I have no iron and I must scream

[Jason Fliegel]

With apologies to Harlan Ellison.

I'm playing as the Koreans on what appears to be a single crescent-moon shaped continent (standard size -- the one with 8 civs, whatever that is). I'm right at the curve of the moon. To my north, the Incas also have no iron, but do have the statue of Zeus. To my south, the Mongols do have iron. To my east, the Arabians appear to be as bad off as me. And to my west lies the ocean.

It's the early Middle Ages and it looks like I'm going to lose the race for the Knights Templar. Which means that unless somebody hooks up a second source of iron and wants to trade with me, I'm more or less screwed if any of my neighbors come a-knockin'.

The good news is, I have lots of jungle in my territory, so hopefully I won't be hurting for coal or rubber or oil. Maybe I'll be able to hang on long enough to bust loose with tanks and infantry.

I can't be the only one who absolutely hates not having iron. Last game, I was the Russians and shared a continet with America and Maya. I had iron; they didn't -- I was able to run roughshod over America with swordsmen and then crushed the Maya with Medieval Infantry. Ah, the good old days.

 

[SesnOfWthr]

The lack of resources/luxes adds a certain something to the game. Although it certainly bites that you have no iron, it will be even more satisfying if you persevere. I would be sending out many boats to try and find some dinky little island that got iron. Either that, or bring along a bunch of trebs/cats and try to take the source from the Mongols.

Perhaps more importantly, I would be trying to claim areas that will provide saltpeter. Who needs iron when you have muskets and H'wachas?

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Originally posted by SesnOfWthr
The lack of resources/luxes adds a certain something to the game. Although it certainly bites that you have no iron, it will be even more satisfying if you persevere. I would be sending out many boats to try and find some dinky little island that got iron. Either that, or bring along a bunch of trebs/cats and try to take the source from the Mongols.

Perhaps more importantly, I would be trying to claim areas that will provide saltpeter. Who needs iron when you have muskets and H'wachas?

Good advice. The problem with islands is that there's nothing reachable via coastline and I missed out on the Great Lighthouse, so by the time I can build a trade route, I'll already be most of the way to saltpeter technology.

What kinds of terrain tend to have saltepter, anyway?

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Saltpeter pops up in desert mostly, but IIRC, I have also seen it on hills (and MAYBE mtns?).

It's still worth sending suicide galleys out though, because
A) extra civs means more potential techs and a possible trading advantage
B) If you can settle an island with a resource or luxury, you'll get the benefit evetually, even if it's not right now. Especially the luxes. Wouldn't it be nice to have two more luxes connected as soon as you get astronomy/magnetism?

Edit: if someone is building KT, and indeed almost has it done, then I would imagine you're almost to gunpowder now. You won't be able to use those trade routes for a while -- the end of the Med Age.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Desert, hills, mountains.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Originally posted by SesnOfWthr
Saltpeter pops up in desert mostly, but IIRC, I have also seen it on hills (and MAYBE mtns?).

It's still worth sending suicide galleys out though, because
A) extra civs means more potential techs and a possible trading advantage
B) If you can settle an island with a resource or luxury, you'll get the benefit evetually, even if it's not right now. Especially the luxes. Wouldn't it be nice to have two more luxes connected as soon as you get astronomy/magnetism?

Edit: if someone is building KT, and indeed almost has it done, then I would imagine you're almost to gunpowder now. You won't be able to use those trade routes for a while -- the end of the Med Age.

Good points on looking for an island, although because it's a single big continent, I have met everyone. A few of the civs don't have their harbors hooked up to their capitals yet, so I can't trade with all of them, but I've found them, at least.

I'm trying to remember whether I have any desert in my empire. I think I might, so maybe I'll get lucky and get some saltpeter. I'm also a few turns away from chivalry and have been building Leonardo's Workshop, so I'm thinking I'll try to switch it to KT once I make the breakthrough and hopefully beat the AIs to the wonder. In retrospect, my big mistake was using a SGL to rush Sun Tzu's -- I should have saved him for KT.

 

[SesnOfWthr]

Originally posted by Jason Fliegel
In retrospect, my big mistake was using a SGL to rush Sun Tzu's -- I should have saved him for KT.

Not sure I agree with this one, either, though it's not really cut and dried. Now that you have suntzu's, you will never again produce a "regular" ground unit - for the rest of the game!

KT, although it would have given you some free fighting units, expires with Metallurgy, I believe, and you only get one unit every five turns.

So it's a trade-off, either vet units forever, or a free 25 or so crusaders. Personally, I think Sun Tzu's will benefit you more, especially if you get some saltpeter.

 

[lbhhh]

Originally posted by SesnOfWthr

KT, although it would have given you some free fighting units, expires with Metallurgy

KT becomes obsolete with steam power. Its the SoZ that expires with metallurgy.

 

[whstaff]

C3C the lack of resources and luxurys is big downer for me.
Not having iron or Coal, IMO is an arbitrary decision. There is a big premium for early exploration and war. History tells us that civilizations without Iron or coal will be (at best) subjugated and at worst destroyed.

One of the things I do is practice "cultural aggression", build a city as close as possible to the needed resource pump culture into the city and takeover the resource eventually often complete with roads and mines.

One solution is go into "civ content" from the splash screen.
Look for kal els earth--realistic resources, in this piece of content resources are abundant, and it's easy to win space age victorys in the 14-1500s.

 

[TomOC]

Boy... I know how that feels. My last three games... no iron. Without iron, there is just no way to gain an early lead.

