Rarity of copper

[Molybdeus]

The bonusinfos.xml file has one copper per 128 tiles, while horses appear one per 256 tiles. Yet over the course of a hundred or so games of Civ4 I get horses near my capitol all the time and rarely get copper. It's gotten to the point where I enter games with the intent of using a chariot rush rather than an axe rush, despite the fact that chariot rushes are (slightly) weaker than axe rushes.

Are my observations off base, and if not what causes copper to be more rare around capitols? Is it because it can also appear in desert and snow? And if this is true, how does it affect the valuation of researching Animal Husbandry?

 

[CCRunner]

That's weird, I seem to get copper near my capital much more than horses.

 

[zebomba2]

These observations can be easily just that, obsevations.
In my current game, I have 2 copper inside my capital's BFC (sure, one appeared by event but anyway) and another just outside it. Copperville.
Yet there are no horses nearby and I have learned to fight without mounted units.

 

[Clam Spammer]

I have found strategic resource appearance in icy terrain to be quite an annoyance, particularly on land maps (like the Lakes map I am playing right now). However, in my experience Stone and Marble are far worse for this.

Do you know if the appearance rate for horses includes ice tiles or not? Horses don't appear there but if they are included in this figure then they will be more common in "temperate" regions.

 

[unclethrill]

I seem to see that copper is always available in the BFC of the capital, just not my capital! I seems that lately the AI always has it and I never do but as long as I have horses, all is well. Iron is great too but I usually wait and trade for IW after I get Alpha so someone else already will have it and be ready to roll.

 

[Molybdeus]

Do you know if the appearance rate for horses includes ice tiles or not? Horses don't appear there but if they are included in this figure then they will be more common in "temperate" regions.

Horses do not appear is desert or snow tiles. This might explain some of the apparent rarity of copper. If there are one hundred grassland, plains, tundra, desert and snow tiles, there will be 3.9 copper versus only 1.17 horses. But only 1.56 copper will appear in the grassland and plains versus 0.78 horses.

However copper should still outnumber horses by two to one, and that doesn't even include the fact that copper can appear on hill tiles while horses can't.

 

[Clam Spammer]

All of the horses appear on grassland and plains tiles though. What I'm saying is maybe the map generator calculates how many horses there should be based on the total number of land tiles (in your example 500/256 = 1.95) but then places all of these on open grasslands and plains. Which means that in good terrain, horses outnumber copper.

I forgot to mention tundra and deserts before. These should have been included in my post above (sorry).

 

[r_rolo1]

Horses do not appear is desert or snow tiles.

All of the horses appear on grassland and plains tiles though.

Really?

Not so sure.....

P.S This was not WBed... In fact i think it is the first time I see a tundra horse

 

[troytheface]

if bronze isn't about, who doesn't next look to iron? i rely more on iron as a mainstay strategy with copper being a bonus. tundra is often where iron can be found but many times it pops up under a farm. i say if you have a chance build at least one city in the tundra early.

 

[Monsterzuma]

P.S This was not WBed... In fact i think it is the first time I see a tundra horse

Horses DO appear on tundra tiles. You are not alone in noticing this.

There's always a moment of disappointment whenever I settle a city near horse only to find out that the tundra tile underneith makes the output equal to that of a grassland hill (barring a minor commerce bonus). I wonder if I'll ever learn...

 

[Monsterzuma]

By the way, is it possible that Copper competes with Forrest where random placement is concerned? This would make the possibility of Copper appearing on Ice or Desert weigh in much heavier on the chance of Copper appearing on useful tiles considering forrests don't spawn on Ice and Desert.

 

[Clam Spammer]

P.S This was not WBed... In fact i think it is the first time I see a tundra horse

OK, I've never seen a horse (or any animal besides deer) in tundra. I guess I just haven't played enough games yet .

Even so, there should be 1.3 horses in grasslands and plains on our sample map, not 1.17, if the chances of horses appearing on tundra are the same as for grassland/plains. Which they probably aren't given how rare these tundra horses seem to be.

Are the appearance rates for resources (eg. the 1 in 128 for copper) consistent across most map types, or do they vary?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

OK, I've never seen a horse (or any animal besides deer) in tundra. I guess I just haven't played enough games yet .

Even so, there should be 1.3 horses in grasslands and plains on our sample map, not 1.17, if the chances of horses appearing on tundra are the same as for grassland/plains. Which they probably aren't given how rare these tundra horses seem to be.

Are the appearance rates for resources (eg. the 1 in 128 for copper) consistent across most map types, or do they vary?

Fur is also very common in tundra...perhaps most prevalent there (other places it'll show is ice and capitol BFC).

 

[Bleys]

Are my observations off base, and if not what causes copper to be more rare around capitols?

I have the feeling this is one of those cases where people tend to remember the bad more than the good. Its easy to think that you dont get Copper, or lose more than your fair share of 90%+ battles, and such, because in our minds, the bad tends to stand out in our minds more than the good.

If you really want to get an accurate ratio, then you should start a BUNCH of games (the more the better) and check every single one for whichever resource you think is off, and record the data. Without some kind of record, people almost always "seem" to notice the negative more than the positive.

 

[Clam Spammer]

Fur is also very common in tundra...perhaps most prevalent there (other places it'll show is ice and capitol BFC).

That's not the point...


Bleys - I agree totally with this. It's probably just a case of bad things sticking in the memory. Also it could partly be because the games where you don't get copper take longer (since you can't axe rush enemies out of the game, keep their capitals and then use your advantage to steamroll the rest). Longer games tend to be more memorable since the diplomacy and such becomes deeper.

 

[Tecibbar]

Copper is more rare than Horse.
iTilesPer is not the only attribute that determines rarity. iPlayers too.

Copper:
<iPlayer>50</iPlayer>
<iTilesPer>128</iTilesPer>

Horse
<iPlayer>100</iPlayer>
<iTilesPer>256</iTilesPer>

I think number of resource on the map equals
iPlayer/100 * number of player * Random# OR
Total Tiles/iTilesPer * Random#
Whichever is bigger.

 

[Molybdeus]

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks.

 

[redmosquito]

Once I encountered a map with 2 (two) resources of oil. Luckily one was in the ocean 1 pop away from my cultural borders. Otherwise I would risk my conquest victory because of this stupid bug. Then I also suspected that my prince map had more food resources than normal. I might be imagining this one though