freakin coal!!!!!!!!!

bigvic · September 25, 2002, 03:07

D@mn it! again i make it to the steam age and there is hardly any coal in the freakin world! jeez - it just ain't that freakin rare!

doesn't happen everytime, but irritatingly often. how does one make a resourse more likely to be there in the editor? i mean, not more likey to appear, but just more commen? anyone know?

Jaybe · September 25, 2002, 03:16

But scarcity of rescources/luxuries is the core of civ3 -- You either have to be friends with someone who has a surplus, or you have to TAKE IT!

Sean · September 25, 2002, 03:17

It doesn't happen very often to me -- ie I regularly get coal, and am rarely wanting for the stuff.

bigvic · September 25, 2002, 03:18

no no no no no!

2 sourceof coal in the whole world? ridiculous! hell, even japan has freakin coal.

Jaybe · September 25, 2002, 03:26

bigvic, don't forget to do the CTRL-SHIFT-M to find where they are hidden underneath cities.

bigvic · September 25, 2002, 03:39

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
bigvic, don't forget to do the CTRL-SHIFT-M to find where they are hidden underneath cities.

oooooooh - good one.
really? how'ed that get passed me - will check it out. thanks. still going to wail on the indians for theirs though.

anyone - how bout the modding question? gues i should go to creation forum......

Der PH · September 25, 2002, 03:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe
bigvic, don't forget to do the CTRL-SHIFT-M to find where they are hidden underneath cities.

Even with that coal is often hard to spot, especially on jungle tiles.
In one of my last games I started a war with my neighbours (the Iroquis, with whom I had a very peaceful relation till that point) in order to get some of their coal and just after starting the invasion I accidentally spotted a source right inside my own territory.
Well ... sorry, Hiawatha ... my fault!

There are some modpacks for the resource icons, which make them much more easy to spot. Although I generally don't like them very much, I am going to use them temporary to look for new resources, especially coal.

bongo · September 25, 2002, 10:21

Der PH: Had (almost) the same thing happen to me, I had captured 5-7 cities from the americans when I granted them a peace treaty. Right after signing a MPP I saw that the worlds only source of gems was right outside one of their remaining cities. Actually it was outside the very city that would have been the next target for my victorious armies. AARRRGGHHhhh!!!

Luckily the iroquis declared war against us and managed to take the city(because there wasn't any units there, which again were caused by the huge tributes the americans had to pay me after the peace treaty), I then captured it myself

It would have been real handy if your advisors could tell you things like 'there is unconnected coal near Ougadabougabe' or 'the american city springfield has a source of rubber which we need for making condoms'

Edit: Some typos

kmill25 · September 25, 2002, 12:22

You know the AI has a way of setting up cities on SR that have yet to appear.

So if you see a wayward jungle city all by it's lonesome, you can bet it's sitting on coal.

Willem · September 25, 2002, 13:16

Quote:

Originally posted by bigvic

anyone - how bout the modding question? gues i should go to creation forum......

Go to the Natural Resources section in the editor, look up Coal. Increase the "Appearance Ratio". Every of increase of 10 means an extra resource, and the highest number you can have is 900.

bigvic · September 25, 2002, 20:52

Quote:

Originally posted by Willem

Go to the Natural Resources section in the editor, look up Coal. Increase the "Appearance Ratio". Every of increase of 10 means an extra resource, and the highest number you can have is 900.

THANK YOU SIR!!!!!!!!!

exactly what i needed!

ps - you sure now? about to start modding my mod.......sounds like you know - thanks

bigvic · September 25, 2002, 23:34

unless u want to mentally masturbate (hey wait, is'nt that sort of the deal with this whole website, hell the whole d@mn hobby!

?) no need to post anymore, unless we could make this a thread on resources and optimum settings. mine are tailored for a standard sized world with 16 civs. tripled availability. on avg.

oh yeah, thanks willem - what the hell you do with yer time, boy, read the rules or something?!

yeah, happy happy joy joy!

Jaybe · September 26, 2002, 00:10

Quote:

Originally posted by bigvic
... mine are tailored for a standard sized world with 16 civs. tripled availability. on avg.
...

I, uh, "eagerly" await your post that tripled resources makes it so everyone has anything they want so there is no reason to trade (or conquer). All the civs will be in heaven, but you may be reaming the core out of the game.

Have fun trying it out...

bigvic · September 26, 2002, 01:08

Quote:

Originally posted by Jaybe

I, uh, "eagerly" await your post that tripled resources makes it so everyone has anything they want so there is no reason to trade (or conquer). All the civs will be in heaven, but you may be reaming the core out of the game.

Have fun trying it out...

tripled is too much - just tried it out. still fighting, but...
what i'm going for is a ratio of resources to civs roughly on par with 16 civs to huge world. tweaking it now to see.....

mattcj · September 26, 2002, 10:54

I never have a problem with coal. The biggest resource that I usually have problems with is iron.

zeh · September 26, 2002, 14:32

Quote:

Originally posted by mattcj
I never have a problem with coal. The biggest resource that I usually have problems with is iron.