In my last game, I built a ton of defensive units. That was a mistake. I built too many, then I didn't have enough gold for research. Fell way behind in techs... even with the GL. I did get the Sipahi... but here comes the Russians with infantry and cosacks (stacks of death). I was only able to produce about a dozen Sipahi before the attack. My musketmen are trying to hold there own, but it doesn't look good.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Originally posted by whstaff
One of the things I do is practice "cultural aggression", build a city as close as possible to the needed resource pump culture into the city and takeover the resource eventually often complete with roads and mines.

I did that once. I had no iron, but was able to trade for it. Eventually, my borders expanded to the point where my nieghbor's iron was literally right across the border. I plopped a city on the border and the iron became mine. That was enough to move me from an also-ran to second place, and a few centuries later the U.N. gave me a victory.

 

[SewerStarFish]

Longbows 'till the cows come home.

It is annoying to lack iron as it is the key resource through to after you've finshed your rail net. But you can persevere by building a greater than normal number of longbows and other non-iron units. If you can't take what you need then keep as good relations as possible so that you can trade for it.

I find the games with this kind of challenge tend to be more rewarding.

 

[AdHHH]

Looks like you'll have to direct yourself towards Gunpowder/Metallurgy; Longbows/Muskets/H'wachas are actually a pretty good combo (provided you're luckier with Saltpeter than Iron). Your time of worry is now, when (presumably) you have Spearman against AI Knights, or worse Ansars or Keshiks... Just be nice until you get Muskets

 

[The Economist]

One of the other bad things about not having iron is the fact that it is necessary for building railroads.

I guess one thing to consider is switching to feudalism and building a whole lot of horsemen. That's assuming that all the jungles mean you have a lot of small towns. I don't like feudalism much, come to think of it. So, I guess I'd have to say either monarchy or republic. Good times.

 

[Smellincoffee]

(My compliments on the title. I've actually heard of the game. )

I actually haven't had any resource depravation in my last games -- but then again, I've been a warmongerer in my last games, so I wound up owning most of the land on the earth.

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Here's what I did last night:

1. I got Chivalry, then switched production from Leonardo's to KT.
2. I researched gunpowder.
3. I started building up Longbowmen, Spearmen, Trebuchets, and, of course, Knights Templar.
4. As everyone else was warring with the Incas, I joined in the dogpile. The result was that I captured three cities, including two with access to deserts. By this time, I was also able to secure a trade for iron, so I started adding Knights to my forces.
5. I got Gunpowder. Sure enough, the only saltpeter in my empire was in one of my newly acquired Inca cities. I dropped research to 0 so I could build up gold. That gold was used to upgrade my spearmen and to buy techs.
6. By that time, the Mongols were starting to mass on my southern border, so I declared peace with the Inca and moved my troops to the south.
7. Sure enough, the Mongols attacked. I fought them off and took 3 cities, including one with access to iron (Hooray!!!). I had wanted to take two more of their cities, but by this time, they had cavalry, so I sued for peace and got most of the technologies I had been missing.

As a result, I'm now slightly behind in tech (I'm 3 techs from the end of the Middle Ages while most of the other civs are in the first tech or two of the Industrial era). Research is back up to 4-turns-per-tech level, and I've got a decent-sized army and defensible borders. I need to figure out what to do from here, but I'm mulling over 1) going Commie, diverting all my shields to military improvements, and rampaging across the continent, or 2) playing nice with everyone, building lots of science improvements, and going for the U.N. Most likely, I'll try for a combo (at least for the time being), taking out the Inca and maybe the Mongols, but keeping my options open with respect to everyone else.

 

[troytheface]

old ellison story, lol i am glad it is still known and being read..
one of them stories that helped me get through youth...irony that it is on a computer war game thread....

 

[majk-iii]

-With huge hwacha-stacks and musketmen, who needs offensive uinits anyways?
U just gotta luv lethal bombardment!

 

[majk-iii]

i meant units of course...

 

[Jason Fliegel]

Originally posted by majk-iii
-With huge hwacha-stacks and musketmen, who needs offensive uinits anyways?
U just gotta luv lethal bombardment!

I think the RNG must hate me because my H'wachas aren't doing squat. I think in 40 or 50 bombardments, I got about half a dozen hits. Granted, I've been bomabrding fortified units in cities, but still -- my Knights and Crusaders have been doing the heavy lifting.

For anyone who cares, I expanded a little into Inca territory last night. Through the creative use of a MPP, I got the Iroquois to sop up most of the Incan offensive units, leaving the cities for me -- Hiawatha was moving through my territory to get to the Mongols, but as soon as I picked a fight with the Maya, he turned around and started fighting them.

Mostly, though, I spent some time reconsolidating. The bad news is, I'm behind on techs. The good news is, everyone's been fighting each other, so even though I was probably the fourth or fifth civilization to hit industrialization, I'm the only one building women's sufferage.

I also got 3 sources of coal, one of which was sitting right under the city that has iron in its radius. You know what that means -- Iron Works! And, since I haven't built my FP yet, I can make this a very productive city.

Right now, I'm in fourth place on points, though it's a tight race. I think civs # 2 and 3 are on the decline, so I'm in good shape to win this thing. My big problem is going to be the Maya, who are on the other side of the Mongols and are a real powerhouse. Apart from their border with the Mongols, they are surrounded by water, so if it comes down to me versus them in open combat, I'm not going to have too much help from the other AIs.

Next stop, I think, is to build a bunch of factories and then start going after some of those Mongol holdings I couldn't get in the last war. That will probably have to wait until the weekend, though, since I don't think I'll have a chance to play tonight.