What resources could Age of Empires IV go with?

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
1

I know for years that food, wood and gold were always the standard resources, which I believe is good enough for the most part. However, it bothers me of the lack of metal they could use. What if oil known as black gold be a late game resource if they decide to add tanks to the game. Could there be a better way to name our resources so that we would not have to add any more to the game? Should we just stick with what we have?
I also had a weird idea that each civilization has their own unique resources that they can trade with one another that would give special discounts on buildings or units or simply just be used for upgrades to certain units. Another weird idea is oil derricks bringing bonuses to units that use it and it would also generate gold for resources.

 Anyways, metal is pretty much a resource only found in mines. They are mainly used in artillery, tanks and the early game units use it. You can also settlers to harvest gold from rivers like they did in the yukon and so forth. Gold would be something you acquire through trade and there would be additional ways of getting it. (Special gold mines, trade through the market, settlers harvesting gold from the rivers like they did during the gold rush.
2

it all depends on what AoE 4 era is set.

3

it all depends on what AoE 4 era is set.

4

Food, wood, gold, stone. Easy peasy.

Balancing the civs is hard enough without adding more resources and then having to balance their distribution on every map.

1 Like
5

dependent on the game setting and age, I would like to see a type of “medical” resource, like Poultice> Salves> Tinctures> Antibiotics > Vaccines. Basically depending on what age you are in respectively you can upgrade to these listed aiding your overall healing capabilities effectiveness by a healing unit or building.

Either by purchasing needed resources from a market of sorts or made by a specific building over time. This would allow for another team to focus this specific building or medical truck/cart/priest, instead of just destroying housing :slight_smile: haha.

I have never been a fan of the proxy healing system you see in most game mechanics. I always start to wonder where the healer is getting their supplies or how they are healing…

6

In Age games, the healing is usually because of magic.

7

They should definitely take a page out of the Age 3 book and remove stone from the game. In a post-industrial revolution game it doesn’t make sense anymore. “Coin” as an abstraction of precious metal mining works nicely. If they need a fourth resource, I like the idea of oil as a late-game-only resource. But no more than four resources total (5 if you count pop).

8

@ZagorathAus said:
They should definitely take a page out of the Age 3 book and remove stone from the game. In a post-industrial revolution game it doesn’t make sense anymore. “Coin” as an abstraction of precious metal mining works nicely. If they need a fourth resource, I like the idea of oil as a late-game-only resource. But no more than four resources total (5 if you count pop).

On the contrary, stone is and will always be a building block in any era, 80% of buildings in the world are built out of some form of stone. Homes, walls, driveways, sidewalks, fire pits, etc. Below is my opinion on the resources that need to be in the game.

Food, Wood, Gold, Stone, Iron

  1. Food: Villagers, cattle, home city bonuses, research tech, age up 1>2>3>4>5.

  2. Gold: Unit production, ships, artillery, research tech, age up 2>3>4>5.

  3. Wood: Farms, ships, artillery, plantations, unit production, research tech, age up 3>4>5.

  4. Stone: Walls, forts, towers, research tech, town center, age up 3>4>5

  5. Iron: troop upgrades, Unit production, research tech, age up 4>5

9

I feel like 3 resources would be too few and 5 resources would be too many. Every AoE game has had 4 resources. (In AoE3, I am considering that green experience bar thing as a fourth resource – pretty sure it essentially acts as one.)

AoE4, like any Age game, needs to both stick to some core principles of the franchise while also expanding into some new directions. If they don’t expand enough, the game will feel boring and a clone. If they expand in too many new directions, it will feel lost at sea.

AoE2 seemed to get this balance right. So did AoM, for that matter, even with its bizarre creatures and god powers. AoE3 arguably expanded a little too much. At launch, AoEO was lost at sea. Within a few months, though, it found this balance. (All of these games had four resources, by the way.)

I would caution the Developers to choose any new direction based solely on whether it would provide an obvious improvement to gameplay. If a proposed change would not improve gameplay, then it would simply be a change for the sake of change. That’s not a reason to change the game. That’s a trap for unwary Developers to stray too far and be too clever by half. If a proposed change to some area of the game wouldn’t make Age4 more fun and interesting, then reject the proposal and simply adopt the existing system in previous successful Age titles.

