Rule change: Reveal classical resources earlier?

Something that I was thinking about yesterday: since copper and iron (and horse?) can be very critical resources that require a tier 2/3 tech to reveal, it can be quite a gamble to tech BW/IW before you know whether that will help defense; and settling your second or third city to find out 20 turns later that the position is all wrong because of a iron/copper deposit is really frustrating and has an unneeded element of luck.

Proposed rule change:

- mining reveals copper and iron, spears now also require BW
- (possbly?) copper and iron mine -1 or -2p. BW and IW give +1p/+2p to appropriate mine
- hunting reveals horse
- (possibly?) hunting required for AH instead of hunting OR agri. Alternatively, you can tech AH without hunting but won't see the horses [ie cows can be found without hunting, but horses are too quick or something]

Strategically, I think this makes more sense as you get more info to base your decisions on, removing some of the bigger gambles from the early game

Realistically, it makes sense to me that you find a resource first before you start to learn how to use it, ie the miners find some weird hard stuff in the mine, which sparks experimentation to find out how to use it. Spending 200 years learning about how to forge swords without there being iron in an empire at all just doesn't make sense to me

What are your thoughts?

It's not about luck. It's a strategic decision to found the city before you know the location of copper/iron. If you are worried about defence then research archery. Revealing horses/metal so soon would in my opinion limit your choices early on as the resources would dicate what to tech and city placement. Having iron would be an enormous advantage as you could tech straight towards IW without any risk.

you do have iron ... just just doesn't have it in large enough quntities that it practically can be used since its to expensive ... at least thats how i hand wave it

Horses were delayed to AH because it made chariot based UUs too strong. Same pretty much goes for copper and iron. If you knew where they were earlier, you'd just rush more AIs.

shyuhe said:

Horses were delayed to AH because it made chariot based UUs too strong. Same pretty much goes for copper and iron. If you knew where they were earlier, you'd just rush more AIs.

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This brings up a good point. To balance this I think what you could do is have the earlier techs reveal the resource but the pasture/mine still require the upper tier tech. Although to be quite honest with you I think the risks of early settling are just part of the game, and I don't think we need to change it.

I've noticed the AIs without metals have no chance against the raging barbarians.
They will either be killed by the barbs or will become someone's vassal later in the game.

Most AIs do have BW before the barbs attack, but IW comes too late.

Realistically, this makes sense to me, too. Why would I not know where horses are if I can tell where sheep and cattle are? Once I know mining, shouldn't I be able to tell where iron and copper (like stone and marble) are, even if I don't know how to use them yet.

However, strategically and game balace wise, I think that the game has it right the way it is. There's a lot of things that don't make sense realistically but are needed for playability.

I'd rather see marble and stone revealed by masonry... Would be at least interesting not to choose mids/GLib on turn zero

I'd rather have all the resources hidden until a tech reveals them. Shouldn't even see cows until we know what to do with them. No wheat until we know what it is used for.

That would make the game interesting!

Couple of mods do this already, I think it is great

Scoottr said:

I'd rather have all the resources hidden until a tech reveals them. Shouldn't even see cows until we know what to do with them. No wheat until we know what it is used for.

That would make the game interesting!

Couple of mods do this already, I think it is great

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Wouldn't that make civs that start with no real worker techs (say Arabia) very weak? It would also make the early religious line much more of a gamble than it is already.

I thought about it the same way, but then figured that even if you don't know the secrets of agriculture and farming, you might still see some fields that give something you can eat, so seeing "wheat" might not be a bad thing.

It would be an interesting mod, to say the least.
Fishing reveals the seafood tiles.
Agriculture reveals the grains.
Hunting reveals the animals (pigs, sheep, deer, etc...)
Mining reveals gems, gold, silver (I'd say that mining should allow you to build quarries as well, but that you don't gain "access" to marble and stone until masonry, like how you can mine uranium, but can't use it until you get fission).

Yes, that would certainly suck for those civs that start with mysticism and the wheel. You could always just edit it so that nobody starts with those combos, or find something else that they reveal (maybe stone and marble get revealed by mysticism or mining? Or if you have the wheel, then you reveal all the base resources within your cultural borders?)