I'm mulling over a fantasy conquest game concept and thinking about resources. And I'm stuck on a good classification name.
It's a high-level strategic game, so resources have to fairly broad. That said, I'm considering what would happen if resource cards were quite varied and unique for themeing, but that could be broken down in to broad classifications as to how they could be used.
So, a wide variety of plants, animals, fungus, etc could be used as "Food" And things like bricks, stone, lumber, etc. might be used as "Structural"
So thematically, you may have a territory that has these giant tortoise type creatures, that essentially, could be farmed for Food, or their shells could be used as Structural materials. And likewise, there could be a wide variety of resources that could be applied in different ways.
Right now, I'm thinking of these categories:
Food
Structural
*SOMETHING*
And then a miscellaneous category (trade goods) and possibly Reagents (essentially, chemicals)
the SOMETHING are sturdy materials that aren't suitable for structures, but are used as tools, armor, weapons, fasteners, etc.
Originally, I was thinking this was Ore or Metals, but there are a number of non-metals that could work in place, such as certain types of bone, and stone.
So I'm looking for a good category name for such items.
Any ideas?
The "trade" in Trade Goods is referring to the idea of having a trade, as in tradeskill. These goods are used in the various manufacturing trades.
Perhaps Crafts is a better term to avoid confusion.
There are a number of reasons a material might only fit in one category.
Something good for weapons and tools might be unsuitable for structure due to availability or cost. And something good for structural may be unsuitable for tools and weapons due to weight or stress properties. (Though I'll grant that armor materials might have a lot in common with structural materials.)
Most metals, while good for weapons, would be cost prohibitive to use for a housing district, or simply unavailable in such large quantities in a fantasy setting.
Bone, could be used for arrowheads and scaled style armors, but doesn't usually occur in large enough portions for building materials.
Clay and stone are fine to build with, but probably unsuitable for most weapons, tools, and sturdy parts.
For the materials that can work as both, they would simply be listed with both categories.
Now as to refinement, for most purposes, having separate resources for refined and unrefined is out of scope.
Each area simply lists resources that are available there. It is assumed some basic level of refinement and working will take place when utilizing a material.
Now there might be an use for a rare class of resources for items that take a more advanced level of refining, such as specialized alloys, mechanical parts, or arcane supplies. I haven't decided if this will be a thing, or perhaps something that is only used for specific factions as a part of their game play.