Hierarchy of Resource Nodes

from Elemental Forums

After restarting a new game a few times and cursing the fact I kept only getting a fertile land for my first city I came to realize I wouldn't care that much if my first city didn't have food.  Which got me to thinking "who the hell decided this was a 'suitable place for our first settlement'?"

So this is my opinion of the relative importance of each resource nodes based on a few criteria.  First is "if you don't have this you're screwed" and second is "At least 1 is almost necessary" and third is "having at least one is really good."  Anything that is just "nice to have" is at the bottom of the list.  Note: this list is only naturally occurring resource nodes, research specific nodes (e.g. Dragon Dens) are excluded.

  1. Lost Library
  2. Gold Mine
  3. Food
  4. Material Nodes
  5. Ancient Temple
  6. Iron
  7. Crystal Crag
  8. Shards
  9. Horses/Wargs
  10. Refugee Camp
  11. Scenic View

I placed Lost Library at the top because with tech research there's nothing to spend gold on or buildings that require level 2 cities and thus food.  Gold comes next because without gold, well you're screwed.  Food is next because a bunch of outposts and nothing else won't get you very far.  Material nodes are fourth because materials are necessary but I somehow always end up with thousands I can't use by mid-game.  Ancient temple is fifth because magic is a huge advantage but not necessary.  Iron comes sixth (I expect some argument over this) because bows and summons can easily make up for a lack of iron and it can be traded for unlike spell research.  Crystal crag is seventh because crystal makes your units significantly more powerful when used.  Shards are eighth because well they are "nice to have" and are more useful than the remaining 3 items.  Horses/Wargs are ninth because they are just better than refugee camps and scenic views.  I placed refugee camp above scenic view in spite of only kingdoms being able to use it because if you can use them they are much better than a scenic view, imho.

So what are your thoughts on this list?

elemental
5,836 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Seems pretty close, but I think food is pretty important to expand your first city. More so than even gold. Lost Library is still the most important in my mind though. With lost library you can research to spawn gold (and food for kingdoms). The food is needed to expand that city to level 2 to get the room needed to spawn the resources. So those 2 goes hand in hand in my mind. Only other thing I'd say is that depending on your strategy, iron might be more important that ancient temple. If temple is your focus, then shards should be higher due to their effect on spells.

 

As for building location, judging from experience, an AI who builds their city too far from their food source is always screwed. With food, their city can expand to claim the gold mine. If they build their city one space off from food, they can't even build a new city to claim that food, thus they end up with a couple of 10/10 outposts and never get anywhere (unless they get super lucky and find another food source).

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Something like that, but IMHO the biggest difference is between one and two, and I rate food on a level with gold. And another big jump between three and four. Then play style becomes important. 

Depending on that play style I might devalue iron, crystals and horses . And I think you might be underestimating scenic view. In many games diplomatic capital can be traded for gold at a good rate. Just make friends with someone you are dominating.

The game is essential unbalanced. How well you do is critical dependant on available resources. Particularly the number of Lost libraries you can control early. There are techs that give you extra gold and food so they are less important.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I've never really had the experience of not having food, but you make a good point regarding cities expanding influence.  If others agree I'll switch gold and food on the list.

 

As for the ancient temple vs. iron, I was trying to not think of any particular strategy just a general "usefulness/necessity to survive."  Spells are significantly more diverse than iron.  Even without shards there's the various summons, unit and city enchantments, the teleport spell for empire (even with the 15 mana cost it can be useful), and the attack spells are still moderately useful at times.  Basically if I had to choose iron or an ancient temple I would take the ancient temple every time, then use the summons to go stomp on someone who had iron, or trade for it.  But again if lots of people feel iron is better I'll adjust the list to reflect that.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't mean to devalue arcane research overall compared to iron. It's just that you can build little arcane lab/lore shops in your cities and find arcane researchers to fill in that need, especially since the later spells aren't all that needed. So unless you're planning to win by spell of mastery, the ancient temple itself isn't a high value thing in my mind. Whereas iron can only come from iron mine (and ventri mine), so it has more importance as a resource node.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

personally, after the beginning, i end up with a glut of materials.  and i almost never end up using iron.  SO i'd rate arcane library and crystal higher... spells later on taking 40 turns to research is rough.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I am really not playing the same game as you guys so I guess I just don't know. In my version of Elemental I think food is number one followed by shards and then gold. Food can become gold. Gold can become materials and research. Materials and gold can do just about anything. Food is what allows you to not care what kind of starting position you have. The map is huge and purposefully distributed with a fair number of random nodes that make your start rather unimportant. The real challenge is to get enough spell casters and fighters to make a regular army unecessary and then just expand until you have what you need.

Are heroes a resource? They are certainly valuable due to their limited availability.