So how do you all feel about Strategic resources? They’re kind of cool as they allow the basic tech tree to be partially randomized and offer some meaningful choices for the player to consider. They’ve also been made a bit rarer now, especially HE3, in a bid to give them some added weight and importance, but I wonder if this is enough. Strategic resources can be traded for, fought over, or even acquired by tech, (though doing so does not trigger path decisions), but I feel that they would gain a lot more value if they became partially consumable, like SSPs for example. Currently with each source of a resource that is gained, your overall total increases and never diminishes. More resources means more benefits, and it is only during those times that a particular resource isn’t found in your area that you feel the possible need to acquire it by a numbe of means. But, if building certain structures actually deducted some resources from your total, the need for them would become more acute without the need to diminish their abundance further. This would be similar to SSP use, meaning you would have a pool based on your sources of strategic resources, but every structure you built that was reliant on one of those resources would diminish that pool. It could even be taken further for example. You have H3 and you want enhanced shields? Select the level of enhancement and an appropriate amount of that resource would no longer be available. I’m just throwing this out an idea at this time, but I think that something like this could give more weight to strategic resources in general, but more so to the diplomatic aspects that are tied into them. I can see where something like this would mean that trading for resources or even establishing mining treaties with other empires becomes far more attractive to a player.
Well, not going that far. The struggle to find them and to defend them and then adding they could be "spent" is not so attractive. I do find some games, where I have an excess of one resource, but that is not a game changer. Not having any of a some of the resources can be a large detriment. I still have some not so fond memories of Civ3 depletion of my lone iron or salt. I suspect they have more than enough on the plate anyway.
This is similar to what I find as well. I play on the larger maps now, it is very rare that I'm missing any of these resources, perhaps in the early game yes, but as time goes by I find or generate them all. It isn't the resource itself I want though, but rather some of the techs they unlock. It also isn't the abundance or lack of resources that I'm thinking about, rather the fact that as time goes on my stockpiles only increase and never decrease.
Personally I think that it is not the lack of resources, but there are some issues I think with the RNG - the distribution of what percentage of resources and their locations. A big issue is how heavy a weight do you want in these resources?
I agree.I feel like they should be consumed on special high tier stuff.Planet destroying ships,super buildings,etc. More could be done with them as they do seem to just build up high and become a bit dull.Yeah they add passive benefits but needs more in choice,imo.
I imagine once the devs get time, they'll add map generation options like low/med/high resources, etc.
