Resources Are Driving Me Nuts!

[madwand97]

First of all, let me just state for the record I love Civ3 and have loved it since the original Civ was designed by Sid. But what is driving me nuts are the strategic resources in Civ3. I think the concept is great, just poorly executed. I'm sure there are different opinions on this, but please don't flame me if yours happens to be contrary.

What I would really like to find out is if anyone knows of a way to customize or otherwise hack Civ3 so that I could change the way resources were distributed and/or how long they last?

If anyone from Firaxis ever reads these forums, for the love of humanity, could we please have an option in the game setup that we could select, say "Low - Medium - High" density of the resources? Or an option to turn on or off the running out of resources?

Again I am talking about strategic resources, not gold or spices or furs, which are unrealistically abundant and somehow never run out. I'm talking about coal and rubber and iron and such. I am desperately tired of having covered an entire continent with my civilization to find no iron anywhere, even though it is one of the most abundant resources in the (real) world. Or finding only one coal and having it run out after building ONE tile of railroad. Yet all around me are dozens and dozens of gold mines, a phenomenal bounty of one of the rarest and most prized metals in all of history is everywhere - I also have precious gems in never ending supply and rare and exotic silks and spices of infinite quantity - yet I can't find any more coal, one of the most common and abundant resources in the world. Very frustrating.

Sorry for the rant - but if anyone has any positive suggestions on dealing with or modifying strategic resources, I would really appreciate it.

 

[Beam]

Mad,

Please do not make this another wining thread. Resources are one of the main drivers for your gameplay and the standard settings will cause to do some conquest at one or more moments in the game.

In the first Civ 3 game I finished I was short of Uranium and for that could not finish Space Race with a very big nose ahead of competition. That has NEVER happenend to me again!

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by madwand97

What I would really like to find out is if anyone knows of a way to customize or otherwise hack Civ3 so that I could change the way resources were distributed and/or how long they last?

Yes, you can go into the editor and adjust the Appearance/Disappearance ratios in the Natural Resources area. You can set it so that they never disappear if you want, but there is a limit for the appearance of them. However, if you set it to the maximum number of 300, you're pretty much assured of something showing up nearby.

 

[madwand97]

I am not trying to create a 'whiner' thread, I am trying to bring attention to an issue that is bugging me and maybe get some constructive advice. I love Civ3 and I think strategic resources are a very interesting and important component of the game. I do think they are badly implemented and need to either be tweaked by Firaxis or at least they should give us the ability to have more control customizing their setup.

For the record I have seen dozens of games with wacky resource distribution and have heard numerous other accounts of the same. It is not some fluke. I have patiently waited through 2 patches since buying the game the day of its' release and while many other issues have been addressed, this one aspect of the game I find troubling and so I am finally speaking up. If you like the game as is, fine, but don't just have a knee jerk reaction to my post and label me a whiner. I have as much a right to comment on something that bothers me as anyone else here.

 

[madwand97]

Originally posted by Willem


Yes, you can go into the editor and adjust the Appearance/Disappearance ratios in the Natural Resources area. You can set it so that they never disappear if you want, but there is a limit for the appearance of them. However, if you set it to the maximum number of 300, you're pretty much assured of something showing up nearby.

Can you point me in the right direction on how to do this? Is there somewhere else here on CivFanatics that has a tutorial on the editor? Does the editor change the paramaters of the games I start or do I have to build the maps I want to play from scratch?
As you can tell I am a total newbie on this subject. In fact did I read somewhere that there was a problem with the editor with the 1.17f patch?

Much thanks.

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by madwand97
If you like the game as is, fine, but don't just have a knee jerk reaction to my post and label me a whiner. I have as much a right to comment on something that bothers me as anyone else here.

Apologies Mad, this is not the way I intended the post, it might be formulated a bit direct. Intention was to look for other options to handle strategic resources rather than the editor. If you want to go for the editor Willem makes a good suggestion IMHO, for non-edited games I am open to discuss what ways there are.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by madwand97


Can you point me in the right direction on how to do this? Is there somewhere else here on CivFanatics that has a tutorial on the editor? Does the editor change the paramaters of the games I start or do I have to build the maps I want to play from scratch?
As you can tell I am a total newbie on this subject. In fact did I read somewhere that there was a problem with the editor with the 1.17f patch?

Much thanks.

The editor can be made to start new games, yes. Now Dan will no doubt jump in here and give me hell, but the game rules are kept in the civ3mod.bic file so you can change that if you want.

All you have to do is double click on that file and the editor will automatically open up and be ready to change almost every parameter in the game. Just look at the various menus, it should all be self explanatory from there. There's also a help page you can reference, though some of their explanations can be vaque.

Backup your original first!!

Making alterations can corrupt the file. If that makes you nervous, you can save it as something else after making your changes, and use the Load Scenario option to run it in the game. This is Firaxis' preferred approach, though I think they're a little paranoid about this issue. I've only had a couple of instances where the file became corrupted, and I've made lots of changes.

BTW, some changes won't allow you to load your saved games afterwards, normally just if you're adding units, improvements etc. Parameter changes usuallyy aren't a problem. With resource appearance, changing in the middle of a game won't make any difference, all the resources are laid down right at the beginning of the game.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by madwand97

In fact did I read somewhere that there was a problem with the editor with the 1.17f patch?

