Some people say 2 times, some say 2.5, but I think this bonus system is going to need knife edge balancing, and every rule change from now until release will have the potential to ripple through the economy and upset the balance...

In regards to having oil and iron near your start in Civ4, it could be an advantage against the AI to have those key resources close at hand, but in that case you're lucky. I wouldn't say that was a huge problem, It's fun to be lucky sometimes. I think it would have been better if there were alternative paths to take depending on the resources you were blessed with.

Instead of a couple of key resources at a given point in the game, I would prefer a system that used many types of rare resources, and the exact combination that you had available would guide your channelers development. That way the resource is critical to you, not because it's just a critical resource for everyone(oil), but because you have invested so much in it's exploitation. Upon losing a resource that you were counting on, you should be greatly harmed and all your investment come to naught until you get it back! This would make resources worth fighting for, but also rely less on luck, because every player will have some rare resources in his backyard that he has invested in. Resources in general would be common, but individual resource types would be rare.

Another thing I like about this is that every game would have a different feel, revealing the games content to the player slowly over many games.

Food for thought:  Rather than have "turns to build" have "units of effort or labor" to construct; effort of course can include things like harvesting wood or laying a foundation, framing, roofing etc.  By using an "units of effort" model, this opens up to faster development as a city grows and has a larger workforce... just like all citizens contribute to research, they also should contribute to labor.  This allows for advanced buildings to be rediculuslly difficult to build for a fledgling city but reasonably efficient for an advanced city.  It also allows for a line of research and structures to improve labor efficiencies.

Perhaps not just extra time but also extra cost. Cost for importing materials/hiring freelancers etc. And additional time for the transit period.

I do prefer the market + labor approach, converting gold to resources or visa versa.  However a word of warning, gold is just another resource, requiring it in place of say wood could stagnate development just as much as requiring the actual resource.  The labor only approach allows for development at the sake of time when no other resources are available.

The extra turns are just here to say your labor needs to get the needed resources.

But ... some resources should be on the can/cannot side. Like extremely rare materials (think mithirl).

Anyway, I've always thought that gameplay should be winning over enforced reality. The micro to do trade would be a nightmare in the end turns. A simple solution is usually a good one.

Exactly. While I enjoyed the resource structure of Civ4 as it invited conflict and made the game far more unpredictable, by the end stages of the game every nation had the same troops, the same resources and the all of the middle work was lost to the ages. Regardless of the resource/economy structure, if they can nail this part - making each Nation really play to their strengths - then we're going to have amazingly diverse games.  However, being able to produce things - even at slower rates or with additional penality - that you don't really have the resources for is going to destroy that somewhat. If I don't have Mithril, but I have Iron, I should be able to continually research my Iron working to create better and better pieces of equipment - of course Mithril would still be more ideal, but this prevents me from being left out of the arms race due to a RNG while also ensuring I'm playing to my Nation's strengths. Come end game, I have may a small number of extremely deadly Horsemen with Enchanted Iron Scalemail with Enchanted Reinforced Iron Broadswords while my enemy simply produced lots of basic footmen weilding Mithril equipment, with our forces evenly matched.

Take your time! Why rush? All of us here are patient -- or if not, need learn this virtue.

Additionally, the feedback you will get on the economic system won't be fully meaningful until later, when we can understand what the economy is good for; currently, since we do not know yet whether more Resource R1 or Resource R2 will help us get more bang for our buck, our input will be suboptimal anyway, since we do not know what we need to make our butt-kicking armies kick more butt.

Feedback on Screenshots: If possible, you should make not only as much text information on the "cards", but also as much text information on the screen hyperlinked to some kind of updated hyperdatabase, so that, in the example with Inns, I can click on "(will eventually)" and find out the mechanics behind the temporal caveat, and click on "lure heroes" to see how that mechanic works.

One minor point, if I may: Are you also interested in typographical, orthographical, or semiotic optimization feedback? That might be useful, particularly for your beta testers whose native language is not English. In the screenshots of your cards above, for example: The plural of Inn is not "Inn's", but "Inns"; "Inn's" is possessive and could confuse people. Likewise, Wild Wheat's card is confusing: Wild Wheat is rare, and can be farmed for more food output than fertile land ... can be farmed for under  normal circumstances? ... is "normal" wheat "fertile" but wild wheat not?

Nice going and good luck, we'll be waiting patiently!

What I'd suggest if you don't want to go to a more detailed system is if there is a global market of independents and merchants.

If you want to build something which you don't have enough resources for, you automatically try to get the needed stuff from the global market and the cost of the unit in turns and gold depends on the price for it on the global market.

That price then depends on how many unclaimed sources for it are on the map and which players are selling surplus resources on the global market compared to how much demand for the resources from players and independents there is.

You can restrict the selling of resources to the global market but that would result in smuggling of part of the resource (which you maybe could reduce with certain buildings, border patrols or something like that).

That would encourage variety, as if all players would try to build mithril weapons with resources from the global market the price would get skyhigh.

