Is it just me or is there something wrong with the special resources?

[Sir Og]

Here is what baffles me:
Someone from Firaxis said that the city radius is not influenced by culture and it stays the same from the founding of a city till the end of the game but in the resource tutorial on Firaxis' website they say that the special resources need to be within your borders (including those that are within city radius) in order to harvest them.
This means that the workers of a city would be able to work a certain tile from the city radius (and get the normal resources) from the founding of a city but then won't be able to get the special resources until the culture of the city increases.
I fail to see the logic.

[N35t0r]

probably resource-boosting doesn't need them to be inside your borders, but any other use does (prime materials for units, luxuries, etc.)

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Sir Og
This means that the workers of a city would be able to work a certain tile from the city radius (and get the normal resources) from the founding of a city but then won't be able to get the special resources until the culture of the city increases.
I fail to see the logic.

Is this really a problem? Its a game for crying out load. The important thing is that this feature gets the correct game-balance and gameplay results.

Its important that newly founded 1-pop cities doesnt get a free cultural border, the size of the 21-square city-areas, right from the word GO. That would greatly decrease the the importance of building cultural city-improvements early on. It would work inflationary on the whole culture border concept. Also; the same erratically instant border-boxing phenomenon, ala SMAC, would reincarnate itself once again in Civ-3. I say: No thanks.

Each newbie 1-pop city should always start out with no cultural borders at all, no matter how developed the rest of the empire is. Some few cultural wonders can perhaps give you free added border-layers, but these should only be given to your established & more developed cities.

[Inverse Icarus]

i believe the purpose of this system of culture is to stop ICS, whereas in civ 3 if u had tons of small cities you could have a very diverse supply of resources.

by making little cities not capable of harvesting all resources around them, it makes it a lot harder to make such an empire.

i also think you CAN harvest resources OUT of your borders with a colony (not in enemy borders, but in DMZs)

[Gramphos]

I think that there is different between resources used in the city and in all cities connected to the city. The resources that boost production will most likely still be usable outside their borders.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Gramphos
I think that there is different between resources used in the city and in all cities connected to the city. The resources that boost production will most likely still be usable outside their borders.

Im not sure what your aiming at?

- The fixed 21-square standard food/shield/coin tile-production is available to each indevidual city only. Unless they have added some caravan-equivalent for domestic food/shield-transferings.

- The expandable culture-border + colonies, take care of the special resources (including luxuries). This is available to each land-road/sea-route connected domestic city, and also tradeable with foreign cities, IF the special resource in question is land-road/sea-route connected with both your own capital city and that foreign city/empire.

At least this is how I have come to understand it.

[KrazyHorse]

I think that the major problem is that people don't see how one type of resource could be usable, but not another. Think about it this way. The exploitation of a food/trade/shields bonus by a single city wouldn't require that much in the way of infrastructure; it's just a matter of all the things which are normally there being there in superabundance. The usage of a special resource by your whole empire is a different matter. In order to support a horse-breeding industry on a certain square, it's required that there be a massive infrastructure to exploit a unique resource. That's why the special resource needs to be within your borders.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by Ralf
Its important that newly founded 1-pop cities doesnt get a free cultural border, the size of the 21-square city-areas, right from the word GO. That would greatly decrease the the importance of building cultural city-improvements early on. It would work inflationary on the whole culture border concept. Also; the same erratically instant border-boxing phenomenon, ala SMAC, would reincarnate itself once again in Civ-3. I say: No thanks.

I am not saying that 1-pop cityes should have instant 21-square cultural border. I just think that the rules that apply for special resources should apply for the normal resources and vice versa.
And I think that setting the same rules for both special and normal resources can't harm gameplay if it is done in a proper way.

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by Sir Og

I am not saying that 1-pop cityes should have instant 21-square cultural border. I just think that the rules that apply for special resources should apply for the normal resources and vice versa.
And I think that setting the same rules for both special and normal resources can't harm gameplay if it is done in a proper way.

bratko,
i have a feeling that it will work out well in practice. i mean, anything that stops ICS is fine by me. as for the reality, well, is it always 10.000 people who just detach from a city to go and form another one?
still, if they do not get an update out soon, i'll start whining too

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Sir Og
I am not saying that 1-pop cityes should have instant 21-square cultural border. I just think that the rules that apply for special resources should apply for the normal resources and vice versa.

But that would lead to the exact same thing, Sir Og.

A big part of the "expanding borders from nothing" -idea, is also that city-improvements now must be emphasized early on, instead of just massive amounts of settlers and/or combat-units. Civ-2 was a great game, but it have two severe early-game flaws built-in to it, allowing two complementary destructive playingstyles:

A: The hopelessly inadequate 1-pop subraction for each Civ-2 multi-function settler, which allowed the misuse of ICS-ing settlers all over the place.
B: No pressure in building city-improvements early on, thus allowing "counquer-the-world before 1 AD" players to build unrealistically huge quantities of ancient combat-units. (and then rant about the "crappy AI", that didnt counteracted this boring unimaginative playingstyle, by using the exact same inflationary game-strategy more effectively, itself).

