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you don't have to have them.

Except that the point where your city buildings keep their population happy [read: productive] and the actual population allowed by the technology is balanced in such a way that if you don't have them, you are at a significant disadvantage compared to a civilization that actually has producing cities, or a ~10-200% production advantage *per city* because they hold one tile.

That said, I like that arrangement, but think it could be better. Personally, I'm looking to make something akin to that in my project, but adding a 'distance' to the resource which rises with technology and the amount you build your infrastructure. A little more overhead for a lot more building and warfare tactics [imo].

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Original post by Telastyn 'That point' comes when the resources either: add no gameplay [read: interesting choices] or prevent other gameplay since the player is busy crunching numbers.

I completely agree. That's why I want to avoid number-crunching at all costs.

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Original post by Telastyn Personally, I'm not a big fan of prosperity goods as you describe.

Why is that, just out of curiosity? Prosperity could be useful for two things -- controlling population growth and influencing planetary morale. Although I do plan on having a few species that neither need nor create prosperity (e.g. a collective machine civilization).

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Original post by Telastyn And one you seem to have forgotten/dismissed is land. Even in space games planets often have building/population limits, which require more planets/land/space to grow.

There's definitely going to be at least a population limit for each planet. I may also use a building space limit, like in Ascendancy or Space Empires IV, but I'm not sure yet.

- Rob

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Original post by Wavinator Have you just had an economics class? My buddy just did, and now whenever I mention resources for empire games he brings up this distinction. :)

Yes, I took a few economics classes in college, and I've studied it in my spare time as well. :)

What I want to do with my game is try to get away from the interstellar-empire motif. While it's certainly fun, there are other ways to approach a game like this. That's why I want to have a fairly realistic economic model -- I don't want it to be a typical tax-and-spend strategy game.

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What do you think about Civ3's approach? In case haven't played it, you have (generally) money as the main resource, but then you also have peripheral resources that enhance the immersion. Mostly I think they break down to affecting either happiness and unit production. Dyes, incense and gems, for instance, if you have a road to them or a colony over them, generate happiness for your people, or can be traded away to other civs. But they're only a bonus, you don't have to have them. If you want to spend the money on buildings or general luxury, or assigning individual groups of people, you can do that.

Sadly enough, I haven't played it yet. :( It sounds like a very nice approach, though!

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Strategic resources are the most interesting. You might scour the map looking for coal deposits so you can create ironclads, or saltpeter for rifleman. If you don't have it, you don't get the unit. But you can still fight on, just with a different strategy. What's interesting is that strategic resources cause you to behave just like real nations: You might annex territory, or expand defensively, all to protect your access to what your nation needs to survive.

Yes, strategic resources sound like a good thing to implement. One example of such a resource for a space strategy game (at least early on) would be helium-3, as it's very useful for powerful yet safe fusion reactions. :) Another example could be black holes for power generation.

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I think you can get very specific with resources, but only if you have gameplay in place that allows players to ignore the details from time to time. Sometimes in Civ I just want to spend my way out of a problem and not worry about how much dye or oil I have.

Again, flexibility is the key here. :)

- Rob

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Why is that, just out of curiosity? Prosperity could be useful for two things -- controlling population growth and influencing planetary morale. Although I do plan on having a few species that neither need nor create prosperity (e.g. a collective machine civilization).

Rather gut feeling.

Thinking about it briefly, there's 3 reasons off the top of my head:

1. This sort of thing is too difficult to balance vs 'production' resources. Either the prosperity goods are overpowered [see earlier civ3 commentary], or underpowered [happy people are just as easily conquered, and newly colonized/conquered worlds will produce more with less effort than making people happy]

2. While "optional" most games pretty much make it a requirement to get the prosperity goods. It forces me into one mode of play, which is [imo] poor gameplay.

3. It's usually hard[er] to provide feedback on prosperity goods. For production, either you have it, or you don't. For prosperity, you usually have to balance the ever changing population against the flow of goods. It's hard to make the information available to the player so they can effectively play the game.

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Original post by Telastyn Quote: Why is that, just out of curiosity? Prosperity could be useful for two things -- controlling population growth and influencing planetary morale. Although I do plan on having a few species that neither need nor create prosperity (e.g. a collective machine civilization). Rather gut feeling. Thinking about it briefly, there's 3 reasons off the top of my head: 1. This sort of thing is too difficult to balance vs 'production' resources. Either the prosperity goods are overpowered [see earlier civ3 commentary], or underpowered [happy people are just as easily conquered, and newly colonized/conquered worlds will produce more with less effort than making people happy] 2. While "optional" most games pretty much make it a requirement to get the prosperity goods. It forces me into one mode of play, which is [imo] poor gameplay. 3. It's usually hard[er] to provide feedback on prosperity goods. For production, either you have it, or you don't. For prosperity, you usually have to balance the ever changing population against the flow of goods. It's hard to make the information available to the player so they can effectively play the game.

That's different from my ideas about prosperity. It would be something that members of your species produced. For example, farms would contribute to the production of prosperity.

- Rob

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Original post by RobAU78 Just curious about what others think. How complex do you like resource management to be in strategy games? A little, a lot, or somewhere in between? Does it depend on how complex the other elements of the game are? I'd like to know your thoughts. - Rob

Er, yes, it depends on the rest of the game.
I love games like Dawn of War, which tries to make it as simple as possible, or even RTS games where resource management is completely removed (you just start with a number of units, and make the most of that, with no potential for resource gathering or unit building), as well as super-complex ones where you have to juggle dozens of resources, maybe scattered over dozens of planets even.

What kind of game are we looking at? Where do you want the focus to be? Is it going to be about managing resources? Or is it going to be about throwing soldiers at your opponent as quickly as possible?