Obtaining Scarce Resources

[eMarkM]

I've seen a lot of folks complaining about the scarcity of strategic resources (SRs) in the game and how they couldn't get coal or iron or such. I've played half a dozen games now and have only had a few problems getting all of the SRs I need to be competitive. In each game the method of securing them has been similar. I ignore no terrain when considering territory in the early expansion period of the game and will build cities on just about anything.

First, let's review the various tile types and what resources can be found on them. This is sorted by the number of SRs they can have:

Hills: Aluminum, Coal, Horses, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Mountains: Aluminum, Coal, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Plains: Aluminum, Horses, Oil
Desert: Aluminum, Oil, Saltpeter
Forest: Rubber, Uranium
Jungles: Rubber, Coal
Tundra: Oil, Saltpeter
Grasslands: Horses

Everyone wants to build their cities on grasslands. But if you just restrict yourself to that, you're guaranteed to not have the resources you need. They only give horses. Forget all notions of what's the best place for a city. Forget Civ2 where you and the AI ignored large desert or mountainous areas and left them unfilled. Anywhere is a good city site in Civ3. Yes, get as many cities as you can jammed on grasslands near rivers for super growers. That's a given. But every city can't be a super grower. You need a lot of "resource" cities. Moreover, you need potential resource cities. Since you can't see them until you get the advance, you have to anticipate. If you see a giant swath of plains and desert that you think would make terrible city sites, and thus ignore it, you're making a big mistake.

I've played all of my games on continents with standard settings. In these games you have a lot of contiguous tiles of the same terrain type. Sometimes over 100 squares of similar terrain bunched together. Typically, these areas end up being borders between civs. A lot have complained about this, but this is not right, use it to your advantage. This is how I've categorized them:

The Alps - tons of mountain and hill tiles. These make very natural borders between civs, and they also are highly likely to contains resources. So go ahead and build a city on a hill surrounded by mountains. It won't do anything for you production wise. At least at first. When your borders expand, you'll capture more of the mountains in the Alps in your territory and are much more likely to get that coal or uranium that you never seem to get. Late in the game it will come into it's own when you have every mountain mined and maybe get lucky and find iron and coal in same city and can build iron works.

The Sahara - vast desert & plains. Typically you see plains on either side of a core desert. These can be really huge. And seemingly poor for cities. But you must capture a lot of this territory. You'll have a high chance of getting saltpeter, oil & aluminum if you do. Don't be afraid to build a city of all desert tiles if it means preventing the AI from gaining territory. Again, it won't produce a heck of a lot for you, but you're upping your chances for later SRs. You're likely to get that early saltpeter from one of your Sahara cities and later oil and aluminum.

The Amazon - large tracts of jungle and forest. Jungle is particularly ugly for cities because of disease. But with a lot of workers, this can be cleared for fantastic late game grassland cities. In one of my games, I had an all jungle city I built for the iron in a lone mountain. It was cleared of jungle, later produced a coal and I was able to build the iron works. This city was useless early in the game except for access to iron, but in the modern era with iron works it was producing 120 shield a turn. It cranked out SS parts every 3-4 turns for a Monarch win.

The Heartland - River filled grasslands for your fast growing core cities. No need to go into detail here, we all know these are great city sites and should be the core of your empire. But they only make up a part of what you need in your territory for a complete civ.

The idea is to get as big a piece of each of these separate categories as you can in your empire. Typically, a continent will have at least one each of these four large contiguous areas. Not always, but mostly. Identify them early and try to get your piece of each one if you can.

In my current Monarch/16civ game, I have perfect placement. The Sahara was to the north, the Amazon and Alps to my south, and my core empire in a Heartland. I built/conquered 3 cities of all desert in the Sahara in the expansion phase. The Sahara established my border with America. I ended up with my only 2 saltpeters and my only oil with those "useless" desert cities. I'm betting aluminum will be in one of these cities when I need it later.

