Iron. Ugh

[chazzycat]

yeah you really don't need iron anymore, if you need to conquer early then pikeman & CBs do just fine. only on water maps for frigates does it really seem important, IMO.

 

[afedyuki]

I pretty much agree except for what you said about horses. While the bulk of my army tends to be archers, I find mounted units indispensable as even a couple of them can wreck havoc behind the enemy lines. Kill a siege machine or archer and retreat from retaliation (as it can move after attacking), rinse and repeat. Unlike warrior line, you simply can't replace them another unit type if you don't have horses.

Horses and Iron is something you can easily do without in G&K.

The warrior line is just meh, that 1-2 seems to be too many.

The AI spams pikemen making horses a lot less useful.

It's all about archers and siege weapons and neither take iron or horses.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Change resources to Strategic Balance in game setup.

I can't believe it took seven posts for someone to remember that.

 

[Barghaest]

I kinda of wish there was a setting between Standard and Abundant on resources (Strategic Balance using same amounts as Standard, just makes sure you start with more access) because Standard has too few resources usually and Abundant has way too much.

Example, there's 71 Coal total on this large map I'm playing which means if all 10 empires had an equal share they'd be able to have 5-6 workshops and 1-2 ironclads (or various mixes of that amount) while there was 122 iron the map... coal should have been at least as abundant as iron.

I've expanded to be 28 cities and I've gone out of my way in pursuit of coal. Now that I'm past Ironclads and in the Modern/Atomic era borderline. It'd be nice to be able to put a factory in every city but I lack the coal to do so and the AI has none for trade because it is short of having an abundance.

Coal is always the major shortage in my games (I may start with poor horses/iron but it's easy to rectify) and I'll probably try and tweak the settings to get more to spawn. (Oddly enough there's only one quantity entry for Coal in the xml for Resources and it lists a quantity of 6... which I've never seen, Coal appears as either 3 or 7 )

 

[GhostSalsa]

I've expanded to be 28 cities and I've gone out of my way in pursuit of coal. Now that I'm past Ironclads and in the Modern/Atomic era borderline. It'd be nice to be able to put a factory in every city but I lack the coal to do so and the AI has none for trade because it is short of having an abundance.

Well, there's always Fascism...

I finally cracked open the revamped Autocracy tree last night. It's lovely. Fast gg, universal 15XP boost, yes please.

(Also, don't forget about Citidels. Get those strategic resources on the border while you are conquering.)

I definitely see more gaps in strategic resources. It's astounding when you have an empire spanning the world, reveal uranium, see it's only three spots under Gandhi... But I like it. Shakes things up.

 

[tmarcl]

City States man. They always tend to have either 1 Iron source, or 1 Coal source, sometimes both.

Playing an austrian game and my Iron/Coal reserves have become abundant since aquiring some CS through marriage.

Another possibility, if you don't mind the diplomatic hit, is to attack a CS that has iron early on. You should be able to position your spearman and a few catapults right where you want them without having to declare war. Toss in a couple of triremes, and it shouldn't be too hard to take the CS.

Granted, you'll lose whatever additional benefit that CS would have provided you (culture, faith, whatever), but you'd still have direct access to the resource.

 

[Barghaest]

Well, there's always Fascism...

I finally cracked open the revamped Autocracy tree last night. It's lovely. Fast gg, universal 15XP boost, yes please.

(Also, don't forget about Citidels. Get those strategic resources on the border while you are conquering.)

I definitely see more gaps in strategic resources. It's astounding when you have an empire spanning the world, reveal uranium, see it's only three spots under Gandhi... But I like it. Shakes things up.

Yeah, I normally go Autocracy (Order a close second) yet I've got only a few allies this game and I'm holding off on Industrial SPs to see which they choose....

I suspect Polynesia will go Freedom and China will go Order so I can either stick with my traditional Autocracy and annoy them both or try to maintain good relations with one or the other. Working on Rationalism right now (one of the few times I've taken it) and just started a massive global war (convinced Polynesia and China to DoW with me vs Spain - China went to peace about halfway through the war then asked for my help vs India, Polynesia stuck with me to the bitter end but had to limit troops after I warned them both Incas and Mayas were preparing sneak attacks on their lands - about the time I wiped Spain off the map, Arabia, India, the Inca and the Maya all DoWed Polynesia, despite the fact I was the one who took Spain's last city, so I just convinced China to DoW Arabia with me since they're the tech leader and I saw a fleet of battleships and carriers move past my coast headed for Polynesia and plan on using subs and my own brand new triplanes to help keep Polynesia alive but wanted China onboard with the DoW so I didn't take a warmonger hit with her if Polynesia falls...)

 

[Trik]

A tech that reveals iron before iron working would be very nice.

 

[Barghaest]

A tech that reveals iron before iron working would be very nice.

