The problem

I am finding a little problematic the way that the "?" (to-be-discovered) strategic resources appearance on the map is implemented.

I get that in order to prevent the player from placing districts in places were are future strategic resources (like petroleum, or saltpepper) the devs decided to alert in advance that there is something there. I find it problematic for the gameplay because, the way I play, is to rush and grab those territories in the ancient era because I know that in the future I would benefit from them. I don't believe that there Harappans decided to settle in a given land because they found some misterious black liquid in the ground that they might find usefull in 4000 years (I don't know if this is historically accurate but I believe you will get the idea).

Possible solutions

In order to address this issue I thought about two possible solutions, one easier, and one more complex.

- The easy solution: Just populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources that just disappear after a given number of turns allowing you to build there. In that way, I will not be so tempted to get that territory that might end up just having nothing.

- The complex solution: Also, populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources, but make the player investigate them in order to discover if (1) there is something that I have already researched (therefore revealing the strategic resource), if (2) there is something that I have not yet researched, keeping the "?" and not allowing me to build there, or (3) there is nothing and it was just a false "?" and so allowing me to build there. Maybe this could be an ability of the scouts, like ransacking or chopping forests for other units.

Let me know what you think. I am really enjoying the game and its improvements.

I also agree with doing away with the "?" (to-be-discovered) resource markers for the reasons you've given: Its an unrealistic, unfair sort of empire planning from the ancient era.

There's third solution: Don't display "?" (to-be-discovered) resources at all until you've researched the relevant technology.

I'm not kidding, hear me out!  :D

There's something that sets Humankind apart from Endless Legend (as a prime example of a district-based 4X) and many other similar games: It's possible, if sometimes painful, to replace one district type with another.  You can build a Commons Quarter over a Market Quarter if you need to, to help your city stability.  This is in contrast to Endless Legend, where if you build a normal Borough over a Hyperium deposit, you were forever blocked from making that a Strategic Intensifier.  But in Humankind, you can tear down almost any quarter and build a new one.

So if oil is suddenly discovered under a Nature Reserve, or a vein of coal running under a Market Quarter, you've got to weigh whether you're willing to drill on a nature reserve or dig up downtown for resources.  You'll want to, but you've got the choice.  Emblematic Quarters are going to be more of a balancing act... would you dig up a beloved EQ if it meant access to aluminum?  The biggest hassle is going to be in case you've "accidentally" built a City Plaza, Administrative District, or Cultural Wonder.  Is access to Oil worth destroying the Great Pyramids, or Angkor Wat? 

Potentially, if we removed "?"s and let you risk building over a strategic resource, the game could even introduce an Industrial- or Contemporary-Era technology like "Deep Earth Mining" that could let you build an extractor one-tile-adjacent to a Strategic Resource to extract it.  And alternately, of course, you're just out of luck (so maybe don't show us the resource at all if it's under a city centre!)

They could go the civ V way and make unique improvements exploit the resources they're built on. It's not pretty, but considering that some eras can potentially end up being game-ruining if you'd need to skip on certain strategics, I don't mind.

In general, though, I'm not necessarily against it, but I can't say it's something I'm itching to see in the game. Only think that irks me about '?' resources is when they spawn in a valley and block me from connecting my city until I'm able to exploit them. I wish we could either build generic districts over them or something that would make future extractor cheaper, or maybe even make unused deposits pass the district anchoring.

I'm fine with it just as it is. It gives players a rough indication of whether the resource allocation for a map was just a terrible deal before investing a lot of time into the game. 

I'm not too much of a fan of the fake resource marker idea for several reasons

1. Loss aversion: People feel more dissatisfaction from a loss of size x than happiness from a gain of size x. Losing a potential strategic will feel pretty rough especially if the territory only had (or mostly had) fake resource markers. Now imagine that the player had to use their war score for that territory.
2. Trusting the game: This change would mean that the game is intentionally and explicitly lying to players. I'm not sure that's not a precedent that should be set lightly. 
3. How to reveal the fakes: Do you remove some each time a strategic tech is researched, or all at the end? Doing it partially means that you're raising the probability that the player will face a loss aversion moment, do it too late and you could have a rather large loss all at once (especially if the AI are aggressive, unwilling to trade, or too far behind the tech tree).

Another approach could be to allow most of these strategics some luxury-like benefit depending on how they were used before the era in which they're utilized and upgrading the extractors and their availability (perhaps not allowing the exploitation of coastal oil until the industrial era) available as part of techs. This would mean that the strategics are always relevant to the player, it's just that the player's relationship with the strategic resource will change with time. 

This would be somewhat plausible with most of the game's strategic resources (according to the authoritative glance at Wikipedia /s), excluding uranium.

I'm still in favor of the status quo, and I'd rather see other things get addressed.