The Babylonians were to the south and Alps separated us. I saw iron before they did and was able to snag it all building an all mountain city and they ended up with none of it. Most of Babylon was in middle of a huge Amazon. I only had a little jungle, so I knew I must gain control of their territory or I might not end up with any rubber or coal. I concentrated on making the Babylons weak and thru the first two ages managed to knock them out and took over the now cleared jungle. This area is now giving me 3 rubber and 3 coals. Resources I wouldn't have had otherwise. The Amazon provided everything I needed and more. Now I have large pieces of the Alps, Amazon, & Sahara on my continent and I should be able to produce all the resources I will need.

You should do the same in your games. Make it a priority to get a piece of the Sahara, Alps & Amazon on your continent. These areas make very natural borders with your rivals. What's nice is that on the off chance you don't produce, say, a saltpeter in your piece of the Sahara, chances are there's one tantalizingly close on your rival's side of the Sahara border. A nice quick war for the resource shouldn't be a big problem in this case. Easier than getting the one deep in their territory anyway.

If you don't border one of these vast regions, than see who does have what you're missing and concentrate your energy on conquering them and getting your piece of the resource rich area.

This lesson in one sentence: Don't ignore any tile in this game!

e

[Grim Legacy]

Sound advice. You deserve a

[Sytass]

Indeed a nice summary. But of course you never get guarantees. I once colonized a whole montainous peninsula, the largest towns getting to a whopping size of 4. And despite there being 10 or so cities spread out evenly, there was no strategic ressource - no iron, no coal, just some gold for commerce. Quite a disappointment.

[MarshalN]

And I think the same applies to luxuries, but you can see those all the time. In one of my games there were three incences in the middle of a huge mountain range, but them being there (and the map being somewhat poor in luxuries) made it totally worth it to build that little outpost in the middle of nowhere and clear a road to it. If I kept playing that game, which I didn't, it probably would've yielded me some other important resources as well.

Also, the way the map works in Civ3 is that after you cross a desert, you usually hit a bunch of plains. They might not look too appetizing for a city, but they're definitely better than a desert. If you can, try to cross the desert early on (when you see one) and find out what's across, then try to settle on the other side if it's not way too far. I did that with my current game and now have cities on both sides of the desert, and basically own the desert. This way you don't have to "waste" settlers building cities that are worthless, but at the same time have control of the saltpeter (and maybe oil later) that I need in the game. I know for a fact that the Russians, who are to my south, still doesn't have saltpeter. It's a good thing

[eMarkM]

I've gone back to each of my finished games that I've saved and did a survey or where SRs are found. I didn't make a formal count, but it seems that some tiles are more likely to give a resource than others that are also supposed to have it.

So, for example, saltpeter is said to be found in hills, mountains, desert and tundra. But in my games the majority of it seems to be found in desert. Hardly any in the other tile types by comparison. Anyone else seeing this kind of uneven distribution it their games? Here are the resources that seem uneven in distribution and the tile they seem to be the most prevelent in my experience:

Aluminum - desert
Coal - jungle
Oil - plains
Rubber - jungle
Saltpeter - desert
Uranium - forests

Is this just me, or do others see this pattern?

e

[gfrazieror]

The catch with the later emerging resources is that the terrain may have been modified by the AI in the meantime. I've found coal in jungle, hills, and mountains. Iron in mountains and hills. Aluminum on plains. Uranium in mountains and grassland. Rubber mostly in jungle, but some in forested tundra.

I still think that while you need to settle otherwise inhospitable terrain to prevent the AI from doing so, you need to start with good high food producing tiles or your civ is crippled from the start. Jungle is death, literally, for example, but can serve as a useful barrier between you and a rival. In my most recent game I was on the north side of a huge expanse of jungle, and the English and Russians on the south side. The jungle gave me a lot of time to develop my cities before I could strike at the English and Russians (with the help of my French allies) and put them away.

