Stone is too powerful

[Tarindel]

Does anybody else agree that have a stone resource (especially if you start with it in close proximity to your starting city) is too powerful? Besides producing a plethora of production if it's within your city radius, it gives you the ability to produce non-religious wonders at 50% cost. That's a HUGE bonus, and often the difference between being first to a wonder and not. As someone who generally doesn't take the religious route, I find having stone is the key difference between barely surviving and coming in around 3rd place and cruising to an easy 1st place win.

Has anybody tried modding the game to reduce the bonus down to something more reasonable, like a 25% reduction in cost?

 

[BlackMage]

It's only overpowered in the beginning. Once you get out of the Classical age, I think there is only one Wonder that can be accellerated with stone (Spiral Minaret)

There's plenty of other Wonders in the game.

 

[LawLessOne]

I have not found it all that common to find stone that early in the game. When I do it gives me an early boost to producing the first few wonders but those wonders usually have short term lifespans and after about 1000 AD stone is no longer that useful.

 

[Jantis]

In the right situation, it can certainly be powerful (or painful, depending on if you have it or don't). But is it any worse than being a warmonger without iron nearby? Or try playing one of the horse-based UU civs without a crop of Mr. Eds in your immediate area. But then those can be the most challenging games, too!

I don't find stone to be any more game breaking than any of the other impact resources. Certainly it is no more powerful than iron, horses, or even oil can be. Maybe with your strategy stone is that important, but I try not to get that set in my game approach, so I learn to adapt my strategy.

I've won plenty of games without access to stone, so my vote is: No - stone isn't "too powerful".

 

[MrCynical]

Most civs will end up with at least one of stone and marble, so there is still plenty of competition for wonders. Stone is actually much less useful than marble, since the Pyramids and Stonehenge are the only good early wonders to benefit. Stonehenge is usually built before stone can be connected anyway. No, to be honest I don't think it's too powerful. If you haven't got marble or stone then why not build military instead of slow wonders? You might find it more useful. Civ 4 generally requires you to adapt to suit your start, and unless you're industrious it may not be that advisable to go for wonders if you don't have these resources.

 

[Doctor Love]

It's no more overpowered than having a starting city surrounded by a ton a forests.

 

[the_dong146]

pyramids is godly though , and industrious + stone + lots of forests, think I've built the damn thing in about 3 turns

 

[salty]

well, you still have to research masonry, build a worker and possibly a settler to use it. When I tried to hook it up before starting Stonehenge, I failed (noble, epic, huge map). But then I also had raging barbarians laying the beat down on me. Other than the wonder bonus, it's not guaranteed to help a city's productivity (likely 1 or 0 food from working the tile, so you have to compensate to get the shield/hammer bonus).

 

[Tarindel]

FWIW, I should add that I generally play a financial/expansionist (chop/build settlers) low-militaristism strategy with Catherine (pretty much Synex's strategy as he lays it out here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=147012. I should not that I find maps with stone to be more conducive to success with this particular strategy than those without. As for other strategies, perhaps not so much.

 

[obsolete]

There are many more factors to this game than stone. Don't fix what isn't broke.

 

[madmaven]

I have not found it all that common to find stone that early in the game.

Agreed.

Also, stone should be powerful in the beginning. It has a whole age named after it. It'd be like saying that iron is too powerful after that. Yes, it was very powerful. If you have iron you have an advantage over someone who doesn't.

 

[Oggums]

Coal is overpowered.

 

[Amourek]

well, you still have to research masonry, build a worker and possibly a settler to use it.

And you have to spend 10 turns to quarry it.

 

[salty]

And you have to spend 10 turns to quarry it.

doh! I forgot about that one. Plus you need mining and possibly the wheel and roads. It looks like no leader (Industrious or otherwise) starts with both those techs.

Stone is nice but certainly it's no freebie.

 

[chewbaccad]

Stone is not overpowered... it's nice to have, for certain, but it's certainly not overpowered.

 

[DangerousMonkey]

Stone is certainly good, but let me put it to you this way: Would you rather have stone or iron in your starting city's radius? I could see choosing stone if it was an islands game or something, but under almost any circumstances you'll want iron. Is iron overpowered?

 

[maddman75]

In the game I'm currently playing, I wanted to try for a cultural victory. I go in as Louis XIV and start building. I see a stone resource and send my third settler out to grab it, having a worker build a road there. I get it set up and start churning out wonders in the capitol. I manage to get Stonehenge and the Pyramids up, but Caeser decides he needs it. I don't have iron or copper yet, so all I have is archers, and he comes in with axemen. I find me some iron and switch up to swordsmen and horse archers, and take the city back. I ask for peace and he says sure, but he wants Lyons! **** him! And now he's coming in with Praetorians.

I'm almost up to War Elephants and I have ivory, so maybe that can let me turn the tide.

So I guess the moral of the story is that the AI loves stone too, at least in this game

 

[Tarindel]

Stone is certainly good, but let me put it to you this way: Would you rather have stone or iron in your starting city's radius? I could see choosing stone if it was an islands game or something, but under almost any circumstances you'll want iron. Is iron overpowered?

The thing is, iron seems to be a lot more common than stone. I rarely play a game where I don't have iron, and in the games where I didn't have iron, it was easily obtainable because it was sitting just off my border, out in the middle of some unoccupied ice-patch, or I could trade for it. I don't think I've ever played through a game where I didn't have access to iron in some reasonable way.

I've played through plenty of games where I had no access to stone and had no reasonable way to get it.

So the question is sort of misleading, because while iron is definitely more important, it's also more easily found in my experience, to the point where it's almost a given.

So while, yes, iron is more important, it is also the case that due to it being more common, there's also generally enough to go around for all the civs, and it's rare that somebody has to do without. Consequentially, there's little differential between the civs. Stone, on the other hand, is a bonus that a few randomly selected civs seem to get, and others don't. That creates a large differential between those that have stone and those that don't.

That's really where my point of contention is.

 

[Shadzy19]

If u get stone and a lot of forest in your first 2 citys and u beeline for masonry you can get stonehenge really fast but for pyra its still only 60h / forest and u need 450h .
I rather use my forest diffrently then to waste all of them on pyra.
For stonehenge it can be really nice however.

I really dont find stone to be powerfull at all , i pretty much trade / give it away in my games untill i need it for 1 of the national wonders.

 

[obsolete]

I prefer iron more than stone. I dont think it is so much more plentifull than stone. I know from practice, when you really plan on needing iron for a strategy, murphies law it is never in sight. grrrrr.