...a hump like a snow-hill! 'Tis Moby Dick... the gold coin is mine!

I'm curious as to what use (if any) anybody has ever gotten from the Whales resource. I haven't had a single game so far where I've ever made a workboat for them. Firstly, they haven't been all that common for me, even on maps heavy on islands, so I seldom see them to begin with. Secondly I'm seldom in a rush to Optics, so of all the non-hidden resources, I have the longest delay in even having the ability to exploit it. Thirdly it expires anyway. Is my experience typical or has anybody actually actively done something with Whales?

I've beelined to Optics a couple of times on Warlords and vanilla cIV to discover the other continents and quickly assess the situation there, and also to get the round-the-globe bonus, but I don't think I've had Whales in any of those games. They're very rare indeed, I think I had them only once in all of my games so far and made no special use of them. So yeah, I'd be interested to see if anyone else had a better experience with them, but until then Moby Dick still seems likes a useless pursuit. ;)

I don't go out of my way to claim them. I believe whales only appear in ocean (i.e. not coast) tiles, so you have to build right on the coast to snag 'em. They also seem to mainly appear near the poles--not the best place for cities. If they show up in my borders before they're obsolete (with Combustion, IIRC), I'll work them for the extra happy.

I don't like settling cities in tundra/snow, so I haven't yet gotten the whale resource.

I get em, usually not w/in the fat cross though.

I have played about a dozen games, and usually by the time my culture expands to the point that I could theoretically capture a whale out in the arctic ocean it would just go obsolete in a few turns anyway.

I think whales give you a +1 health bonus for either market or grocery ... along with wine, corn, silk, etc. And not to mention beer, Skittles, potato chips ...

Sometimes they give a oil-colony an extra good tile to work.

Whales show up often on Terra maps, as I recall, where they're also the most useful-- Workboats are fairly cheap, and you don't have to worry about Barbs getting to them. You can also, by definition, use the resource by the time you're thinking about where to place those cities as well.

Otherwise, yeah, it's a sad decline for the Whale since the halcyon days of Civ2. Maybe they need to get a better agent . . .

Wow. It's taken until post #10 before somebody blamed the Whales' near uselessness in game play on Political Correctness.

;-)

Anyway. I'll usually drop a work boat on it once it finally gets in the cultural border. And I think I had a game where I traded some excess Whale for something else. Overall though, they're not much of a factor.

It's funny that you bring this up, because in my last game, I was stuck on my own small continent pretty far north, and one of my cities was actually set up to work 2 whale tiles. I remembered thinking that it seemed like the first time that I actually got to whales before they became obsolete, and being on a fairly isolated island, I needed all the happiness I could get, with being away from tropical resources and all the early religions. It also helped out because it was a tundra coastal city, and with the lighthouse, this gave me 3 food on both the whale tiles, plus some production and commerce.

Whale's good.

I conquered Washington in my game, and Washington is on the coast. No whales or anything. But 5 clams, and a fishy right in the fat cross. Can you believe that? That's 31 food right there. Clams were surrounding the city.

I only see stuff like ivory/gems/gold together like that. Never clams.

And whaling boats have their uses... I never go for optics unless I really need the naval help.

Worst resource in the box. Arrives late, rare, expires early. Bleh.

I am eager for whale too. But no chance so far.

Regards,
Arto.