Is there a way to predict where Game will appear?

[jordissim]

I've been trying to find a pattern for the one special resource you can get by mining plains, which to me is the most useful one: game. Everytime I start a new game, I save the game after the first turn, then play a quick game just to chart the territory and plan my occupation strategy (I try to make the most of my territory, and literally hate overlapping tiles), but sometimes knowing when a horse would appear could change the whole placement of my cities by rendering an inhospitable territory into an appealing one. I've tryied several predictive algorithms to see if they fitted with reality, but no success yet. It could just be random, yet I doubt it (map generation is one of the most reliable assets of teh game, the world is usually very balanced). Maybe someone more knowledgeable could give me a hint...

 

[Mize]

Basically, the pattern is this:
xsxxx
xxxxs
sxxxx
xxxsx

With x being a normal square and s a special resource. That's pretty much it, although this pattern sometimes misses a beat. You can easily make it out by looking at the fish in any larger body of water.

PS - I personally prefer the plain with horses to the game-forest, on max development it yields the same production, gives you trade, and that for just one less unit of food.

 

[jordissim]

Basically, the pattern is this:
xsxxx
xxxxs
sxxxx
xxxsx

With x being a normal square and s a special resource. That's pretty much it, although this pattern sometimes misses a beat. You can easily make it out by looking at the fish in any larger body of water.

PS - I personally prefer the plain with horses to the game-forest, on max development it yields the same production, gives you trade, and that for just one less unit of food.

Yes, that pattern is quite easy to discern. My question was more along the lines of: is there a way to predict when a beat will be missed? Haven't found an answer yet...

 

[Valen]

The pattern misses a beat when the underlying terrain is river or grassland.
All other terrain types have some associated special resource. Grassland can be converted to forest (game) which can then be converted to horses.

 

[Mize]

... And river follows the pattern of grassland (shield and no shield production) The pattern also misses a beat in the ocean at the 'seams' of the map, sometimes fish are closer together, sometimes farther apart there.

 

[Tristan_C]

The macro patterns

_ _ _ _ s _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ s _ _
s _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ s _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ s _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ s
_ _ s _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ s _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ s _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ s _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ s _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ s
s _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ s _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ s _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ s _ _ _ _ _

are evident enough, but the resource seed determines the placement of these macros and I can't help you there. That sounds like a job for Dack. As mentioned the only beats missed on these patterns are grasslands, rivers, and the flat world wrapper (which is generally irrelevant). You're out of luck on the rivers, but the grasslands can of course be mined into forest tiles and you'll get game. Game is probably the best unimproved tile you can get. In higher governments Horse is definitely better IMO.