[Arrian]

eMarkM-

Here is a quick off-the-top-of-my-head recollection of where resources have shown up in my games:

Horses - Grassland, Hills
Iron - Mountains, Hills
Saltpeter - Desert, Hills (rarely, though... most desert)
Coal - Jungle, Grassland (although it may have been jungle I cleared), hills.
Oil - Desert, Plains, Tundra
Rubber - Jungle, Forests (in Tundra, mostly)
Aluminum - all over the place, particularly Plains
Uranium - Forest, Mountains

-Arrian

[Duque]

Great summary,
in the game I'm playing now I burned all Indian cities except for a few that I considered crappy and gave to the French in exchange for science and stuff. Unfortunately, one of those 'crappy' cities later had two coals in it's city radius. But they had not built temple there yet, so one of the resources was outside their border. So I went in and founded a city on top of the coal, built a temple there and after five turns it's borders expanded, pushing back the french border and taking the other coal resource. The french ended up with no coal at all and it was all pulled off in a completely peaceful manner.
Of course, this kind of takeover will not be possible too often, but still, it was kind of funny.

[MarshalN]

Which is why the only time I sell cities is to civs that I know I can beat, easily, so I never regret it. They don't pay so well, but at least I know I can take it back and sell it to them again for more money

[Sytass]

Hmmm....interesting idea...trade in a small city that is soon re-absorbed culturally....then sell it again....

[xane]

I think you should take Luxury Resources into account too, the AI does seem rather willing to trade Strategic for Luxury, I suspect its linked to the Trade Advisor telling you to go for more luxuries.

[eMarkM]

I think you should take Luxury Resources into account too

Oh yes, absolutely. I won't hesitate to go to war over a field of luxuries if I think I can get them. I'm addressing strat resources in this post because you can't see them all at the beginning. So I'm emphasizing getting a piece of every tile type to increase your chances of getting that unseen oil or coal down the road.

With lux items, you see all of them right away and they never exhaust, so it's a bit different. I drop everything when I uncover a lux I don't have and rush a settler to it ASAP to claim the territory. And if the Romans beat me to the punch and plop a city on those four tiles of spices I was rushing my settler to and I happen to have some military in the area...well, it won't be the Roman's for long.

e

[MarshalN]

I hate it when you discover a field of _____ (fill in the lux of choice) and they're so far away, you have no realistic way of keeping them AND sending them back to your other cities. It's happened to me a few times when it's just way too far out. I hate it when that happens

[Bad Ax]

I have not seen any real preferential tendencies for resource placement in any of my games, or at least those I have seen directly contradict observations printed here. For instance, I have seen coal almost exclusively located in Jungle settings. Most of the time I've seen saltpeter located in mountains. That the anecdotal experiences diverge suggests that the placement engine is working as it is supposed to.

I have a comment of another sort. In my experience the game tends to cluster resources of like type. For example, I frequently see four or five of the same resource within one or two city radiuses of each other. This is especially pronounced for luxury resources, but also frequent in strategic resources. I'm wondering if others have observed a similar tendency. I'm wondering if it's accidental, or if the generator actually has a tendency to place resource X near other instances of resource X.

[eMarkM]

This is especially pronounced for luxury resources

This was an intentional design decision. They wanted to more or less clump lux together to encourage trading. The clumps are generally near each civ starting point. Since you only need one of a given lux, you have extras to trade for those you don't have. They didn't want any one civ to land all 8 lux in their territory so they generally get clumped in only one spot on the whole globe. So always find your clump and claim it.

Yes, strat resources get clumped, too, but not as much. Though in my current game I have 8 of the 9 saltpeters on my continent since I started near a big desert. Buhhahaha

e

[Bierkieser]

Don't overlook Tundra!

I had about 35-40 squares at the southern edge of my continent in a recent game. About 15 of those had forest. I built 2 cities on it (they were slow growers on the coast just to cut off the area from the Gremans). As the game progressed 2 Oil and 2 Rubber appeared in the area and these 2 cities went from obscure outposts to vital cogs in my civ. I later traded Oil and Spices to the Babs for his Uranium (I got cut off from the 'Sahara' in this game and had few Mountains) to build my Fuel Cells and finish my Spaceship for a Space Race Victory.

[Selkirk]

I just finished reading this review:
http://www.gamesfirst.com/reviews/paul/civ3/civ3.htm

The reviewer whines about never getting needed resources. I don't think that he gets the point. He probably only built his cities on the great plains and river basins.

I find the need to secure resources one of the more interesting aspects of the game. Between trade, conquest and planning, I almost always get what I need.

