Stuck with my saltpetre disappearing just when I need it

[SeriousCaller]

I'm a fairly new (dozen or so games) player on vanilla, regent, near the end of middle ages. I'm Xerxes. I own the largest continent, with fully improved terrain and around 20 cities. I have good relations with all the other civs except the Zulus, who I am in the process of invading. Their smaller continent is connected to mine by one tile. I had one saltpetre, got to military tradition, built cavalry and muskets, invaded and took their 4 closest cities. That took all their saltpetre, so I traded it away to england and russia. right when I was about to roll out over the rest of zululand my own saltpetre got used up. Now I can't build cavalry any more, knights aren't cutting it in the mountains and war weariness (I'm in republic, anticipating a short war) is starting to hurt.

What should I do? Is there any way out of my trade deals?

Should I stop and take the peace until I can get my saltpetre back? Do trade deals cancel automatically after 20 turns?

Should I get out of republic and keep up a long slog war with knights and pikes?

I can't see any other saltpetre I can get without getting into a fight with one of the more powerful civs. Aztecs have it, but they are almost as big as me and equal in tech.

 

[ecuwins]

Yes, trade deals last 20 turns. If it does not automatically expire you can go to the diplomacy screen and cancel it.

Without knowing too much about your game I would say: sue for peace, wait till you get saltpeter back, and if possible build knights while saving up some gold. Then when you get saltpeter back upgrade the knight to cavs and go back to war. Also - you could wait the 20 turns after peace so WW resets. I would not suggest changing governments.

 

[Marsden]

Let this be a lesson not to go selling all your "extra" resources. You probably didn't get as much out of it as the AI did, so don't cheat yourself.

 

[Nergal]

I hate it, its one of the most frustrating things in Civ, and its stupid. I was playing as the Byzantines, I get IW and check the map for Iron. Mmmm no Iron, but its showing up as being under Adrianapole so thats cool. I build one swordsman, America declares war because I'm a zillion techs ahead of them and guess what, I get the Iron exhausted message. Its not random, its designed to kick you when you are down.

 

[SeriousCaller]

Yep, that's what I thought. Take the peace, stay in republic, build up with upgradeable units until I get my firepower back. Thing is, I can't remember how far back the deals were. Its a little galling as the zulus only have 4 cities left and can't have much production capacity for expensive units.

Here's another question. I have 2 luxuries, fur and wine, plenty of each. All the other civs have one each. How come no-one will trade a single luxury with me for anything less than both my lux, a couple of tech and all my cash?

 

[megistatos]

The AI values luxury resources based on how many happy faces they will generate for the civilization thats buying them. In other words, if you have many cities, and they have a smaller empire, they consider the luxs they sell you to be much more valuable than the luxs you give them.

That's why it's so expensive for you to buy luxuries. If you really need the resource, why not take it buy force.

 

[Optional]

Thing is, I can't remember how far back the deals were...

I don't play Vanilla, so I might get this wrong, but if you're in diplomacy with a civ, is there a box at the bottom with the words 'new' and 'active' in it? If there is, then if you click on 'active' you will see which active deals you have with that civ, with the number of turns you're into the deal mentioned as well.
But if that box isn't there, please don't shoot me, because I'm playing Conquests, and little things are changing all the time.

It seems the AI civs aren't giving you an easy deal on an extra lux. I've read in these forums that the more lux you already own (and ones you got through trade also count), the more expensive they become.
It's not unusual that the AI wants a bit more back then what they're giving, even more so on higher difficulty levels. I would bear in mind what Marsden posted. You don't want to make deals that are helping the AI more than yourself.
By the way, are you bargaining? It often happens that the AI initially asks for for instance three things, but that if you can take away one of those three things they're still happy with the deal. So do bargain.

Edit: bit of X-post there with Megistatos, who was actually a bit more precise in his valuation of luxuries.

 

[megistatos]

I've read in these forums that the more lux you already own (and ones you got through trade also count), the more expensive they become.

I think that this occurs due to marketplaces. For example your 3rd luxury will produce 2 happy faces in a city with a marketplace, thus making it more expensive to trade for.

I don't play Vanilla any more, but I opened it up to check. Optional is right. In the trading screen during diplomacy, there's a button kind of bottom centre right, that says 'Active'. Click it to see current deals. Click on a deal to renogotiate it(only once the 20 turns has expired).

In PTW and COnquests, there is a way of seeing all current trades with a civ in the Foreign Advisor screen.

 

[SeriousCaller]

Thanks for the advice. I had noticed the new/active tabs, but hadn't investigated yet. I'll see whats happening. Maybe my saltpetre deals are already up for renegotiation.

And yes, I do haggle, but they aren't budging.

And yes, I will take by force, but one civ at a time! That's why I went after the Zulus - I'll have their silks as soon as I take their next city. Germans are next on the hit list as they only have 3 cities, but I need better capacity ships first. England and Russia don't look too powerful and Iroquois are almost finished at the hands of the Aztecs. I think I'll be up against the Aztecs only by the endgame.

