No Iron

[Soronery]

Is anyone else frustrated by the overall lack of iron on maps?
2 civs near me, and I have met about 7 city states. I take out one civ (about 5-6 cities) with horses then slowly tech to ironworking, picking up other techs beforehand .I've had a scout exploring the map for quite some time now.

Once I get ironworking...(around turn 55-60 quick pace)
0 city states have iron.
No patches of iron anywhere.
0 AI with iron to trade.
Wait....wait...That 2nd civ near me has a patch of 2 iron near their capitol which is flooded with units...great. This is just stupid. Fix the iron spawns -.-

 

[stormerne]

Try starting with resources set to Strategic Balance (which should give everyone iron) or Legendary Start (making sure you have something of everything). That said, I've never needed to do that and have always found the iron I needed (except occasionally when playing OCC).

 

[DemonMaster]

It happens sometimes. Usually there is a nearby CS with it that you can either bribe or attack. It is usually most annoying when you play Japan or Rome or so, but otherwise, not the end of the world.

I once when I played got 0 Iron, 0 Horses, 0 Coal, 4 Oil, 1 Uranium, and 0 Aluminium. I had about 15 cities or so. There was 2 Iron belonging to a CS, but I didn't even care to bother (it was a tundra city). I expanded much thanks to that I played Germany (Landsknechts) and I said to myself "You, Babylonian, you wait, wait until I got my panzers". He got the last laugh (4 oil) so I became Isolationistic and won a Science Victory. I won late, due to the fact that I had no coal. So imagine my solar and wind powered renaissance machines (or what they use in lack of factories) worked by engineers that is working their ass off to build a spaceship.

I was very happy (instead of Strategic Resources I got a whole lot of Luxury Resources).

Oddity 1
In my first CiV game ever I got 32 Iron on Small map and that when I just finished researching Iron Working (would have become 64 since I was playing Russia). I aborted that game (mainly just to check if that was normal).

Oddity 2
In my current game I play Japan and I am on a small continent with just one other Civ, Mongolia. I have no Iron and he have no Horses. Thank god for the 'Horseman-Rush' (even though I am glad for the change in the upcoming patch).

Oddity 3 (Civ III)
I was alone on a very small island with only one resource (Dye). My island was in the middle of the ocean so I was isolated. I won a diplomatic victory, and that was really a diplomatic victory since I had to be very diplomatic to stay alive. The main reason I managed to win was that I was the only one with Dye.

So the conclusion is that each game is unique and no I have not noticed the overall lack or iron. I am more annoyed if I don't get Coal.

 

[MadRat]

I'm finding some resources really tend to cluster - this is especially true for luxuries. In many game after I found my first city I end up with oodles of one luxury or horses, iron, etc around the capital. I am finding it is the same for the AI their capitals are usually in the middle of resource rich areas.

I am finding Coal, Oil and Iron to be the least abundant while horses, aluminum are extremely common and uranium is a mixed bag.i Just finished game on standard map and no-one had any coal and there were only two oils on the whole map - one in the open sea! That was a painful end game.

Rat

 

[Helmling]

Is anyone else frustrated by the overall lack of iron on maps?
2 civs near me, and I have met about 7 city states. I take out one civ (about 5-6 cities) with horses then slowly tech to ironworking, picking up other techs beforehand .I've had a scout exploring the map for quite some time now.

Once I get ironworking...(around turn 55-60 quick pace)
0 city states have iron.
No patches of iron anywhere.
0 AI with iron to trade.
Wait....wait...That 2nd civ near me has a patch of 2 iron near their capitol which is flooded with units...great. This is just stupid. Fix the iron spawns -.-

Why do you need iron anyway?

Just kidding...though seriously, I hardly ever need iron. Horses are enough to maintain a military edge to let me keep building all the wonders I want. Still, in my last game I had my own island all to myself and when I finally got around to discovering iron working, like 20 "iron has been discovered" flags came up.

So it happens, sure, but you never know what you're going to get.