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[Mod] Resources Expanded: a new mod to change how luxury resources work

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2 years ago
Sep 30, 2022, 6:28:32 AM

Today I released Resources Expanded, a new mod that changes how luxury resources work in the game. It reworks all luxury resource bonuses, adds 31 new luxuries, introduces production chains to manufacture more complex luxuries, and creates a resource shortage malus system for empires that overallocate their luxuries to those production chains.


You can see full details of the mod, including all luxury bonuses and a full production chain diagram on the mod's page on mod.io, but I'll give a summary here.


In addition to reworking all bonuses from the vanilla game's 20 luxury resources (and replacing four of them with different resources), 31 more resources have been added. The 20 vanilla resources still appear on the map at the start of the game (the mod calls these "Natural Resources"), and must be extracted with a luxury extractor. Unlike in the base game, these luxury extractors are unique to one type of resource and are unlocked at various points in the tech tree. The 31 new resources are what the mod calls "Manufactured Resources" and must be created by building the luxury's associated district. These districts also unlock at various points of the tech tree, and have varied placement restrictions that are fully described in their tooltips.


All 31 Manufactured Resources and 7 Natural Resources (plus Salted Beef) are part of production chains. These chains represent how basic resources are used to manufacture more refined resources. For example, the Gold and Gemstone resources are required to manufacture the Jewelry resource. In order to build the district that produces Jewelry, you must have access to at least one copy of both Gold and Gemstones. While some production chains are short and simple, others are more complex or have several intermediate steps from first base resource to final product. A full map of the production chains introduced in the mod can be found on the mod page on mod.io. 


When you build a district that produces a Manufactured Resource, one copy of every required base resource will be allocated, meaning that it will no longer provide its bonuses to your empire. For example, if you have three copies of the Gold resource and build a Jewelsmith, your empire will only receive the bonuses of two copies of Gold. This represents how the base resource is consumed by the manufacture of the more refined resource and is no longer available to be used for other purposes.


If you construct more districts than you have copies of a base resource, for example if you have three copies of Gold but build four Jewelsmith districts, your empire will enter a resource shortage. This shortage will apply a malus to at least one yield in all your cities (typically both Stability and one other yield). This malus grows significantly for each additional overallocated copy of the resource. The yield(s) affected in a resource shortage of a particular resource are shown in the resource's tooltip. To end a resource shortage, remove the district(s) causing the shortage, access additional copies of the base resource, or import more of the base resource from a foreign empire. All base resources used to manufacture more refined resources can enter a resource shortage. Trade will not cause resources to be allocated; other empires cannot cause your empire to enter a resource shortage by buying your resources.


Many other changes have been made for balance reasons and to nerf the bonuses to trade from several cultures, districts, infrastructure, and civics. All these changes are described on the mod page.


This mod has been a long term project and I fully expect to continue improving on it, with feedback and balance suggestions from players. Please feel free to comment here, send me a DM, or do the same on mod.io if you have any feedback, suggestions, or questions, or if you run into any bugs.


Finally, I want to thank the devs for the wonderful and inspiring game and the extremely accessible and versatile modding tools, which have occupied an absurd amount of my time in the last almost-year. I don't intend at all for this mod to be a criticism of the approach to luxury resources in the base game, which I actually like very much. This mod is intended only as an exploration of the possibilities of the modding tools and of a new way to explore this amazing game.


Thank you for playing!


Updated 2 years ago.
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2 years ago
Sep 30, 2022, 12:56:28 PM

Lacking time to explore it but really willing to!
My only concern would be the AI, can it play at least as »well« as without your mod?

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2 years ago
Sep 30, 2022, 1:48:40 PM

Thank you @Daarkarrow and @xuzheqi!


@Cure_off the AI usage of the new resources is generally good but it's still a bit of a dance with incentives to get them to prioritize how I'd like them to. I'll definitely keep refining that aspect in future updates, but as of now, I recommend using this mod on Civilization or Humankind difficulty. The AI will build new resource districts if it can and I have not observed the AI entering into resource shortages larger than a single overallocated copy (the effects of which are pretty minor). I think overall, the game is a bit easier with this mod enabled than without it.

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2 years ago
Sep 30, 2022, 2:44:18 PM

Thank you for your reply @uncle2fire
I'll try the mod when I'll find some time, it seems very interesting.

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2 years ago
Oct 8, 2022, 3:18:52 PM

Double-post to be sure for it to get noticed.

I tried it, a bit.
It is an impressive work for what I've seen, as the modification from the tech panel indicates right of the bat:


Which leads to more options in cities quite early:


I don't this it might be mod related but in this game, we seemed to be 4 players sharing the same continent and the three others took a long time to get to the ancient era. I did raze few outposts (4?) but did not attack them at any time. Playing on Endless speed, two players reach the AE turn 23, I got 27. There were a turn 57, turn ~60 and one still in the neolithic turn 70-ish.

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2 years ago
Oct 9, 2022, 3:15:15 AM

Thanks for trying the mod out!


