Wastable Resources

[TheBigBadBush]

Hi. Im pretty new to Civ III and I have a question. In one of my games, I had a great civ going. I had just discovered the steam engine and had every resource in my stratigic resource box. I was in the middle of building my railroad system and was pumping out iron clads like crazy. Then out a message came up saying i ran out of coal. I looked all over the map and the only other souce of coal was in enemy territory.

So I just want to know if there is any other resources you can run out of, and if there is anyway to prevent it. Thanks.

 

[:)civ2]

you can run out of any stratigic resorse its rare but happens,and theres no way to prevent it just try to secure as many resorses as posseble.Oh,I think you should declare war on that enemy with coal.

 

[Hades]

You can run out of all strategic resources except rubber and hourses. You can't prevent it you could reload it but that's like cheating.

 

[TheBigBadBush]

Thanks. That helps alot. I wonder why i couldn't find it in the Civilpedia. Oh well. One more question, does the fact that im building railroads have anything to do with my coal dissappearing?

 

[Hades]

No, it is completely random

 

[:)civ2]

i think it isn't totally random because i just made 12 modren armor,4 f15s,7 bommbers,and 1 tank then 2 of my oil resourses diseperared random i think not!

 

[Bamspeedy]

It is random. I've ran out of iron before I even built any units requiring iron. There is a chance of some resources disappearing as long as there is a road on it. If there is no road (or colony) on the resource, it can't disappear. You can find the disapearance ratio for each resource in the editor. The lower the disappearance ratio, the more likely it will disappear (except for 0 means just that, it won't disappear). I once set a resource to have a disappearance ratio of 1 and it would disapear everytime, the minute I got a road on it

 

[Hawkster]

Resources can also appear randomly - if a resource disappears you may find it reappearing sveral or many turns later in a different location. You will get a message appearing saying 'we have found a new source of xxxxxx'

 

[TheNiceOne]

Hawkster, I'm pretty sure that the resource appearance isn't random (but the location of it is). The number of resopurces of a type is constant throughout a game, so if a resource disappears, it will appear immediately afterwards somewhere else (or even in the same spot).

So if you get the appearance message some turns after the disappearance, that will probably be some other resource of the same type that has just disappeared from one of the other civs.

 

[DB_Terror]

In my last game, I had strategic resources disappear quite often but each time, the same resource re-appeared at a different location in the same turn, and within my territory. I was probably lucky that it kept re-appearing in my territory since it was rather big. So it seems like whenever a resources disappears, it instantly re-appears somewhere else on the map.

 

[Hawkster]

Sorry mistyped it - I meant reappear randomly - I'v had resources diappear on me then a new source be discovered many turns later - which as you say is related to a disappearance somewhere else.

Can you confirm that that the 'discovery' of a new source is only made when a unit actually discovers it by being close or on the tile it appears rather than it is just within your territory - it seems that way to me.

 

[DB_Terror]

If it's in your territory, you see it automatically - no need for a unit to be close by. Similar to enemy movements.

 

[billindenver]

I'd suggest doing a ctrl-shift-m also. It makes it a lot easier to see resources. You may find that you have coal elsewhere in your empire that just needs to be hooked up.

Resource disappearance and reappearance is random, but not infrequent. I seem to lose more than I gain, but as someone noted, you frequently have it move from one part of your territory to another.

 

[Evil_Bomber]

I'd also highly recommend the "Easy to spot resources" mod (http://www.civfanatics.net/files/civ3/pafiledb.php?action=file&id=107). This makes spotting new resources *much* easier.