Gold, Wood, Stone - the things of which empires are made. Some games have a FEW others (Cossacks, for example), but what about a few more? I've got plans on including some generic types: Precious Metals, Precious Stones, and Tool Metals, along with sub-types reflecting the quality: Low Grade, Medium Grade, and High Grade. Nine types total. Some are directly equivalent to real world specifics. Like Low Grade Precious Metal could equate to Copper, Medium Grade to Silver, and High Grade to Gold. Low Grade Tool Metal to Bronze, Medium to Iron, and High to Steel. Precious Stones would just be another way to generate revenue. I like variety. So what do you think? Take care.

You forgot oil. Warcraft 2 had oil. Also you don't find steel, you refine it from iron. You could make a steel refinery a technology upgrade, and require oil to refine the steel (or something like that). Aluminum or titanium might be something you'd mine that would be a high-quality tool metal.

Having 9 different resources to manage could be a potential nightmare - effectivley too much information for the player to manage - it'll alos be a lot harder to balance in terms of gameplay too. That is, unless you're talking about "high" quality delivering effectivley more resource points than low quality?

And would there be any form of food???

-Ajain

Quote:

Original post by Ajain And would there be any form of food??? -Ajain

they can eat rocks

WC2 didn't have oil, did it?

Anyway, how many resources do you really need in a RTS? I always thought resource harvesting was the boring part of RTS games? Stuff you just have to do to support your army?

What's the gameplay use for so many different resources?

Resources are one of the few things that should be totally done as a gameplay mechanic not as "realism" or as "more is better".

I personally like the idea of numerous resources, or I'd atleast like to see an implementation of it. You could have certain types of units require certain resources, so if you just decide to go all with one unit, and the enemy counters and you have to change tactics, you'd have to build up a whole new economy to support it.

SO having numerous resources requires balanced gameplay, and leaves resource hogging to be more difficult. There are numerous problems to sort out, but go nuts! Don't listen to the naysayers.

If you have multiple types of resources that can get substituted for the same thing, players would have to choose which to use for which purpose, which is kind of confusing.

I like how Rise of Nations handled multiple resources. There were about 6 core resources, some of which were gathered in fairly different ways; in addition, there were a whole lot of "rare resources", which you can claim by sending a Merchant there. The rare resources give a steady stream of "normal" resources, plus some civilization bonuses. For example, Citrus gives some food and wood, and also gives ships more health.

I personally like numerous resources, but it depends on the type of rts game you are producing. That said I've always thought the idea that correct resources are requied to produce units rather then just generic resouces. For instance you want to build a tank, you need a supply of oil and steel. Want steel? you need iron, and working steel mill. In effect you get not only multiple resources but levels of resources based on the number of refinements needed. In this way you make resources play a more important role in the players strategy. Rare resources would be increadibly value, causing players to consider not only what resouces they have access to but also what their opponents have access to.

But as to your 3 types and 3 grades I have a few questions:
1) What are those resources used for?
2) What do the diffrent grades mean in terms of gameplay?
3) What is the diffrence between precious metals and precious gems?
4) How does the player go about harvesting resources?
5) Do they no the grade before they start harvesting or only after?