Why No Coal?

Zaimejs

Emperor
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I think this was a glitch in my last game... but I wanted to find out.

Me and at least two other civs had entered the Industrial age. I had lots of allied City States. I kept trying to improve their coal, but it wouldn't let me.

I go to aluminum, and I could improve their aluminum, but not coal.

Then, I finally used a Great General to steal coal from a city state... I had my worker digging a mine... I forgot about it... and maybe 20 turns later, he still hadn't dug the mine. Then I clicked stop and mine again, and I had coal the next turn. Then, suddenly, all the city states that should have been giving me coal all the time finally did.

It was very strange.

That is strange as are the indestructible troops of my enemies. I hit a cavalry with four bombers, and it still wouldn't die. WTH?
 
Hmm. Sounds like you encountered a glitch, but I'll go ahead and explain how it's supposed to work, since the designed behaviour is pretty counterintuitive.

Even if you're allied with a city-state, he won't start sending you resources until he gets the tech that reveals the resource. That's usually quite a bit later than when you get the tech. So expect to wait 20-30 turns (at least) before he starts sending you the coal/aluminum.

There are two ways around this. One, you can steal the tile with a great general and just improve the tile with one of your workers. The other way is to choose the Gift-Improve A Resource option. You'll only be able to select this if the resource doesn't already have the appropriate improvement on it. So coal that appears in plains can be delivered to you immediately; the CS probably built a farm on the coal, so you'll be able to pay 200 gold and gift him the improvement. If the coal appears on a hill that already has a mine, you just have to wait. And wait. And wait.
 
Hmm. Sounds like you encountered a glitch, but I'll go ahead and explain how it's supposed to work, since the designed behaviour is pretty counterintuitive.

Even if you're allied with a city-state, he won't start sending you resources until he gets the tech that reveals the resource. That's usually quite a bit later than when you get the tech. So expect to wait 20-30 turns (at least) before he starts sending you the coal/aluminum.

There are two ways around this. One, you can steal the tile with a great general and just improve the tile with one of your workers. The other way is to choose the Gift-Improve A Resource option. You'll only be able to select this if the resource doesn't already have the appropriate improvement on it. So coal that appears in plains can be delivered to you immediately; the CS probably built a farm on the coal, so you'll be able to pay 200 gold and gift him the improvement. If the coal appears on a hill that already has a mine, you just have to wait. And wait. And wait.

This. The OP probably encountered an issue where the city states' coals were already improved via mines.
 
City states allies with mined coal not giving you coal : This is caused by the city states not having the tech yet. Since the city states are granted any tech that 2 players have, that only happens if you are the only person with Industrialization.
Solution in current game is just wait for the AI to catch up; and this is one of the reasons why if you are after an early ideology you should go after early access to Modern era instead of early access to Industrialization.
In future games, playing on a higher difficulty level really helps cut down the number of turns you have waiting for the city states to be granted Industrialization.
 
If the CS has not yet mined the coal deposit, you can gift 200 gold to improve the coal tile and get the coal right away. But if the CS has already mined the coal deposit, you have to wait for the CS to learn Industrialization, as Joncnunn describes.
 
they had not mined it, and I couldn't give them the 200 to do it. I could with aluminum, but not coal.
 
City states allies with mined coal not giving you coal : This is caused by the city states not having the tech yet. Since the city states are granted any tech that 2 players have, that only happens if you are the only person with Industrialization.
Solution in current game is just wait for the AI to catch up; and this is one of the reasons why if you are after an early ideology you should go after early access to Modern era instead of early access to Industrialization.
In future games, playing on a higher difficulty level really helps cut down the number of turns you have waiting for the city states to be granted Industrialization.

If the CS has not yet mined the coal deposit, you can gift 200 gold to improve the coal tile and get the coal right away. But if the CS has already mined the coal deposit, you have to wait for the CS to learn Industrialization, as Joncnunn describes.

