So I've been thinking about this for a while. I know there's a few "winning combos" that some people have deemed to be "the best", but I thought I'd put it to the test.

There are 21 resources, and with 5 trade slots, you can have up to 12 of them. That means there are 293,930 unique combinations.

I have created a tool that will generate all combinations and has the ability to determine all the attributes of each combination. The problem however, is how do you weight them?

Obviously the perfect combination depends on your needs - some might be geared towards earnings, so might be geared towards infra building, land expansion or military prowess.

I'm wondering if anyone has some thoughts about some of the most basic things - what's better, 1 unit of happiness, or a $1 increase in population income? or a population increase of 1%? Obviously these also depend on what your current population is in the first place, so there are a lot of variables. I need to figure out a way to reduce and/or isolate some of these variables. Of course, it's difficult without knowing the math used (aside from the NS formula of course).

Anyway, wondering if any of you have any thoughts

Uranium and Oil, because importing them will give you an environment penalty, and you can get both the 5BR and 7BR (for war) sets.

Personally I've always seen aluminium&Lumber as a golden combo, the weakness of this is however that lumber isn't an ideal collection resource.

I choose fish and wheat. Beautiful resources.

As far as your tool. +1 happiness equates to +$2 income. With improvements, the modifier changes as explained here: http://www.mrfixitonline.com/viewtopic.php?p=25003

Funny that you made a tool. I also made one for myself, though mine only considers income and bills rather than infra purchases, seeing as I can temp for infra reductions to buy up to my ideal infra level and then just use my maximal net income resource set, calculated from the tool.

We already had this topic. (ender land started it)

Anyway....

My combo would be, fish/wheat, either or, with uranium.

fish/wheat for pop.
Uranium for income, military upkeep, infra upkeep.

to be honest, I meant "what's the best set of 12 resources" rather than "the best set of two"

Hehe.. Well, my personal favorite is 7BR (Aluminum, Coal, Fish, Gold, Iron, Lead, Lumber, Marble, Oil, Rubber, Uranium, Wheat | Steel, Automobiles, Construction, Microchips, Radiation Cleanup, Asphalt, Scholars), it's quite a beast in war.. it helped me stretch my measly $550m warchest for 2.5 months of non-stop nuclear warfare. However, economically it's slightly inferior to 5BR and 3BR, although it's not by much. 3BR has like 14% more citizens, but 7BR has cheaper infrastructure, lower bills, less GRL and a slightly higher soldier efficiency. 7BR's usefulness is also increased if you have a large navy.

Ok, the best way to grow is temptrading.
Use the industrial set (8BR) to pay bills, buy infra and maybe buy tech.
Use the Luxury set (Jewelry, affluent population) to collect taxes.

Temptrading is quite a lot of work so the 3BR with Uranium and Fish is a very good alternative.

There is also this tool:

http://www.cybernations.net/stats_resource_tool.asp

The simplest answer to the question of best resources is: population.
With a higher population you can buy more national improvements.

The Best Trade Set Ever is :
Aluminum, Cattle, Iron, Marble, Lumber, Pigs, Spices, Sugar, Wheat, Water, Uranium and Fish.

This trade set nets you a great population boost (more improvements), a decent infra upkeep discount (with temp trade options), and will help your nation grow faster than any other combination. You can also easily drop a trade and temp trade to net the "Asphalt" bonus resource for bill paying - getting yourself the highest possible discount on infra upkeep.

Cheers.

One that isn't static.

Well that should be obvious.

I think the Fast Food, Beer, Construction is the best one to have overall. However it's not by any means the best for collecting, buying infra, bill payment, or war.

well money makes me happy but cn will not change that rule. factors include what are you current numbers as in if you got a low happiness and high income or other way around. does happiness affect population? a good nation i would need a balance of income ,happiness and population.

personally i would say population, happiness of +3 and income. why +3 i dont know i like the nummber 3.

It depends on how often you change, and what point in nation development you are, and what your natives are, and whether you are at war or not...

2BR Agricultural Setup with Wheat and Uranium Wildcards: Highest population and collection amounts in the game, which outweigh any infra bonuses. Plus, you can temp trade them for buying infrastructure to get the best of both worlds.

Pretty much this. It also interacts nicely with the Moon Mine, which is superior to the Mars version.

The best resource combo in the game is uranium/coal. However, some people may prefer other sets. Usually this is because they would rather minimize the amount of effort they put into this game. For example, someone with Iron/Fish would rarely have to look for trades and should experience reasonable growth throughout the entire cycle of his nation in an agricultural circle.