Sorry, I see a problem with that. Basically this turns any ressource into just another name for gold. So, why go hunt for them ? It is easier (and probably more efficient) to fine-tune your empire to create tons of gold instead. Of course, it *might* be feasible to make the added cost very high. But for basic ressources like wood ? And still all the ressources would be completely interchangable. Time in comparison to gold is more of a problem since you cannot compete as easily with other empires as with gold. There is a definite fastest speed.

My two cents - have basic ressources (usable stone, wood etc.) work in a way that procuring them gives a bonus in gold and time (If the builders have to acquire it via import from third parties, acquisition is more costly AND time consuming). And since I hope to see varied maps (desert-rich, for example), even a "commonplace" ressource like wood could be of big strategic importance once in while. This is still easy enough for "light-weights".

Additionally, have some rare ressources (Mithril ? Stardockonium ? Frogiston ?) not be replacable by money (or time), or only as a random/rare event (mystical merchant arrives, that prohibitively hard spell, the stache guarded by the god of war...). And those make some unique options available, legendary spells, buildings, units, unit upgrades... Make them very limited and preferably bound to upkeep costs (no armies of dozens of dragons), so that trading them away would really hurt.That should take care of the ressource spreading to everyone. If you just get enough turbonium for one, perhaps two dragons (and thos dragons are really good), are you willing to trade it away ? And how high is the price ?

Cheers,

E

You know the arguments for a more complex economic system keep giving me flash backs to Civ4 Colonization and even the anno games (real time though they are). My problem with this is that these games lend themselves well to economic complexity such as  the development of supply chains and fine tuning of trade routes indeed such complexities are the core of these games but I don't think economics should be the Core of Elemental.

Economics is of course very important but when I think about playing a game of Elemntal my thoughts turn immediatley to magic, dragons, cut throat family politics, brave adventurers exploring dark dungeons and epic fantasy battles. I do not think about spending ten minutes of my turn fine tuning my iron shippments from one city to the next so as to maximise my armour production, this would in fact detract from my enjoyment of the game since I would far rather be focusing on exploring a dungeon or redesigning my archers so that they can use a longbow. In other words I would rather get my strategic and tactical fix from across a broad spectrum of diplomacy, war, adventuring, family politicing, research and yes simple economics than having to spend my time micromanaging an increasingly complex economy.

Please don't misunderstand I like economic complexity I just fear that this game needs to be finely balanced in order to succeed and there will already be so many other interesting things to do in any given turn.

I rather like the approach Frogboy was talking about.  from me

I am agreeing with Tormy.  Perhaps elaborating a tad.

Basic resources, such as stone and wood, ought to be generally available is modest quantities.  However, if you control a resource source for these basic items, you have a much higher supply in quantity, and perhaps quality.  So you will always have some lumber from local trees, but if you have a nearby redwood forest and a sawmill, you have a lot more wood.  You will always have some stone to work with, but having a quarry gives you much more.  So even without the quarry you can build slowly, but large projects (such as a cathredral or walls) really need a quarry or they will take forever.  Spending gold to purchase the resource from another player will mitigate that...if the other player and you agree on a price.

However, if you cannot agree on a trade with another player, I would prefer that you not be able to spend gold to buy the resource from some invisible market.  If there are no quarries in your part of the world, one ought not be able to buy quarried stone regardless of your gold supplies.

Regarding more rare items, such as iron.  As implied in earlier Frogposts, any city will generate a little bit of it even without a resource.  If the soveriegn needs iron, the peasants can pull old nails from the junk woodpile and get a little bit.  On the other hand, if you have an iron mine, you get a lot more.  If you are going to equip an army, you better have an iron mine.

However, for the rare items...diamonds or mirthril ore or dragon scales to tip your arrows...those are not lying around.  Find them or buy then, no automatic small availability like with iron or wood or stone.

Since we are considering a game with up to 32 players, we are in the fortunate position where we could use market forces to set prices, rather than artificially set the prices of different commodities.  In other words, use supply and demand to set prices, like in the real world.  To do this we need an active market in commodities and some sort of market or meeting place where things are regularly bought and sold.

Perhaps in games where the world has become developed and connected, there will be cities in central locations where players might often buy and offer for sale the special items they have created and found (as discussed in another thread).  Using the same system that offers to sell special items, a player might also offer commodities they want to sell.  Send your carts of excess wood, stone and iron to the market in Minas Tirith and offer it for sale at a price you want.  If others don't buy it, lower the price until they do.  If it sells quickly, set the price on the next load higher and get more for it.  If you need stone for your walls, buy it in the city (though you may be financing the army which lays siege to your walls later!).  If you control the city with these sales, institute a 5% tax on the market place and you're rich.

If the market town benefits all players, it may develop a tradition of a 'Peace Town' that is better left alone than attacked because if you attack it, you shut down your source of critical supplies.  Or perhaps a greedy player wants to sieze the town to take over the market tax revenues or confisicate items for sale...so the other players form a commercial league to protect the trade zone.  You can see that the diplomatic as well as economic possibilities.

Balancing the game's supply and demand can be tricky, but that that is an economics topic for another post.