Resources not very Strategic

crewealex · February 16, 2002, 19:48

Does anyone else find them too easy to obtain?

Way back when, I recall some complaints about the placement and scarcity of resources and that there were three coal in the Artic Circle and none anywhere else or that the nearest saltpetre was two islands away and all the land had been taken up etc etc
Fairly rapidly these gripes faded away maybe because after a little bit of experience players learnt how to identify the resources on the map and there didn`t seem to be much mention again on the forums. Problem solved.
Or is it?

Because I cannot recall when I didn`t have every resource.every game every time and this seems to nullify the whole point of the new and excellent feature in the game; a feature which forces you to trade or forces you to fight or even,God forbid,forces you to survive with only spear chuckers and Billy Bowmen at your disposal. If they are always there in my territory I don`t have to alter any strategies,don`t have to change in any way and just go merrily along building all available units.

I should point out that I`m only an average player(Regent and latterly Monarch) but like everyone else I expand like mad at the beginning and manage to carve out enough territory which seems to automatically guarantee at least one of every resource and usually a lot more. By the time I get to rubber and oil and a few civs are dead I seem to have two or three of everything. Occasionally,right at the beginning I might have to work a bit to get horses but after that it all seems very straightforward.

The present GOTM is a good example. After a brief skirmish with the Germans I got horses and after that every other resource appeared within my territory sometimes with a road already leading to it. I haven`t got as far as aluminium yet but when I do I`ll be amazed if I don`t get it.

There`s always lots of discussion on the forums about which are the best units: horses,swordsmen,tanks etc all units that require resources. Horses are very popular and I`ve read numerous comments about how easy it is to win with them. That suggests that obtaining the resource is easily done,every time. I suspect that the Diety wizz-kids wouldn`t be quite so successful if they didn`t get horses for a long time or if they at least disappeared occasionally.
Once you`ve built railways and you have control of the land mass then defence is simple. you centrally locate the units and then just zoom them around to where they are required. No coal and suddenly I have to start thinking except I don`t because I always get coal.

I notice that a number of players are quick to criticise features that hinder them from winning,unsinkable ships by bombardment for example,but are slightly more reluctant to mention those that do make it easy. Or am I just being very cynical here!

So am I just incredibly lucky or are the default settings too easy? Because if every player gets every resource every time then there doesn`t seem much point in having them in the game at all.

Any thoughts?

nato · February 16, 2002, 20:39

Wow I thought I was the only one like this ...

I have had times when I did not have all resources, and I had to find a way to get them. These were some of the funnest problems in Civ for me.

However, most of the time not only do I get every strategic resource, but so do all the AIs. I had also gotten to the kind of cynical point that when new resources were visible on the map, I expected everyone to get one or more.

It kind of takes away one of the funnest problems. Maybe having less than one resource per civ wouldn't be a bad idea.

I just wanted to say I've felt this way too.

Worthingtons · February 16, 2002, 20:43

My last two games I've had near perfect starts, but the game's gone all wrong due to a lack of Iron (one of the least scarce resources!).

I must say Alex were very strong when they came down Millmoor, even if we did have an off day.

crewealex · February 16, 2002, 21:11

Good to know that others are thinking along the same lines.

Rothy.You must be a nice person because you didn`t mention Coventry!

Tarquelne · February 17, 2002, 04:46

I does get boring if you get the Resources too easily.

You can turn down the frequency in the editor, I believe. You can also increase the rate at which they move around, if you want to be annoyed.

But, seriously, up your difficulty level a notch or two. It really sounds like the game has become too easy for you.

Something else you could try is mark the Strategic Resources as Luxuries in the editor, generate a map, then change the Strategic Resources back to Strategic Resources again. They'll appear in "clumps" on the map, so it becomes _very_ unlikely that you'll get them all even in a very large territory.

crewealex · February 17, 2002, 16:10

I appreciate the above suggestions and yes I have fiddled around with the editor although I need to experiment more to get the ratios balanced.

It`s just a shame that a feature with such potential has been reduced to this and anyway, you must use the default settings for tournament games

MonsterMan · February 17, 2002, 16:23

The larger the map, the easier it is to get strategic resources within your border. Most players play on the largest map possible (256x256) simply because it's more fun with a huge world.

Tarquelne · February 17, 2002, 19:06

And doesn't fewer players lead to fewer Resources? I used to play with 16 civs, but I found that while the very early game was VERY interesting the later game was generally too easy. (So I suggest playing with fewer civs, anyway.)

crewealex · February 18, 2002, 11:02

I think that at the start of the game there are two horses for each civ and iron slightly less,all randomly placed. Once you obtain horses it is fairly simple to expand to ensure iron and then once the other resources come into play your empire is of a size that they always seem to be within your borders.

Yes,fewer civs mean fewer resources but also means that your empire will be that much larger and therefore unlikely to make any significant difference with regards to obtaining resources.

woody · February 18, 2002, 11:15

Yes, I agree that resources are too plentiful. What I've done for the past couple of games is to half the appearance ratio of all resources in the editor. I also play with more civs.

This leads to less resources than there are civs, especially for the rare ones like uranium. Although, by the time you research for uranium, many civs are already extinct, so it sort of works out.

I usually have to fight for some key resources.

woody · February 18, 2002, 11:19

Oh, I forgot to add...

Make the changes to civ3mod.bic, and then create your world using the editor. Then, start as a scenario. If you start a new game using the setup screen, it seems to give you at least 1 resource for every civ. It's either a bug, or I was just really (un)lucky that time I tried it.