Right at the outset, Oceans was intended to be a rework of how resources are distributed across the map. Instead of a set of coastal resources shared across the entire map, resources would be assigned on a continent-by-continent basis.

The problem with that plan though: the game doesn’t have enough Luxury resources by default!

New Resources

So naturally, we had to plan to make new resources, with the initial list being:

• Clams/Mussels
• Lobsters
• Abalone
• Caviar
• Coral
• Seals (?) (Bonus?)
• Kelp
• Squid

As mentioned in my previous post, Kelp was quickly reassigned as a feature instead of a resource. Seals I had already earmarked as a Bonus. You’ll notice my singling out of Seals implies that the rest would be Luxuries. This is because I wasn’t adding resources simply for the sake of adding resources, but because the new resource distribution system NEEDED additional Luxuries.

I was also hesitant to add too many Bonus resources. All possible Bonus resources are spawned into the map during map generation. Too many different types all at once would have introduced unnecessary noise ¹, especially if I couldn’t make them distinct via gameplay.

Linking resources to gameplay

What makes distinct gameplay? In the case of coastal resources: yields (since they are all improved by Fishing Boats ² and are unlocked for harvesting simultaneously). For reference, here are all the coastal resources in the official game:

You’ll notice there are no Bonus resources that provide Production, so Seals were intended to fill a niche: a Bonus resource that thematically could provide Production, a yield which the coasts were sorely lacking.

Squid only swapped to being a Bonus after much consideration and discussion. It was common enough in many coastal cuisines that it didn’t sit quite right as a Luxury. It still occupies a strange in-between niche, providing +1 Food, +1 Gold, where other bonuses only provide +1 of a basic yield (2 Gold is worth about 1 Food/Production), in return, it is rarer to spawn.

The rest I firmly relegated to Luxuries. Likely adding any more bonus resources that are improved by Fishing Boats would simply muddy the waters (and this, alongside the common perception of lobster today, is why it is a Luxury and not a Bonus, regardless of what early North American colonists thought).

What about the Luxuries?

Yields for Luxuries were similarly not just assigned based on the most obvious choice. For example: my personal immediate instinct for Coral was that it should provide Science. But this wouldn’t work: because it would clash with Turtles, another Reef-only resource that already provides Science.

I also wanted to maintain an even distribution of yields. So I couldn’t have a whole bunch of Luxuries that all provided Culture for instance. After some thought and several rounds of moving yields around, I ended up with this list, including the original Luxuries. Not all these resources have been added to the mod yet.

So pretty even, two copies of each of the advanced yields. Two that provide multiple basic yields, and Caviar stands out as a source of Gold, though that was always inevitable given its spawning rules.

And as mentioned there was some shuffling to reach this point. There was a short moment where Coral provided Culture, but that quickly got shuffled out as neither Lobsters nor Abalone made sense providing Faith.

Next time, I’ll talk about infrastructure and the Harbor rework that never saw the light of day.