Where's the Coal?

[qaija]

I've played two long games (into the 21st century) and never found one square with coal in it, even though I controlled at least 75% of the world and had revealed every square of it. I was able to find every other resource, but no coal.

Without coal there is no railroad and moving workers around to clean up polution is a pain.

Is this just random bad luck?

Or is there only one square with coal in it and the game is designed to put that close to the enemy's starting city so you have to go to war in order to obtain it?

Anyone have any suggestions on how to find coal? Is it necessary to go to war and take it from the "enemy"?

Thanks for your help!

 

[Turner]

If you don't have it, you'll need to take it. Do you know about the 'clear screen'? Press Ctrl-Shift-M. This will take a bunch of stuff off the map, and allow you to see things better. Probably, coal is under a city of the AI's. Obviously, it's not under one of yours, as you would see it and be able to use it.

Ctrl-Shift-N will take you to the clear preferences screen, and you can choose what to turn on or turn off.

Coal also has a chance of dissapearing, so it could possibly dissappear from the AI and reappear in your territory.

You also might want to stroll over to the Customization and Creation sub-forum, and find a resource graphics mod to make the resources more visible.

 

[kangyio]

If you doubt there is coal on one tile,but you can't see it for the reasons like rival troops and cities etc,you could always use the old show terrain info option.

 

[King Alexander]

It has happened to me before(not to have coal, although I controlled a huge territory). Sometimes it's a bud luck. Not having coal, is a good reason to go to war with the AI(at least, for me). Also, be sure to have the latest patch(in case you don't)-(once, my enemy- Aztecs, had 10 or more oil resources, and I was furious with the game balance) . And because coal dissapears pretty quick, have MANY workers ready before you research or buy "Steam", and get them to work.

 

[Sarevok]

true, but i usually never have this problem cuz i always play on huge maps with 16 civs and i expand really quick.

 

[Raijer]

This problem rears its head often if you choose to play larger sized maps with relatively few rivals.

 

[meltone1]

I remember a game once where there was absolutely none on the map. How strange is that?

 

[Grille]

Fortunatelly, I never had a map with a missing strategic resource (on the whole map, that is).

But I missed one sort of lux resource a couple of times (stumbling across this prob the first time led to CFC registering).
FWIW, in most cases, these were maps with settings assigned to random and -for me- it was most often gems that were missing.

Although it seems more likely that this problem occurs on tiny/small maps, it even happened to me on standart size maps (gems and once silks).
Sometimes there may be just lack of certain terrain types, but I also had a (small) map with a lot of jungle & mountain tiles but w/o any gem resource anywhere.

back to strategic resources:
Most annoying was a game (std. size, random settings, 7 random ai civs) that had just 2 oil sources. Initially, there was no desert tile on the whole map and just 3 or so clustered tundra tiles. Xerxes 'The Fat' had both sources in his territory, pretty near his core on the other side of the world. I thought I could "create" some desert tiles by global warming (hoping that the oil would reappear there after depletion), but all I got was a few new plain tiles from transformed grassland...
Rather funny mixed navy I had there in that game... just imagine a sailing D-day invasion fleet, protected by nuclear subs...

 

[cgannon64]

Chances are you can't see it. Damn coal is near impossible to see.

Search the C&C forum for some mods that add little letters to the resources.

 

[jeremiahrounds]

no iron through the ancient age is worse then no coal. heck ive never managed to win a game on emporer where i had neighbors and no iron. (just lost a game where i had the prospect of taking iron in a square 8 squares away and already next to an enemy city or 18 squares away not in enemy zone of control but 4 squares from an enemy capital... i lost...)


played one game with no coal. that wasnt so bad i just traded my butt off for a 20 year deal then did everything i needed to do with coal.

but getting someone to trade you iron in ancient age forget it~

 

[sealman]

Write it up to bad luck. Anyway, civ is a game of "what ifs" so now you know how important the discovery and use of coal was to mankind.

 

[Quasar1011]

You can always try some user-created maps. I always put enough coal on the map, some of it near iron so that Iron Works are possible. But I do limit the amount of resources so that not everybody can have everything- without a fight, that is...