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Civilization VII Update 1.2.0 - April 22, 2025

Is it just me, or are the treasure resources less "clumped" post-1.2.0? It's taking me longer to build out to enough of them and consequently I haven't been able to finish the Economic path in my two playthroughs so far.

Lots of people saying treasure resources are scarce. I passed by a good settlement spot because it only had one, but came back and got it because it's literally the only one I've seen untaken, and I had my pick because I sent four commanders with four sight hunting at age start. I thought maybe I'll take some cities but they don't seem to have much either. I think it's something they will hotfix.

Tangentially I think it's funny how you can send a commander with 7 units packed across ocean no problem, but individual military can't cross until much later.
 
If true that sounds like an improvement to me, as the AI sucks at completing Econ legacy anyway so if scarcity makes it harder for the human, that’s a step in the right direction difficulty-wise.
(Only 10 turns into my Exploration age so can’t speak from experience yet)
 
If true that sounds like an improvement to me, as the AI sucks at completing Econ legacy anyway so if scarcity makes it harder for the human, that’s a step in the right direction difficulty-wise.
(Only 10 turns into my Exploration age so can’t speak from experience yet)

I would agree with you, but having explored most of the islands and most of the coast of distant lands, saying that I only found one isn't an exaggeration. I don't mean one good spot, I mean one treasure resource. I see two more in spots claimed by distant lands AI. I haven't seen super far inland so maybe there are a couple more.

I'm down for making it harder, but this is just about impossible. I'm certain they will hotfix. Let us know if you get more, everyone is saying it's bad.
 
Hmmm yeah that sounds strange - didn’t they claim in the notes somewhere to the effect of “even with all these resources changes don’t worry you will still get enough treasure resources” ? Maybe I’m imagining..

P.s. turn 10-15 into Exp I found one IP that I plan to disperse, with at least two treasure resources I revealed if not more. I literally just discovered cartography but had to end the game for the night but so far was looking normal to me. I’ll report tomorrow as I explore more.
 
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Hmmm yeah that sounds strange - didn’t they claim in the notes somewhere to the effect of “even with all these resources changes don’t worry you will still get enough treasure resources” ? Maybe I’m imagining..

I'm sure that was their intention, but from what I'm seeing and others are saying they didn't really playtest this.

EDIT- You think they'd at least generate some maps and say oops there are only 8 treasure resources on the entire distant lands!

What I have noticed is a bunch of cocoa and things like that in homelands tropical region, and it doesn't seem to be applying its effect. I have four cocoa, two in my borders and two from trading, but they don't show up as empire resources or otherwise on my resource screen. Which is a shame because four of them would be a nice advantage. I think they botched the whole thing, but I give them a pass for fixing growth, if they fix this quickly.

I intend to play for a while, at least long enough to see the full picture on treasure resources. If it's as bad as it seems I've wasted a ton of time I could have been doing other things (Mongolia).
 
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I'm beginning to think that the real purpose of the resource type expansion was a stealth nerf to production in general and the "camel resource shuffle" in specific. If that was their purpose and most of what they were testing for, it's quite possible that they weren't watching out for the Exploration Age treasure numbers nor the fact that the distribution of resources heavily slows down your ability to settle, improve, and extract those.

That's plain inexperience. Someone specified a 15% chance to spawn a treasure resource and thought it would even out over the whole continent. They didn't realize that RNG is a fickle goddess. You have to put in a floor to ensure the bottom end of the bell curve doesn't hose you (that's a technical term.)

Also, I noticed that the Icons religion belief for rewarding two relics on a city-state conversion only works if you use the Dawah belief (establishing trade routes cause conversion.) Convert with a missionary and you only get one relic.It's crazy that these things are getting through testing.

All of this points to them not having a good testing harness for auto-playing games, running hundreds of playthroughs, and looking for outliers like the aforementioned eight treasure resources. That's not easy to set up. But failing that, they need to establish a beta channel on Steam and pull the numbers from there. Otherwise we'll continue to see more of these types of issues.
 
