Oil distribution

[Olfart]

Has this happened to anyone else? Twice now, I have gained control of a large portion of my landmass only to find that Scientific Method reveals no oil in sight. It's either on the edges within an empire I've already vassalized or on an adjacent landmass occupied by a hostile civ. I'm currently playing as Napoleon and engaged in a prolonged war with Joao on a nearby continent so I can control the only oil within easy reach. I have a good tech lead and plenty of military to win, but it has set me back more than a few turns.

 

[HappyFunPal]

Has this happened to anyone else? Twice now, I have gained control of a large portion of my landmass only to find that Scientific Method reveals no oil in sight. It's either on the edges within an empire I've already vassalized or on an adjacent landmass occupied by a hostile civ. I'm currently playing as Napoleon and engaged in a prolonged war with Joao on a nearby continent so I can control the only oil within easy reach. I have a good tech lead and plenty of military to win, but it has set me back more than a few turns.

The point is to make you go to war and take the oil. I say build nukes, nuke the daylights out of your enemies, then your riflemen can invade from gallies.

 

[CouNterOrdeR]

In my games oil is abundant.

 

[Windsor]

It happens a few times that I have no oil, but it's really a resource that's spread all over the map so most civs have at least one resource.

I sometimes wish oil was more like dye, coming in clusters and only in a few areas.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

I was going to say demand the resource from your vassal! Could you gift him Sci Method, have him hook it up, and demand it?
Maybe there is an easier way, you can't develop your vassals lands for them i dont suppose...
If you had an extra Great Artist (yea right lol) you could culture bomb and try and nab the tile that way...

 

[bovinespy]

I sometimes wish oil was more like dye, coming in clusters and only in a few areas.

I fully agree. Having oil pop in your borders should be a BIG DEAL. Conversely, most of the time you shouldn't be so lucky.

ETA: I just noticed what country you're from. You should be more sensitive to this oil business than many others here....

 

[TheLazyHase]

I fully agree. Having oil pop in your borders should be a BIG DEAL. Conversely, most of the time you shouldn't be so lucky.

The main problem is, have you ever try to get oil from an AI ? It's a near impossible task. IRL, people are not so touchy about black gold, but in civ4 without oil on you can only invade your way to it.

 

[bovinespy]

The main problem is, have you ever try to get oil from an AI ? It's a near impossible task. IRL, people are not so touchy about black gold, but in civ4 without oil on you can only invade your way to it.

I just finished a game where about half a dozen different AIs were begging me for oil, but come to think of it, I don't think I've ever even traded for oil from the AI. I try to set aside a GS in case I don't have any oil pop, but that happens very rarely, in my experience.

 

[Olfart]

Actually, I am only one move away from Joao via galleon. War is going well with a cavalry, cannon, rifleman stack. I already have the oil with a couple of extra cities beyond that to serve as a buffer. Nobody else has more than muskets yet, so my losses haven't been too severe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can build a fully-functional army with enough power to kill anybody without oil, so if you don't have it, capture it, found ethanol or adapt to using uranium instead.

 

[The Snug]

You can build a fully-functional army with enough power to kill anybody without oil, so if you don't have it, capture it, found ethanol or adapt to using uranium instead.

A note on the grammar, do you mean that: without having access to oil you can still build a functional military, or do you mean that with oil you can build a functional military that will easily slaughter civs with no access to oil? I presume the former, which can be true but is yet still much more difficult. To illustrate the point, however, I would say that the most difficult war I ever fought was against an AI without access to oil who built a million mech infs and guided missiles and missile delivering subs. He continually destroyed all of my improvements in my good cities, forcing me to rely upon weak back-line cities to create an adequate counter navy. Watching him changed the way I fight wars. I actually learned something from the AI.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A note on the grammar, do you mean that: without having access to oil you can still build a functional military, or do you mean that with oil you can build a functional military that will easily slaughter civs with no access to oil? I presume the former, which can be true but is yet still much more difficult. To illustrate the point, however, I would say that the most difficult war I ever fought was against an AI without access to oil who built a million mech infs and guided missiles and missile delivering subs. He continually destroyed all of my improvements in my good cities, forcing me to rely upon weak back-line cities to create an adequate counter navy. Watching him changed the way I fight wars. I actually learned something from the AI.

Yes, I mean that a uranium-based setup can compete with oil easily outside of air units, but uranium gets nukes which go a long way to put a dent in concentrated air power. You still get destroyers/battleships/etc and you can still make marines, paratroopers, mech infantry, and cruise missiles.

Failing that, one can always use the infantry/arty window, which is HUGE. In MP that's harder, but in SP the AI simply can't handle massed arty for a long long time, and infantry/AT cover it nicely.

