22-01-2004 18:58									#1
	Regarding saltpeter and a future patch Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

According to the Civiliopedia, saltpeter is 'in abundance' (i.e. no longer scarce) by the time nationalism is research, meaning that you are able to give your foot soldiers rifles, but not muskets. Meaning that you can give a rifle, even, to a man on foot but not a man on the back of a horse (i.e. cavalry).

So pray tell, why is it that my resource-denied opponent is able to use saltpeter, which is in abundance, to equip his defenders, but not his attackers? Would Firaxis consider making riflemen saltpeter-dependent or shall I be forced to do this myself in the editor?

	22-01-2004 19:14									#2
	Re: Regarding saltpeter and a future patch Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

i agree with you that it dosent make sense to build rifleman and not cavalry. but in regards to rifleman i suggest you NOT make them saltpeter dependant. the reason being game balance. say a civ dosent have saltpeter. or iron. say its YOU. the best defeders you can have is spearman. if you are industrial and the best defenders you have is spearman, because you made rifleman saltpeter depandant, then you are in serious trouble.

	22-01-2004 19:29									#3
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Ah, I see your point.

Well I guess Firaxis should just remove the reference to saltpeter being abundant and just imply riflemen are resourceless without any other references. Then it would make a little more logical as well as gameplay sense.

	23-01-2004 02:39									#4
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I think what they meant by Saltpeter being in abundance is that (with improved technology) it becomes easier for a civ to fabricate KNO3--so 'natural sources' become irrelevant. That still doesn't explain why you couldn't build Cavalry units w/ Rifles.

Perhaps you could make Cav NOT dependant upon Saltpeter. But that would probably make things worse--not better. I don't think that there's a way to make a Resourse requirement 'Expire'. Even when in the Modern Age, you'd still have to have Iron to build a Swordsman. (I don't know why you'd want to, just using that as an example)

You could create a new "Horse" unit available at Nationalism that does NOT require KNO3.

Steven

	23-01-2004 03:35									#5
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I think that intersting idea would be to make Saltpeter obsolete, with, for example, Industrialism.

After that all units that required Saltpeter should not anymore.

	23-01-2004 05:19									#6
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Perhaps you could have "saltpeterless" equivalents of cavs etc, that become available with nationalistm?

	23-01-2004 08:31									#7
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Yup civman. you can customize Calvary tech tree to have it like this

Chariot --> horse --> knight --> Cav(normal) ---> Cav (no saltpeter) (With UU's at wherever in tech tree they are)

As long as nothing else changes, "Upgrade cost will be 0 and Normal cavs will become obsolete once saltpeterless cavs appear.

	23-01-2004 13:22									#8
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This could in a sense be mostly 'fixed' by upping the appearance of resources that were made rarer in Conquests.