New Profession: Prospector

[Kailric]

I came up with this idea while doing research for the Westward Ho mod. As the title says players would have a new Profession called Prospector. Prospecting is the physical search for minerals and precious metals. Prospecting can be done in Hills, Mountains, and any plot next to a river. What you are looking for is gold, silver, and iron. Once a suitable plot is found for prospecting you give your Prospector the command to Prospect

It then takes several turns but once the work is done there is a chance to find a mineral vein. There would be a few degrees of veins ranging from a small lode, which only last a few turns, to a large lode that can last a whole lot longer. Then there is also the most sought out mother lode which would last indefinitely and perhaps reveal smaller veins in nearby plots.

As for the graphic for this profession I would love to find a donkey so if anyone knows where one is let me know

Feel free to post any extra ideas you may have on this.

 

[KJ Jansson]

Now I'm moving all the mineral resources (iron ore, silver, gold, coal, sulfur, etc.) accessible only on rare mineral deposits. This will increase the interest in the study of New World and the seizure of discovered valuable deposits.

The idea to introduce "Prospector" is very interesting.

However, in this case it is desirable to have the exhaustible resources. Otherwise, the resources will be available almost everywhere. Moreover, having an inexhaustible resource the player will not need to look for a new deposits.

And now let's image such situation. A player discovered Gold deposit. He built the goldmine and produces gold, but after some time the deposit is fully worked out and he has no more gold. He will be forced to seach a new mineral deposit. And here Prospector could help him very well.

 

[TC01]

I had a slightly similar idea of setting up Mines so they had a chance to discover new resources. The tags are already there in the XML (Firaxis never removed them from ImprovementInfo). A Prospector system sounds better, but would require an exhaustible resource system.

As for how that might work codewise:

Each terrain would have a maximum and minimum possible value for each yield. Each feature would have a maximum and minimum modifier for each yield. Each resource would have a set value for each yield. The total amount, an integer set to each plot, would be:

(rand(terrainMax - terrainMin) + terrainMin) + (rand(featureMax - featureMin) + featureMin) + bonusValue

Then, working the plot would cause however much is being added to the city to be taken away from the plot.

When the amount on a plot reaches 0, the resource would be removed.

Of course, an override like "bExhaustible" for yields would be a good idea so only the "mineral" resources can be exhausted.

And maybe it would be a good idea to make some yields, like Gold, only exist on a plot if a resource was there. But I think it would be a good idea to at least create an option for plots to naturally have amounts of yields based on their terrain and feature types.

 

[Androrc the Orc]

I like this idea quite a lot. I had thought of something similar awhile ago (basically the same, but with Prospectors being able to reveal mineral resource bonuses that were placed on the map, which would be invisible and not give the bonus until found). Like KJ Jansson, I have in SoI made minerals be produced only in tiles with their resource bonus, because I found the rampant availability of them in vanilla Col (silver in every mountain, ore in every hill and mountain) too be too much.