Mining should reveal iron

[SammyKhalifa]

Is iron too late, or are horses too early? What if horses were revealed by Wheel or trapping?

 

[iggymnrr]

The problem is that civ v is a terrible hybrid of civ 3 and 4. Like civ 3 workers have the innate ability to farm but not mine. This has the effect that the revelation of metal is now 3-deep in the tech tree instead of 2-deep in either civ 3 or 4. The unit available with BW also sucks which only compounds the problem.

 

[Thalassicus]

Great idea dkrussian, I've included it in the Terrain Improvements balance adjustments and credited you.

Update: Going to put it in the Units balance mod instead, makes more sense there.

 

[Druin]

Great idea dkrussian, I've included it in the Terrain Improvements balance adjustments and credited you.

sexy!

 

[Nunya]

Agreed. But this would just be cool ... anything that makes other civs closer to how fun it is to play China seems like a good plan to me!

I fully agree. Every civ should have some really powerful bonus. If everybody is overpowered then nobody is.

I honestly can't play China, Greece, or France the way the game is right now because it makes me feel cheesy. Mongols too as soon as the novelty wears off.

 

[rtfischbeck]

Personally, I think iron should be visible at bronze. If it was available at mining, it might be too good, as mining also gives you access to happiness resources and if it also revealed a strategic resource it'd prob be the definitive first tech to research. I'd also like to see horses and swords switch power and a small increase in the amount of available iron. I think this would go a long way to balancing early military, although the main issue with horsemen is more an AI combat issue than anything else.

 

[Fluxx]

Had to dig up this thread for the sake of irony.

After seeing they revealed iron now in bronze working, only took them 3 years to implement this

 

[Tabarnak]

Had to dig up this thread for the sake of irony.

After seeing they revealed iron now in bronze working, only took them 3 years to implement this

Context is way more different than today. After nerfing horses, swordmen became the most powerful units in vanilla.

 

[Fluxx]

Context is way more different than today. After nerfing horses, swordmen became the most powerful units in vanilla.

True, but it wasnt the only reason why the idea got thrown up, and why I supported it back then.

It all has to do with opportunity cost and strategic planning.

 

[jango76]

This sounds like an improvement, but I don't think it will be revolutionary. There weren't many things that were better in vanilla, but the early game had a lot more variety when a civ's ability to conduct effective early wars of conquest depended so heavily on a resource that they might or might not have.

Some of my most enjoyable hours playing Civ V came in the early days when I found I didn't have Iron and was scrambling to get it any which way I could, maybe forward-settling a city miles from my borders, and all the while struggling to use warriors and archers to repel Iron-fueled AI attacks with Cats and those brutal vanilla Swords.

 

[Falconiano]

The real question is: why are horses invisible while other animals like deers, elephants, sheeps, cows and whatnot aren't?

So my people built a farm on a horse pasture because they magically didn't see all those big quadrupedes until I teched AH.

"King, hear us out! Some wild big animals just appeared out of nowhere and swarmed all our farms!"

 

[flairin]

I wonder if this is only with BNW?

 

[nanomage]

The real question is: why are horses invisible while other animals like deers, elephants, sheeps, cows and whatnot aren't?

So my people built a farm on a horse pasture because they magically didn't see all those big quadrupedes until I teched AH.

"King, hear us out! Some wild big animals just appeared out of nowhere and swarmed all our farms!"

I think it's meant to respresent that your people didn't really know what to do with horses until they learnt to domesticate animals. Kinda oh they're not at all tasty and so difficult to hunt so let's pretend this plot is resourceless and build a farm instead.

 

[Browd]

I wonder if this is only with BNW?

Probably. There's no indication that the G&K (or vanilla, for that matter) tech tree is changing.

 

[Blicero]

Had to dig up this thread for the sake of irony.

+1

 

[Justice1337]

This will directly make certain civs more powerful - Russia, Rome. It will also make certain civ's relatively less powerful - Persia, Greece (lol), Huns, Iroquois - because their UU's and UA's don't stand out as much anymore. Provided that you can actually mine the Iron at Bronze Working, Russia on a Strategic Balance start will consistently provide very strong early-era production bonuses, on top of the extra economic benefit from trading the resources.

That's the funniest thing about this whole change. Being able to work the Iron tile earlier and trade the resource actually makes much more impact than the availability of the unit. Swords still suck relative to CB's. We now just have more hammers and gold to get CB's.

 

[The Pilgrim]

That's the funniest thing about this whole change. Being able to work the Iron tile earlier and trade the resource actually makes much more impact than the availability of the unit. Swords still suck relative to CB's. We now just have more hammers and gold to get CB's.

Especially since they still require IW even though it's 20 beakers cheaper now. I really really don't get this change. Getting iron has been the least of swords' problem.