resources disappearing

[Jimcat]

Originally posted by rangers85
Plus, you can trade away your only one as well. Every so often if I'm behind a bit and I can do without a resource for 20 turns, I'll trade away my only one to catch up in techs, etc. somewhat.

Ummm, I'm surprised to see this. Normally if I have only one of a resource, I'll see "0 extra" in the trading screen. I thought your first instance of a resource was automatically unavailable for trading, barring special circumstances like losing a resource during the term of a trade deal.

 

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Jimcat: you can still offer it.

 

[rangers85]

Jimcat, yes it'll show as 0 extra, but you can still include it in a deal. Plus I've found if the other civ knows they'll get your only source of a strategic or lux resource, they'll seem to pay a little more than normal for it. I'm not saying it's fact, but that's what it seems like to me.

 

[Catt]

Trading your sole source of a resource (especially a luxury) can be an excellent tactic to help you keep you in the game at the higher levels, or, for that matter, anytime you're the small fry among bigger AIs. Luxuries are particularly powerful because you can often trade your last luxury resource without suffering the happiness hit of losing a luxury. How?

Anytime you find yourself out-expanded by the AI, pay careful attention to empire sizes and empire needs. It is widely stated/believed that the AI values luxuries by determining how many happy faces a luxury will generate for a civ (and all my gameplay experience shows agreement with this assumed state of affairs). This luxury valuation model is the reason why, when you are the biggest civ, and already control 4 luxuries, and have marketplaces in many of your cities, a smallish, backward AI will demand from you 3 luxuries, a technology, your map and a lot of gold for his one excess gem -- that gem is going to generate a lot of happy faces for you, but your luxuries are not going to generate even 1/5th of the number of happy faces for the AI. But the luxury valuation model also works in your favor when you're the smaller, perhaps backward civ.

In a significant number of Deity and Emperor games, where I am pretty much always small and backward for a good chunk of the early game, I can trade away my luxuries for luxuries and techs, gold, etc. For example, say I control only 1 incense. I can trade my sole incense to the AI kingpin for a gem, a technology and some gold. The AI derives a lot more happy faces from my incense than I do from his gem and he is willing to pay extra for it. I have traded my sole luxury, but got a different luxury back (my people derive the exact same happiness from gems as from incense). And if the deal is broken for some reason, I get my incense back - so I have not lost any happiness but have gained a tech and a trading partner. And I can continue this every 20 turns so long as another AI is larger than me. There's no reason this tactic can't work on any difficulty level - it just depends on you being smaller than another civ.

Certainly not a game-changing strategy, but a nice tactical arrow to keep in your quiver.

 

[GI Josh]

An *excellent* tactic, Catt. I've never even thought of trading my last resource before.

 

[Sanaz]

Originally posted by Amask
In one of my games as Germans I founded a city with 4 iron tiles around it. I was already planning who to trade it to and how much to ask for it, when all my dreams were ruined. The four iron sources disappeared in four turns.

I thought the resources were set up so that they couldn't appear so close to each other, like maybe only one per city? I've never seen two of the same resource near a single city before, no matter what map size.

 

[Sim_One]

I noticed that when I've beaten an AI pretty badly after a war and negotiate peace I cannot get the AI to give me a luxury or resource as his bargain for peace because the option is grayed out, even though our capitals are connected. This is very irritating...how can I get the AI to to use his luxury or resource in a peace bargain?

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by S1m0ne
I noticed that when I've beaten an AI pretty badly after a war and negotiate peace I cannot get the AI to give me a luxury or resource as his bargain for peace because the option is grayed out, even though our capitals are connected. This is very irritating...how can I get the AI to to use his luxury or resource in a peace bargain?

You can't, or at least you're not supposed to be able to - see this thread. It's just the way the game is coded (I wish it were changed, but I think I can see how it might be too easily exploitable by a human player).