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[Askot Bokbondeler]

i'm working on a warcrat 3 mod and a pen and paper tbs. it's set in a low fantasy ancient world with civilizations inspired in iron age scandinavia, classical mediterranean, ancient middle east, and ancient egypt. picking one of these base archetypes, you control the specifics of your own civilization, designing the army you use and choosing social policies, religion, etc.
you start controlling a city state, and conquer cities and villages on a world map, which you manage by distributing their population through several activities: food production, manufacture, infrastructure maintenance, military maintenance, trade, and research
each sufficiently large city will have one or more noble houses, these have relationships between themselves and might hate each other, sometimes forcing you to chose which one you want to favour. these provide nobles that you can employ as city managers, army comanders, diplomats, and ministers\advisors, and these nobles have different atributes: a certain house may ofer a fantastic governor, while it's enemy house has a great general, and employing one will anger the other, etc. these houses can influence the loyalty of the population of the cities they inhabit too, so you might have to go with the house that has no decent noble to offer just to avoid a rebellion
these cities produce different resources based on the terrain they're surrounded by and special resource sites like mineral outcrops, etc.

i'd like to request some suggestions for these resources, these are the ones i came up with

grain - basic food source
fish - basic food source. comes from cities near the sea. food variety increases happiness in cities
beer - basic booze. you can sacrifice part of your food production for this resource, armies carrying it have a boost to their morale and increases happiness in cities
wine - like booze but can only be produced in mountainous areas near the sea and it's moralle boost is higher. it's a luxury item and some nobles demand it
olive oil - food source. improves happiness in cities, but like wine can only be produced near the sea in mountainous areas, but only on temperate or warm lands. it is also a luxury item and some nobles may require it
horses - makes cavalry production cheaper and increases overal city productivity. can be raised in lands surrounded by grassy plains
iron - extracted from iron outcroppings or northern bogs. makes iron equipped armies cheaper and increases overall productivity in cities
copper or tin - like iron, but for bronze equipped armies. productivity increase in cities is smaller
gold and gems - from mineral outcrops, these provide a direct influx of monies to your treasure
smoking herbs - produced in warm woodlands. these provide a great boost in moralle and hapiness to armies and cities, but are highly addictive, and cities and armies introduced to it will suffer a large penalty if deprived of it
wondrous elixir - produced from aromatic herbs and psychotropic herbs from desert oases. these are highly sought after by nobles, but like smoking herbs, are very addictive and once introduced to it the nobles will demand it
eastern silk, northern hides, western expensive dyes, and southern coloured glass - expensive trade goods and luxury items, they boost the happiness in cities and improve the loyalty of your nobles

[Askot Bokbondeler]

bump bamp bimp boom!

[MaximumZero]

How about medicine, giving a population boost while a city has access to it, and providing a penalty when there is none available?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i thought about medicine, it'd be a basic technology which you could improve with research, and not a ressource, it'd increase population growth in cities depending on the rate of population assigned to science\research

research itself will be random, you periodically receive discoveries, technological advancements based on the population assigned to science in your empire, or you can acquire them diplomatically, or steal them using spies

thanks for replying. i was losing hope

[MaximumZero]

Well, hopefully this will kick something off...

[somebody]

It would be cool if every once in a while a plague will come along which can devastate cites but is offset by medicine.

[Jopax]

Hmm, incomplete list in my head still, so I might give more of this stuff, depending on how you like it.

Hardwood, a hardier and stronger type of wood, can be found deep within forests in certain areas (you make the choice, balancing in mind). Basically it's much more suitable for tool/weapon construction as it breaks a lot harder and is more resistant to parasites and other bad bad stuff.

Pearls, these would come from small coastal villages located on tropical/equatorial coasts (mostly because, let's say clams don't like dirty water or something, or they're hunted to nothing by the much higher population and demand of big cities, or something). Mainly a luxury, could give happiness bonuses or something.

Elephants/camels, native to jungles/deserts/plains of Africa (or it's equivalent), same like horses I'd take, but they get bonuses for being in their native climate and minuses when they're out of it.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i like those. elephants and camels have the obvious disadvantage of forcing me to model extra creatures, but i think it's worth it

[MaximumZero]

How about Marble/Stone? Required to build large buildings, temples and whatnot?

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i wouldn't say 'required', a civilization uses whatever construction materials they have available, be it wood, stone, clay, or even mud and manure. besides, you don't actually *build* many things in this game, you conquer and found cities, and a few defensive structures like walls and fortifications. it could maybe give a bonus to infrastructure maintenance, though

[Jopax]

You could have great stone deposits or whatnot, easily accessible quantites of stone, makes construction and repair work in the area much faster, also enables higher quality roads or something.

You could also have fertile soil/fertilizer deposits (like that stuff they had in South America, that giant mound of bird crap that was some of the best natural fertilizer in the world), they could boost food production/population growth.

Another region specific thing, hot springs, now you couldn't really trade for these but they could give a health/happiness boost to the population, well, only nobles at first, but you could build public bathhouses to give the bonus to the population of the enitre city.

Another thing, nectar trees/sap trees. Found in temperate forests, the trees produce a sap that can be harvested and used for a number of things, making better housing (roofing I guess, makes the population happier and healthier during winter or something), or you can have it as an edible resource candy is made from, boosting the happiness or something.

[Korbac]

Unobtainium. Required to build an interstellar spaceship which wins the game. 

[MaximumZero]

Prey animals? Food source like fish but without the need for that pesky water.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

the game is set in ancient world, no spaceships, and in the early stages at least it will have very little magic, so no need for unobtainium or phlebotinium

prey animals are ubiquitous and are part of the base food production, by itself hunting doesn't sustain large populations. northern forests produce expensive furs as a result of hunting. southern forests could produce exotic furs too

[Rexfelum]

Ooh, resources.

Having some "built in to base production" makes it harder to suggest things, though.  You mentioned furs; how about wool and/or cotton?  Perhaps a general "textiles"?  You have suggestions for stone and wood; do clay and coal fall in there somewhere?  How about tar?  Derived from trees, used as sealant on ships and roofs, and apparently a bunch of other stuff if you search the internet.

Depending on the civilization, there are questions of slaves: you said that gamers ply the favor of noble houses, so does the lowest class count as workers or property?  Is the "low fantasy" high enough that there would be exotic creatures/monsters as a commodity (or even replacement workers)?  I can guess the answer there is "no," so do you intend any other implementation of magic/fantasy in the resources themselves?

--Rexfelum