How often do you *not* get easy access to copper

[bestbrian]

I seem to find that if I don't have any Copper handy, as soon as I finish researching IW, finding Iron, settling on/near/seizing it from an AI, one of my mines will just happen to find it. "Hey, Boss, guess what we just found? Shame we couldn't find this stuff a thousand years ago, huh?".

 

[samthedagger]

To answer the OP, I rarely rely on getting copper for my strategy, although if I do get it, I may take advantage of it for an axe rush depending on the difficulty level I am playing at. I see BW mostly as a prerequisite for chopping. That's the best way to snag those early wonders. Still, I would say I get copper in my first city's BFC about 25% of the time. About 50% of the time it is in my culture level 2 radius. About 75% of the time it is somewhere close enough that I can include it in my second city's BFC without incurring ridiculously high maintenance costs. The other 25% of the time, I hunker down with archers until I get to IW, at which point I usually get iron. It is a rare game that I don't get at least one of the two, and I've found I can survive with just one of the two until I reach gunpowder. Usually by that time I've taken the other by force if I didn't have it already. Always war in Civ4, even if you plan to win peacefully. Remember that you get a lot of votes for diplomatic victory if you control an entire continent.

 

[morchuflex]

I mostly play on archipelago, and trust me, lacking early strategic resources is painfully common.

More often than not, I have neither horses nor copper within shooting distance of my capital or a second city, which means serious trouble when the barbarians start attacking en masse - generally around 1300 BC (on Epic speed).
And it is not rare at all to start on a landmass that doesn't contain iron either. Sometimes, you even start in full isolation (until Astronomy) without any of the three and without any luxury resources. Talk about balance!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I'm 60/40 with copper. Lately, I'm 70/30 with horses. Iron's more of a stickler for me 40/60 on that. Ivory has been my real rare one, though. I'm 25/75 with Ivory.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Sometimes, you even start in full isolation (until Astronomy)

I think you mean Optics. You'll want to get that ASAP if you're fully isolated for tech trading.

 

[Bostock]

I'm 60/40 with copper. Lately, I'm 70/30 with horses. Iron's more of a stickler for me 40/60 on that. Ivory has been my real rare one, though. I'm 25/75 with Ivory.

For me, Ivory depends on whether or not I'm the Khmer: don't really register its frequency when I'm not Khmer (maybe 25/75, but nothing to cry over since swords or maces will do), but when I *am*, it's 5/95. For my whole starting continent.

Not that their UU is all that great, but I'd kind of like to, you know, experience it when I do happen to play them!

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

LoL seriously, man. I've never utilized the Khmer UU. What's the deal with it anyway? What's its bonus?

 

[Bostock]

The Khmer UU is the one of the very few UU's with the dubious honor of having had a thread devoted to the notion that it is worse than the unit it replaces... though it's an arguable point, it's certainly not much *better*.

IIRC it's a jumbo that gets to force mounted units in an attacked stack to be the ones who defend against it............
.............except when attacking cities.

Could be nice in MP I guess.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Geeze. WTF kind of UU is that? Is this based on the real life Ballista Elephant? I can't imagine they put it in for gameplay value.

 

[Bostock]

I think what happened is that they were so worried about making it overpowered (what with the double whammy of a powerful base unit and an unusual special ability) that they bent over in the opposite direction.

I wonder why they didn't just go the boring (though more interesting than usual) but safe route of making it resourceless? Probably realism reasons, but honestly, the world will never know.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Coulda made them movement 2 or str 10 and available at engineering (although, there isn't much to engineer for them, I guess. Just for game balance)

 

[binhthuy71]

Does it upgrade to cannon elephant?

 

[Bostock]

A ballista is essentially a big crossbow, so strength 9 or 10 and requiring HBR/Archery/Machinery/Jumbos would probably fit both game balance and suspension of disbelief requirements.

If I could be bothered, I'd suggest it for PIG.

 

[Spectator20]

Ballista Elephant IIRC is the only unit that can force a specific defender to defend, instead of whatever has the highest defense value, probably spearmen or pikemen. Not only that, Elephants get a bonus against mounted, and most mounted units don't get terrain bonuses. Potentially this is really useful if you're facing a mixed stack with lots of mounted units and a few strong defenders like pikemen in the field, as these elephants can kill knights and possibly even cuirassiers thanks to that anti-mounted bonus.

 

[Afro Dictator]

i founded 2 cities teched bronze... no copper
i founded 3 more cities teched iron working... no iron
had every other resource imaginable though

only source of iron was deep in Chinese lands and 2 source of copper in mail's land -.-

this is like the 6th time this has happened and from experience 70% of the time your done for

i wb a iron in my borders

 

[bestbrian]

i founded 2 cities teched bronze... no copper
i founded 3 more cities teched iron working... no iron
had every other resource imaginable though

only source of iron was deep in Chinese lands and 2 source of copper in mail's land -.-

this is like the 6th time this has happened and from experience 70% of the time your done for

i wb a iron in my borders

Horse Archers; lots of Horse Archers. Mansa shouldn't be a tough target - take his copper.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i founded 2 cities teched bronze... no copper
i founded 3 more cities teched iron working... no iron
had every other resource imaginable though

only source of iron was deep in Chinese lands and 2 source of copper in mail's land -.-

this is like the 6th time this has happened and from experience 70% of the time your done for

i wb a iron in my borders

> 80% of the time, horses are your best rushing resource. The rest of the time, you're rome, sumeria, etc. If you don't want to rush HA's + archery units are fine defensively. You can strip away their siege with HA or just kill the invasion outright.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

*Lemon settles first city - Gets BW first for the copper...

- Copper is 20 tiles to the west...

*Lemon whips/chops warrior/settler to head for copper, followed by a worker and warrior to hook up new copper resource to capitol. Lemon prioritizes AH.

- Horses are 20 tiles to the east... next to Byzantium. Justinian waves hello.

*Lemon bruises forehead smashing it against desk, reaches for regen key...

 

[bestbrian]

*Lemon settles first city - Gets BW first for the copper...

- Copper is 20 tiles to the west...

*Lemon whips/chops warrior/settler to head for copper, followed by a worker and warrior to hook up new copper resource to capitol. Lemon prioritizes AH.

- Horses are 20 tiles to the east... next to Byzantium. Justinian waves hello.

*Lemon bruises forehead smashing it against desk, reaches for regen key...

Thanks for meeting my USDA approved minimum daily reqirement of schadenfreunde, Lemon.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Thanks for meeting my USDA approved minimum daily reqirement of schadenfreunde, Lemon.

Well, I'm glad you enjoyed that. You should hear about my bad games...