Maybe if its a standard district I wouldn't mind razing it. I wouldn't want to have to choose between an EQ/Wonder or uranium though because I don't need that kind of headache when playing the game

The strategic resource could simply be allocated to a territory instead of a tile at world creation. Then, once the respective tech is discovered by the first culture, the resource spawns on a random free tile in said territory. Obviously, it has to spawn for all cultures at the same time or things get ugly. But it could stay hidden for cultures without the tech (either with a "?" pin or not, and just prevent building things over it). In the rare case that there is no free tile (probably most likely on this small island territories with just 3-5 hexes), the resource doesn't spawn and is permanently lost.

aguaacrobata wrote:

The problem

I am finding a little problematic the way that the "?" (to-be-discovered) strategic resources appearance on the map is implemented.

I get that in order to prevent the player from placing districts in places were are future strategic resources (like petroleum, or saltpepper) the devs decided to alert in advance that there is something there. I find it problematic for the gameplay because, the way I play, is to rush and grab those territories in the ancient era because I know that in the future I would benefit from them. I don't believe that there Harappans decided to settle in a given land because they found some misterious black liquid in the ground that they might find usefull in 4000 years (I don't know if this is historically accurate but I believe you will get the idea).

Possible solutions

In order to address this issue I thought about two possible solutions, one easier, and one more complex.

- The easy solution: Just populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources that just disappear after a given number of turns allowing you to build there. In that way, I will not be so tempted to get that territory that might end up just having nothing.

- The complex solution: Also, populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources, but make the player investigate them in order to discover if (1) there is something that I have already researched (therefore revealing the strategic resource), if (2) there is something that I have not yet researched, keeping the "?" and not allowing me to build there, or (3) there is nothing and it was just a false "?" and so allowing me to build there. Maybe this could be an ability of the scouts, like ransacking or chopping forests for other units.

Let me know what you think. I am really enjoying the game and its improvements.

I like it the way it is now.

The reason is that if you hide the resources you might discover that either you've already built something on them which may be undesirable or when they get generated later on the AI cheating goes over the roof. Such as being always "unlucky" to not have the needed resource and the enemy having it. Usually just behind the borders. I was sick of that system in Civ. I really love how they did it here. It may be useful now, it may be useful later or it may be uranium / aluminium which is useless most of the game anyway.

I thin there is enough appeal in most territories so that you don't settle only the ones with the resources and leave the others empty.

I usually gran 1-3 territories early on so that I make sure I have a reasonable chance of getting iron but my main concern is getting territories with a good mix of terrain and rivers. So basically territories with unknown resources are nice to have but since they are everywhere and there are so many, it's just a part of an expansion mostly based on terrain and luxuries.

Plus it's easy to get the resources later on by trade or conquest.

i like the system as it is now and I would like it to stay that way.

Edward8D wrote:

aguaacrobata wrote:

The problem

I am finding a little problematic the way that the "?" (to-be-discovered) strategic resources appearance on the map is implemented.

I get that in order to prevent the player from placing districts in places were are future strategic resources (like petroleum, or saltpepper) the devs decided to alert in advance that there is something there. I find it problematic for the gameplay because, the way I play, is to rush and grab those territories in the ancient era because I know that in the future I would benefit from them. I don't believe that there Harappans decided to settle in a given land because they found some misterious black liquid in the ground that they might find usefull in 4000 years (I don't know if this is historically accurate but I believe you will get the idea).

Possible solutions

In order to address this issue I thought about two possible solutions, one easier, and one more complex.

- The easy solution: Just populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources that just disappear after a given number of turns allowing you to build there. In that way, I will not be so tempted to get that territory that might end up just having nothing.

- The complex solution: Also, populate the map with false "?" (to-be-discovered) resources, but make the player investigate them in order to discover if (1) there is something that I have already researched (therefore revealing the strategic resource), if (2) there is something that I have not yet researched, keeping the "?" and not allowing me to build there, or (3) there is nothing and it was just a false "?" and so allowing me to build there. Maybe this could be an ability of the scouts, like ransacking or chopping forests for other units.

Let me know what you think. I am really enjoying the game and its improvements.

I like it the way it is now.

The reason is that if you hide the resources you might discover that either you've already built something on them which may be undesirable or when they get generated later on the AI cheating goes over the roof. Such as being always "unlucky" to not have the needed resource and the enemy having it. Usually just behind the borders. I was sick of that system in Civ. I really love how they did it here. It may be useful now, it may be useful later or it may be uranium / aluminium which is useless most of the game anyway.

I thin there is enough appeal in most territories so that you don't settle only the ones with the resources and leave the others empty.

I usually gran 1-3 territories early on so that I make sure I have a reasonable chance of getting iron but my main concern is getting territories with a good mix of terrain and rivers. So basically territories with unknown resources are nice to have but since they are everywhere and there are so many, it's just a part of an expansion mostly based on terrain and luxuries.

Plus it's easy to get the resources later on by trade or conquest.

i like the system as it is now and I would like it to stay that way.

+1