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Well, I found a spot at the tippy tip of the continent with three treasure resources in range. One of them is right on Trung's border so she's likely to expand to it before I can buy a settler and get it over half the ocean without killing it.

I saw she had two settlers nearby, hopefully she's going for the islands. But I'm expecting to get there and find it settled, which means war.
 
If I can make a suggestion, consider going to the Advanced settings, and dropping the number of players by 30-50%. If you drop by 30%, all but one or two will start with you on the homeland. Drop by 50% and all will. Then the Exploration Age becomes are real land rush and a great deal more fun. And more historically accurate as well.
 
If I can make a suggestion, consider going to the Advanced settings, and dropping the number of players by 30-50%. If you drop by 30%, all but one or two will start with you on the homeland. Drop by 50% and all will. Then the Exploration Age becomes are real land rush and a great deal more fun. And more historically accurate as well.

I've heard about that and want to try it sometime. It only really makes it historically accurate from a eurocentric point of view though, I've only played Spain as far as Europe goes during exploration and I'm sure they'd be great for this. The conquistadores are probably the best great people, and definitely geared towards distant lands.

I heard there's a way with a mod to set it up so all 8 start on homelands. That sounds like even more fun because everything will be so cramped it will be certain war or across the seas or both for expansion.

EDIT- here it is:

 
Is it just me, or are the treasure resources less "clumped" post-1.2.0? It's taking me longer to build out to enough of them and consequently I haven't been able to finish the Economic path in my two playthroughs so far.
Since the patch, I can hardly find ANY treasure resources. And if I spot one, I can be sure the AI is going to settle right next to it, long before my own settler gets there.
 
In my current exploration game I found 3 treasure resources on the intermediate islands. I was able to settle 2 with 1 town, but AI beaten me to settle the third (due to war declared by another AI).

Continents+, standard size, immortal
 
I found a total of eight in my current game on the only coast and islands I had access to. One I settled on an island. Zero more on islands. Two inland and useless. Two settled by distant lands civs. Then I get to the very tip of the land and there's a perfect spot with three treasure resources and two others. Just a perfect spot really. I bought a settler and ran for it but it got settled in exactly the same spot I would have, by the guy I was about to start a war with.

Fantastic luck there, but there is a severe lack of treasure resources since 1.2. I assume it will be fixed because it's very obvious. They didn't check at all.

One other thing- I have two cocoa in my borders and one from trading and they do nothing. They don't even show up on the resource screen.

Fractal - standard size - deity

Cool thing though, the settler I was saving for a spot got spent on an amazing island. Vinicunca on one side, two camels, a fish, and a pearl on the other. Only way it could be more perfect would be land for buildings and the natural wonder bonus.
 
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What I have noticed is a bunch of cocoa and things like that in homelands tropical region, and it doesn't seem to be applying its effect. I have four cocoa, two in my borders and two from trading, but they don't show up as empire resources or otherwise on my resource screen.
I noticed this yesterday, too. The homeland treasure resources aren't showing up in the resource window. I didn't get to check if they're still working, though.
 
If I can make a suggestion, consider going to the Advanced settings, and dropping the number of players by 30-50%. If you drop by 30%, all but one or two will start with you on the homeland. Drop by 50% and all will. Then the Exploration Age becomes are real land rush and a great deal more fun. And more historically accurate as well.
I my experience, on a Standard-sized map, the first 5 Civs including the Human player) go on the Homeland Continent(s), the last 3 in Distant Lands. I started removing all three Distant Lands Civs, but that had some bad effects:
1. It made the whole Exploration Age a Yawn - much, much too easy and positively boring to play.
2. It also reduces competition from other Civs for Wonders in Antiquity and Relics in Modern, among other things, so overall I estimate it was the equivalent of dropping down an entire order of Difficulty.

