Whales?

[Grognard7431]

Ok I have played 4 games now of Civ4 and in every one I cannot seem
to access the Whale resource. The whales are always in the deep ocean
and my work boats can't get to them to turn into the whaling boat
improvement because the work boat can only move along the coastlines.
Am I missing something?

 

[zeeter]

wales are pretty rare, but I've used them before. Not sure how - maybe you have to be at a certain naval level to get to them.

 

[kuldiin]

Whales and Wales are too different creatures

 

[BobsYourUncle]

I'm pretty sure work boats can't go into ocean squares unless the squares are within your cultural borders. Other than that, you need the tech that enables whaling boats.

 

[NinjaCool]

You just have to build cities out in the costal area and buildup a good culture to finally get those whales inside yoru boarders. In one of my large map games, I've only succesfull had 1 in my range, rest are too fare away because of my city placements. It helps alot to discover the whales first, then plan how to place a settler in the right spot to take it eventually.

 

[Philips beard]

You need a certain science researched to gain access to the whale resources, and to build improvments on them! Can't remember wich one just now, but it's in the mediveal ages or something I guess!

 

[Pyrion]

Optics. You need to research Optics for work boats to create whaling boats.

 

[MattJek]

OK, so once you build your whaling boat on a whale which is far off outside your boundary, what kind of bonus does it give you??

 

[arcan]

happiness to your cities (luxury good). I'm not sure about more food...

 

[narmox]

You can't build whaling boats outside your boarders AFAIK.

 

[kung-fu-stu]

Another point to consider is that Whales become obsolete with combustion. So don't put too much effort into something that's going to become redundant.

 

[Varelse]

The funny thing about the whaling boats is that they end up putting a net around the whale and then the whale stops jumping and just sorta sits there. I'm surprised it doesn't lead to unhappiness in the civ from environmentalists or PETA or something.

 

[Stuporstar]

Well, you'd probably have combustion researched by the time you got the Environmentalism civic so the whales would be obsolete anyway. I think they should give you back the happiness bonus for elephants fur and whales once you implement the Enviro civic just for having them in your territory. Maybe the camps could become wildlife preserves. You still can't trade them at that point though because they're no longer commodities.

 

[Grognard7431]

Ok the whales are inside my culture range, the City near them is huge. I have researched everything. Yet my work boats still cannot leave the coastline to get to the deep water where the whales are to build the whaling boat.

 

[TastySheriff]

Yeah that is wierd, maybe Firaxis overlooked the fact that work boats cant enter ocean squares, and i dont think whales can appear in coasts... personally i think that there should be an upgrade for the workboat that allows it to enter ocean squares anyway.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Ok the whales are inside my culture range, the City near them is huge. I have researched everything. Yet my work boats still cannot leave the coastline to get to the deep water where the whales are to build the whaling boat.

(bolding by me)
And that exactly is what you're doing wrong: Whales obsolete with an industrial tech (sorry, don't have the game here, not sure which one). Plastics maybe. Same as Furs and Ivory.

A very neat concept IMHO...today, nobody would be happy about whales - but in the 19th century, they for sure were!

 

[wilebill]

Now that you mention it, about five games to date, I have seen zero whales, no kidding.

Fish resources, only maybe three in five games. Managed to get one clam resource.

Just bad luck, I guess, but at the moment I am a bit disappointed with the sea resources.

 

[eataTREE]

Hmm, I've never had any problems getting whales. Once I even got them within the resource cross of a coastal city. Just research optics, then build a work boat.

 

[Varelse]

Try an archipelago tiny island map with high sea levels. I have cities with 2 and 3 fish and clam resources in them apiece, and one city with whales as well.

 

[Eyemaze]

Japan would have no problems with whaling were it not for international pressure. So making it obsolete on the grounds of public opinion based on research of a technology and not a civic/government/religion choice is silly imho.