W3C - Natural Resources

Yes, I mentioned this bug in my description in the game news.

we will fix it ASAP.

True. the resource disappears.

I will think about a solution.

I also know of a special case where you build the corp, and then can build another one.

complex feature and shit happens.

This is an awesome change, should dramatically alter the game play.

One suggestion would be that perhaps wood and rubber being they are both plants and renewable should be handled a bit differently. Seeing both will regularly self replace. Or perhaps they should have a regrowth rate, if you use harvest more than so much per month you will run out. The rate of regrowth could vary based on nation.

I understand why Enterprises aren't allowed to found these corps, but I think you would have more interesting gameplay if they could, but the host nation was required to approve the construction first.

IRL gov'ts sell 'mining rights' to large corporations all the time, and establishing a premium, on a per-unit basis, that countries would receive in exchange for allowing private-sector development of their natural resources would definitely encourage cooperation between CEOs and Presidents since CEO-held resource corps are immune to attacks.

Also, do efficiency upgrades extend the life of a resource deposit? If not, I feel like it should. That would make upgrade investment in such corporations more worthwhile.

I will respond in more detail to this tomorrow as I have many questions and concerns on this change. Although I will reluctantly like the change for now. I think it may bring in too much realism into the game.

It is interesting to see that most people who have been playing for a long time seem to like this change more then the relatively newer players. Despite the fact that they are the ones losing the most corporations and money.

Wow, Epic changes are here. We've finally depleted these mega worlds, the age of abundance is coming to a close, it's time to search for those natural resources.

Hopefully the GM team will be on hand to fix any unintended bugs that might happen. With a change this big, there are bound to be some wrinkles to iron out.

Thanks to the WC3 team for all the work they have been putting in, we really appreciate it. This will add a whole new form of game-play to Simcountry.

Signed President of DanNation on LU

Great addition to the game, my thanks to the GM's.
I'm glad you gave the existing corps a supply to allow us time to adjust.

Andy I have a few questions.
"Natural resources now appear randomly in countries. You may have
a lot or none at all."
Are the resources distributed equally or is Sand and Stone more abundant than Platinum and Uranium?

"New resources are discovered from time to time."
If I have a country with 120M pop shouldn't I be able to discover more resources than a C3 with 15M pop?

"You can see what other countries have and you can find the countries where a specific natural resource is found."
Could you add the Resources button to C3's main page so that from the map you can see what resources are in that country?

Could you add a Resource Tab to the Empire view so that we can get a overall view of our resources?

Could you add a Resources

Thank you for your responses.

We will of course keep checking how it works and will fix any error you or we, find.
We will complete the search function for natural materials ASAP.

All existing corporations have a remaining quantity in the ground that is around 100% or more of the normal capacity.
No one is loosing money here as they will all make more money from these corporations.

For now, we will just complete the natural resources page and will not start adding more functionality.

Our experience is that good improvement ideas take some time to mature.

We do not think that the amount of available nat materials has anything to do with the size of the population.
This is not how it is in our real worlds, and although we do not try to be very realistic, this case does allow us to be more realistic than with other features.

A large population country however, is more powerful and can do more t

I am foreseeing a big problem in a few real life days when oil reaches it's new peak price. Electric power is the main user of oil and I can see those corps becoming unprofitable even at peak electric price. Their raw materials cost have already risen around 0.2 billion per month and oil is no where near peak yet. Has any testing been done on the second order effects on corp profitability caused by rising mining product prices?

so with this new change here are my questions.

1. When a country runs out of all natural resources will new ones appear in time or will that country never be able to build mining corps again?

2. If a country only has one line of a resource like say one line of coal are you then limited to only building one coal corp or can you build multiple and mine the resource quicker?

3. Does this mean that at some point a world could potentially run out of natural resources and technically die?

1) you can get more over time according to Andy.

2) yes. One Corp per line.

3)I foresee shortages but we will likely never run out. Also if shortages get too bad the game magically creates some to prevent world collapse.

My country has 2 lines for oil but I have 15 oil corps. So 13 of them will be closing? Will this happen slowly? Will I be notified each time one closes? Can I convert them to something else (not mining) without losing their upgrades? I only have 2 lines of resources that I don't have a corp for. I could convert 2 of them to those I guess but that is still a loss of 11 upgraded corps.

Hi Zentrino,

Corporation will only close in 1000 game months which is half a real year, so you have a lot of time to get nice profits from them before they close. The price will raise up to 100% from current max price level so mining corporation will become extremely profitable.

