Obsidian

Like all rare resources on land, Obsidian can be gathered by sending a Merchant from the Market to the resource location. Obsidian provides the following benefits:

• +10 Metal gather rate
• +10 Knowledge gather rate
• Foot Archers, Ranged Cavalry, Towers, Forts and Cities gain +1 attack strength
  • Foot Archers lose this bonus once they are upgraded to Musketeers and beyond.
  • Ranged Cavalry, on the other hand, keeps the attack bonus throughout the game, even when upgraded to Armored Cars and beyond. This is due to the fact that these vehicles still belong to the Ranged Cavalry class.

The gather rate of rare resources can be increased in various ways, as described in the main article. Note that Metal and Knowledge is not gathered until a nation has entered the Classical Age (except for the Greeks who can gather Knowledge at start) and linking a Obsidian resource while still in the Ancient Age might not provide the full benefit.

v • d • e Resources in Rise of Nations Basic Resources Food • Timber • Wealth • Metal • Knowledge • Oil Rare Resources Aluminum • Amber • Bananas • Beaver Pelts • Bison • Cattle • Citrus • Coal • Coffee • Copper • Cotton • Diamonds • Dye • Fish • Furs • Gems • Gold • Gypsum • Horses • Huskies • Incense • Iron Ore • Maize • Marble • Obsidian • Olive Oil • Papyrus • Peacocks • Relics • Rubber • Rum • Salmon • Salt • Silk • Silver • Spice • Sugar • Sulphur • Titanium • Tobacco • Uranium • Whales • Wine • Wool Items in italics are exclusive to the campaigns on Thrones and Patriots