Firaxis: why is there NO OIL in my game?

[john heidle]

I am playing my first 1.21f version of Civ3 with a standard random map. I am in the industrial age having researched refining and now motorized transport. BUT there is NO OIL anywhere in the
world! NONE AT ALL! I can see the entire map (no black spots) due to my getting maps or exploring (I conquered the Great Lighthouse). I have scanned several times with the map
revealed.

The reason there is no oil is because there is no tundra or desert in the game. According to the online encyclopedia, oil can only appear in desert or tundra (which is a separate stupidty, e.g., Romanian or Indonesia oil in WW2). I also am not using any modifications or using the editors. This game is not a continuation of a game started on 1.17f either.

I would like an answer from Firaxis as to HOW this could occur. Isn't there an internal check to see whether or not the game can have oil? There seems to be a luxury resource check, but why
isn't there a similar check for strategic resources? Shouldn't the game check to see if all resources are available, and then redraw the map if they aren't? (Iron, coal, and rubber are in this game, but oil is not.)

My PC is a new Dell (2002) with XP, 256 MB RAM.

Attached zipped file if it works == no oil anywhere
or email heidlejf@yahoo.com to get the zipped file

 

[Mr Spice]

This is an interesting one. i admit that I did not believe you at first, I downloaded your game with the intention of posting a sceenshot that would prove you wrong. But no, you are right. There should be oil but there is none.

However, this is not due to the lack of desert and tundra. Oil appears on plains and jungle too, terrain types that you have in abundance on your map. A mystery indeed and definitely something for Firaxis to look into.

Just to be on the safe side though, you didn´t made any peculiar changes in the editor, did you?

 

[john heidle]

Mr. Spice replied:
"However, this is not due to the lack of desert and tundra. Oil appears on plains and jungle too, terrain types that you have in abundance on your map. A mystery indeed and definitely something for Firaxis to look into.

Just to be on the safe side though, you didn´t made any peculiar changes in the editor, did you?"

I have never used the editor or used any mods. Just installed the game and used the patches.

I thought oil appeared in jungle, but the online encyclopedia says it only appears in tundra and desert. So I'm not sure what is really going on with oil, but there's none in my first 1.21f game!

 

[DrJambo]

!?! Weird.

John is correct, oil only appears in tundra and desert, so if these are not present on your map then no oil.

It used to be that plains could sprout oil, but that is no longer the case from about 1.17f onwards. I have never seen a map without tundra and desert on the earlier versions and my experience with 1.21f map-wise is limited.

Anyone else?

Truly weird and possibly worrying for 1.21f. Maybe have to add oil to appear on jungle/plains?

 

[Dralix]

Do you remember what parameters you used for age, climate, etc? Maybe both tundra and desert are considered "dry" terrain and if you generate a wet map there is a chance of this happening.

 

[john heidle]

Dralix asked:
Do you remember what parameters you used for age, climate, etc? Maybe both tundra and desert are considered "dry" terrain and if you generate a wet map there is a chance of this happening

Everything was random except for raging hordes. Regent level, standard map size, click random for both map parameters, even random civ. So I can't help to analyze the map parameters.

 

[chaucer]

No oil, that blows. Although not out of the realm of the possible. A world without oil is far from probable.
Someone tell me what geology books Fraxis used to determine where resourses are located. Tennesse which is very hilly was one of the first places in the US to have wide spread oil exploration. Texas, mostly plains in the oil areas is has oil. Oklahoma? Hmmmm PLAINS. What about mountains there is oil there. One of the place that oil companies want to start looking is in the rockies. Finally why can't coastal tiles have oil. There should be a unit in the modern age that let you drill in the costal squares, or maybe a tech that lets workers move into coatal waters to set up mines (read offshore oil platforms and offshore mining platforms).

Chaucer

PS why can't we mine the forest. IE lumber mill. I know we chop the forest down and get shields but we cannot keep replanting and cutting. When this is in fact what the lumber industry does. Take a trip to Mt. St. Helens. That area was owned and farmed by the the lumber co's and has been fully replanted by them.

JM2c

 

[Hurricane]

That´s bad luck, guy!

I once played a game with exactly 1 oil resource on the whole map. This gave the game a quite interesting twist, since I had to make a very tough attack to the other side of the world in order to capture the oil. I managed to secure it, and soon afterwards nobody had a chance against me.

 

[Mr Spice]

So they removed oil from plains and jungle? That was perhaps not such a wise move. Nor does it make much sense IMO.

 

[JoseM]

Originally posted by chaucer
No oil, that blows. Although not out of the realm of the possible. A world without oil is far from probable.
Someone tell me what geology books Fraxis used to determine where resourses are located. Tennesse which is very hilly was one of the first places in the US to have wide spread oil exploration. Texas, mostly plains in the oil areas is has oil. Oklahoma? Hmmmm PLAINS. What about mountains there is oil there. One of the place that oil companies want to start looking is in the rockies. Finally why can't coastal tiles have oil. There should be a unit in the modern age that let you drill in the costal squares, or maybe a tech that lets workers move into coatal waters to set up mines (read offshore oil platforms and offshore mining platforms).

