a one-to-one per barrel basis, but increased technology would lower this amount.
Overall Impact
Energy barrels would now be needed for production - i.e., you can't process shields without using energy barrels. Thus, no matter how many shields per turn your city collects, if it doesn't have energy barrels it cannot apply those shields to production. Before factories it would take one energy barrel to use one shield. As factories are built the amount of shields utilized per energy barrel would go up.
It is suggested that at some point a new advancement would make it possible for shields to be turned into energy barrels - such as synthetic fuels produced by germany at the end of WWII. Perhaps it would take two shields to make one energy barrel.
A suggested New Wonder - "OPEC," would increase oil production by 1.5 times per square and leech 1/4 of energy barrels produced from oil squares belonging to other civs.
Where shields might well continue to be locally gathered by each city, energy barrels could be collected from developed resource tiles in colonies within or outside your civ's borders, sent via an unobstructed supply route (abstracted on the game map) to your civ, where the cost of national infrastructure is taken off the top and the remainder is disbursed to each city to be processed with shields for production.
Excess barrels would go into individual city reserves, located in each city, the capacity for which would be equal to 10 times that city's population (before modifiers, which might take it up to 15 energy barrels per citizen). Reserves would be used to fund movement of units from that city (if applicable), and then to make up for any shortfalls in future production.
Balance
High production resource sites should be rare, and it should take a great deal of energy barrels to support a large civ's needs. If one civ gets extraodinarily lucky and manages to gain a site that produces copious amounts of energy barrels (i.e., several uranium sites together), limiting the storage capacity in each city would check them from being able to build an insurmountable stockpile.
The race to control resources would add a fun new layer of strategy and excitement, and the balancing act of USING those resources is nothing less than fundamental to a world class 4X strategy game.
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<font size=1 face=Arial color=444444>[This message has been edited by raingoon (edited March 08, 2000).]</font>