Edit: Yes, that seemed to work fine. The deal with the Germans had expired. I've now built up again and ready to take Bapedi

 

[TheOverseer714]

In the future, to keep a resource that is critical from depleting, unhook it at the end of each turn. It requires 3 workers or 6 slaves to re-hook it at the beginning of the next turn, but by this time you should have plenty. You'll also need one military unit parked there to pillage each time. If it is a forest or hill it'll take twice as many workers. I have never had a resource disappear when doing this. It is rarely necessary, but with Oil, Iron or Saltpeter, you need it too bad to take for granted. Oftentimes you can go several turns without the resource. If I only have 1 of something, I guard it carefully.

 

[Nergal]

Good tip .. I will definitely try it. Although its impossible when the resource is under a city

 

[Aabraxan]

. . . . to keep a resource that is critical from depleting, unhook it at the end of each turn. . . .

This is a good tip, but one that I've never used. I try to secure a source out in the hinterlands, where I can leave a few tiles unroaded, and hold the source (unhooked) as a backup.

 

[iguana1]

In the future, to keep a resource that is critical from depleting, unhook it at the end of each turn. It requires 3 workers or 6 slaves to re-hook it at the beginning of the next turn, but by this time you should have plenty. You'll also need one military unit parked there to pillage each time. If it is a forest or hill it'll take twice as many workers. I have never had a resource disappear when doing this. It is rarely necessary, but with Oil, Iron or Saltpeter, you need it too bad to take for granted. Oftentimes you can go several turns without the resource. If I only have 1 of something, I guard it carefully.

This seems like way too much effort and more like an exploit than a tip. If you are going to make this much effort every turn, why not just use the editor to set all the resources to not deplete?

I try to secure a source out in the hinterlands, where I can leave a few tiles unroaded, and hold the source (unhooked) as a backup.

This is a good tip and one I use unless I decide I would rather trade the extra resource(s) for something I need more than just being a backup.

 

[TheOverseer714]

This seems like way too much effort and more like an exploit than a tip. If you are going to make this much effort every turn, why not just use the editor to set all the resources to not deplete?

It's very lttle extra effort, and it's less of an exploit than tinkering with the editor is. As I said, I only do it when I have one source only. That usually means the entire continent. Sometimes the RNG makes critical resources vanishingly rare, and this is my response to that situation. If it is an exploit, AFAIK it isn't ruled out in competitive play. I guarantee that messing with the editor would get you disqualified in a hot minute.

 

[iguana1]

Point taken on the competitive games, I don't play any of them and was only thinking in terms of single player versions. I generally think of exploits for my purposes as anything done to circumvent the game design/rules and thus disconnecting and reconnecting a "limited" resource every turn definitely fits that mold. Random resource depletion and limited resources is one of my favorite changes made to Civ 3 (even if completely maddening at times) and this takes that feature completely out of the game.

 

[12 Bar Blues]

If you take depletion out in the editor, the AI will not lose ressources either, and, being flat out stupid, they really need it more than you do.

N.B. I'm not a new member, I had an account two years ago. Problem is I've had a new email since and I have no idea of what was my nickname.

 

[Empire Engineer]

I generally think of exploits for my purposes as anything done to circumvent the game design/rules and thus disconnecting and reconnecting a "limited" resource every turn definitely fits that mold. Random resource depletion and limited resources is one of my favorite changes made to Civ 3 (even if completely maddening at times) and this takes that feature completely out of the game.

Another "feature" taken out of the game if you are deliberately unhooking extra resources is that the AI won't make a "give us the resource or risk a war" ultimatum.

 

[iguana1]

One, I don't "unhook" extra resourses, I just build roads up to but not connect an extra resource sometimes if I don't plan on trading it immediately. Once I connect them, I generally don't make the effort to disconnect them if I end a trade, etc. This is nothing near the same as disconnecting a resource you are actively using every turn. Plus, all this does is change the item the AI will demand in return for not "destroying you".

I was thinking about this some more and the potential micromanaging nightmare you would create doing this. If you are in military mode and building up troops that need that resource, then every time a city completes one of those units, it will be forced to start to build something else. Then you have to go reconnect the resource, find the city and change it's production back and then disconnect the resource. However, at the same time, I guess you really wouldn't have to reconnect the resource every turn, just when a unit completed on the previous turn. Still, IMO, this is a pretty major circumvention of the game play design/rules.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Generally, unless you are Communist, you won't have more than about 10-20 highly productive cities anyway. Admittedly, you will need to change builds more often, but it beats being pwned by tanks because you can't build any units requiring oil. Or fighting Cavalry with Knights, or Swords with Archers. It can be done successfully, but it takes more work than just preserving your sole example of a critical resource. My conscience is clean. If I felt it was grossly wrong, I wouldn't do it. Besides which, exploiting the AI in one way or another is pretty much how anyone wins. If we didn't do anything that exploits the AI's stupidity, we wouldn't use armies because the AI doesn't know how to use them, or mass artillery, or tighten city spacing, or build on rivers for the free aqueduct, etc., etc., etc. I think I'll continue playing my way, and you will play your way, but I think my tip is still solid advice for anyone in a situation similar to the one that started this thread.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Here is a composite picture of a game I have where I had 1 Oil on an entire standard continent:

Spoiler :

And the save for verification: http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/110452/Ragnar_Lodbrok_of_the_Vikings_1834_AD.SAV

This continent had 2 other civs on it. If you load the save, you'd notice the other continent has at least four Oil on it. If my oil had depleted, I would have had a hard time grabbing it without modern units. I would have had to "exploit" the AI to do it.