Do you really have any chance of finding anything when you open a mine?

[Cervus]

Hello,

You are told that you have "small chances" of finding gold/silver/copper/etc when you open a mine on generic hills. However I have never really had, although I have played Civilization IV for some time.

I just wonder if anyone has had such experience. If you have, could you please share it?

Thanks for any light on this matter.

 

[braindrain]

You have to work the mine in order to find a metal. It doesn't happen right away either, they could pop up a thousand years later, or so that has been my experience.

 

[Cam_H]

Cervus,

It happens in about half of my games. As braindrain indicates, the mine needs to be worked (I believe).

One illustration is in Sulla's Emperor Metalman write-up ... the third screenie down.

 

[voek]

Happens in almost all of my games, but absolutely no guarantee where and when. Just a lucky event. Love it when a gold mine pops up...

 

[shivute]

Yes work the mines - in one game pre warlords, got silver, gems and copper popped up in mines around my capital, the copper came very late on but was still nice for the hammers.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Yes it happens and it is very nice too.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Thanks for any light on this matter.

If you look in Civ4ImprovementsInfo.xml, you will discover that the ImprovementInfo for IMPROVEMENT_MINE has a BonusTypeStruct for each of the mined resources. Each of these has a setting iDiscoverRand, which determines the probability that working an empty mine for one turn will discover that resource in the mine.

Each empty mine is checked each turn you work it to determine if you discover each resource. Two caveats: the check only happens for those resources which have been revealed to you (ie, you only get the dice roll if you have the necessary tech) and each empty mine can only discover one tech resource (once you get lucky, it sticks).

Out of the box, the probability of popping a tech resource is 1/10000 (assuming the RNG isn't buggy).

The dice rolls happen in the order the techs appear in the Civ4ImprovementsInfo file - which happens to be alphabetical. So you are slightly more likely to pop gold than silver.

Edit: quick catch that, thanks.

 

[Murky]

My mines typically pop silver or iron. I haven't ever got a tech from it.

 

[Argoth]

Message deleted

 

[Betafor]

One time i popped a gem mine and a gold mine in my main cottage spam city

 

[Civbowl]

It is nice when it happens. Last night the mine one square away from my capital became a gold mine. Sweet.

 

[Sisiutil]

Yes, I've had it happen in several games, sometimes more than once. Working the mine consistently does indeed increase the chances of it happening. I wouldn't base a strategy upon it, since it's unreliable, and it usually shows up too late in the game to make a vital difference. In other words, I don't build and work the mine for this purpose alone with my fingers and toes crossed. But if I'm going to work the mine anyway, it's a nice bonus.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

This has been asked before, I'll point you to my earlier post...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=4252925&postcount=28

 

[alpha wolf 64]

I usually pop silver, gems, or iron. Once had iron pop for my ironworks city But I swear I remember mined hills outside my crosses have pop resources too.

 

[Gumbolt]

I wouldnt rely on popping resources as a game play strategy. Rarely happens on my monarch games. If it happens late game i normally have most important resources anyway.

 

[malekithe]

Rarely happens on my monarch games.

The chances of finding a resource in a mine are completely unrelated to the difficulty setting.

The only factors are:

• the number of mines you are currently working that do not have a resource in them
• the number of mined resources you currently have the technology to "know of"

For a rough estimate of your odds of popping a resource during any given turn, simply multiply those two figures together and divide by 10,000.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

I've had bronze as well, but generally I get gems which and in my capital too

 

[Cervus]

Thanks to everyone. I think my question was completely answered.

I just thought the chances were applied when you BUILT a mine, not when you were WORKING on it. Turns out I was wrong. I know the truth now though.

 

[Cervus]

A quick follow-up.

Yesterday, while playing my Prince game, I got copper in a mine my city was working on. I think I might have had that many times before, but I just did not understand why that was happening.

 

[Pantastic]

Bear in mind that it's a per-turn chance, so on epic or marathon games you'll pop a lot more resources than on a normal or quick game.