In the first game that I won on regent, I stopped my development on the edge of a large jungle. The game was very stable for hundreds of years, with no war and lots of diplomacy. I was mostly pressing enter each turn and building wonders. It was getting a little boring. Then, I got the steam engine and found that I had no coal. but my neighbor who settled the jungle did. So, I negotiated access to coal from another civ at an outrageous price so I could RR while mobilizing for war. When I went to war on my neighbor, it triggered a whole series of mutual protection pacts and the whole world plunged into war that lasted into modern times, changing the map drastically.

This incident left an impression on me. In hundreds of games of Civ I and Civ II, I never got the feeling that I was "controlling a nation," (vs. playing a game) but when I triggered this massive war in my quest for resources, I did get that feeling.

[The Rook]

I'm playing on a large Archpeligo(sp) 60% water, and I am #1 in land area, yet I have no uranium, spices, silks, incense, dyes, or wine. I had to get the oil I have by conquering a French city, and I have a fort with garrison on my one and only source of coal to keep it safe. It's actually been the best game I have played to date. Worrying about resources makes it all the much better. Sythetic fibers should do away with the rubber requirement though.

[Batory]

If you can, try to cross the desert early on (when you see one) and find out what's across, then try to settle on the other side if it's not way too far.

In my current game, I colonized all of the plains around a rather large desert. After a little cultural expansion, that left a single square in the middle outside my border. Of course, the AI settled on it. Didn't they notice that my capital was 3 squares away? 3 turns later, it defected to me. 6 turns after that, my only source of saltpeter spawned directly under it.

It should be noted that you don't have to expend valuable early settlers on desert outposts for late game resources. If you encircle the lousy terrain and let your neighbors do the dirty work, it'll just fall into your hands.

b

[EricWright]

In my current game (60% water, continents, warlord level, 5 other civs), I have seen each of these features on my continent. I started fairly far north on my continent, but on a branch that didn't have much tundra. South of me (Romans) was the Sahara, beyond that, the Iroquois, then the Alps, then the Amazon (???) and finally the Greeks.

I had no horses and no iron in the vast north, with a decent number of hills, and scattered mountains, mostly grassland though. I expanded through the Saraha (remembering to drop a city smack in the middle) and crushed the Iroquois (took all their cities and forced them to relocate... sound familiar?)

I found 2 iron (1 since depleted), 1 horse, 2 dyes, and 1 incense within a 10 square radius of the western edge of the former Iroquois nation. When I got gunpowder, I saw *4* saltpeters arrayed almost symmetrically around the city I left in the desert. Later, all of the coal I found was in the jungle, but the Greeks had beaten me to it.

Not wanting to start a war against fortified hoplites in the jungle, I set out with my galleons to explore the world. I found that I was on, by far, the biggest continent. I took over the smallest continent (which had no civs on it) and found iron and horses, but no luxuries at all (it's big enough for 7-8 cities total). Eventually, I accidentally stumbled across a 6 square island in the middle of the ocean to my east, and what do you know... all jungle with 1 coal right in the middle!!!

In short, there are no SRs or luxury resources within 25 or more squares of Rome, so I'm thinking starting off near a cluster of luxuries is more chance than by design. Sure, they appear highly clumped, but your likely as not to end up far from anything good.

Eric

[rugbyprop3]

One other thing that I have found. Every cities original hex produces 2 food 1 shield and 1 commerce no matter what tile type you build a city on. So When it comes to building cities in deserts or tundra areas to build up a city. I like to go to the edge of a the desert and tundra and build my city on the first desert square on the edge. That way you can still have a city that can grow, but you get 1 more productive tile for your new city.

[eMarkM]

Here's an example of the concepts from this post from my current Monarch game as Egypt.

I started at south end of large oblong continent. Start on a so-so--and small--patch of Heartland grasslands/plains. I could only get five cities on it. North of that was the Sahara, many contiguous plains and desert tiles that went from sea to sea. North of the Sahara was the Amazon and north of that was a beautiful Heartlands occupied by English. East of Amazon was Heartlands that Romans occupied. North of England and Rome was large expanse of Alps (w/ gems in far north).

