4 ms·

Based on playing Civ I just assumed they were mostly valuable for their use in making gunpowder.

• bluGill 4y ago
  You seem surprised that a game simplified the mechanics of the real world until they are unrecognizable.
  • lasc4r 4y ago
    It did indeed make more sense to me to go to war for a strategic, scare and faraway military resource than to go through all that effort for fertilizer.
    • throw0101a 4y ago
      > […] all that effort for fertilizer. Food to feed your troops (and workers in armament factories) is a strategic military resource. You have to either grow it yourself or import it. Artificial fertilizer allows you stop importing nitrogen (which could be blocked by embargoes) and make it locally, which would allow you to potentially grow food locally and not import it either (again, embargoes).