Don't do any conversions right now!!

Don't close any mining corporations!!

Keep all mining corporations!!

100% agree with Mndz. Don't make any big changes yet. The 1000 month grace period is going to be super profitable for everyone. If you open the corporations Zentrino you can see how much oil each of them have left to mine. Any new mining corporations will only be allowed to be built if your country has the resource, and it will be limited to how much is available in your country.

Indeed one line is one corporation.
If you build it, the line will then disappear.

More natural resources will be found and added to the countries once in a while.

There will be no problem with the profitability of corporations.
Profitability is increasing and will increase more and indeed, the cost of natural resources will increase.

we hope that players will make an effort to produce more natural resources.
it is up to you to do this and it can increase your profitability by a high margin.

If you just sit and wait, your profitability will on average remain unchanged. depending on your industry, it could increase a bit, or decline a bit.

Questions and Suggestions
1. How does one 'discover' new natural resources?
2. In searching and looking for natural resources how can I see what natural resources are in which country? Can I see this in any player or computer controlled country and if so how?
3. If aiming for realism than have natural resources according to geography and climate -example a country by the equator in other words a tropical country one should be able to find things like rubber and oil etc... Countries in a mountainous area should be abundant and rich in mining resources.
4. Why do all natural resources have to deplete? How bout each country is limited to two natural resources that never deplete and has one or more additional resources that deplete over time.
5. Why not add agriculture and food corps to the list of natural resources as they are in fact natural resources. And again limit according to geography in other words a polar country should

Please read Andys posts. Litterally every question you asked has been answerd by him.

Resources are distributed randomly across all countries.

We manage the discovery process for now and will make sure nothing is even close to running out.

In the real world they deplete.
Quantities underground are limited.

If they do not deplete, what is the point of the entire resources game.

We think that agricultural products can be produced everywhere and currently are.

We might add new products but these will be ones you need to mine.
Example: rare metals and other metals that we do not currently have.

No urgency. we will see how this works.

Players may succeed in securing some natural resources in large quantities in their empires and then specialise in industries that use these resources.

Hi Andy,

Prices for natural resources have stopped raising, should we expect another round? My Oil corporations are making like 1,4B per game month, so there a lot of space for increasing this even more.

I think 3-5B per game month would the the profitability that would encourage people to actively build them. 1,4 in my world is just above average.

3-5B per month for people with 1000's of them ? extra 20T per real day for doing nothing ?

why anyone would be playing after that, those people already won the game

for the existing corps fixed costs should have been increased to keep the profits at the level before the change

Vladian,

you need to understand that all this is temporary. If you increase the production amount by 100% you will have 500 months instead of 1000 so the amount people are receiving in total will not change.

Also you should not worry about people who have thousands of corporations, 100T more or less will not change their situation, but that will change situation for thousands of players who do not have thousands of corporations. you are one of these people.

i dont know

seems to me like a 20T per day for 250 days or so, absolutely free gift for a few players would completely unbalance the game especially since FB will be practically open season in a few weeks (not that i care as i dont plan to exist on FB but the people stomped will have something to complain when their attackers can lavish in this free, 0 effort, gifted income)

to clarify, im all for new mining corps to make 10B per month but existing, prior to change, mining corps should have been tuned to pre change profits.

I understand your point and you also need to understand that there should be some grace period which is not easy to manage. I think the current W3C strategy is very generous and should be appreciated by players.

maybe this increase in profitability will happen when initial 1000 game months period will end and it makes a lot of sense.

In the past corporations were making up to 25B a month with costs 5-10B which allowed to have 15-20B profit per single corporation per game month. Large cash boost in the game allows to sustain great armies and fight great wars, nobody is just sitting on pile of cash.

@Leslie No they were not!
And furthermore I was asking Andy and the GM's not you!
But thanks as always for your input!

@Vladian
You have a good point. I would like to put some things in perspective. Not to put you down but to explain why this will have almost 0 impact on the game.
I am not a big player, I have a few countries and a couple of mid size ceo's. The income from those countries, my ceo's and the trading I do on the world market are already enough for me to earn enough money that I can buy almost anything I want.
There are only a few players with 1000's of corporations. Those players already have more money then they can spend. They are more worried about how they can replace those corporations. Replacing them will require a lot time after those mining corporations close. Time is worth much more then the money they will earn.

Will those 3/4 players earn a lot of money. Yes.
Will it unbalance the game? Not at all, those people can already out spend you, me and most of the people in this thread combined by huge margins.