How are resources supposed to work in Crusade?

How to get missing ones?

from GalCiv3 Forums

I'm in a multiplayer game with another human player and 6 AI players in a medium galaxy. We have both managed to secure all "common" resources like Durantium, Elerium, etc. Each of us (human players) has two or three special resources, e.g. I have the weird pollen thingies, she has Aurorum whatever.

Now, there seem to be a few resources that only a single alien race has, such as hyper silicates, and that race has about two of them and won't give them away for anything, even though I have good relations. Without hyper silicates I can't do the spaceport mission to get Amor spice, so I can't upgrade my entertainment buildings for better morale.

Since there's no manual, I can only assume how the resource system is supposed to work. Three theories appear to be possible:

  1. The general idea is that everything is available in every galaxy, but that you have to obtain some things via diplomatic trade. In that case, it probably just doesn't work as expected for us. Am I doing something wrong?
  2. There is some way to obtain missing resources that I haven't discovered yet - is there?
  3. It is intended that you don't obtain every resource, so each race has some high-end things, but not all of them. This seems a bit unlikely since basic stuff like farms and entertainment are affected, while you don't seem to need special resources e.g. for better financial buildings. Is this what's intended?

 

Thanks & Greetings

Kibou

28,520 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

1. Yes, I think that is the idea. But the AI will never give away more than 25% of a resource, at least that is my experience. If they have less than 4 of a certain resource you are stuck ... (or have to resort to war).

2. Sometimes I get resources by anomalies, but so far only the commons ones. I don't know whether one can also acquire special resources that way.

3. I don't know what exactly is intended. I play only the largest maps and there you eventually find everything, but I don't know whether there is a galaxy generation logic that guarantees that every resource exists at least once for every map size.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I don't know what was intended and what wasn't, but there are a couple of excellent mods by @ScrivenerOfLight on the Nexus that provide shipyard missions and anomalies that give the non-common resources.  And sorry, I don't know if those are usable in multi-player.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

1.  It seems to be that everything will be there in one galaxy.  There are sightings of galaxies with a missing resource.  I haven't seen that.  Size of map may affect things.  Any scarcity of resources is definitely intended as progress choke points.  This is intended to drive conquest and trading.

2. Not that I know of, no.

3.  It is intended to be rare enough to fight over or negotiate for.  If it is completely missing, it cannot perform that function.  I expect there is some weighting going on.  I do not expect that complete lack of any one resource is not directly intended, but may be an accepted consequence as smaller maps and weighting algorithms impact each other's operation.  However, on a medium map, That is much less likely.

My prediction is that you will not likely see a complete lack, but you may see one resource source per galaxy with the settings you play.  With smaller maps, there may not be enough planets to support the planet sourced resources unless the planet generator is set to force the issue.  Let us know what you find!

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I see - I guess in the end it comes down to having to sacrifice some spaces to build additional lower-level buildings intead of fewer higher-level ones if you can't secure a certain resource, and it doesn't really matter which building it is.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The resource missions mod is wonderful and should be part of the base game. The ai even makes good use of it.

I've had several galaxies that were completely missing some resource or another. Usually it has to do lack of black holes, asteroids, or nebulae. You probably won't see those scenarios unless you set the map generator to rare or random for those elements. My current game in a large galaxy has absolutely no elerium. Zilch. My last game had no durantium which meant you could not upgrade building or star base modules at all.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting leiavoia, reply 5

The resource missions mod is wonderful and should be part of the base game.
End of leiavoia's quote
Interesting!

My current game in a large galaxy has absolutely no elerium. Zilch. My last game had no durantium which meant you could not upgrade building or star base modules at all.
End of quote
I wouldn't want to play on these types of maps all the time, but it would be interesting to have a missing or low-occurrence resource from time to time and also would drive warfare research into certain common logic funnels for all civs in a particular game.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yesterday I figured out that Amor Spice, apart from upgrading Entertainment Centers, can also be used for a "promote scientist" action that finishes your current research immediately, which is immensely powerful (e.g. I used it to finish a 24 turn research in 1 turn, for just 10 Promethion and 1 Amor Spice).

This is confusing enough on it's own - I mean, unless you had an excessive supply of Amor Spice or shortage or Promethion, why should you ever use it to upgrade an Entertainment Center instead of rushing your research? - but it also means that getting a grasp of how resources work is more difficult than I thought. I guess for each special resource there is a very powerful way to use it somewhere, and you have to find all of them to be able to effectively use what you have.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yep, I haven't yet killed a researcher to finish a project, but I probably should have done it at least 3 or 4 times in my current game.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The Amor Spice promotion doesn't even kill the researcher, you just have to pay 10 Promethion and 1 Amor Spice. The promotion that kills the researcher requires Malevolent ideology and has different costs.

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Arnor spice is used in upgrading Relic starbases,  Another demand on a limited resource.