Gods and Kings - iron change?

[woodshadows]

I've played three games of Gods and Kings now, each one has had loads of horses but extremely low amounts of iron anywhere. Part of me likes this change, but it seems to really unbalance things to do something like that without simultaneously changing some of the civs with iron-requiring UU's. Playing as Rome now and while I love no-resource ballistas, lack of iron means no Legions either. Maybe I've just had bad luck, but I never had such low amounts of iron in a game before on vanilla.

Moderator Action: Moved to G&K.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

Was thinking I was unlucky, did you also notice this on aluminum? I swear, I got almunium Saturday, had 5 cities, all ranges of terrin, and no amlum, looked over map to see if I needed a fast war, none anywhere near. found some on other side of world, and no city states had any. this means 0 hydro plants!! And iron is iffy now, I now plan to go without Iron and build towards that.

 

[woodshadows]

I haven't managed to play a game into that era yet, I generally play standard or small size maps, but like on my latest game, pangea, I've explored nearly the entire continent and I have yet to see a single source of iron anywhere, back in vanilla, I might end up with no iron in my immediate borders, but there would _always_ be iron closeby which I could get through a war or buying a city state over. Might not be a bad idea to play from now on with the plan that you won't have iron, will be a chance for me to try some other civs that I traditionally have overlooked at least.

 

[Nebular]

I think it just comes down to luck and how the script generates the map. I've had one map where I was swimming in Iron but couldn't find coal or horses to save my life, and another where the only resources I had access to were uranium and oil and nothing else. That one really hurt until I found I was sitting on what seemed to be 95% of the world's uranium supply.

 

[Aurelius321]

I think it is a good possibility that they reduced the amount of iron on the board now that catapults/trebs no longer need it. I have found the same amount of plots on the board, but like 75% of them are only 2s. Granted, my sample size of 4 games isn't very much, but still

Also, with the inclusion of the recycling center, I think it would make sense that they have reduced the aluminum in the game.

 

[PhilBowles]

I haven't had this - my experience in my first full game was that all strategic resources were overabundant. In my latest game iron is scarce and scattered around the landscape in clumps of 2 iron (none within easy reach for me), but I have also only seen one source of horses.

 

[Bandobras Took]

The Recycling Center guarantees Aluminum; if you're really hurting for it, go Autocracy!

On the other hand, I can't say from my own games that Iron is any rarer than before.

 

[Barghaest]

No issue with iron here... Got two 6 iron nodes near just one of my cities (plenty of more around for other civs/me to expand and snag, but since all my iron is currently unused - until I get frigates anyhoo - not an issue); however, map is fairly short on horses... I got a total of 6 from two nodes (12 since I'm Catherine) there's a sporadic amount across the continents I can see. Almost no empire can field more than 4-6 cavalry other than myself. Quite a bit of horses with CS, so perhaps AI can ally with a few to get more. Most of us late ren/early ind so horses won't matter much longer anyhoo...

 

[Darac]

I've played 5 games in a row with no iron at the start.

2 of those games i didn't have coal either.

I've found I do like it more though, for the first time in my civ playing life I've actually started trading strategic resources.

 

[Polycrates]

In my current game as Byzantium I had no possible sources of horses, which is something that was previously almost unheard-of. Had to go beg them off a city-state.
On the other hand, I have over 20 iron, it's just all over the place. But both previous games I had absolutely none over a large land area.

I really really like that you can't rely on having those resources

 

[Barghaest]

Up to 36 iron in my current game now. In the process of upgrading/replacing all my galles with frigates. Gonna have quite a navy and I need it. The land masses are fairly spread out.

 

[Peacemongerer]

I've gotten the exact opposite... I've gotten just iron 3 of 5 times, just horses and no iron once, and once got both (Fortunately avoided getting neither yet).

 

[Darac]

I've had neither a few times, but now that siege units don't require a resource and Pikemen have been buffed neither is really needed at all.

 

[joshaarrowood]

I generally have more iron and few horses. I have had lots of trouble getting coal.

 

[BranjoHello]

I wouldn't agree, it's all random.
In my latest game I had ok amount of iron, tons of irons but not one single horse.
Random is good, makes you adjust your strategy to the situation you're in.

 

[Barghaest]

Well, overloaded with oil now. There's plenty of aluminum on the map as well but I had to race to reach it (absolutely zero on my continent). A CS on Japan's had a few... an empty island had a couple (Korea beat me to one) most of it was locked down by CS or on Ethiopia's continent.

Really worried about the state of uranium on this one... I'm hoping (since I was alum poor) I'll have a bit close by...

 

[@nthony]

On the map I'm currently playing, there are 3 large-ish continents. Most of the world is on one with no iron, William is on a small continent, with no iron and then there is a barbarian/CS contient with Marrackesh sat on 6!! units of Iron!

Thanks map-script!

 

[Anvari]

I had a few games with strange numbers of my strategic ressources. In one i've gotten 4 sources of iron and 3 tiles with horses near my city's, each with 6 and 9 iron in it. Next game i've got one source with 2 iron in it. Thats it. No additional iron in like 50 tiles where my enemys are.

But i dont think thats a GnK thing, unless you play only the new maps.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'm struggling to know what to do with iron now. It's only needed for swordsmen and longswords, and now that swordsmen are weaker than pikes, by the time I've grabbed and developed a source of iron (if it doesn't reveal within my territory), those are already redundant. They should probably have added an iron requirement to the cannon after removing it from the earlier siege units.

 

[Darac]

I'm struggling to know what to do with iron now. It's only needed for swordsmen and longswords, and now that swordsmen are weaker than pikes, by the time I've grabbed and developed a source of iron (if it doesn't reveal within my territory), those are already redundant. They should probably have added an iron requirement to the cannon after removing it from the earlier siege units.

I agree with the cannon thing, but don't forget it is needed for frigates.