Random Events

[capnvonbaron]

You're probably right about that. I stand corrected.

God-emporer also made a point, tin and jade are "random events" that can appear on a mine, but don't constitute as "resources", but "bonuses". That may be an additional point of confusion... but to be clear, gold/silver/iron/bronze/etc will only appear at random on a worked mine in a BFC. Well with exception to that silver random event (that I've never personally gotten), as we already discussed.

 

[AJ11]

As Baldor points out, there is an actual random event that adds silver to a hill in your borders, but it can't already have a mine on it.

Then there are the "non-resource resource" random events that can happen if you do have a mine, like the tin and jade random events. These add production and/or commerce to the plot just like having a resource on it would, but there is no actual resource. Some mods add signs that indicate what happened to the plot (like "+2P (Tin)" indicating that the "leading producer of tin" event happened for that plot and it gets +2). It is entirely possible that some mods actually add resources with these events (those that have the specific resource, like perhaps Caveman 2 Cosmos which has several metric excessivenesses of resources and could therefore do so for a lot of these sorts of events).

There is one for just about every resource, with options to add the appropriate improvement on it (plantation, camp, etc.)

 

[Baldor]

I can confirm that a peaceful border expansion is enough for the Greed Quest to congratulate you with six free axemen (18 nations and huge map), but you must be quite lucky with the circumstances to obtain access to the missing resourse inside a forreign territory without a declaration of war, if the triggering resourse isn’t located right next to one of your cities.



Congratulations! Your Greed is unmatched! You have
managed to wrest control of the coveted German
Copper resourse! Your generals are already expanding
their military planning.


Recruit and train units that take advantage of our
new resourses.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well even if they're not considered random events, I've seen it happen in my games often. Almost every one of them was in city work tile range, but I've had a rare few outside. If I get another game with that situation, I'll post a picture.


Besides random minerals then if they don't count.... it's usually people burning my forests, slowing down my settler production. >.>

Well, my arguments regarding events have been fleshed out plenty over a few years w/o needing to derail this thread. I do think the resource discovery via mine should be considered a random event, but they left it in its vanilla form which means that it's treated separately.

However the resource discovery thing is a minor factor in considering mines vs windmills (though by the time windmills are truly good, there aren't that many turns left). I forget the exact chance, something around 1/1000 per worked mine turn? Or was it 1/10000? It's like that, and it doesn't sound like much until one realizes the sheer volume of mines that might be in an empire.

Oddly, windmills + workshops can generally do better than farms + mines late game, having more commerce and similar and . Sadly windmills need environmentalism to reach potential however, and those don't mesh well with workshops. That doesn't mean they don't have uses (especially in food poor cities) but they're never going to be as common as mines, and resource discovery just pushes in that direction a bit further.

 

[AJ11]

Oddly, windmills + workshops can generally do better than farms + mines late game, having more commerce and similar and . Sadly windmills need environmentalism to reach potential however, and those don't mesh well with workshops. That doesn't mean they don't have uses (especially in food poor cities) but they're never going to be as common as mines, and resource discovery just pushes in that direction a bit further.

I hope that that is deliberate on the part of the developers. Farms and mines were the original improvements, nd should have pride of place as being the best improvements on the board. The later ones should be there only as suboptimal substitutes (e.g., you have a city in a predominantly hilly terrain, windmills would net you the extra food needed to grow, or if you are in nothing but grasslands and need the shields, workshops step up to the plate as a lesser mine).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^

I don't know, I'd rather see at least some strategic balance/tradeoffs. Windmills incidentally do tend to win after replaceable parts, but fall back again for good around railroad.

For state property based empires workshops and watermills are indeed top tier improvements and without the kremlin + slavery are more productive than farms. Some of the more impressive deity games I've seen make heavy use of them and only a stacked mining inc city does better in .

Windmills are better than trying to grow cottages late game, so I could see someone spamming them in commerce cities if you do a industrial or later start. For their part, cottages are surprisingly situation despite being one of the earliest improvements. They are good with FIN and in specialized cities and not often otherwise.

 

[AJ11]

^

I don't know, I'd rather see at least some strategic balance/tradeoffs. Windmills incidentally do tend to win after replaceable parts, but fall back again for good around railroad.

For state property based empires workshops and watermills are indeed top tier improvements and without the kremlin + slavery are more productive than farms. Some of the more impressive deity games I've seen make heavy use of them and only a stacked mining inc city does better in .

Windmills are better than trying to grow cottages late game, so I could see someone spamming them in commerce cities if you do a industrial or later start. For their part, cottages are surprisingly situation despite being one of the earliest improvements. They are good with FIN and in specialized cities and not often otherwise.

I like the idea of improvements that make things more viable in places where farms or mines are just not possible (aforementioned grassland heavy site). I don't like the idea that later improvements can supplant farms or mines in a generic manner after certain techs. I do like the idea that certain civics allow the other improvements to be better than farms or mines.

I do believe that this is one area that Civ4 partially did well. There are civic/improvement combos that are better than just plain farms, which encourages more strategic thinking. What is bad is that at least one of the civics involved (i.e., State Property) is a no brainer civic that is massively powerful on its own without needing to add more to it.

 

[ruff_hi]

I like events for spice. I once got an event to go and do such and such (benefit ... 5 free knights) ... then next turn I got the greed event (go capture that city) ... luckily, I had 5 free knights just lying around doing nothing .

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I do believe that this is one area that Civ4 partially did well. There are civic/improvement combos that are better than just plain farms, which encourages more strategic thinking. What is bad is that at least one of the civics involved (i.e., State Property) is a no brainer civic that is massively powerful on its own without needing to add more to it.

Yes, that definitely does not mesh well with one's preference for viable, situation-based alternatives. There ARE times where free market and even environmentalism or merc might win out...

However they are way too rare.