Strategy with no iron

[axident]

My current game (Emperor/Big and Small/Standard size and default settings/Normal speed), I hogged half of the continent's copper, but I had no iron. I attacked a neighbor hoping to find iron in his territory. He fled across a channel and we made peace.. but no iron was to be found! Izzy DoW on me and my axes and newly-built cats kill her crap, but I need crossbows against her next wave. I make peace with her ASAP and then trade something like 6 resources (copper, gold, rice, cows, crabs, etc.) AND 4 gpt to Korea just for one lousy iron.

Much later on Khmer (which spread to other islands off the mainland) offered to vassalize, and I said yes because their culture was really hurting me badly at that point, and I needed breathing space. I cancel iron with Korea and get a MUCH better deal with my vassals who had found iron in some godforsaken tundra: I traded them some spare horses and pigs for Iron.

 

[madscientist]

Well Dang. Now I find there is no coal or uranium on this cursed continent. And one lousy oil reserve that I have fought 2 wars to keep and may lose it to culture from another.

So 2 questions.

What do I miss with coal? Railroads, 50% ironworks yields, coal plants? I can probably get teh 3 gorges dam in teh capital but that takes forever to build plus getting to plastics.

Oil. The standard ethanol corp can use rice which I have plenty of. Providing my rice is not pilaged (9 farms) I have a non-plunderable oil resource, correct???

 

[axident]

Well Dang. Now I find there is no coal or uranium on this cursed continent. And one lousy oil reserve that I have fought 2 wars to keep and may lose it to culture from another.

So 2 questions.

What do I miss with coal? Railroads, 50% ironworks yields, coal plants? I can probably get teh 3 gorges dam in teh capital but that takes forever to build plus getting to plastics.

Oil. The standard ethanol corp can use rice which I have plenty of. Providing my rice is not pilaged (9 farms) I have a non-plunderable oil resource, correct???

Yes but you need to spread it to all cities that will be making units/buildings that require oil.

By the way, you have nothing to complain about my friend. Rails require coal OR oil. Oil is WAY better than coal. I had neither, until coal randomly popped into one of my mines.

Without coal you sacrifice some production from Ironworks, but you seem to have rivers.. I have ZERO rivers in my side of the continent. NONE. ZIP. No 3GD for me. Or watermills or anything else like that. I do have aluminum apparently but that's all. I think I'll have to go Space Race if I can't culturally annex some oil, and that process is taking forever even with Hermitage and other crap in my capital.

 

[madscientist]

Thanks axident! So I need only oil for railroads, but need coal for coal plants, until I get the dam built. With the dam and oil the only problem with no coal is the 50% loss in production of the ironworks, not that much of a problem considering the production in that city already. Also I can more freely build industrial parks since I will not get the +2 unhealthiness penalty, which increases production that way.

My other choices are to build standard oil and spread it to all cities, then trade my oilwell oil to an AI for coal or uranium. This should be legit? But standard oil competes with sids sushi s I cannot build both in the same city, or can I. Will Sids work with only seafood while standard oil works with rice in the same city???? My guess is no.

A final plan is I should be able to build all the happiness wonders (Broadway is almost built (16 turns on Marathon in Washington with no factory yet) and I see no problems with getting the other 2 as noone else has electricity yet. I may be able to trade the three happiness techs to an AI for coal.

 

[Welnic]

You can get oil from Standard Ethanol to build units, but it doesn't help with building railroads. If you have the corp in a city you can build ships or tanks, but there isn't really a city supply concept for worker improvements. So if you have oil at the moment I would get to building railroads.

 

[madscientist]

So I can use the standard ehtanol for tanks/planes and ships but not trains? That doesn't seams right somehow. I guess if I go the standard ethanol route and trade the welled oil I need the railroads built first.

 

[madscientist]

The game not finished yet but i think the issues addressed here are cleared up.

Got industrialization and of course no aluminum in my empire (no coal so forget the corp to get it)But it is in my friendly neighbor Brennus' land, right on the border (Closest to Washington). I figure I should build a citynear the border, get Sid's Suchi there (producing about 25 culture) and temporarliy switch to free speech until I claim the aluminum.

Regarding Oil. I built a well on my lone oil reserve and thank's to Sid's suchi there is not chance creative Gilgamesh will be able to get to it via culture. I also have a bunch of tanks sitting on it to prevent any mischeviousness from an AI. I was able to build all the railroads I needed, and built alot of tanks and battleships (currently doing so still).. I also tried to built a Coal plant in one city to see perhaps oil would allow power, but it didn't.

Coal. This has turned out to be a blessing. Every major city now has an industrial park, factory, and forge without any being unhealthy. I have not even had to build many Malls (only for the gold and happiness) and only 1 hospital (because washington had nothing else to do for 4 turns). That is potentially +6 unhealthiness avoided, making a switch to environmentalism unccessary. Speaking of which Washington has no real loss in iron works potential because of no coal, still gets 50% bonus from iron and I am running beuracracy. Right now I am building the Cristo redentor wonder in 13 turns (marathon speed) during a golden age, and Rock N Roll would take 10 turns. I am teching plastics and should be able to get the 3 gorges dam built quickly (I build a hydro plant in Washington first for extra power) once I finish teching plastics.

Coal? Bah, who needs it. I think in the future if I have hydro power I going to build windmills on my coal mines, the unhealthiness penanlties are a killer.

 

[Welnic]

You could mine the coal, work on railroads and such, build a coal plant where you want to build the 3 gorges dam. Then when all of that was done you could windmill the coal.