Strategic resources in short supply?

I wonder if others are having similar experiences to what's been plaguing my BNW games. I play "Abundant Resources." The game can get boring fast, when, upon completing Biology, for example, the map reveals no practical likelihood of acquiring oil, short of a disastrous overseas kamikaze invasion or a DoW on a friend. I have started close to two dozen games and abandoned every one, because the same thing happens every time, in spite of playing on abundant resources. I have never seen this in previous versions, including G&K.

My bias, from previous versions, is that trading with other civs is a waste of time, given the absurdity of their demands to trade a single resource. Considering the scant resources CSs are able to provide and the high cost of maintaining their alliances, it makes more sense to invade them and seize their resources. (Though I have ethics about attacking friendly or neutral states). So maybe I'm having a "hangover" affecting my BNW experience.

I am open to every type of victory the game provides. Having the military option taken away however, through an absence of resources really cuts the heart out of Civilization. To come out of the mid-game only to be forced to abandon the military option entirely, in favor of a click-fest alternative seems worse than vanilla. Groundbreaking as the changes to BNW are in progressing toward achievement of full potential of Civilization, they remain vulnerable to the criticism that they still are about filling up bars, or buckets. with little or no opportunity for tactical move and counter move. Am I missing some new means of acquiring strategic resources, making the game appear to me sadly diminished? I'd really like to continue playing, but my enthusiasm for starting new games is fading fast.

In my experience it is feast or famine with strategic resources. I usually don't have enough in my empire, and sometimes much more than I need. I usually have too many horses and not enough iron or coal.

Luxury and bonus resources appear to lumped in the same general location. For example, there are 5 tiles with grapes, but they are within 10-15 tiles of each other, and are absent on the rest of the map.

There does not appear to be a random even distribution of these resources.

quantum42 said:

In my experience it is feast or famine with strategic resources. I usually don't have enough in my empire, and sometimes much more than I need. I usually have too many horses and not enough iron or coal.

Luxury and bonus resources appear to lumped in the same general location. For example, there are 5 tiles with grapes, but they are within 10-15 tiles of each other, and are absent on the rest of the map.

There does not appear to be a random even distribution of these resources.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

Just finished a game stuck on my own islands with 6 gold tiles. I had no iron only 3 units of coal no oil or uranium anywhere close to me. Good thing I wasn't going for any kind of military or Venice would have mopped the floor with me. Subs will only take so little damage before they are dead and no planes.

That's an interesting take, and I've seen a ton of games where the AI seems to have all the oil and aluminum leaving me with nothing. It's frustrating to try going for an iron rush only to find there's only one iron deposit on your continent.
What I wonder is if certain locations have a limit of one or two types of strategic resources; such as this area only having horses and aluminum, this one iron and uranium, etc.

If so, then there is a reason for this in terms of mechanics. Having an inequal level of resources means that if you have a certain type of resource that another civ doesn't, then you have an advantage against them during the eras that use those resources. It's the same with unique units; during the eras your UUs exist in, you have an advantage over civs without UUs in that era. You might not have any oil, but you probably had iron and horses when others didn't, and you might have uranium in a few turns.

There's always the option of taking over civs with those resources. There's real world precedence on fighting wars for oil, after all. If you're planning it right, you can take over a city with a resource before that civ has the ability to use it (for example, you can see iron before you get swordsmen), and even if they've gotten the techs to build units of that resource, you could try and take it before they've built a lot.

All in all, I think resource inequality adds a layer of depth that wouldn't be there if it was guaranteed everyone got every resource. And I don't see how it's different in BNW than vanilla, I've always had trouble getting horses in my cities when it seems my neighbours are swimming in horses.

If you don't want to kill for it, trade for it or acquire CS with oil in their borders.

I haven't noticed any difference in BNW. I also play abundant resources, and I always have plenty of everything.

The distribution of resources in Civ 5 does not correspond with the way they appear on Earth.

This is the most frustrating when you don't have coal so you can't have an ideology.

You can adopt an ideology when you reach the modern era.

On the setting, with regard to strategic resources, the main thing it does is change the quanities in both small & large deposits to be 50% more than otherwise. It doesn't really increase number of tiles with strategic resources.

If you want to ensure having some of most strategic resources near you, that is "strategic balance".

so you mean nations are forced to go to war on the other side of the planet based on resource scarcity? like for oil? the horror!

kidding aside, I think this intentionally adds a particular challenge to the later game. These resources are almost always revealed before they are critical (oil and aluminum anyway), giving you time to acquire them. Also, sell excess strategic resources to your friends so you can afford CS allies with the resources you need.

seems about right to me. Resources are generally available but sometimes you have to trade. I never really have too much of a problem...just enough to make it interesting.

coal is the worst, I swear I never get coal.

Part of the pain with resources is going through the tedium of trying to find a source for what you need. I dislike opening each and every Leader screen only to be told that they have no interest in trading their 2 surplus Oil to me. It would be better if there was a "market" style mechanism that allowed players to go to one source for their resource needs. For example, I could see that Alex has 5 Oil for sale for 300 gpt or Monty has 1 Oil for 2 gpt. A market mechanism could allow prices to "float" meaning the AI would know how to price resources based on recent transactions by other AI civs.

France sees price of Oil and pays Monty 2 gpt for a 30 turn contract. France turns around and lists the 1 Oil 29 turn contract for 3 gpt. Lizzy needs Oil so she buys Frances 29 turn contract. France made +1 gpt for 29 turns for trading off of the contracts minus 2 gold for the 1 turn from Monty. Oil flows from Monty to Lizzy.

How the game would function when Monty's 1 Oil got pillaged by Alex 15 turns in could be interesting. It could collapse all of the associated agreements. So it could be that although Lizzy hates Monty, she needs his Oil and works to stop Greece from attacking.

Right now, trading is a bit tedious. It would be nice to see that you could buy Oil from Alex at 300 gpt, or work towards an alternative. Consequently, Alex may need money in a few turns so he starts dropping the price.

I actually like the fact that strategic resources are scarce and unevenly distributed. It makes late game more interesting - need coal, oil, aluminium or uranium? You have trade with the AI, settle new territories, bribe city-states or go to war.

I feel like the luxes can be somewhat uneven, as there are so many different kinds, but when you only have 3 unique ones with 20 tiles :/ And with strategic, No matter what, I will always lack either coal or oil or both.

Playing abundant resources takes away some of the best variation in your games. I like playing Emperor/Immortal (but more the former) and make it a point of winning from any position. Some games I win eyes closed and others are closely run if I get a bad start and lack of resources. Makes it more fun and keeps a game interesting.

Doesn't Abundant resources just increase the quantity of a strategic resource by 50%? Or does it also increase the number of it around

I always seem to be short of coal. Being short of aluminium or oil is the worst case scenario but at least there's the recycling centre option if your desperate for Al