After some experimentation, I've been playing with 7 Civs total in Standard maps, which means only 2 in Distant Lands. That still provides fairly adequate competition, but doesn't completely fill Distant Lands with AI settlements before Exploration Age even starts. You are still at the mercy of the map in getting to the 'empty' part of the Distant Lands first and finding any Treasure Resources, but it's less of a complete impossibility without going to war by Turn 15 of Exploration Age just to claw a foothold onto the other continent.

The game and the players are missing a whole raft of possible decisions in the game and game set-up that would go a long way towards solving, or at least ameliorating, these kinds of problems:

1. Allow us to specify Distant Lands configurations separately from Homeland, Not only in overall terrain configuration (continents, archipelago, fractal, etc) but also in biome (wet, hot, dry, cold, mixed) and especially in numbers and types of Opposition: number of AI Civs, numbers and types of IPs - including the possibility of having Distant Lands entirely full of 12 - 15 IPs, all Hostile, which would give the Conquistadores a real run for their money.

2. Right now, and related, IPs can only become City States if they are subordinate to a Civ - there are no independent City States in the game as there were in Civ VI, and therefore all interactions with IPs are either fighting them as Hostile settlements or as part of an AI Civ, or throwing Influence at them to subordinate them. Include a mechanism for IPs to 'evolve/grow' into Independent City States with possible permanent (ie: from Age to Age) status, and the number and amount of diplomatic and other interactions with them could multiply dramatically: among other things, a Distant Lands entirely filled with IPs could be exploited with Diplomacy as well as or instead of Domination and the overall number of meaningful decisions for the gamer would increase in a game that has far too few of those at the moment.

3. The latest patch started (hesitantly) towards making Treasure Resources more flexible, but did not begin to go far enough. Make the type if Resources designated 'Treasure' dependent on in-game play. For example, Horses might become a Treasure resource depending on how many cavalry units are built in Antiquity compared to the number of available (Homeland) Horse resources. Gold and Silver should change status depending on a more-developed system of Coinage: adopt Silver coins (which should actually be the default standard) and Silver becomes a Treasure Resource instead of just decorative metal. Build a bunch of Carracks and Galleons, and Hardwood becomes a Treasure Resource wherever you can find it. Rarity of resource should count in-game: anything found on Distant Lands not found on Homeland terrain should be, by definition, a Treasure Resource.
This alone would make the entire Treasure Resource/Fleet system more flexible and dynamic, leading to an on-going search for real and potential Treasures all over the map and competition to settle, conquer, or otherwise sequester resources you need or anticipate needing.
 
Last game, I settled and conquered the entire near coast of the distant lands, hooked up all the treasure resources in range of that coast, even engaged in a bit of piracy and ended up barely making it at 32/30 at the end of the age. I had one settlement producing 2-point-fleets and all the others were mere 1-pointers. I am liking the variation of resources, though, and I don't think I would want to go back to when there were only treasure resources in some areas of the distant lands. So maybe keep the resources as they are, but make them worth two points each?
 
I my experience, on a Standard-sized map, the first 5 Civs including the Human player) go on the Homeland Continent(s), the last 3 in Distant Lands. I started removing all three Distant Lands Civs, but that had some bad effects:
1. It made the whole Exploration Age a Yawn - much, much too easy and positively boring to play.
2. It also reduces competition from other Civs for Wonders in Antiquity and Relics in Modern, among other things, so overall I estimate it was the equivalent of dropping down an entire order of Difficulty.

After some experimentation, I've been playing with 7 Civs total in Standard maps, which means only 2 in Distant Lands. That still provides fairly adequate competition, but doesn't completely fill Distant Lands with AI settlements before Exploration Age even starts. You are still at the mercy of the map in getting to the 'empty' part of the Distant Lands first and finding any Treasure Resources, but it's less of a complete impossibility without going to war by Turn 15 of Exploration Age just to claw a foothold onto the other continent.

