Iron. Ugh

Loucypher · Jul 13, 2012

Five maps in a row now, I found myself playing with various civs (In order; Netherlands, Rome, Carthage, Japan, and now France) and right as I start to think about an invasion force with Iron coming up...there is no Iron anywhere near me. Settling on the closest Iron being a death sentence for the city that would be taking it in.
Is there any way, any at all, to ensure some more Iron on the world? I get that you don't need HUGE piles of it, but...it's getting rather ridiculous. At least Horses get revealed early and plentiful enough, it seems...

The_Quasar · Jul 13, 2012

I had a bad run of iron at one time too, but it seems to have got a bit better recently... but now I can't seem to get coal!

Rome is especially poor with no iron... no Legions and no Ballista (Ballistae)!

What's worse, however, is the Age of Steam scenario with no coal!!

Malachi256 · Jul 13, 2012

The only thing I ever want iron for anymore is frigates.

Any land force can do just fine with arrows/spears/sieges w/ a few horsies.

hbar · Jul 13, 2012

I'm currently on a map with no horses across my entire empire. I rolled over Germany, to no avail. As far as I can tell, there isn't a single horse on my continent. I know the other continent has horses (I can trade for them), but by this point I've got triplanes, so horses are just about irrelevant.

I can't complain too much, though, seeing as I'm playing as the Netherlands, and I've got about 10 Polders/city in my core empire. Swamps never looked so good!

wpfossil · Jul 13, 2012

I rely heavily on my navy and if I wind up on a continent with no iron (meaning no frigates) then I start thinking about a do-over.

hobbsyoyo · Jul 13, 2012

OP: There are only two ways of ensuring some iron that I am aware of.

1) Load a map into the map editor and plop some down, then play on it. Or just create a new map from scratch. The editor has a handy button that automatically scatters resources for you, you can then just focus on adding what you want extra.

2) Cheat with Firetuner. You can open up Firetuner and plop iron down on the map (similar to the world builder from CIV). Be careful not to place iron on a spot that already has a mine, as that iron will NOT connect to your network for some weird reason.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but those are the only 2 methods I know of.

Prophet Skeram · Jul 13, 2012

Loucypher said:
Five maps in a row now, I found myself playing with various civs (In order; Netherlands, Rome, Carthage, Japan, and now France) and right as I start to think about an invasion force with Iron coming up...there is no Iron anywhere near me. Settling on the closest Iron being a death sentence for the city that would be taking it in.
Is there any way, any at all, to ensure some more Iron on the world? I get that you don't need HUGE piles of it, but...it's getting rather ridiculous. At least Horses get revealed early and plentiful enough, it seems...

I usually don't have too much trouble with iron, but coal is extremely scarce in almost all my games (usually playing continents - prince - standard - no special settings), last domination victory, there were 4 peaces of coal on my entire continent (about half the landmass of the world), no, not 4 sources of coal, 4 pieces in total, FOUR !

hobbsyoyo · Jul 13, 2012

Prophet Skeram said:
I usually don't have too much trouble with iron, but coal is extremely scarce in almost all my games (usually playing continents - prince - standard - no special settings), last domination victory, there were 4 peaces of coal on my entire continent (about half the landmass of the world), no, not 4 sources of coal, 4 pieces in total, FOUR !

Was there any that you were able to trade for? Just wondering.

MaximusK · Jul 13, 2012

Change resources to Strategic Balance in game setup.

dac050 · Jul 13, 2012

MaximusK said:
Change resources to Strategic Balance in game setup.

Hmm, this forum needs a like button. I'll try that in a game. Although that removes most of the reasons I usually go to war, "Hmm, I don't have any coal, I think I'll take yours!"

hobbsyoyo · Jul 13, 2012

dac050 said:
Hmm, this forum needs a like button. I'll try that in a game. Although that removes most of the reasons I usually go to war, "Hmm, I don't have any coal, I think I'll take yours!"

Yeah it's a great feature (forgot about it until reminded) but it only works when setting up a new game.

Boris Gudenuf · Jul 13, 2012

On the occasions when I've been missing an early strategic resource, like Iron or Horse, I've found that there are almost always City States with the resource that I can Ally with. Luckily, it doesn't matter how far away the CS is, the resources are 'magically' transported to me from anywhere on the globe. This isn't the most certain way of keeping the resource, but it's better than nothing...

Arksa · Jul 13, 2012

Missing iron is not the end of the world. I won my first Immortal game without connecting a single iron. It's not like coal in civ 3

.

PhilBowles · Jul 13, 2012

The_Quasar said:
I had a bad run of iron at one time too, but it seems to have got a bit better recently... but now I can't seem to get coal!

Rome is especially poor with no iron... no Legions and no Ballista (Ballistae)!

What's worse, however, is the Age of Steam scenario with no coal!!

Ballista no longer requires iron, in the same way the catapult doesn't. I'm currently playing as Rome with 4 iron, 4 legions and a couple of ballistae.

But civs with swordsman and longsword UUs are the only ones really hit by a lack of iron, since for everyone else the Pikeman is a superior unit.

Miravlix · Jul 13, 2012

Horses and Iron is something you can easily do without in G&K.

The warrior line is just meh, that 1-2 seems to be too many.

The AI spams pikemen making horses a lot less useful.

It's all about archers and siege weapons and neither take iron or horses.

AriochIV · Jul 13, 2012

PhilBowles said:
But civs with swordsman and longsword UUs are the only ones really hit by a lack of iron, since for everyone else the Pikeman is a superior unit.

Yes... Civil Service comes so quick after Iron Working now that I often find I have it before I've produced by first Swordsman. Kind of sad.

Big J Money · Jul 13, 2012

Also, do you keep playing the same map type? I believe I'm on Great Plains Plus right now, and there are small Iron and horse deposits scattered EVERYwhere.

Loucypher · Jul 13, 2012

Given the fact that I love going Naval (I tend to play on Small Continents, often while a land war is definitely possible I find myself in naval wars just as much), Iron is pretty much vital for me. But thanks for the hints, especially the non-cheating ones, I'll work something out that suits my style at least.

RedRover57 · Jul 13, 2012

Not only that, but Gunpowder can be researched quickly after Steel, so the average life span of a longsword is pretty short now that they can be upgraded to muskets.

mabalogna · Jul 13, 2012

City States man. They always tend to have either 1 Iron source, or 1 Coal source, sometimes both.

Playing an austrian game and my Iron/Coal reserves have become abundant since aquiring some CS through marriage.

Iron. Ugh

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