Hello.

Luxury resources are in themselves very useful. But the fact that their effect is cumulative, makes them incredibly efficient. They increase the output of all cities. They greatly increase stability.

Unless you are at war with the whole world, it is very easy to buy a copy of every resource, from every empire. The whole world gets infused with dozens of copies of resource deposits, causing the output of cities to explode.

I think we should look at a nerf of the resource effect. They are very easy to get, not very expensive to buy. Securing a trade route is currently very easy. I'm not even talking about single player, I'm even talking about multiplayer. The shipping routes are put on islands that are inaccessible for a long time, and therefore remain unpillable for a long time.

And the biggest problem is that you don't have to think when you buy a resource. You just have to buy them all. They are all useful. It's a no brainer. On the other hand, you have to choose carefully which districts and buildings you build, because you have to give priority to what is important.

Luxury resources? No. You have to buy them all, as fast as possible. And everyone does that.

It's the same with strategic resources. A small horse doesn't cost much, and increases the food in each city by +5. The investment pays off quickly.

If Humankind is considered by most people, as going too fast in yielding output, I believe that the extreme efficiency of the resources, is a main cause of this.

Possible suggestions:

- Main ideas: A resource can have two possible modes: Access to a resource, or "Patron" access if you have enough resources. This way it is still very useful to trade with other empires, but you don't have to multiply the purchase of resources. It's a simple nerf, easy to understand.

- Alternative 1: Each resource can only be sold to one empire. So, be careful not to open up your trade to everyone.

- Alternative 2: An empire only has a limited number of trade routes with each empire. An ancient civilisation has no container ships but a fleet of small, frail ships. This number increases with the eras, or certain technologies.

In french,

L'effet cumulatif des ressources de luxe les rends extrêmement efficaces. Trop efficace ?

Bonjour.

Les ressources de luxes sont en soit, très utile. Mais le fait que leur effet se cumule, les rends incroyablement efficaces. Elles augmentent l'output de toutes les cités. Elles augmentent grandement la stabilité.

A moins d'être en guerre avec le monde entier, il est très facile d'acheter une copie de chaque ressource, à chaque empire. Le monde entier se retrouve infusé de dizaines de copies de dépôts de ressources, faisant exploser l'output des villes.

Je pense qu'il faudrait examiner un nerf de l'effet des ressources. Elles sont très faciles à obtenir, pas très cher à acheter. Sécurisé une route commerciale est actuellement très facile. Je ne parle même pas en solo, je parle même en multijoueur. Les routes maritimes se mettent sur des îles inaccessibles avant longtemps, et donc reste unpillable pour longtemps.

Et le plus gros problème, est qu'il n'y a pas à réfléchir lorsqu'on achète une ressource. Il faut simplement, toutes les acheter. Elles sont toutes utiles.  A contrario, il faut choisir avec soins les districts et les bâtiments que l'on construit, car il faut donner la priorité à ce qui est important.

Les ressources de luxe ? Non. Il faut les acheter toutes, le plus vite possible. Et tout le monde fait cela.

C'est aussi pareil avec les ressources stratégiques. Un petit cheval ne coûte pas cher, et augmente de +5 la nourriture dans chaque ville. L'investissement est rapidement rentable.


Si Humankind est considéré par la plupart des gens, comme allant trop vite en yield output, je crois que l'extrême efficacité des ressources, en est une cause principale.

Suggestions possibles :

- Idées principale : Une ressource peut avoir deux modes possibles : Accès à une ressource, ou accès "Mécène" si on a assez de ressources. Ainsi il reste très utile d'avoir des échanges commerciaux avec les autres empires, mais on a pas à multiplier l'achat de ressources.

- Alternative 1 : Chaque ressource ne peut être vendus qu'à un seul empire. Ainsi, on fera attention à ne pas ouvrir son commerce à tous.

- Alternative 2 : Un empire n'a qu'un nombre limitée de routes commerciales avec chaque empire. Une civilisation antique n'a pas de portes-conteneurs mais une flotte de petits navires frêles. Ce nombre augmente avec les ères, ou certaines technologies.

Hey!

Very important topic, good framing and good suggestion!

- Main ideas: A resource can have two possible modes: Access to a resource, or "Patron" access if you have enough resources. This way it is still very useful to trade with other empires, but you don't have to multiply the purchase of resources. It's a simple nerf, easy to understand.

- Alternative 1: Each resource can only be sold to one empire. So, be careful not to open up your trade to everyone.

- Alternative 2: An empire only has a limited number of trade routes with each empire. An ancient civilisation has no container ships but a fleet of small, frail ships. This number increases with the eras, or certain technologies.

I think the way additional copies work now provides fun gameplay up until it gets out of hand.

I like your main idea in that I think it's a good idea to have the first copy of a resource count for significantly more than subsequent copies count for less. I also like your "alternative 2" as in trying to restrict how easy it is to set up many trade routes.

