Kailric
Jack of All Trades
Could we have it that workers can find deeper seems of ore or other mineable yields like silver, but only a prospector can find a bonus resource such as iron, tin, copper, whatever. So that becomes their specialist benefit.
I'm not sure about this one. That maybe too precious of a skill for Expert Prospectors, makeing their aquisition extremely important, leaving your empire gimp without them.
I don't know if it can be done or not, (but I think it can because of how improvements can do it in civ.), but perhaps we could have some 'natural' bonus resources, that start on the map, like iron that can be instantly mined well without prospecting, but then a prospector has the chance to 'plant' or 'reveal' or 'discover' a hitherto non-existant bonus resource? Like what mines and such can do in civ. where they have a chance to discover a bonus resource that wawsn't there.
This is somewhat how it works now. When a Map is generated and after a Bonus Iron is placed, that Bonus Iron plot acts like a Mining Epicenter. Ore is then added around the Bonus for several plots. This Ore is then already on the map and your Prospectors can find it. The amount of Ore Grows larger the closer you get to the Epicenter so when Prospecting you may can tell what direction the Bonus is. Bonuses are not hidden at the moment so you can find it once the plot is revealed. There is also a random chance to find Ore in any viable plot, but the Epicenters guarantee Ore.
We could maybe have it that mountains are more likely to reveal a bonus as well, making peaks an even more valuable terrain to build near, so you are almost certainly going to want to put in the effort of making mining communities near every mountain you can get your fingers on!
Yeah, good idea. The Type of Terrain can have a bonus to the Amount of Ore Revealed.
I made some additions to the Prospecting code. When you deplete an Ore source you will get a message and a plot Icon, also the unit working the plot will be auto reassigned to another plot so you want keep producing nothing. I plan to add Silver and Stone to this system next.
I am still waiting to here from Night about the mentioned bug before I make another upload.