The game and the players are missing a whole raft of possible decisions in the game and game set-up that would go a long way towards solving, or at least ameliorating, these kinds of problems:

1. Allow us to specify Distant Lands configurations separately from Homeland, Not only in overall terrain configuration (continents, archipelago, fractal, etc) but also in biome (wet, hot, dry, cold, mixed) and especially in numbers and types of Opposition: number of AI Civs, numbers and types of IPs - including the possibility of having Distant Lands entirely full of 12 - 15 IPs, all Hostile, which would give the Conquistadores a real run for their money.

2. Right now, and related, IPs can only become City States if they are subordinate to a Civ - there are no independent City States in the game as there were in Civ VI, and therefore all interactions with IPs are either fighting them as Hostile settlements or as part of an AI Civ, or throwing Influence at them to subordinate them. Include a mechanism for IPs to 'evolve/grow' into Independent City States with possible permanent (ie: from Age to Age) status, and the number and amount of diplomatic and other interactions with them could multiply dramatically: among other things, a Distant Lands entirely filled with IPs could be exploited with Diplomacy as well as or instead of Domination and the overall number of meaningful decisions for the gamer would increase in a game that has far too few of those at the moment.

3. The latest patch started (hesitantly) towards making Treasure Resources more flexible, but did not begin to go far enough. Make the type if Resources designated 'Treasure' dependent on in-game play. For example, Horses might become a Treasure resource depending on how many cavalry units are built in Antiquity compared to the number of available (Homeland) Horse resources. Gold and Silver should change status depending on a more-developed system of Coinage: adopt Silver coins (which should actually be the default standard) and Silver becomes a Treasure Resource instead of just decorative metal. Build a bunch of Carracks and Galleons, and Hardwood becomes a Treasure Resource wherever you can find it. Rarity of resource should count in-game: anything found on Distant Lands not found on Homeland terrain should be, by definition, a Treasure Resource.
This alone would make the entire Treasure Resource/Fleet system more flexible and dynamic, leading to an on-going search for real and potential Treasures all over the map and competition to settle, conquer, or otherwise sequester resources you need or anticipate needing.

I love your ideas, you've obviously put a lot of thought into it.
 
I'm beginning to think that the real purpose of the resource type expansion was a stealth nerf to production in general and the "camel resource shuffle" in specific.
I agree, my ANT experience post patch has been exactly that - with more varied resources, the old strategy of hoarding gypsum and other prod resources + camels and switching bw cities is not consistently viable anymore. It is an indirect nerf to production. I like it. And yes has many downstream effects by slowing expansion and everything else.

Later today I’ll have more to report on my games’s EXP age treasure distribution. But from reading the posts above I must say again maybe it’s not a bad thing that the EXP Econ legacy path completion - the full 30 pts - is not viable every single game. Perhaps the design decision (intended or unintended) is to make it hard like some of the other harder paths like military in ANT. (Or impossible unless you steal fleets - I can live with that too)

It would have side benefit of slowing down EXP era progress too.
 
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It would have side benefit of slowing down EXP era progress too.
I don't know about that. My first 1.2 game had very few distant treasure resources available and I ended up with only 8 points in the end, but the exploration age still finished before turn 80 and I still had far more settlements than I needed to get the other three legacy paths finished.
 
I don't know about that. My first 1.2 game had very few distant treasure resources available and I ended up with only 8 points in the end, but the exploration age still finished before turn 80 and I still had far more settlements than I needed to get the other three legacy paths finished.
That is possible also. I played 12 deity exploration games since release and took notes on length; all fell in the range of T70 - T94.

In my EXP games pretty consistently:
- Culture path gets completed first
- Military next
- Science next
- Econ last (usually not finished all the way to +20 era score. Exception = Songhai)

So yeah you’re right by slowing down the last path to advance may not change the actual length.. maybe some balancing of these paths will come at a later time. IMO culture path needs to be harder. And maybe adjust down EXP progress points if ideal length of age is longer than that. (ANT is fine as is; 20 ANT games all fell in T115 - T140 range, T130 median)
 
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