Is coal too important?

[LucyDuke]

I'll agree, there should be an alternative to coal. A late tech offering another way to build railroads, maybe. Something, even if it's expensive, to make it at least possible. That's what modern tech is about.

If you don't have coal, aren't by a river, and can't/don't-want-to build nuke plants, then you can't power your factories.

If you could, but don't want to build nuke plants, you could, but don't want to power your factories.

 

[Breunor]

In my last game, I didn't have coal -- but I could still build coal plants. I couldn't believe it, I thought I was going crazy. So, not having the coal wasn't as bad as I thought. But check it out, you can build coal plants without coal!

Breunor

 

[Elandal]

You can build them but they won't provide power (nor unhealthiness) - without coal they just stand their waiting for someone to deliver fuel to be burned..

 

[jac0001]

As a summary

A) we need coal for feul the first generation of trains (could be later replaced by oil or electricity)

b) we need coal (coke) to make steel

In real life how abundant is coal? Do most nations / contintents have coal avalaible (if not abundant)?

 

[vsipinen]

Even in the later part of the game, iron is still giving an extra 50% production to the IW-city, and isn't it the resource that provides prod.-bonus towards building the eiffel-tower? ...And neccesary to build frigates, ironclads etc?
Still, it's not much, but the late-game shouldn't be about having ancient resources... but rather about securing new ones... right?

I don't think that iron is only an ancient resource. Isn't it very important material even in present day ? I suppose that so is also copper by the way. The fact that new resources becomes available in the game would not have to mean in my opinion that earlier resources become more or less obsolete. I find it actually little annoying, when I in the late game have several iron resources and they seem almost useless.

 

[majk-iii]

no, of course not... i meant game-vise... kinda.

 

[majk-iii]

I guess wouldn't mind if iron were needed for more things even in the late game... but i also kinda understand why it isn't.

 

[Breunor]

You can build them but they won't provide power (nor unhealthiness) - without coal they just stand their waiting for someone to deliver fuel to be burned..

Ahh, makes sense!

Thanks,

Breunor

 

[Stylesrj]

I think why Iron isn't needed for railroads because in games of Civ III, one of the common problems was that you have Coal, but no Iron, so you can't build the rails. It happened a lot to me, but it was that I had Iron, but no coal (the Iron would disappear a lot and re-appear in the exact same spot!). It was really annoying.

Besides, in a world where Rocketry and no flight can lead to space travel, I think in that world, you could use other resources to make the rails. Use copper, uranium (it was used to enhance alloys before it went nuclear), gold, silver, gems, the list goes on. You have the coal there to help make the rails and power early trains. In modern times, it's used to make rails and we'll just say they maintain the old ones even though they never get destroyed when you lose coal.

Anyway, the coal is used to help the process of making rails, you don't need Iron for it.

 

[Lord Neil]

In my current game i have also run into the road block of no Coal but i have some ways around it:
1) I am playing on a terra map and a barbarian city i capured has coal 2 culture expansions away.
2) I recently gained Victoria as a vassal and she has coal but is i little bit away from discovering that she has it... i could give her the technology revealing it but i am not sure if i want to do that yet.

Since I am a bit off from being able to use it i think ill wait and see how things unfold.

But back to the fact about coal being too important i believe it is very important although that is a reasons wars are waged. If you want more balanced resource dispersal you could just chose balanced resources instead of standard.

 

[Multiplicity]

The most sensible solution is have it obselete through a later researched tech. Coal was important to the early railroad, especially in Britain where the railroad was born. There was no better alternative resource to use for power given the level of technology back then.

I do like sometimes having the challenge of dealing with the issue of missing an important resource.

 

[TheAmerican]

Whats wrong with coal being rare ? Its a valuable resource, and you should have to fight for it. It encourages imperialism, and trade.