Chaucer

PS why can't we mine the forest. IE lumber mill. I know we chop the forest down and get shields but we cannot keep replanting and cutting. When this is in fact what the lumber industry does. Take a trip to Mt. St. Helens. That area was owned and farmed by the the lumber co's and has been fully replanted by them.

JM2c

Venezuela the fourth oil producer in the world is not a tundra nor a desert. So i agree with u, firaxis messed it up when they eliminated oil from plains.

 

[JustListenen]

You can change the terrain for oil and other strategic resources in the editor by adding PLAINS. Be sure to hold down the CNTL key when you add terrain types. This changes where Oil appears but does not change the number of oil resources.



You can also change the frequency of appearance of a strategic resource although this will change the playability of the game significantly. The number of oil resources that will appear on a map is determined by a "seed" number and the number of civs selected. HELP in the editor will explain the calculation performed by the map generator.

 

[dikwhit]

I have a feeling there is a bug with the new patch. My first game 12 civs huge panagea random. supposedly unless i am mistooken, there are roughly 2 of each strategice resource per civ, before disappearence. 4 uranium, total.
second game custom size 200x200 16 civs/max land/panagea/warm/wet/5 billion. 3 coals. thats it. some appeared randomly, 3 in my area. I made a killing .

based on my small sample, intentional or not, it would appear resources can be shorted. Personally, I am all good with it. Makes for a bit more variety in the gameplay/ trading.

Having said that, i will assume I have nothing i need for modern armor in my current game

 

[CivKilla]

I live in Nebraska which obviously is Plains and Nebraska use to produce tons and tons of oil. One of the leading states. But now we dont produce any, but there used to be

 

[cephyn]

Originally posted by dikwhit
I have a feeling there is a bug with the new patch. My first game 12 civs huge panagea random. supposedly unless i am mistooken, there are roughly 2 of each strategice resource per civ, before disappearence. 4 uranium, total.
second game custom size 200x200 16 civs/max land/panagea/warm/wet/5 billion. 3 coals. thats it. some appeared randomly, 3 in my area. I made a killing .

based on my small sample, intentional or not, it would appear resources can be shorted. Personally, I am all good with it. Makes for a bit more variety in the gameplay/ trading.

no. the frequency of each resource appearing is different. it is linked to how many civs, but if you see 5 oils, youll probably see like, 8 irons.

for example, the 'appearance ratio' for iron is 160, oil is 120 and uranium is 100.

secondly, the number of resources is constant...if you have 5 oils, there will always be 5 oils -- when one disappears, another one appears somewhere else.

 

[TheNiceOne]

Originally posted by chaucer
PS why can't we mine the forest. IE lumber mill. I know we chop the forest down and get shields but we cannot keep replanting and cutting. When this is in fact what the lumber industry does. Take a trip to Mt. St. Helens. That area was owned and farmed by the the lumber co's and has been fully replanted by them.

JM2c

But this is already in the game. IMHO, the two shields received from a forest square represents normal replanting and cutting. We already get one more shield from a forest than from a mined grassland, and what else does this represent that normal replanting and cutting?

Clearing the forest means to remove the forest altogether - something that has happened in real life, but then the forest is normally gone forever.

 

[Sabotage]

No oil?

That sucks big time. But look on the bright side, atleast you're not the only one without oil.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

I guess we all agree that an occasional res shortage is OK. But the frequence with which one or another res is ridiculously short is frightening.

Firaxis - please fix!
I dopn`t wnat another game where I have to fight to get:
- iron
- a lux
- saltpeter
- coal
- oil
- uranium

that was waaaaay tough!

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Fighting for resources is one of the funnest part of the whole game. Forces even peaceniks to go to war sometimes.

OT, no oil really sucks though. No tanks, mech inf, destroyers, battleships. Certainly no starting on the space victory path.

 

[john heidle]

Knight-Dragon posted:
"OT, no oil really sucks though. No tanks, mech inf, destroyers, battleships. Certainly no starting on the space victory path."

I was the one that posted the no oil game. I'm also pretty sure that there were only 6 luxury resources available too. So the patch is really screwed up. Maybe it doesn't work well under Windows XP?

As to the no oil game, oddly enough, the space race is viable.
I just started to build Apollo when I got a cultural victory. Oil only seems to effect the military units that you can build. Lack of oil had no effect on the research path. Obviously there were lots of absurdities, i.e., I could build infantry because I had rubber, but why would you need tires if you don't have oil powered vehicles?

As to my game I conquered a lot of the world using marines, cavalry, artillery, infantry, ironclads, and cruise missiles. Seeing cruise missiles in the build menu was quite amusing and I actually built a few just for fun.

 

[ChrisWade]

I'm playing my first game with 1.21. Huge world, pangea, 16 civs. There is more resources (both strategic and luxury) than i've ever seen before. I cover approx 25% of the land and have 5/6 each of most of the resources. I'm not sure about aluminium or uranium yet as I haven't discovered that far. I have had games using 1.17 and prior when there was either no oil or coal.