In the case of going from 4 resources to 5, I see absolutely no benefit to gameplay. Having 5 resources would obviously dilute the value of each resource. Also, it would require further balancing both in designing each civ, in balancing every civ against each other, and in creating maps. Ultimately, it just adds more cars on the road without increasing the number of travelers.

I’d encourage the Developers to stick to just 4 resources, call them whatever they feel would be appropriate (though food, wood, gold, and stone seem fine to me), and allow the adoption of the existing economic model to serve as some foundation upon which to expand the game in some other directions that will actually feel like an improvement rather than an unnecessary, complicating addition that exists solely for the sake of doing something different.

10

Actually, I forgot to add the food, wood, gold and stone. Sorry about my lousy poll making. I like the final option because materials is essentially any building material. Now that I think about it it probably should of been Food, Materials and Gold since metal is considered a building material.

I believe what we have learned here is that 4 resources is optimal, don’t you agree? Now I don’t believe that having a unique resource for every civilization would be a good idea or not, since it would be easier to translate that stuff to gold or another useful resource. (for example beaver pelts could be sold for gold or silk plantation could bring in some gold as well.

11

I posted before that I feel I think it might be nice to have one or two additional resources to collect, with different ways that the new resources would contribute to tech research and building/unit construction. I said that because I’ve been feeling for a few years that only having the same four resources to collect each and every time has gotten a little old/repetitive/easy… and like clockwork, in terms of what to collect and when, etc.

I would like to see something like a more precious/rare hardwood that is found only in rare, low quantity pockets on the map, and/or behind a layer or two of common lumber. Maybe allows the construction of more durable buildings, or better shields (unit defense), a wonder, or something vanity-related to make your town more beautiful. I’d also like something new that is mineable, like marble or something… preferably there would be an econ/military purpose, but if its use ends up mainly being for vanity purposes (more beautiful walls, structures, plazas, or someting along those lines), then that might be okay, too.

A lot of AoE4 players will be seasoned veterans of the franchise, and could easily handle one or two additional resources, skill-wise… and would add a little more variety and fun resource management during the game.

I’d be sad if we’re stuck with only 4 resources to collect again. We’ve advanced enough as AoE players to handle a bit more. And new people will thank us 5 or 10 years from now when they’re not bored with the same 4 resources across all four games (I, II, III, and IV).

12

Food, Wood, Coin & Ore/Iron
Ore: includes metals, stone and such.
Unique: Achemy

An alchemical abstract could exist of various nature but only one sort of Alchemical abstract on each map, harvestable in some way. This Alchemical abstract would improve a unit or buildings, chosen on training/on construction and would boost only 1 to 3 specific features for your civ dependent on map. (Rush, turtle, boom).
Will you hoard it for a massive investment later on or pressure early with map control to claim more?
(Needs to be easy to take, but slow to claim anew, so massive distance, and limited harvest-unit-types. And with multiple accesspoints, making it very hard/costly to monopolize).

Ex Alchemical Abstracts: Darkwood, Exotic Wood, Ingestable cocktails…

13

The corn field: Historically, corn was a food staple for most civilizations. The previous versions included a basic green square being tilled, but the farm plot would not include the corn crops growing therein.

More metal mining: The mining separately of iron, bronze, silver, and steel.

Digging a well for water: Without the well of water, villagers would begin expiring after a time period equivocal to three whole days.

14

They already showed resources in aoe4 behind the scenes video.we have four resources:food,wood,gold,stone.and pop cap.

15

For now; from what we know. But internal meetings, public feedback, and other musings could evolve that thought process. Never know, we might get to collect water from wells and fresh water streams, too, for all we know :slight_smile: I’d enjoy watching my villagers shuttle pales of water to and fro… but not sure that I’d like the gameplay implications of that. I don’t want to have to worry about the welfare of my villagers, and do they have enough water to support their population and all that. (Becomes too SimCity/Civilization for my tastes.) Plus, I don’t like the implications of it maybe meaning steam-powered weapons, units, and techs.

1 Like
16

Which resources should Age of Empires IV include? During Age of Empires III, their game depicted units literally bringing resources into a ship each time separate deck cards were selected by the player; they could easily create a well of water feature for villagers to dig and somewhere the players choose within their empire and for historical accuracy sake; otherwise, which resource would their villagers and military drink from?