 

[Bluto_Longneck]

Failing that, one can always use the infantry/arty window, which is HUGE. In MP that's harder, but in SP the AI simply can't handle massed arty for a long long time, and infantry/AT cover it nicely.

As long as you have the numbers, the quote above is the winning concept. If we talk higher levels it will drain your economy, but when you win those cities, you get it back in a blink. (or rather in a few twitchy tics)

 

[Olfart]

I agree with TMIT. I don't play at nearly his level, but I have won games without ever having oil (or infantry or artillery for that matter). In this case, I have more than enough military. I was worried that a rival civ on another land mass might get combustion and begin wiping out my frigate/galleon invasion fleet. I have used the Standard Ethanol solution before, but I'm not good enough at planning my great people production to have the one I need. The game that generated my question is almost over. I'll have a domination victory before 1940AD (epic speed).

 

[Navarre]

The only real problem without oil is that you can't build fighters IMO. Not having air support can be trouble if your opponents does, and airships and AA Infantry can only do so much, especially for a naval force.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Fighters are very bad against nukes and quite average against a combination of cruise missiles + battle ship attack as the naval stack battle will go entirely to who attacks first in such a case (aka the AI fails terribly, while the human does carry some advantage with oil if he's allowed to keep that advantage long enough to leverage it).

 

[Mazzini]

Fighters are very bad against nukes and quite average against a combination of cruise missiles + battle ship attack as the naval stack battle will go entirely to who attacks first in such a case (aka the AI fails terribly, while the human does carry some advantage with oil if he's allowed to keep that advantage long enough to leverage it).

Why is this the case? Cruise missiles can never attack fighters directly at sea, and fighters can cripple ships from a distance and battleships can finish off the stack just as effectively as if you had cruise missiles. I do agree that striking first is the decisive element here, but I don't see why roughly hammer-equivalent stacks of fighters/ships are inferior to missiles/ships in a straight battle.

This is also a little bit of a false comparison... Guided missiles need more tech than fighters, don't have any staying power (i.e. reusability) and until robotics you can only launch them from subs, so you'll have a lot less ammo than if you had missile cruisers... am I wrong?

 

[Navarre]

Fighters are very bad against nukes and quite average against a combination of cruise missiles + battle ship attack as the naval stack battle will go entirely to who attacks first in such a case (aka the AI fails terribly, while the human does carry some advantage with oil if he's allowed to keep that advantage long enough to leverage it).

Yeah, but fighters are very good versus enemy fighters and bombers. If you don't have any, and your opponent does, you have a fairly low chance of stopping them while they pound your army or improvements into the ground. Even 50% for a well-promoted AA infantry isn't much if the enemy have a lot of airplanes, and you'd need a lot of them to cover your land, since they only cover 9 tiles.

Granted, I have yet to see an AI do that at Prince or lower, but in exceptional cases I've lost a stack from air attacks while invading without air support. And in MP lacking air support must be a pain, if you're against a competent opponent.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Why is this the case? Cruise missiles can never attack fighters directly at sea, and fighters can cripple ships from a distance and battleships can finish off the stack just as effectively as if you had cruise missiles. I do agree that striking first is the decisive element here, but I don't see why roughly hammer-equivalent stacks of fighters/ships are inferior to missiles/ships in a straight battle.

This is also a little bit of a false comparison... Guided missiles need more tech than fighters, don't have any staying power (i.e. reusability) and until robotics you can only launch them from subs, so you'll have a lot less ammo than if you had missile cruisers... am I wrong?

Each sub can carry 3 missiles.

Anyway, you don't need a lot of missiles...just enough to soften up the first defenders such that battleships have a big edge and can collateral everything to hell. Whatever stack attacks first will win.

It's true cruise missiles are later though, and that's a problem.

BTW a SAM infantry with 5 xp can intercept 70% of the time, not 50%, and as such it is NOT too cost effective to assail a stack with a lot of them. Going for improvements is another matter but the AI doesn't really fan out to do it let alone use air remotely properly anyway.

In MP, you'd best do something if your opponent is going to have oil and not you. A lot of MP games use balanced resources anyway though. But let's face it...strat resources can screw you way earlier there. For example if you can't hook up metal before your opponent gets 2-4 immortals in your land, you lose. You get all your improvements pillaged and your archers have roughly no hope in killing them. That's an unfortunate part of this game but can be mitigated with settings if you care.

 

[Navarre]

That's part of the game. IRL the resources aren't equally reparted either.

BTW a SAM infantry with 5 xp can intercept 70% of the time, not 50%, and as such it is NOT too cost effective to assail a stack with a lot of them.

Ah yes. They changed it in a recent patch ? I remembered them having 30% base and +10% for each promo, but they now have 40% base and the second promo gives +20%, for a total of 70%. It's indeed better, although it doesn't fix the range problem, but they can now protect a stack quite efficiently. Not at sea tough.