Does Exploration Economic Legacy Path seem difficult to impossible after the past couple of patches?

[SemiLazyGamer]

I've noticed this in my last few games: does the Exploration economic path seem much, much harder after the last couple of patches?

I will admit that the AI's crap settling on launch and a focus on gold allowed me to have towns on both coasts on Continents Plus which lead to exceptionally easy Economic victories, but recently it's been much harder. I've also seen content creators (only Potato McWhiskey and Ursa Ryan to be fair) also struggle to complete the legacy path recently. I was thinking about it recently and spurred me to make this thread (even though I need to sleep) is that my latest game had no one outside of myself earn any Treasure Fleet Points and I have failed to earn any Economic Legacy Points.

Here are a few issues with the path and some fixes:

1. Stuck on one side of the continent. Fix: this is definitely a me problem because I don't like to war. I think this doesn't need a fix, but I figured I'd bring it up anyways.
2. Treasure fleets unable to bypass other civs borders when they won't allow open borders. Fix: Card or tech/civic bonus.
3. Treasure fleets are slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. Fix: same as above: card or tech/civic bonus.
4. Distant Lands Civs taking up the best spots and leaving out of the way spots for treasure spawning cities. Fix: outside of fixing my war problem, I really don't have a fix for it. This is just a consequence of making the AI better at settling.
5. Lack of treasure resources on in between islands. Fix: I feel like this is the biggest issue. I feel like there should be more treasure resources on the islands. Not too much more, as there wouldn't be any incentive to go to Distant Lands, but enough. Also, not sure if a bug, but I've been finding in my past couple of games since this latest patch that changed how resources spawned where at least one set of the in between islands, usually the one set closest to me, has lacked treasure resources entirely.

 

[RaidandTrade]

Lack of treasure resources on in between islands. Fix: I feel like this is the biggest issue.

+1

 

[Kenshiro70]

Check the "New Resources" thread - there's a whole discussion on how allowing treasure resources to spawn on both hemispheres messed with the distribution logic and made it much harder to accumulate treasure.

 

[Mechuraki]

I back this. I couldn't really get the economic legacy path going while the others were done and the age progress was already over 90%, so I had to stack up 25-ish treasure fleets in my territory to dump those treasures in a single turn to prevent the age from turning over.

Plus, all the Deity AIs were stuck on 0 TF points by the end of the age.

 

[Isca Dumnoniorum]

In my current game, there was a grand total of one (1) treasure resource on the small islands off the homelands and two (2) resources in unoccupied territory on the distant lands. I didn't want to war with the distant lands civs as my three homelands neighbours were already allied together and hostile towards me so I sucked up the inevitable economic dark age. Exploration definitely hits different when the treasure resource/treasure fleet minigame is all but missing.

 

[stealth_nsk]

That's the biggest problem to me as well. I'm probably shifting to archipelago map for the time being. While AI is not great at handling it, but at least you could find more islands in the distant lands.

 

[vorlon_mi]

Agree with these sentiments. In my first few games, I had treasure resources within a 2- or 3-turn-sailing-radius from my homelands. In last night's game (Terra Incognita map), the oceans separating homelands from distant lands were much larger. I lost a settler to rough seas before it could reach an island to rest. Treasure fleets took 5 or 6 turns to make the journey; while that may be more historical, it makes it much harder to complete the legacy path.

I'm willing (and did, in this last game) to declare war on a rival in my homelands who has planted a town near treasure resources, so that I generate the treasure fleets. After the 10 turn cooldown, of course. But even then -- 4 towns, each with only 1-point fleets, 5 turns to get home -- the math makes it hard to fulfll the whole path. Milestones, sure, but not the whole path.

 

[Leucarum]

Agreed... though economic was usually so much slower than the other three paths that it was always the one I'd fall short on anyway if I fell short on any...

I do also find that the AI seems to spawn way closer to you in the new patch than I enjoy... Still some work to be done on the map scripts IMO.

 

[Krikkit1]

I've noticed this in my last few games: does the Exploration economic path seem much, much harder after the last couple of patches?

3. Distant Lands Civs taking up the best spots and leaving out of the way spots for treasure spawning cities. Fix: outside of fixing my war problem, I really don't have a fix for it. This is just a consequence of making the AI better at settling.

I think that at Shipbuilding there needs to be an Endeavor that you can form so a Distant Land civ's Settlements will spawn a Treasure Fleet for you (you would need to have Open borders.. maybe you would need Trade Routes to the Settlements)

If they Accept they get a big chunk of Gold (depending on how many Treasure resources are in the Fleets)
if they Support, they also get Fleets coming from you (and you get a big chunk of Gold)

The mechanism for placing the Resources on the new Era needs to categorize Locations as "Fleet Accessible" or "Not" [I'd say within 3 tiles of Coast/Nav river that connects to the other land is "Fleet Accessible"]
And then just make sure enough are there

Definitely increasing the speed of their movement would be helpful

 

[stealth_nsk]

Small update, played archipelago instead of continents+. It worked as good as before 1.2 or even better. By the end of the era I had 9 treasure resources and was able to reach secondary economic milestone. If I'd delay legacy paths (I completed all other 3) and grabbed treasure resources faster, I'd totally be able to complete economic path completely (and other 3).

Immortal difficulty.

 

[evonannoredars]

A short-term fix would simply be to reduce the amount of points needed for the path, surprised they haven't done anything like that as seems a major update that could adjust the resource generation logic is a way off still.

 

[GeorgeF]

i'm playing a game into exploration finally with the new patch and i'm seeing this too... no treasure resources on intermediate islands, I did find three unclaimed treasure resources in the north of the other continent, but Frederic (from home continent) grabbed two of them fortunately we were at war and I had units there already so I grabbed that city and then settled two one for redwood forest one for the other treasure, we'll see how far that gets me in treasure resources. The wars have settled down and I have tons of units now so I think its safe and I can concentrate on getting cultural and science paths going. Military will be tough I'm already 2 over the city limit with only 3 cities in distant lands but there are a couple more settlement bumps on the culture tree ahead. (Charlesmagne Carthage -> Norman)

 

[Nic@Melbourne]

Seems like getting the islands won’t get you much treasure fleets.
Haven’t tried taking the AI cities in the distant lands continent yet.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Yes. Initially Continents+ was the easiest map to get economic legacy path as you were able to get everything form intermediate islands. After two patches, it's the toughest map as you need to get resources from actual distant lands and those islands just get in your way. It should be some middle ground, with intermediate islands providing more treasure resources, but probably not enough for fulfilling full path.

 

[Siptah]

Playing fractal, I found 10 unclaimed treasure resources with ease

 

[MutilationWave]

Playing fractal, I found 10 unclaimed treasure resources with ease

Fractal is so random. That's why I like it. I had eight total resources in one ocean and the main distant lands coast of that ocean. Most claimed by DL civs.

 

[CliffCo]

I play on continents plus. i found 2 treasure resources right after the age started that were on a small island and managed to have 20 points by the end of the era but they were the only treasure resources i found during the entire era. At the end the most points an AI had was 2.

 

[queenpea]

Hope they fix this soon.

 

[MutilationWave]

I play on continents plus. i found 2 treasure resources right after the age started that were on a small island and managed to have 20 points by the end of the era but they were the only treasure resources i found during the entire era. At the end of the most points an AI had was 2.

That's so frustrating. I want that keep your cities legacy every game.

 

[aelf]

This is what's making me reluctant to start another game. I don't want the RNG to screw me out of a legacy path that is actually quite fun for Exploration Age.