What happened to iron?

[GlobularFoody]

Did they reduce the amount of iron in one of the patches? I've noticed I can never build swordsmen anymore due to lack of iron. I usually only have 2 and I build catapults with that. It's not that a big deal for me, I think Spearmen/Pikemen are good enough most of the time, but I keep trying to play as Japan and keep getting no iron for samurai.

I don't remember reading about reduced iron in any patch notes, is it just me or was something changed?

 

[bcaiko]

Did they reduce the amount of iron in one of the patches? I've noticed I can never build swordsmen anymore due to lack of iron. I usually only have 2 and I build catapults with that. It's not that a big deal for me, I think Spearmen/Pikemen are good enough most of the time, but I keep trying to play as Japan and keep getting no iron for samurai.

I don't remember reading about reduced iron in any patch notes, is it just me or was something changed?

Come to think of it, I've also had a more difficult time obtaining large (6+) iron deposits on standard. And I do play as Japan, so that's HIGHLY irritating.

Aluminum on the other hand...

 

[binhthuy71]

I've suffered from a majority Iron-free starts since before any patch. I also rarely get Aluminum I blame it on the fact that the Metal Gods are angry at me for having been a machinist for a couple of decades. You cut metal, it cuts you back eventually.

 

[Lexicus]

I rarely seem to get iron deposits near the capital, but I usually have enough for a few siege units, and that's all I need to get a lot more.

And you guys are lucky if you get aluminum, I'm hard-pressed to think of a game where I felt like I had enough Aluminum right off its spawn.

 

[bcaiko]

I rarely seem to get iron deposits near the capital, but I usually have enough for a few siege units, and that's all I need to get a lot more.

And you guys are lucky if you get aluminum, I'm hard-pressed to think of a game where I felt like I had enough Aluminum right off its spawn.

I think it's because by the time AL pops up, I've usually expanded into a continent-wide empire. In my last game, I had NO coal or oil anywhere I could get to. Thank God for Modern Armors and a huge stack of AL I had. They led me to run over Greece and eventually find the unexpected Uranium deposits saturated only in their empire.

 

[Optional]

My experience is different. I sometimes see really big clusters of Iron, but then also parts of the map that don't have any.
So if we were to play together, I would have all the iron, and you nothing.

 

[SuperJay]

Completely anecdotal, but I just started a new small Continents map last night and had plenty of iron - so much so that four separate deposits fell in one city's radius. I had at least 3 other deposits near other cities as well. I think I had about 28 iron total once I built the necessary Mines. This was one one small continent with one other AI civ and 3 city-states, FWIW.

 

[Udey1]

I am currently playing a Rome game, starting city had 2 6-iron deposits, second city had another 6 iron.

Not surprisingly, the other cities are puppets.

 

[woodshadows]

The game seems to like to challenge me, when I play mongols or arabs I won't have any horses but plenty of iron, when I play japan or rome I'll have lots of horses and no iron. Now I just play aztecs and take iron from someone else, with jaguars and archers.

 

[smallfish]

I tend to view as having abundant horses and iron early game as being a bad sign, because in almost all my games that leads me to having less or none of coal, oil, aluminium and uranium later on.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm actually in my first game in quite a while that I have plenty of Iron. (A +2 & +6 on my own landmass and +2 on the next landmass)
I am however missing Horses for the first time since I started playing Civ 5. (No horses on either my landmass or the neighboring ones.)

 

[PreLynMax]

Is there a reason to increase the number of iron (from almost none to abundant) in the XML?

 

[binhthuy71]

Is there a reason to increase the number of iron (from almost none to abundant) in the XML?

You could, with less effort, just select Abundant Resources in the Advanced game setup screen. The negative that attains to increasing Iron via either method is that the change is universal across the map. That means that the AI civs would also have bounteous Iron.
Although the AI isn't that sharp it's sharp enough to take advantage of Iron-dependent units. Not sure that I'd like to have Rome as a neighbor with, say, 14 Iron.

 

[Rpger29]

Seriously. Considering that the AI always seems strongest in Classical, no thank you. I always know I'm running this risk when I choose abundant on a map setup.

 

[Lexicus]

I think it's because by the time AL pops up, I've usually expanded into a continent-wide empire. In my last game, I had NO coal or oil anywhere I could get to. Thank God for Modern Armors and a huge stack of AL I had. They led me to run over Greece and eventually find the unexpected Uranium deposits saturated only in their empire.

Oh, I usually spend most of the time before getting Aluminum knocking down enemy civs one by one. I usually have a pretty big empire with a very large army--and when aluminum does spawn I always have to conquer someone else (or buy off some city states) to secure enough to upgrade all my units. It may be because my consumption is so high (definitely have a weakness for building many more units than necessary).

I play Legendary start or Abundant without hesitation. The human can always leverage everything more effectively than the AI, so any universal increase in assets is a net gain for me.

 

[TW_Honorius]

MadDjinn said they're some problems with the map scripts since the last patch, they really messed them up.

 

[basta]

Excellent question, and I've always assumed that the dearth of iron and other strategic resources was a result of playing at a high difficulty level. I've come to expect finding 2x deposits of one in two resources as pretty much standard.

But yes I'd agree strategic resources seem to be overly scarce after the patch--I'm almost always forced to trade for iron and it's quite rare the AI has any available, so you've got to buy away someone else's CS, and wait for it to come online to boot.

 

[Becomedeath]

I've actually stopped using strategies that have classical era conquest specifically because iron, above any other resource, is an utter pain to find. And you do have to find it, you can't just presume that there will be some in settling distance.

I can have a billion horses and no iron...no wonder I play the Mongols a lot!

 

[turtlefang]

Interesting on the scripts. I thought I just had a very long run of bad luck - usually I will NOT have two of the following anywhere near me - iron, coal, AL or UR. It's gotten frustrating especially when you get to the modern era and see no AL or UR - or a very minimal amount on the whole map.

 

[Lexicus]

Huh. I play on larger maps so this is harder to see, but I have recently been noticing something of the same thing--scarcity of those exact resources. I don't ever seem to be affected by oil or horse shortages, but aluminum, coal, iron, and uranium all seem...scarcer since the patch.