Can't Access Strategic Resource

[Ballyorca]

Apologies as a newbie if this has been discussed before:

I have horses and iron in one of my cities' squares. They are connected to the city, and the rest of my civ, by road but the iron doesn't show up in my strategic resources. The horses do though. As a result I can't build swordsmen and, worse still, knights. I can build horsemen though.

I know Iron Working, though I think I learnt it via a trade or The Great Library, either way my Science Advisor tells me I know it. Any ideas what I'm missing?

It's Civ III on a Mac.

 

[puwen]

Welcome to CivFanatics.

You must have missed some of the road to the resource or it's not Iron but some other kind of resource.

 

[tom123]

Is it connected to your capital? If not, you cant use it.

 

[puwen]

Is it connected to your capital? If not, you cant use it.

For strategic resources you don't need to connect it to the capital, just to the cities that want to build the units that require it.

 

[nerovats]

Make sure the iron is connected. If it is maybe you sold an extra iron resource earlier, then it got disconnected, en thus you're now selling your only iron resource. You can view your current trades through the advisor. When you conact an AI in the bottem it will say new trade, but there's also a button current trades. Check that out.

 

[Ballyorca]

Nope, I have a worker on the square and there is no Build Road option so the road must be there. Also the terrain info says Iron. And it is connected to my capital even though it need not be.

Thanks for the replies though chaps. Plan B is a cheat to upgrade all my horsemen to cossacks before the English ki-niggets run rings round me.

Thanks nerovats - I'll give it a go. But I've never been able to build swordsmen at all implying I never had the iron resource.

 

[Ballyorca]

Aha! Nerovats was right. I must have started trading my one iron away before I could use it. A quick declaration of war means the iron is now back in my fold for use. Now I've got to deal with a war with France, England and Babylon all at once! Heyho serves me right for not paying attention.

Thanks very much chaps for all your replies. I'll leave this thread around in case it helps any other fellow numnuts.

 

[tom123]

For strategic resources you don't need to connect it to the capital, just to the cities that want to build the units that require it.

I am sure that when I connect an iron resource to my capital, it says something like 'We can now build Swordsmen'. It may be that I am just thinking of luxuries though.

 

[vmxa]

If it is connected to a city, that city can use it. If it connected to the capitol, all towns that are connected to the capitol can use it. That goes for lux or resources.

 

[capnvonbaron]

I am sure that when I connect an iron resource to my capital, it says something like 'We can now build Swordsmen'. It may be that I am just thinking of luxuries though.

It will only say that for the first resource and the first lux. So if your first connected resource was horses, it'll say "we can build chariots!", but thats the last time you will see that dialogue box.

@Ballyorca:

You can cancel trades peacefully. Go to the trade window with the civ you are trading with. At the very very bottom, you will see "Clear Table", "New", and "Active" in faint lettering. Click on "Active" and it will show what is currently being traded. Anything that is past 20 turns, click on it and it will be removed from the table, and viola! You won't be giving it away anymore. You can also click on "peace treaty" if you want an alternate way to tell them "give me tribute or else". They are a little more responsive to your demands when there is a peace treaty on the line. Assuming you have military might over them.

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . A quick declaration of war means the iron is now back in my fold for use.. . . .

Just be aware that declaring war to get the iron back ruined your trade reputation, assuming that you DOW'd before the end of 20 turns of the deal. Any time that you're exporting something on a per-turn basis (gold per turn, strategic resources, luxes) and the deal is prematurely cut short, even if it's just a barb galley that stops on your trade route, your trade reputation is damaged. That makes it much more expensive to trade on a per turn basis, because the AIs will no longer trust you. See capnvonbaron's post above on how to safely cancel deals after their 20 turns has run.

Edit: Post corrected based on Mathias' post, below.

 

[Mathias]

Cutting the road would have prematurely ended the deal without war, but reputation would still be trashed.

The Trade Advisor (F2) displays all local resources available to the capital and connected cities, as well as imported and exported resources. It also lists all unconnected cities with any resources available to those cities.

 

[Theov]

Ballyorca, can't you post a screen or a safefile? Somehow the iron is not connected to the city you think it should be connected to.
Maybe you've sold it to someone else when you had 2 irons, and later disconnected, but that I think is doubtful.
The only thing could be that it's not connected or not within your culture borders anymore.

 

[Ballyorca]

Chaps, it was connected all along. It's just I had traded it away. Luckily I found another one close enough to colonise, so I kept my iron trading partner sweet. Well sweet until I had obliterated all those other so-and-sos on my continent. Then I had to conquer her to protect her from them on the other continent. It was for her own good honest!!