Both the early ICS-players and the early IUS-players (Infinite Unit Sprawl) represented two sides of on and the same ugly gameplay-destructive coin.

If Civ-players would be allowed to exploit special resources automatically within 21-squares, without bothering with city-improvement expanding their culture-borders first (or building colony-founding workers), there would be a big temptation in exploiting such design-flaw by building floodwaves of ancient combat-units instead. Especially, since the speed of foreign city-founding expansion is much slower in Civ-3.

The "expanding borders from nothing" concept, is an important cornerstone, in order to counteract the latter problem, thus also making the gameplay much more realistic as an added bonus.

Originally posted by Sir Og
Here is what baffles me:
Someone from Firaxis said that the city radius is not influenced by culture and it stays the same from the founding of a city till the end of the game but in the resource tutorial on Firaxis' website they say that the special resources need to be within your borders (including those that are within city radius) in order to harvest them.
This means that the workers of a city would be able to work a certain tile from the city radius (and get the normal resources) from the founding of a city but then won't be able to get the special resources until the culture of the city increases.
I fail to see the logic.

City borders and Empire borders are two (2) difference items. A resource inside your city border is your no matter what. A resource inside of your empire borders must be connected to your city by a road. A resource outside of your empire border you must build a worker and send him to the resource and start a colony and with a road connected to your city you will received the resource. As long as you have a road connecting all of your cities the resource can be used in all cities. Also you must build a military unit to protect your colony and roads outside of your empire borders and inside if you do not have a treaty with that Civs. So if the resource is located ten, fifteen, twenty, tile from your empire then you will need several military units to protect the road, because if the AI Civs find the road, they will destroy it, and that will stop your empire from using the resource.

[Rasputin]

i am glad some of you guys spend your time researching all this ,, (heaven knows where from) cause i dont have the time you do, but i sure do appreciate the learnnig i am getting for free

Also if you have a port city in Africa and a port city in Europe and a colony in Africa connected by road to the port city, you can used the resource back in Europe again as long your empire is connected by roads to the port city. Also in modern time all you need is a airport in each continent connected by roads to a resource colony.

[Grumbold]

Originally posted by joseph1944

City borders and Empire borders are two (2) difference items. A resource inside your city border is your no matter what.

What is this other border you are talking about - the 21 tile work radius of a city? To the best of my knowledge the only border of any importance is the culture border. The only thing it does not control is which tiles your city workers can gather basic resources from. It does control which special resources you can gather without using a colony, even if the tile is capable of being worked by a nearby city.

[Gramphos]

Originally posted by Ralf
I’m not sure what your aiming at?

I might have misunderstood this thread, but I thought that the creator told that 'wheat' (if in game) wouldn't increase food production of a square until it's within your borders, and I tried to write something that said that I thought that those resources were handled in another way.

- The fixed 21-square standard food/shield/coin tile-production is available to each indevidual city only. Unless they have added some caravan-equivalent for domestic food/shield-transferings.

- The expandable culture-border + colonies, take care of the special resources (including luxuries). This is available to each land-road/sea-route connected domestic city, and also tradeable with foreign cities, IF the special resource in question is land-road/sea-route connected with both your own capital city and that foreign city/empire.

At least this is how I have come to understand it.

I know that.

When you start your city, the city will only control the first eight tiles surrounding your city. As the city grows, it will expand to 21 tiles. Any resources found in this 21 tile area is yours as long it is conneted by a road. A wheat icon will add two additionional food items. A wheat icon both outside and inside of your city boundary needs to be connected to your cities by roads. All resources that are located inside of your empire do not need a colony. They only need road connection to your cities. I would guess even thought so one from Firaxis has said yes that a wheat icon outside your empire would be the same as other resources. Just build a colony connects the colony by road to your cities and the wheat will be your. Again provide military support to your colony and road network.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by joseph1944
When you start your city, the city will only control the first eight tiles surrounding your city. As the city grows, it will expand to 21 tiles.

Are you really sure about this? From where have you got this info? Officially from Firaxis? From a game-magazine preview? Im not saying that your wrong - Im just curious. As I understand it; you can choose to harvest any of the 20 surrounding city-area tiles, directly from start, with your newly fonded 1-pop city. Just as you could both in Civ-2 & SMAC. The 21-square food/ shield/ trade area does NOT expand. Only the culture-border expands.

Any resources found in this 21 tile area is yours as long it is conneted by a road.

Any special resource/luxury, yes.

Ordinary food/shield/trade-outputs dont need road-connection. Ordinary tile-outputs can benefit from a road (just as in Civ-2/SMAC), but roads are not strictly needed.

[Theben]

I believe that Dan M said that the city radius is fixed, at 21 squares. The cultural borders grow from zero to...well, whatever.

Keep in mind that if you do NOT expand the cultural border from the city, another civ can place a city near yours, grow it's border, and take your city's tiles, which you can only then regain thru conquest or diplomacy. Or so I've come to believe.