Ancient ruins

[WTBCzero]

I remember a thread in the Civ 4 forums in which someone posted all the different things you could get from goody huts, and the percentage chance of this happening.

Does anyone have anything similar for Civ 5? I haven't seen barbs spawn near ruins so I'm assuming that 'bad' results have been taken out. Presumely this also means that it no longer matters what units you use to pop ruins.

Edit: Also if anyone has a list of which technologies you can pop from ruins that would be really handy too.

 

[RedRover57]

Off the top of my head, you can get:

Gold
Map reveal
Reveal of barb camps
Culture
New tech
+1 pop in one city
Weapon upgrade (e.g. scout becomes archer or warrior becomes spear)

The amount of gold or culture you can receive is dependent on the game settings.

 

[ShredZ]

Is there a bug where sometimes the Ruins do nothing ? I seem to get that sometimes, but just reloading and trying again a turn later fixes that.

 

[spider1]

Is there a bug where sometimes the Ruins do nothing ? I seem to get that sometimes, but just reloading and trying again a turn later fixes that.

Do you have pop up messages in your game turned off? I used to get this error, and when I turned the pop up messages back on, the error never occured again.

Then again, these days I mostly play with the ruins turned off. I just hate it when they add to my capital's population before I'm ready for it. And it's less goodies the AI's gets as well.

 

[Pac-Dragon]

I just hate it when they add to my capital's population before I'm ready for it.

I'm having trouble thinking up a scenario where +1 population in your capital would be detrimental. Perhaps if you were at -9 ?

What's happening in your games when you really regret getting the extra pop that early?

 

[spider1]

I'm having trouble thinking up a scenario where +1 population in your capital would be detrimental. Perhaps if you were at -9 ?

What's happening in your games when you really regret getting the extra pop that early?

I was playing at a higher difficulty level than I usually do, and my scout actually managed to survive for a while against the barbs, and stepping on mulitple ruins (before I founded a 2nd city) actually put three additional citizens in my capital and I was up to six population way to early in a capital on plains where I wasn't getting much food production early. The messages about my citizens starving kept popping up, so I just started another game. It's rare, but it happens. Frankly, I'm more against the AI's getting unintended help from them than what it does to me.

 

[Usuno]

I'm having trouble thinking up a scenario where +1 population in your capital would be detrimental. Perhaps if you were at -9 ?

What's happening in your games when you really regret getting the extra pop that early?

Like the guy above, I had a game where Washington had 5 pop real early, and they started starving. But it worked itself out because they were starving too slow for someone to die, eventually I got my granary out and in the meantime I just prayed I wouldn't hit another pop. ruin. c:

The map reveal is only really worth it if it reveals 2 more ancient ruins imo, this one and the barbarian reveal are the worst ones to get. Gold is kinda meh as well, it's sometimes a lot though.

 

[Matroskin]

Is there a bug where sometimes the Ruins do nothing ? I seem to get that sometimes, but just reloading and trying again a turn later fixes that.

It happens to me when I hit culture ruin. Culture actually goes up, but no announcement appears

 

[Pac-Dragon]

Do cities get any sort of penalty when they're starving? I would think an extra pop would be good for the tiny science boost & extra tile worked before that citizen dies off. I totally get not wanting other civs to get bonuses, just couldn't picture wanting to avoid an extra pop in the early game.

 

[ShredZ]

It happens to me when I hit culture ruin. Culture actually goes up, but no announcement appears

Ahhh so thats what it is, I just didnt notice... so how much culture do you get? is it better than money or a unit upgrade?

 

[Unhappy Ood]

You get 30 culture which is a good boost early game - better than unit upgrade and usually more useful than money at that stage

 

[generalwar]

I haven't seen barbs spawn near ruins so I'm assuming that 'bad' results have been taken out. Presumely this also means that it no longer matters what units you use to pop ruins.

They haven't been taken out. I had this situation many times that barbarian camp spawns tile to ruins, but, I think it happens only when ruin isn't picked up fast,e.g. ruins on 2-tile island. There is always a barb camp near it, isn't it? The same happens with ruins on continent if someone don't pick them up fast.

 

[WTBCzero]

I've seen that too, but thats not quite what I meant. What would happen in Civ 4, would be that one or several barbs would appear when you popped the hut.

I take it that nobody knows the chances of getting each result yet? Will we have to wait until the SDK is released until we can find this out?

 

[Michl2602]

Off the top of my head, you can get:

Gold
Map reveal
Reveal of barb camps
Culture
New tech
+1 pop in one city
Weapon upgrade (e.g. scout becomes archer or warrior becomes spear)

The amount of gold or culture you can receive is dependent on the game settings.

... and additionally a settler (seldom, except at the lowest level) or a worker. Now we should've got them all. But sorry, no clue about probabilities here.

 

[fromar]

You get 30 culture which is a good boost early game - better than unit upgrade and usually more useful than money at that stage

30 culture is, imho, the best ruin to get before your first policy.

A ruin-upgrade on a scout makes a mean unit you should guard the entire game. The scout will become an archer who ignores terrain penalties. This is a huge ranged unit who can move one space and fire. This ability is effective while fighting in hills, forests, or around rivers. If you are adjacent to an enemy, you can move one space back and shoot. Do this until the enemy dies. Upgrade the unit to a crossbowman, and you have one of the most powerful medieval units available.

I think this power is less-pronounced when you hit rifling. The fast crossbowman will become a fast rifleman, but he will lose his ranged ability. It's still nice to put the fast riflemen (or infantry) in some hills and guard the enemy. You get to pick when you attack, not wait to defend.

 

[MouseyPounds]

I take it that nobody knows the chances of getting each result yet? Will we have to wait until the SDK is released until we can find this out?

I would say that is correct; while we can guess and experiment we don't really know until we can look at the DLL source. However, if you want a rough estimate, you can look at the information in the GoodyHuts and HandicapInfo_Goodies tables. Keep in mind that you should take everything XML-derived with a grain of salt, but according to those tables we have the following:

Settler Difficulty - no idea on probability; simplest would be everything has 1/9 chance

1. +1 Pop in city
2. 30 Culture (with modifiers)
3. 50 Gold (with modifiers and some kind of randomization)
4. Reveal Nearby Map
5. Free Tech (see below)
6. Reveal Nearby Barbs within 10 tiles
7. Upgrade Unit
8. Free Worker
9. Free Settler

Any Other Difficulty - no idea on probability; simplest would be everything has 1/7 chance

1. +1 Pop in city
2. 30 Culture (with modifiers)
3. 50 Gold (with modifiers and some kind of randomization)
4. Reveal Nearby Map
5. Free Tech (see below)
6. Reveal Nearby Barbs within 10 tiles
7. Upgrade Unit

Again, making assumptions based on the XML, the following techs appear to be available from ruins (they have GoodyTech set to 1 in the Technologies table). No clue what happens if you roll a free tech but there is no valid tech available.

1. Agriculture (Ok, I guess this doesn't really count since everyone gets it free at start)
2. Animal Husbandry
3. Archery
4. Bronze Working
5. Calendar
6. Masonry
7. Mining
8. Pottery
9. Sailing
10. Trapping
11. The Wheel

 

[Pac-Dragon]

I'm pretty sure I got an advanced tech once from an ancient ruin on a far off island. IIRC, I got Robotics when I popped it (maybe a Terminator time-traveled too far back?). My theory is that you'll just get a random tech that's available to research. I wonder if it follows the RA blocking rules?

 

[joncnunn]

My personal all time worst grab from the first ancient ruins:

Having it pick the tech I was already researching (and close to finishing).

My favorite first ruin to get would be culture.