I think Oil might be bugged

[Phanixis]

So after several playthroughs I noticed oil was exceedingly rare, even more so than other strategic resources such as iron and uranium. And I think I have identified the cause. In ever single game without any exceptions oil has only spawned on the following four kinds of tiles: tundra, snow, coast and ocean, the later two requiring plastics before they can be used. And its spawn rate isn't unreasonable when limited to just those tiles, rather it is the confinement of oil to only those four tile types that is responsible for oil's excessive rarity.

Has anyone else noted this pattern? I tried googling this behavior but couldn't find any mention of it. I don't think its intentional on Firaxis' part, at least I hope its not intentional.

I would like to actually report this bug to Firaxis. I don't suppose they provide any method of giving them feedback on bugs like this?

 

[UWHabs]

I'm fairly certain I've seen it in desert tiles as well. But overall, I like the fact that it's rare - it should be something to fight over.

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

I haven't seen any on Desert in my many games.

 

[kampori]

Pretty sure I've had some desert oil. Unless I'm misremembering and it was in the coast off my desert city. May have been.

 

[wiggawuu]

strategic resources are rare. If you happen to lad any of them, then war mongering is the best option. Pretty big advantage when you can upgrade to musketmen and no one else can. Although, im starting to suspect this might have to do with map sizes?

 

[Seabastian Civ]

I also noticed no desert oil but I thought it must have been a map coincidence. All the oil I've seen has been tundra/snow or offshore. It must be a bug.

 

[Solitude]

Yea feels bugged. Usually on standard map for me theres only two tiles that have oil on the whole map.

 

[westyofoz]

Oil is set to be rarer than other strategic resources. So I imagine the point was to fight for it. Out of a dozen games, I have only had oil spawn in my territory once. I noticed when I was looking to change the distance between starting civs. I was sick of them spawning beside me at start up..

 

[Tech Osen]

Strategic resources can pop up under city districts without showing an icon, had it happen twice. It does get connected but you can't see it on the map so no way of knowing what and where other civs might have that happen.

 

[Sascha77]

So after several playthroughs I noticed oil was exceedingly rare, even more so than other strategic resources such as iron and uranium. And I think I have identified the cause. In ever single game without any exceptions oil has only spawned on the following four kinds of tiles: tundra, snow, coast and ocean,

I think I posted about this a few weeks ago myself, when I was on a standard-sized map that had *two* instances of oil. One was on land in another civ's territory, the other was on a coastal tile in the very top "tile-row" of the map (basically at the north pole). Granted: The AI may have built districts on top of sources of oil so I couldn't see the icons when oil was revealed to me, but overall it does seem to be a bit too scarce.

Speaking of terrain: I haven't kept very good track of where it "spawns", but I am pretty sure I haven't seen it on a desert tile yet.

The only good thing here is that a lack of oil isn't as big a deal as it is in Civ V. Which is also a little odd when we look at the real world and how much modern societies depended on/still depend on oil.

S.

 

[bladex]

i never have any problem finding oil in my games playing fractal maps

 

[Esperr]

I have a game right now where there is desert oil. I suppose it was there to try and make people fight over it, but realistically you just wait until aluminum or go for a different VC.

i never have any problem finding oil in my games playing fractal maps

Well, all the fractal maps ive played also tend to have a way higher instance of tundra and desert.

 

[Sascha77]

Well, all the fractal maps ive played also tend to have a way higher instance of tundra and desert.

Which would make sense since fractal usually generates those long, "snaky" continents that stretch all the way from the north to south pole. Hence: More land near the poles = more tundra. High chance of lots of land near the equator = higher chance of deserts.

S.

 

[mnf]

Yeah I think map type matters a lot. My Fractal map games also get a lot more desert, like more small patches here and there, while Continents maps seem to have larger patches but less of those patches. Considering the ratio of desert to coastal tiles in a Continents map, I think it's not necessary a bug, but more likely just a statistical result that most oil end up in the sea. If the map generator forces even say half the oil to spawn in desert, it's probably going to end up with every desert always having oil and always multiple copies.

 

[bladex]

haha Fractal FTW

 

[BBInMass]

If you look in Resources.xml you will see the following data (... is unrelated data that I cut out):

...
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" ... Frequency="9" .../>
...
<Resource_ValidTerrains>
...
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" TerrainType="TERRAIN_COAST"/>
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" TerrainType="TERRAIN_DESERT"/>
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" TerrainType="TERRAIN_SNOW"/>
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" TerrainType="TERRAIN_TUNDRA"/>
...
</Resource_ValidTerrains>
<Resource_ValidFeatures>
...
<Row ResourceType="RESOURCE_OIL" FeatureType="FEATURE_MARSH"/>
...
</Resource_ValidFeatures>
...

So oil has a frequency of 9, which is the same as the other strategic resources (except horses which is 10). And that it can only occur on coasts, deserts, snow, and tundra tiles (and not the hilly version of those). I'm not sure how the feature marsh comes into play ? Can a marsh be on snow or tundra ?

 

[Phanixis]

So other than the fact that I missed desert oil somehow (and you got me on marshes, I am not even sure how that is supposed to work but I have never seen marsh oil), my observations are pretty much correct. The spawn rate is the same but it only spawns on a small subset of tiles. Maybe the tile restrictions are intentional, but it makes the stuff is way too rare. I actually played a continent map where it only spawned on the coast and could not be obtained until plastics, which to add insult to injury requires a regular oil well as the eureka. Fractal maps are better, as a previous poster pointed out there is usually plenty of snow and tundra for the stuff to spawn on, but on other maps you might just get plain screwed out of the stuff.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Well, fyi large map second playthrough I had 100% sure marsh oil. Also désert one si op is wrong.

Also had almost 7 oils but I had over 20 cities and might have been a bit lucky toi.

 

[Lucius_]

Thing is oil isn't all that important. Not having carriers may be a nuisance. Not having tanks isn't like not having muskets or swords. Honestly I prefer CiV's use of oil much better. It was extremely critical for a modern, diverse army. No oil meant no planes, no battleships, no tanks. At the very least, they need to make oil a requirement for planes or battleships. Oil should be required to have either air or sea dominance, preferably both imo. Right now, oil isn't worth fighting over. If you are going domination, you probably have it, if not, you don't really need it for defense.

 

[mnf]

Thing is oil isn't all that important.

Which has no bearing to whether its distribution is bugged or not, though. This is a discussion about whether it is bugged, not about its utility or value in the game.