I had no choice but to expand into Sahara as there was no where else to go and I claimed the whole thing easily. So I had about 8-9 cities, half of which were on arid land and pretty unproductive. I had the early iron and horses I needed in one city, but only had one wine lux. I had an early stone age fight with Romans for a city they placed on 4 Amazon spices. Other than the spice war, it wasn't looking too great for my expansion with half my cities in desert. Meanwhile, Rome and England are sitting on almost nothing but grassland squares w/ river veins everywhere and are growing like mad.

But when I discovered gunpowder my fortunes completely changed. The Sahara was sitting on 6 of the world's 9 saltpeters! I had a virtual monopoly on the stuff. The English and Romans, with all Heartland type squares, had none. Nada. They had great growing cities, but my Sahara gave me the fuel to make guns.

So let's see, I have generally crappy land, but can make musketmen and cavalry. They have luxury rich grasslands, but can only make pikemen. Hmmm, what should I do in this situation??

Yeah, cavalry rush. I had to take advantage quickly before the industrial age where saltpeter would be obsoleted by riflemen. England was first because they had 2 furs and 3 wines that I wanted. I mowed down their pikes and spearmen easily and claimed all of their luxuries. Also, by taking England, I incorporated the entire Amazon into my domain. This later produced two coals and a rubber as well as great grasslands once my English slaves cut down the jungle. After England was reduced to almost nothing I built the Forb Palace in the middle of their great Heartlands and this area ended up being my best growing and producing area.

I then turned on Rome. Their once mighty legions were no match for gunpowder fueled units. I took their Pyramids and Leo's workshop. I was eventaully able to claim the whole of the continent. I got the Alps gems and even had a city in the mountains that had iron and coal, thus enabling me to build Iron Works.

The Sahara ended up giving me two oil when refining came. The Roman plains gave me aluminum. I'm still playing this game in the modern era and I currently have: 10 iron, 7 saltpeter, 5 coal, 5 rubber, 3 oil, 3 aluminum, 3 uranium, 5 wine, 4 furs, 4 spice, 3 gems, and a silk. Needless to say there's no trouble w/ resources in this game. I'm the king of trade and have virtually bankrupted the world selling my wares to them.

I immediately took advantage of an early resource mismatch to strengthen myself further by taking out weak rivals and claiming their land. By doing so I had Heartlands for growing cities as well as an entire Sahara, Amazon and Alps for complete resource dominance.

e

[Merlijn]

As for the clumping of Strategic Resources; I have a sneaking suspicion that the clumping is actually intended.
Geologically, resources stick together. The North-Sea oilfields are an example, as are the middle-east fields. Diamonds in South Africa as well.
When you strike a vein (or well) of just about any resource, you can be sure there is more around because the geological setting enhanced the forming of just such a resource.
It's what I like about this game.

Merlijn

[Arrian]

I'm sure you all know this, but the "clumping" is most pronounced on "3 billion" and most spread out on "5 billion."

I think the clumping is extremely important for trading purposes, and after, it's a fair approximation of the world as we know it. Personally, luxury resources are the most valuable, as they never run out and they make your people happy. You can survive without various strategic resources (I've dealt with the lack of iron just fine).

-Arrian

[eMarkM]

You're right, Arrian, the lux resources are just as important and maybe more so. I'm finding this out more each game. In cases where I didn't have a strat resource I've often been able to get it by trading a lux item for the SR. In fact, I've had very few cases where I traded for SR that I didn't have to give up at least a lux for it.

Merlijn, it's definately intentional in the design for luxuries. I see things more spread out for SRs. The programmers here have said as much (Soren in his chat?), I mentioned it earlier in this thread. Not just the clumps, but the fact that a given lux can only be found in a given part of the world, though not always in tiles next to each other. So, you usually won't find ivory on every continent. Just on one and only in one general area.

Which brings me to another important concept I've tried to use; gaining a complete monopoly on a given lux. As stated, Lux are generally unique to a given part of the world. There'll be clumps of it in one contiguous spot, but there's usually even more of the same resource in the general area. You can claim a clump w/ a single city and that may be enough for your trading purposes. But often there's some more of that same resource around in the area. I try to get that, too, if I can. I strive to get a true monopoly. If you have 4 fur clump and your neighbor claims the 5th one, well that's a civ you won't be able to trade that lux to now. Especially important in the early game where you're only trading w/ your continental neighbors. I've had games where I had 3 of a given lux, but my two immediate neighbors each got one more of that same lux. Well, I couldn't trade my extras to them then and my surplus stood idle until I established contact w/ overseas civs.

