I am out of vital resources, only option is to war two larger powers

[KnightsTemplar]

The north is rich in resources, also rich in chinese and egyptian cities. They formed an alliance against me earlier, but we have been at peace and friendly (most the time) for about 1000 years. However, I am completely out of iron, and horses, and they want to really screw me on deal to get it (I AM NOT GIVING THEM 200 gold and CHIVALRY) DEFINETELY NOT CHIVALRY!!! (I DONT WANT THEM TO HAVE KNIGHTS!!!) KNIGHTS ARE REALLY MY ONLY GOOD UNIT (THAT AND LEGIONARE)

 

[Buecephalus]

The problem is, chivalry isn't doing you any good if you don't have the horses to build 'em. So give 'em the tech and start building the units you want. On the other hand if you're deadset against giving them the tech and you've stockpiled enough knights to take on the other civs I say go for it. I'd do something like a surgical strike. Pick one or two cities close together that have the resource you want and attack. I'd also take along some settlers and defensive units. When you've taken the cities you want, raze 'em and install your own people, it'll prevent city flip and also be a cultural intrusion within their borders. If you want to stave off war weariness, talk to the civ whom you want to attack. Ask them repeatedly for the city that you've got your eye on. They WILL NOT give it to you. But, if you ask over and over again (within the same negotiation) they will get more and more pissed and eventually they'll declare war on you! This way you're the defender, and war weariness takes longer to set in.

 

[Zouave]

This is another problem I have with the game.

Strategic resources are not only extremely rare they are subject to depletion. It is often impossbile to trade for them no matter what kind of great deal you offer - sometimes NOT just the result of trade embargos.

Therefore, you are FORCED into too many wars of conquest, sometimes against friends you have spent many years cultivating.

I do not like it.

PATCH: Make strategic resources more common, and less difficult to trade for. I didn't say make them ubiquitous; just less rare.

 

[etj4Eagle]

What they need to do is add a slider to the map generator to allow us to select how plentiful we want the resources and maybe even one for how clustered the resources will be. That way those who like the challenge of playing on a map with limited resources can, where as those who don't can play on a plentiful map.

Though you can still deal with the resouce issue pretty easy already. Just open up the editor and generate a map in it and then add some additional resources. And for those who are winning about resources at all (different threads) they can essentially remove resources by putting a couple deposits of each at every start location. And if you don't like seeing the map, just generate a half dozen maps one of the other and unless you have very good memory, you probably won't remember them in enough detail to effect your game play.

 

[narmox]

_only_ 200 gold and chivalry??? WOW. That's a low price. Once I was out of iron, and the chinese would sell it to me for no less than 168 gold PER TURN. Needless to say, I immediately built tons of settlers to colonize australia and south america to get that iron

The resources are there to get you in interesting situations. In one game you may not have iron and need to get it through trade or war. In other games, you may have all the 10 deposits of iron in your territory and then YOU sell it (or don't ) to other nations... It's just random, it's not broken or anything. If the resources were more plentiful, and if everyone had every resource, would it be necessary to even have them?

It allows some interesting things to happen too.. In my current game, as the Romans, the Americans were getting plastered over the wall in their war against the English, Greeks and Iroquois. Since they were in north america, they had no horses or saltpeter. I decide to restore the balance of power in north america, so I give them horses and saltpeter. And voila, the war goes on and the balance is restored, America starts to counter-attack, and Abe's not furious anymore against me and his 50 swordsmen stop marching near my cities

 

[FM_Freyland]

The resources help make each game different. If every game you play the exact same way, with the exact same anticipated outcome, what is the point? In your present game, I would "play nice" with the two super power until I streamlined myself towards Musketmen/saltpeter so I could be successfully defensive. Heck, if I can get to Nationalism, I would make a MPP with one of them, just to keep me alive. And of course... EXPAND, EXPAND, EXPAND!

You know, the AI would never have done this to you if you had not told it the game was "very disappointing".

Jonathan

 

[RogueNine]

Zouave, you can also go into the editor and edit the chances of a resource being planted when the map is created. (Load the Civ3mod.bic file and go to Rules -> Resources. Edit the probability of the resources.)

Also, you can remove the chance of resources dissapearing. I turned that off for Iron, since I two games in a row my only source of iron dissapeared. The other resources I can live with (or fight for ) but iron is so important. How can you wage a war in the early years without swordsmen? Or create a good defense without pikemen?

Anyway, while you seem to have many problems with the game this one is solvable. Take a look around the editor, you might find ways to solve some of your other issues with the game.