Ancient Ruins

Does anyone know the formula for how many ancient ruins spawn per map please?

It bothers me that I can't tell if I got my fair share of ruins, less than or more than. Did I win at ruins?!

Example of the kind of formula I'm after:
(map size) * (number of players) * (ruins golden ratio) = (total ruins in the game at start)

I'm going to feel very foolish if this is somewhere easy to find but I've been search engine-ing for this once or twice every few months since G&K came out and I can't seem to get the right search terms.

I can't give you an exact answer, but if you have time and want to figure it out by yourself, download a mod called the InGame Editor, which does what it says. You could load up a few games and, using the reveal map feature, count the number of ruins around the map, and where they are and how far from other civs they are. This isn't exact but if you get a reasonable amount of data, you could have a good idea.

I dunno just a thought.

"Your fair share" will definitely be a factor of several things: Size of the map, number of civs in play, number of City States in play, and whether or not Raging Barbarians is activated. Essentially the more crowded the map is, the faster ancient ruins will be scooped up. The only ruins that are safely "yours" are located in the immediate vicinity of your initial city. By the time you encounter the first civ opponent, figure at least 80% of the ruins have been already scooped, with the remainder being scooped fairly soon after.

I always play on Huge maps with around 7-10 other civs in play. I've had games where I discovered a grand total of SIX ruins before they become conspicuously absent. Other games, I may find 20+.

I get the impression that when a random map is generated, the first thing that happens is that some random number of ruins is planted. Then the City States get dropped in and there may be a certain amount of clumping of those that occurs--thicker concentration of CSs here while there's a virtual CS desert there. Then the player Settlers get dropped in, each with a certain amount of elbow room to give each a running start before the civs start to find each other. But if a civ is near clustered CSs, that leaves less room where ruins could be. So "fair share" is likely to have a wide variance from game to game.

While we're on the topic... do any of you know where on CIV FANATICS is the mod that makes Ruins NEVER give you maps and/or Barbarian Locations? I use Mac, so I cant download from Steam. I can only download from CivFan or any other website.

El Caballerion said:

While we're on the topic... do any of you know where on CIV FANATICS is the mod that makes Ruins NEVER give you maps and/or Barbarian Locations? I use Mac, so I cant download from Steam. I can only download from CivFan or any other website.

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There's this civ called The Shoshone.....

El Caballerion said:

While we're on the topic... do any of you know where on CIV FANATICS is the mod that makes Ruins NEVER give you maps and/or Barbarian Locations? I use Mac, so I cant download from Steam. I can only download from CivFan or any other website.

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In addition to playing as Shonestone there is already already the use of the time machine.

As to a mod; it sounds fairly simple to create a mod that would give all civs that ability; and can be done in XML by just copy paste the XML tag to that ability to all civs.

Furret said:

There's this civ called The Shoshone.....

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I wonder if there's a CIV player out there who plays as Shoshone and selects SHOW BARB LOCATIONS every single time they run into a ruin!?!

I'm pretty sure on diety the AI only explores between ruins untill they have taken every one from around your civs area, and leaving the ones one tile away from their own borders for later. It's a conspiracy, I swear. Have had a few maps where I have hit 1 or no ruins on a large map... mostly due to civ placement. though close civs, give free workers.

El Caballerion said:

I wonder if there's a CIV player out there who plays as Shoshone and selects SHOW BARB LOCATIONS every single time they run into a ruin!?!

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And just for fun, if you play settler, chieftain, or warlord, remember that you can also chose a settler or worker from ruins. Many of us don't think about that, because warlord is the last level where you can get workers or settlers from a ruin. Found this out the other night by 'accident' (I pressed default, or reset, or whatever it is in the advanced options, and forgot to move the difficulty back up![it defaults to settler])

sorry for going off-topic......

Lorf Yimzo said:

I can't give you an exact answer, but if you have time and want to figure it out by yourself, download a mod called the InGame Editor, which does what it says. You could load up a few games and, using the reveal map feature, count the number of ruins around the map, and where they are and how far from other civs they are. This isn't exact but if you get a reasonable amount of data, you could have a good idea.

I dunno just a thought.

Click to expand...

The mod was helpful.

It seems to be based purely on the map size. Changing the other settings didn't affect things.

I loaded two to four games of each of these sizes:
Duel = 8~10 ruins
Tiny = 16~17 ruins (got a 14 too)
Small = 20 ruins
Standard = 30~32 ruins

This has been helpful. Now i know that if I get 4~5 ruins per game I've not been robbed blind by the AI.

comatosedragon said:

And just for fun, if you play settler, chieftain, or warlord, remember that you can also chose a settler or worker from ruins. Many of us don't think about that, because warlord is the last level where you can get workers or settlers from a ruin.

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Only on Settler. And it always has been only on Settler.

Check disable random seed before you start the game. Save before you walk into a ruin. Reload if you don't get what you want. It's the same as the Shoshone.

The first 3 ruins cannot contain faith. After you get 1 bonus, let's say culture, you can't get that bonus again until you find at least 3 more ruins.

I do this when I play marathon sometimes because it takes you 15 turns to get a scout out. The AI will snag a lot of the ruins by the time you can even get a scout out.

Beaver79 said:

The first 3 ruins cannot contain faith. After you get 1 bonus, let's say culture, you can't get that bonus again until you find at least 3 more ruins.

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Faith is available starting at Turn 20. Number of ruins picked up before doesn't matter.

I really doubt the other think you said there. This is how it works for the Shoshone, but when I play any other civ this is not the case. I could bet money on that as getting for e.g. xx gold or barb camp revelations from two consecutive ruins is not that rare.

FeiLing said:

Faith is available starting at Turn 20. Number of ruins picked up before doesn't matter.

I really doubt the other think you said there. This is how it works for the Shoshone, but when I play any other civ this is not the case. I could bet money on that as getting for e.g. xx gold or barb camp revelations from two consecutive ruins is not that rare.

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You have never gotten the same thing in two consecutive ruins. What you say about the faith one showing up at turn 20 might very well be true but I've done this literally 500 times and I've never been able to get the same ruin twice in a row.

Beaver79 said:

You have never gotten the same thing in two consecutive ruins. What you say about the faith one showing up at turn 20 might very well be true but I've done this literally 500 times and I've never been able to get the same ruin twice in a row.

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If the shoshone follow the same rules as the rest, it is easy to check (yourself).

Independent of game speed, i found that the faith option comes at turn 20. (even did a save where i took a ruin at 19 (no faith), then turn 20 (faith option available). After that the prophet comes available at the next ruin. The amount does scale, just not the turn number.....

Also they confirm that you can't have the same ruin pick twice in a row (assuming again they follow the same rules as the rest)

hope it helps...

Does ANYONE know how many ruins a huge map should have? My edited map didn't spawn them by hand, so I'm going to have to go in and spawn in ruins everywhere. Anyone have a number?

El Caballerion said:

While we're on the topic... do any of you know where on CIV FANATICS is the mod that makes Ruins NEVER give you maps and/or Barbarian Locations? I use Mac, so I cant download from Steam. I can only download from CivFan or any other website.

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You can get STEAM mods on mac. See
https://github.com/bradallred/CivVMacWorkshop

It's great.