So try to get a monopoly if you can and you'll have a captive market. Now if you have 4 incense and see a 5th, but also see an available ivory you don't have, by all means get the ivory first. But if there's only one of a given resource in your area, it really pays to get it all to yourself, if just to ensure you'll be able to sell it to your neighbors who are w/o it.

Note: in my latest game I claimed the entire small "Sahara" of my continent, except for one Persian city. Guess who got the saltpeter. Persia, just one tile from by border! So, of course, the concepts presented here don't always work and you don't catch a break. This was a Deity game and w/o saltpeter the Persians ran me down like a freight train w/ their cavalry v my pikemen.

e

[Arrian]

Monopolizing a lux. resource is great, if you can pull it off. Mostly luck, of course, but if you can do it... as Mark says, wow, it's useful, particularly early on.

My personal test of how a game is shaping up:

By the end of "peaceful expansion" I survey my empire and...

Access to 1 type of luxury - restart
Access to 2 types of luxury - not a good start, but if I have monopolies on those lux. items and/or a good setup (iron, horses) to beat on a neighbor who has some stuff I want, I'll keep going

Access to 3 lux resources - could be a good one, depending on if I've monopolized any and what my strat. resources look like, and how I've done with wonders and such.

Access to 4 lux. resouces - ok, this one's lookin' really good. If I've got a monopoly on any of them, it's a DAMN good start. Strat resouces can be bad and it may not matter. A perfect example was a recent Monarch game as the Babs where I had no horses or iron, but 4 luxuries... I ended up incredibly powerful in that one, and never missed iron and horses (I eventually nabbed some iron by building a city in some neutral land that appeared as a result of a AI v. AI war, and I traded for horses).

Access to 5 or more... the start of ultimate power. I'm ROCKIN' I've never done this on Monarch (again, at the end of peaceful expansion... later on is another thing).

-Arrian

[Coinich]

Two questions for the general populous:

1. Are all of the resources on the Huge Earth map predetermined (i.e. built into the map)?

2. I'm currently playing on said map and am in the modern era and searching desperately for aluminum. I have recently exchanged world maps with most every race and have thoroughly scoured the earth for aluminum - finding NONE in the entire world. This, by the way, puts a kink in my plans for modern armor.

Any responses would be much appreciated.

Coinich

[JohnE]

Originally posted by Coinich
I'm currently playing on said map and am in the modern era and searching desperately for aluminum. I have recently exchanged world maps with most every race and have thoroughly scoured the earth for aluminum - finding NONE in the entire world. This, by the way, puts a kink in my plans for modern armor.

Any responses would be much appreciated.

Coinich

I am not sure about the specifics of the map, but sometimes resources get hidden directly under cities. You can turn on the clean map, which will allow you to see everything easily. Also, you can right-click on cities and choose Terrain Info to quickly see any resource on a specific square.

[player1]

Originally posted by Coinich
Two questions for the general populous:

1. Are all of the resources on the Huge Earth map predetermined (i.e. built into the map)?

2. I'm currently playing on said map and am in the modern era and searching desperately for aluminum. I have recently exchanged world maps with most every race and have thoroughly scoured the earth for aluminum - finding NONE in the entire world. This, by the way, puts a kink in my plans for modern armor.

Any responses would be much appreciated.

Coinich

Unfortunately in patch 1.17f aluminum & oil are removed from plains (althogh aluminum is added on Tundra).

BUT, since that Huge map (standard also) has all aluminum stored on plains, you won't get any aluminum.

Send this to bug list, or PM to Firaxis members.




P.S.
There is one possibile fix (for new game)
Alter rules for that map by addinig Aluminum & oil to plains (rules chage) and removing aluminum from tundra.

P.P.S.
When next patch comes out you should do same thing again.

[Coinich]

Ahhh - that explains my problem. I'll look into how to perform those modifications, unless someone can explain it to me quickly.

Thanks to all,

Coinich.