Yeah, maybe spotting iron in Bronze Working but waiting til Iron Working hasn't been an issue for me... makes sense you don't notice it prior to being able to use it as it is merely part of the terrain until it becomes important (gems, copper, gold, silver are bit shinier and tend to attract attention so I never had issues with seeing most bonus/luxury resources prior to being able to use them).

Horses, on the other hand, have always annoyed me. I feel they should be visible from the start of the game. If I can see herds of cattle (even worse, elephants/foxes/swine or whales) before I can tech to make use of them I should see the herds of horses. The one issue here is the bonus they give (+1 ) which wouldn't make sense before Animal Husbandry when you employ animals for labor (+1 from cattle/sheep does as prior to making use of the animals for labor you can still eat them and the bonus gold from the luxuries also follows suit, you just get more when you can hunt them effectively). Maybe giving them bonus prior to teching Animal Husbandry and remove it and replace it with then; however, I've yet to be able to give bonuses to resources via tech (only improvements which won't affect the resource when a city settles on it directly).

I suppose I could link it to stables (since you're considered to have the resource improved by settling on it) but it'd still mean you'd effectively be eating the horses before the city has a stable...

 

[ArcticPenguin]

I too have been having a string of bad luck with strategic resources. I played a number of games as Rome with no iron on my continent. Played a Carthage game today, and there was four horses on the entire continent. I think one patch of coal too. Oil though, plenty of oil. Iron is certainly less crippling to be deficient in the early game, but it sure is heartbreaking when you expect to have legions\samurai\berserkers screaming at your opponents and you have... NOTHING!

 

[Roxlimn]

Sometimes, I'm playing Japan in order to use Samurai. If I don't have any iron on the continent I spawned in, I quit the game. I understand that it's by design, but I think there should be a strong start bias for any Civ with an iron-requiring UU to at least have some iron somewhere on their continent.

 

[Flying Mathias]

I actually like spawning without Iron. It give me a bit of a challenge to attack with pikemen, knights, and trebuchets rather then longswordsmen. Or you could just rush riflemen.

Unless I'm playing as Rome. Rome with no iron is no fun.

 

[gunslinger6792]

there was a mod pre steam workshop that allowed the player to see iron when mining was unlocked. perhaps someone could make a mod like that again and put it up ?

 

[PhilBowles]

there was a mod pre steam workshop that allowed the player to see iron when mining was unlocked. perhaps someone could make a mod like that again and put it up ?

Hmm, maybe make all resources unlockable? So that you don't know what's in your immediate vicinity immediately (except for Wheat, Fish, Pearls and Crabs, conceptually unlocked by Agriculture and the nonexistent tech fishing, which preceded Sailing in previous games), and you gradually uncover more as time goes on?

Mining: reveals Copper, Iron, Gold, Silver, Gems
Animal Husbandry: reveals Horses, Truffles, Cattle, Sheep
Calendar: Reveals Citrus, Banana, Spices, Dyes, Wine, Incense
Sailing: Reveals Whales

 

[sizesixteens]

I actually prefer strategic resources to be somewhat scarce. In fact, isn't that why powerful units usually require resources to build? If Iron was readily available to all civs, then what's the point of requiring it to make Swordsmen? If I'm dealt an area with no early-game strat. resources, the late-game stuff will usually shows up in bundles. I just play defensively and make sure I have enough land to grab the Aluminum and Uranium.

 

[smallfish]

Missing iron is not the end of the world. I won my first Immortal game without connecting a single iron. It's not like coal in civ 3 .

I guess if going for peaceful victory, it is doable without iron.

But in my games, especially on water maps like Fractal or Hemispheres, having iron means having Frigates which means a ton of coastal cities for you to play around with. I don't want iron for Longswords; I want them for Frigates, tons of Frigates.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Recently I haven't noticed much of a difference between civ4 with strategic resources making unlimited units and civ5 only allowing a few. I never seem to have an army big enough to need more than I get from one source. The exception being coal when I'm building factories, and need ironclads.

 

[Flying Mathias]

Recently I haven't noticed much of a difference between civ4 with strategic resources making unlimited units and civ5 only allowing a few. I never seem to have an army big enough to need more than I get from one source. The exception being coal when I'm building factories, and need ironclads.

Probably because of 1UPT.
If we could stack a bunch of units together, we'd quickly run out of resources.

 

[dac050]

My last game had vast quantities of oil. On ice floes, in the middle of oceans, on stupid outcroppings of rock. I wish we could claim strategic resources with outposts or something sometimes....

 

[Roxlimn]

Recently I haven't noticed much of a difference between civ4 with strategic resources making unlimited units and civ5 only allowing a few. I never seem to have an army big enough to need more than I get from one source. The exception being coal when I'm building factories, and need ironclads.

It depends on the sourcing. Some Iron spots only give two Iron resources, so making an army of Longswordsmen and Legions could be problematic if that's the only Iron source you have. Some have 6, which is functionally all you should need unless you're that big and you need multiple armies.

The Horses are a little too generous on the map script, too, I think.