Something is a bit wonky with this, however. I had a game just yesterday where I also had zero coal within my territory (which seems to happen more often than not) so I had to look out of my territory. I was ally to one City State (Monaco) which had coal sitting on a hill with a mine improvement, but I didn't get the Coal. Also couldn't pay to improve it. Figured they didn't know the tech. But then I had another City State ally (Kiev) with coal sitting on a forest, and I could pay them to improve the resource, and after I did I got the 7 coal from them (but still nothing from Monaco). :confused:
 
yeah, why in the world is coal so sparse...it is incredibly abundant in RL
 
yeah, why in the world is coal so sparse...it is incredibly abundant in RL

In game, I find there's always more than enough coal on the map, but most of it gets hogged by city states.
 
In game, I find there's always more than enough coal on the map, but most of it gets hogged by city states.

Indeed. In fact, "Why am I not getting coal from City State X even though we're allies and the tile is mined?" is an all-too common question that has generated several threads.
 
In game, I find there's always more than enough coal on the map, but most of it gets hogged by city states.
This has also something to do with the way the game creates maps I think. If I'm not mistaken, the resource layout will choose one strategic resource (at least from the pool Iron/Coal/Aluminum/Uranium, don't recall if Horses and Oil can be in this pool also) and selectively place it with city states. I think this is done to promote city states as an important part of the game.
 
yeah, why in the world is coal so sparse...it is incredibly abundant in RL

Yeah...this coal thing can be frustrating.... The way I look at is that the developers don't want the game to be too easy for you.... ;)

So I suspect, rightly or wrongly, the algorithm of the game doesn't really disperse the coal until it "knows" where you are....

In my current game, the nearest coal...a nice 7-unit deposit....was two tiles from my border and very close to the capital of another civ..... I had lots of GGs from the near constant warfare in this game....so I thought, 'to heck with it, I'll use two generals to secure the coal and then I don't have to be fussing endlessly with CSs to get it'...

There is also the advantage of having a citadel one tile from another civ's capital, though in this game...the civ is Harald...the Danes have been rather lacklustre and not worth bothering with........and now I have his coal... ;)

....and in this same game. I'm "swimming" in oil ...two 7-Oil desert deposits another land deposit and a couple of ocean deposits.... I guess that will come in handy soon... I nearly have the GW Bomber and I'm going to have to go after a civ on the next continent now, as he seems to be the current cultural leader.... [after having grabbed, a few turns ago, the wonder-stuffed capital of Ethiopia, Haile had been the "top dog" on my continent, until after a centuries-long war, I finally reduced him to one small city....]
 
I finished a game as Polynesia and I had no iron, no coal, no oil, and no aluminum. It was an archipelago, so I sort of expected a shortage, but there were none. No close CS allies to get it from either.

But I sucked it up and figured oh well.
 
My last game had 7 coal resources on the whole map, and only 3 were on my continent! :eek:

Standard with abundant resources :crazyeye:
 
My last game had 7 coal resources on the whole map, and only 3 were on my continent! :eek:

Standard with abundant resources :crazyeye:

That's not how abundant resources works. It doesn't increase the number of tiles with strategic resources; it instead makes all strategic resource tiles have 50% more than they would otherwise.
 
A lack of coal can be really frustrating. Fortunately, existing buildings don't suffer a performance-reduction penalty if you run out of a resource needed to build them. That means that, in the worst-case scenario, you can trade to an AI for the coal necessary to build your factories, and then not renew the deal. At least you'll have factories, and ironclads are rarely vital unless you're playing an Archipelago or similar map.

Something that can help in determining the future location of strategic resources is the city build site advisor (the yellow icon that pops up when you select a settler). If you mouse over the icon, it says things like, "I recommend that you build a city here to improve our access to luxury resources!". If the recommended site contains a future strategic resource (e.g. coal) and no other obvious feature, the advisor simply says, "I recommend you build a city here!". Only problem is there's no way to know whether the resources is coal, oil, uranium, etc., other than by guessing based on the tile type.

It would be nice if Civ V gave you the option to develop alternative power sources for Industrial or later units/buildings. Civ IV allowed either oil or uranium to be used for powering naval vessels. It's not inconceivable that a civ with no access to coal would prioritize the development of necessary tech to process oil and use it to power factories.
 
This looks like someone needs industrialization to improve the coal that is not on a hill. If the coal is on a hill then one could be able to mine it since one could make a mine on a hill with or without the coal.
 
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