I haven't noticed any different behavior from the AI during the Neolithic while testing, and the mod doesn't change any aspects of the Neolithic era or gaining of stars, so I'm not sure what the cause was of such a late advancement of several of your AI. Did they have enough stars to advance, or were they stuck without enough pop/science/animals to gain their first stars?

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2 years ago
Oct 10, 2022, 11:50:41 AM

I did nothing or close too, it was fun discovering a mod that made so many changes to the early game. It was too much for me but nonetheless very impressive and am glad I tried it. So thank you for having done it.

The AI behaviour is then tied to inefficiency, which is still a bit weird considering it was played on humankind difficulty. I wanted to share it, in case you'd have had some similar feedback. If it is a single case, not need to bother yourself with it.

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2 years ago
Oct 27, 2022, 7:41:23 PM

This mod is incredible. I can't play the game without it anymore. Thank you. Will you be able to make sure it continues to work afte the upcoming expansion? Thanks again.

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2 years ago
Oct 28, 2022, 7:43:41 AM

Thank you so much, @Diegoyya! It may take some time to update it once the expansion releases, but it's definitely the plan to keep it working after Together We Rule.

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2 years ago
Nov 1, 2022, 7:53:27 PM

This is such a cool mod and a level of complexity that perhaps Amplitude should consider for a free industrial/manufacturing/trade DLC. I have just played around with it a little but have some observations and questions. 


There is a bit of a slower start production-wise, but the game quickly ramps up with access to resources. I like how the early game adds another dimension to research priorities in which natural vs. manufactured resources to unlock. I can tell already how much more important trade is and how the mod works well with how resources are shared rather than traded away. The animal/cultivar localizations draw my attention to the biome system, which takes it beyond the visual. In general it is somewhat reminiscent of Factorio in both production chains and how it reignites my appreciation for material culture across history. Who even knew how much fun you could have with an early natron economy?


I am curious how the mod interacts with map generation, as there has appeared quite a spread in natural resources, and it is unclear how it relates to standard map generation or possibly the mod. I am not very familiar with resource distribution, but this is a sample map (Abundant) to give you a sense.


DepositsNatural Resources
11
22
35
4
6
5
1
6
3
71
8
1


This kind of distribution would seem to interact with the production chains. Additionally, animals/cultivars appear to be capped at 3 each, whereas Aromatics seem to be limited by dry grass availability, but I did not see anything to explain the observed cap.


Overall, very cool to unpack resources (and yields) into production chains, and I hope it serves as inspiration to the community!

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2 years ago
Nov 3, 2022, 3:55:04 AM

Thank you, @saxogrammaticus! I'm so glad you enjoy the mod. The mod was inspired by how important early material culture was, so I'm fully in the same boat with your enthusiasm.


The mod shouldn't affect map generation, since the number of (natural) resources that spawn is still 20, and the mod doesn't affect the biomes they appear in at all.


The cap is a little complicated, but how it works is that you can build a max of 1 each of Pack Animal Pens, Pasture, Orchard, and Cereal Grain Farm per biome. So you can build a max of 10 Pack Animal Pens in your empire, assuming you have at least one territory for each biome type in your empire. But if your empire only has territories in three biomes, you'll only be able 3 of these districts. An extra layer of complexity is that unlike the Pack Animal Pens, the Pasture, Orchard, and Cereal Grain Farm can't be built in every biome type. You can have a max of 9 Cereal Grain Farms, 7 Pastures, and 6 Orchards.


Most other districts (the Natron Mine being the biggest exception) can only be built once per city.

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2 years ago
Nov 3, 2022, 7:37:43 PM

So clever to make use of the biomes. Now I am paying closer attention, though taiga/tundra/arctic tends to blend together in my eye. Turns out there is much to learn about map settings or possibly to improve upon generation. I wish it were guaranteed to have every biome on a standard map, but tundra, mediterranean, and even tropical can be somewhat uncommon. Of course, this adds a new dimension along with the mod where biome diversity is now strategic.


I like to play with spread resources, and I see that pearls and ambergris can fall as low as 1-2 deposits on Pangea maps compared to the natural setting which more commonly yields clusters of 4-5 each. Such is life! It adds immersion for there to be some scarcity of natural resources compared to manufactured ones. I also like how many of the early resources confer an advantage to terrain as opposed to later manufactured resources.


Gedemon mentioned a little over a year ago making dye a manufactured good. In your mod, perhaps that could look like shells as a natural resource along with terrestrial sources modeled after the Apothecary or even the Spice Fields, each dye drawing on any of those sources.


Thanks again for this terrific mod! Looking forward to many fun play-throughs as I explore it.

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2 years ago
Dec 22, 2022, 4:51:26 PM

Hello I have a pretty bad English, forgive me for the grammar mistakes..

I tried the mod, it's awesome! the work you have done is amazing! On the other hand, I have a problem with the change of turn which hangs on "waiting turn" on 100% of my games with the mod between turn 70 and 150. Is it related to compatibility with the expansion of the game?

thanks in advance.

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2 years ago
Dec 24, 2022, 4:12:36 AM

Thank you so much :)


I haven't updated the mod for the Metternich/Together We Rule expansion, so there could be problems with compatibility. I hopefully will put out an update in the next couple of weeks!

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