Why are resources so restricted and restrictive?

[Bethencourt]

I come to play after long time and I find that resources are few, no governor previous advantage and so much less late game units. I have 7 aluminium, that to be used to have only seven units? I do not get the point of this design.

In the other hand I can have unlimited, well limited by money, machinguns, so is it supposed I have to have a machingun masive army in relation to other units? I have three units of oil.

[Lemurian1972]

So you have to make strategic decisions. Get better at finding and protecting resources. Make a plan for taking them from others.

Like any of the Civ systems, it's not particularly hard, it just takes thought and some practice.

[Bethencourt]

No, thank you, I did that in previous civs and in previous design quite well, not with this design.

I think I am one of the biggest productor of aluminium and that is what I have.

USA AI faction is in the future and it fights with napoleonic units...

[wilsonstone]

I'm guessing the resource system was put in place to keep you from building a huge force of whatever units, but I do find it off putting. It seems silly to have tanks and bombers but you can't upgrade some units because of a lack of resources. Especially if you have a large empire, I still had pikeman, musketmen andcavalry on horseback running around because I couldn't upgrade them all.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Chances are that four bombers would be enough to allow you to conquer the world, so I have no idea what you need the other 3 aluminum for - maybe Lagrange laser stations if you decide to go for a science victory instead.

Note that there are military policy cards that will increase the production of various strategic resources, and also a governor with an available promotion that will increase strategic resource production in his city. City-states of which you are suzerain will share their strategic resources with you, so if any have aluminum you could court their favor. If that isn't enough then there's also the option to trade with other civs.

If all of that still isn't enough, then use those four-to-seven bombers to conquer cities with more aluminium. Or just win the game without using any aluminium - it isn't actually necessary for victory.

To varying degrees, the same is true for every other strategic resource. They are very useful, but none of them is strictly necessary. Not having any oil will probably put a big damper on your hopes of a military conquest of the world (until you get bombers), but there are lots of victory conditions. As long as you keep your options open you can shift to an alternate victory type if the one you originally planned on turns out to be impractical.

[Bethencourt]

If four bombers are enough it may be because the enemy has not got any fighter plane which is caused by the lack of resources the enemy has. From then on... I will finish this match and go on with other game.

I think this game has gone from crazy unlimited units in civ IV to this kind of lack of units fundamentalism which is uninteresting.

[Exemplar]

not all, but most games, since oil became a thing like this (I think I was trying to discuss it second day), I have 2 settlers in some manner (built, almost built, prepared to buy) ready when I discover oil. i try to put them somewhere they can garner 2 or 3 oil tiles in their peripheries.

if you're earning high great scientist points, you can generally pick up james young in the early industrial era, meaning you could in the interim be beelining the "top" tech tree efficiently and still have the advance indicator where to put these colonies. Eventually, though, you're going to have to steer toward refining (and plastics?) to plop the tile improvement, unless you have hattusa suzerainty or luckily built on it.

edit: out of curiosity i checked the fandom wiki, it says hattusa is 1 strategic resource per turn but in game it's 2.
https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Hattusa_(Civ6)

maybe just not updated since gs, before stockpiling

[leandrombraz]

You can use policies to increase your aluminum. Resource Management give +1 oil and +1 aluminum per turn for each improved tile of these resources. Aerospace Contractors give +3 aluminum in cities with a spaceport, which essentially let you convert production into aluminum.

You can settle cities in range of aluminum that wasn't claimed yet. If you're going for domination, you will inevitably conquer cities with aluminum. You can become suzerain of city states that own aluminum, you get every resource they got. If the CS still didn't improve the tile, you can send your own builder and improve it yourself. You can put Victor with the defense logistics promotion (City cannot be put under siege. Accumulating Strategic resources gain an additional +1 per turn) in a city that has aluminum.

[Bethencourt]

Yes I can do all that but then the AI goes fighting on horses, a few of them.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Bethencourt:

Yes I can do all that but then the AI goes fighting on horses, a few of them.

That has nothing to do with the resource restrictions and everything to do with the AI being bad at progressing through tech.

[Bethencourt]

AI is in the future tech tree as I said before.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

When you create a game, if you go into the advanced options, there is a higher setting for resources (abundant) which you can use if the standard quantity of resources is insufficient.

[Lemurian1972]

Originally posted by Bethencourt:

AI is in the future tech tree as I said before.

Yes. It beelined and didn't get needed techs along the way. Like I said, bad at progressing through tech.

The AI makes poor decisions at every level. The presence or lack of resources is not the defining problem holding it back.

[Bethencourt]

That is speculative, I can see they do not have the resources, I cannot see if they have the techs. I see they are much more advanced than me. In any case both situations or a mixed one is a bad situation.

[Fang]

You can up the difficulty to buff the Ai but that wont make it smarter.

[recklessred621]

No