Much thanks.

Ooops, missed one. The editor that was sent out with the patch was the wrong one. It was version 1.17, it should have been 1.15. So the game won't work with anything that gets saved with it. The correct one is available here somewhere.

 

[madwand97]

Originally posted by Beammeuppy


Apologies Mad, this is not the way I intended the post, it might be formulated a bit direct. Intention was to look for other options to handle strategic resources rather than the editor. If you want to go for the editor Willem makes a good suggestion IMHO, for non-edited games I am open to discuss what ways there are.

OK then - sorry if I was a bit tense there myself. Seems I'm used to the way some other forums are.

 

[MikeV]

Originally posted by madwand97
Can you point me in the right direction on how to do this? Is there somewhere else here on CivFanatics that has a tutorial on the editor? Does the editor change the paramaters of the games I start or do I have to build the maps I want to play from scratch?
As you can tell I am a total newbie on this subject. In fact did I read somewhere that there was a problem with the editor with the 1.17f patch?.

A tutorial on civ3edit would be A Good Thing.

To edit the default rules, save a copy of the file 'civ3mod.bic' from the folder where you installed civ3 (you will be overwriting it). Launch the civ3edit program. Under the Tools menu, select 'No Map', and unselect 'Use Default Rules.' You'll get a warning that you are editing the standard rule set.

Then, go to the Rules menu and navigate to the 'Edit|Natural Resources...' tab. That's where you will find the settings (see below).

Another thing you can do: start on an older world, where the resources are spread around more.

Hope this helps,

 

[Zouave]

Originally posted by madwand97
First of all, let me just state for the record I love Civ3 and have loved it since the original Civ was designed by Sid. But what is driving me nuts are the strategic resources in Civ3. I think the concept is great, just poorly executed. I'm sure there are different opinions on this, but please don't flame me if yours happens to be contrary.

What I would really like to find out is if anyone knows of a way to customize or otherwise hack Civ3 so that I could change the way resources were distributed and/or how long they last?

If anyone from Firaxis ever reads these forums, for the love of humanity, could we please have an option in the game setup that we could select, say "Low - Medium - High" density of the resources? Or an option to turn on or off the running out of resources? . . .

Being "flamed" for criticizing this flawed game is a tradition around here. Don't let it worry you - I don't.

(BTW, the game is FLAWED - not terrible. I have been playing it since December).

Do what most everyone has: go the the Editor and change (increase) the strange values for strategic resources. Iron and coal and saltpeter should be much more common. Also, there are mods elsewhere on this site that have changed the values for you AND (in different ways) make the resources a lot easier to see. In Civ III coal is almost impossible to see.

 

[madwand97]

Thanks very much Willem - I'll be looking for the corrected editor and playing with that for my next game. Of course I will back up first! Cheers.

 

[madwand97]

Wow - thanks MikeV and Zouave for your advice as well! This is great - and I though CivEdit was only for creating maps!

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by madwand97


OK then - sorry if I was a bit tense there myself. Seems I'm used to the way some other forums are.

OK lets smoke a peace pipe and have a large !

Indeed there are some forums/threads where escalations to a certain direction happen pretty fast and other options are often ignored or attacked.

IMHO it depends a lot how you want to play the game. Many players found it very difficult to implement Civ 2 strategies into Civ 3, yet there are quite a number been successfull doing so! Yes, there are anomalies in the initial release and IMHO 1.16 and 1.17 have solved a lot of those and even have brought new challenges, like Pop Rushing being brought to more balanced level. And this brings another Civ 3 challenge.

If your course is to create your own perfect Civ game or create scenarios it is very reasonable to demand a good editor. You can also take the gauntlet to beat whatever those guys at Firaxis have thought out. And probably there are ways in between as well.

It is a game after all, let's enjoy it!

 

[Zachriel]

Think of the iron resource as a generalized strategic metal resource. In the ancient age it plays more like tin did in history. Tin was an essential ingredient for the manufacuring of bronze weapons and armor. Tin mines are rare. Indeed, tin from Cornwall, England was traded at least as far as the Levant.

There are several good strategies to deal with a "missing" resource. For instance, do you have horses? Horsemen are preferred by many players over sword. Or trade for it, like many ancients civilizations did.

 

[Beam]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Think of the iron resource as a generalized strategic metal resource. In the ancient age it plays more like tin did in history. Tin was an essential ingredient for the manufacuring of bronze weapons and armor. Tin mines are rare. Indeed, tin from Cornwall, England was traded at least as far as the Levant.

There are several good strategies to deal with a "missing" resource. For instance, do you have horses? Horsemen are preferred by many players over sword. Or trade for it, like many ancients civilizations did.

 

[Guardian]

Actually, I think this whole resource thing is part of the fun!
Sure, it can get a little wacky at times, but it's a game after all, and having to set heaven and earth in motion to get hold of an important strategic resource can really spice up your game!

Okay, maybe the stuff's not sitting right in the middle of your territory by the time you discover it, but it'll always be on the map somewhere. It's just a matter of getting to it. So, you expand, trade, colonize or conquer...
-anything to get the resource!