[Newbie-Q] What is the point of resources/minerals?

[Damoclesz]

Hi,

I purchased Civilization V yesterday, and it is my first Civ game. So far I must say that it is a VERY ENJOYABLE game. Especially the multiplayer is what attracts me to this game as I just love to build an empire, work together with other people, explore the world map etc.

Obviously there are many things I still have to learn, but one of my most important questions is as follows: what are the resource/minerals for? I can imagine that a mining tile would be important for units that require metal weapons/armor (such as Knights) and that horses would be needed to have units that use horses for movement, but how exactly is this all calculated? For example, how do I know how many mining tiles I would need for a certain unit? And what happens if I have more or less than the required amount of tiles? Will the surplus just stack up for example?

Thanks in advance, and if anyone wants to have a Newbie 1v1 with me feel free to invite me ^^

[Magic_Hotdog]

Did you play the tutorial?

[_Pax_]

Strategic Resources (thinks like iron, horses, uranium, and oil) are required to build certain units (and some structures), and the number of said units/etc you can build at once is limited by how much of that resource you have. For example, let's say you have two hexes with Iron resources in them, and build a mine in each hex. One produces 4 units of Iron, and the other produces 3. Thus, you have 7 iron. At any one time, you can have seven things built, that require Iron. An example is the medieval unit "Pikemen"; if I recall correctly, they require Iron. So you could build seven of them ... but not eight.

Luxury Resources (things like spices, dyes, gems, gold, and silver) produce Happiness for your empire. Having lots of the same thing doesn't help; having a lot of DIFFERENT things helps immensely.

Bonus Resources (things like stone, deer, wheat, and fish) are just that: bonusses. Tiles with a bonus resource are simply "extra good", better than their terrain features would otherwise mean, if the tile is improved in the right way (a Farm / Irrigation on a wheat tile, a Quarry on a Stone tile, etc).

[Damoclesz]

Strategic Resources (thinks like iron, horses, uranium, and oil) are required to build certain units (and some structures), and the number of said units/etc you can build at once is limited by how much of that resource you have. For example, let's say you have two hexes with Iron resources in them, and build a mine in each hex. One produces 4 units of Iron, and the other produces 3. Thus, you have 7 iron. At any one time, you can have seven things built, that require Iron. An example is the medieval unit "Pikemen"; if I recall correctly, they require Iron. So you could build seven of them ... but not eight.

Luxury Resources (things like spices, dyes, gems, gold, and silver) produce Happiness for your empire. Having lots of the same thing doesn't help; having a lot of DIFFERENT things helps immensely.

Bonus Resources (things like stone, deer, wheat, and fish) are just that: bonusses. Tiles with a bonus resource are simply "extra good", better than their terrain features would otherwise mean, if the tile is improved in the right way (a Farm / Irrigation on a wheat tile, a Quarry on a Stone tile, etc).

Thanks, this helped me a lot. Especially the different categories of resources clears up a lot for me :D

[Machturbo]

Pikemen do not require iron. Swordsmen and Longswordsmen do.

[Magic_Hotdog]

Luxury Resources (things like spices, dyes, gems, gold, and silver) produce Happiness for your empire. Having lots of the same thing doesn't help

Not quite. Having multiple copies of the same luxury resource means you can trade them away to other empires for gold, other luxury resources you don't have, or even strategic resources. There are also certain structures that require you to have at least one copy of that resource within a city's borders to build. Having wine/incense in one city does not mean you can build a monastery in all cities.