My ideas:

- Alternative 3: Replace City cap with Administrative cap: a city costs 5 admin cap, each import-route costs 1 cap. Being over admin cap should increase costs of new import routes and - after a point - decrease yields from all imported luxuries (and cost influence like city-cap does)

- Alternative 4: The first copy of a resource gives full benefit. each copy after the first gives about 1/4 benefit

Final note: Luxury manufacturies amplify this problem significantly, especially given how stability works / is meant to work.

I don't think its a bad thing that you don't have to think about buying luxury resources. And its a good thing that they are so strong.

Trade routes are a fundamental part of the game, they bring you money, are intertwined with the faith and culture propagation, build roads and make you hesitant to go to war.

Luxury resources are powerful and not getting a trade agreement with someone who controls all the gemstones or dye late game really hurts you. Especially with the new world setting for an uninhabited continent you really feel like colonizers fighting for the spices of the exotic corners of the world.

Yes, you want all resources from everyone and as much trade routes as possible, there are no real decisions here (except for order of buying if you don't have enough money), but not every aspect of the game is there to directly create difficult decisions. Luxury resources indirectly create interesting decisions and motivations in diplomacy, faith, culture, warfare and expansion and all those would become irrelevant if their impact were not as strong.

Cind13 wrote:

I don't think its a bad thing that you don't have to think about buying luxury resources. And its a good thing that they are so strong.

Trade routes are a fundamental part of the game, they bring you money, are intertwined with the faith and culture propagation, build roads and make you hesitant to go to war.

Luxury resources are powerful and not getting a trade agreement with someone who controls all the gemstones or dye late game really hurts you. Especially with the new world setting for an uninhabited continent you really feel like colonizers fighting for the spices of the exotic corners of the world.

Yes, you want all resources from everyone and as much trade routes as possible, there are no real decisions here (except for order of buying if you don't have enough money), but not every aspect of the game is there to directly create difficult decisions. Luxury resources indirectly create interesting decisions and motivations in diplomacy, faith, culture, warfare and expansion and all those would become irrelevant if their impact were not as strong.

To your point, you want all the resources all the time. However we can acknowledge this and then still consider how resources fit into the game from a more zoomed out wide-angle view:

The game right now can be quite compelling in the early eras and as long as it remains close. However, when a player gets a certain reach in terms of accessing resources, their power-level snowballs out very quickly, out of reach of AI or other players. This trivializes large parts of the content of the game; entire eras are comparably devoid of strategic tension - even on the hardest settings possible. There are significant balance issues here to be addressed to appease players who are looking for a compellingly strategically challenging environment in which to enjoy the content and gameplay of each era.

they could simply tweak some numbers, but it would arguably be more effective to address some of the root causes. the linear stacking of luxury effects is quite apperently one such cause!

I agree with the problem.

A new city without population and without districts has full benefits from all luxuries. Illogical.

And as you want to buy all ressources asap, you have to check availability of new ones all the time. Boring and tedious.

We need diminishing returns per ressource. And we need to build capacity to use ressources : population to use luxuries, harbor and commercial districts to import and distribute.

Keep it simple, but be logic, and create meaningful choices.

I agree this is a problem. In fact there is a certain lack of 'scales with pop' in this game overall. You can conceivably have a zero-pop city with many districts and thus huge outputs but the fact that nobody lives/works there is just weird. I think in general there should be a cap on how much you can benefit from things like buildings, districts and luxuries without having the appropriate pops in place. 

I agree at 100%.

Trade routes having an "Influence" upkeep would solve some of this problem while also helping deal with the "I have nothing to spend my influence on" problem that many people run into.

But IMHO, the first copy of a luxury resource should be the only one which gives you the full benefit.  Any subsequent should give less economic bonus and 0 stability bonus.  Stability is WAY WAY too easy to get, and luxury resources are a big reason why.

If you look on it as en emperor, you only have access to that part of your economy which is taxed. So a city with out accessible population has just nothing to spare, there are always people working there, but they can't be drafted. Otherwise the the system would collapse.

With the luxuries, i actually do like the gameplay with them. For the trade routes you just install the necessary infrastructure and then independent merchants will transport them until the infrastructure gets destroyed. The trade goods are actually quite expensive and it takes many turn to get all of them, so i don't think its overpowered. You could have upgrade whole armies with this gold. And also you cant have enough of those, because its the main source of stability. But if you have a couple of luxuries and get the patronage bonus on them, you suddenly never run out of stability. This feels quite overpowered.

Possibly making the trade routes cost much more to setup (particularly land ones) and adding in extra stability penalties to the game. would be good.

Bridger wrote:

Trade routes having an "Influence" upkeep would solve some of this problem while also helping deal with the "I have nothing to spend my influence on" problem that many people run into.

This is along the same lines as my suggestion above to introduce an import-route capacity or administrative capacity that deals with both city cap and import-routes -- a soft cap that costs influnece and reduces luxury-impact if exceeded.