The problem with coal is you'll probably need to enter in a war to secure the resource, if you don't have one.
With iron, you can secure it most easily, because all civs are in REX, including you, so you tend settle sites near tiles with this resource.

Gwylim · September 26, 2002, 14:42

just one more comment :-)
i had the same problem yesterday and i could solve it very easy. I was the first to discover SteamEngine and so i traded the technology to everyone of my 14 AIs and one of them had one coal too much which he traded to me. But remember to trade at least for 1 gp per round in order that the contract is not just finnished without that you are asked (I traded for another technology and when the 20 rounds were finnished i just loosed the coal and had to reload, dismake the peace treaty, make peace treaty again and then traded again the coal to me)

cgannon64 · September 26, 2002, 15:39

You might just not be seeing it. It is VERY hard to see, after all. Download one of those graphic mods that puts little letters (C for Coal, U for Uranium) on all the resources.

I have had several games where I thought there was no coal, only to find out I had some

CG

bongo · September 27, 2002, 03:04

If my useless advisors cannot tell me where to find coal i may go for a graphic mod then. BTW are they any good?

Willem · September 27, 2002, 11:09

Quote:

Originally posted by bongo
If my useless advisors cannot tell me where to find coal i may go for a graphic mod then. BTW are they any good?

Like all things in life, some are, some aren't. At least there's lots around if you look.

sun_tzu_159 · September 27, 2002, 16:18

BigVic,
When you think you have good numbers for balance of the game perhaps you could post them back to the thread.

A few thoughts on the question of 'seeing' resources.
It would perhaps be useful to include a team colour disc under the resources, perhaps CTRL_SHIFT_something toggle + option as with units in menu, neutral resources that are not claimed with white discs.

Also annoying is the clumping of resources that I have noticed sometimes. I had a game where eight saltpeters all appeared at the end of one small mountainous island with only two left for the rest of the world. Perhaps a minimum distance could be set for the distance of one resource from another as is the case with start locations and AI city spacing.

Firaxis should do new graphics for the coal especially. Where the resource has a city built over it CTRL_SHIFT_something could also show this case.

The advisors screen will show you the resources available for trade from another nation but not the locations. Since you can already see the locations of resources in the explored map maybe a similar screen to that already used for your own civ showing all resources with a drag-over pop-up giving location could be available for the other civs too.

Slightly off topic - I had the Americans to the north of a belt of tundra between me and them. In the middle a small hill which they liked the look of and tried to settle. They succeeded and later in the game several 'hidden' resources appeared within the citys influence.

Try putting your workers on Auto early in the game. When you start researching tech for iron watch and they may suddenly rush to build a road to nowhere. When your tech research is complete the resource you require appears at the end of this road. Happens especially with iron and saltpeter as these are discovered earlier in the game when roads do not cover the map.

It is therefore easy to conclude that the AI knows where all the resources are on any explored territory from the moment it is explored and uses the knowledge to set up cities in stupid places from early in the game.

Anyway just a few thoughts.

Regards

Sun_Tzu

vmxa1 · September 27, 2002, 16:44

I have also had a few occasion to search hard for coal and eventual spot it. It would be nice if they had a hotkey to highligh resources, if you have the required tech to know about it. I know there are a few mods that may help spot them, but this should be handled by the game.

Ethelred · September 27, 2002, 16:45

Quote:

Originally posted by sun_tzu_159

Try putting your workers on Auto early in the game. When you start researching tech for iron watch and they may suddenly rush to build a road to nowhere. When your tech research is complete the resource you require appears at the end of this road. Happens especially with iron and saltpeter as these are discovered earlier in the game when roads do not cover the map.

That is interesting. I don't think I have ever heard anyone mention anything like that. I don't automate workers till after I have built a rail network and often not till everything is railed so I haven't seen it myself.

Quote:

It is therefore easy to conclude that the AI knows where all the resources are on any explored territory from the moment it is explored and uses the knowledge to set up cities in stupid places from early in the game.

Anyway just a few thoughts.

Regards

Sun_Tzu

That one of few cheats the AI has. That one has been confirmed by Firaxis. However if what you said is true then the automated workers are using the same information the AI civs have about the map.

Catt · September 27, 2002, 17:05

Quote:

Originally posted by sun_tzu_159
Firaxis should do new graphics for the coal especially. Where the resource has a city built over it CTRL_SHIFT_something could also show this case.

CTRL-SHIFT-M gives you a view of the known world in bright light (not fog-of-war) with all units, cities and improvements removed -- i.e., only terrain and resources.

Quote:

It is therefore easy to conclude that the AI knows where all the resources are on any explored territory from the moment it is explored and uses the knowledge to set up cities in stupid places from early in the game.

I may be splitting hairs, as I acknowledge that the AI "knows" that certain tiles are more valuable than others, even when the tech that makes the resource appear is far off. My one litle bit of hairsplitting is that I'm not convinced that the AI knows which resource will appear under a given tile - i.e., on a small sample of tests I ran, the AI "knew" that certain tiles were more valuable than others, but certainly showed no rhyme or reason as to which tile would have an earlier resource appear versus a later resource (or could have been working against a tile valuation system I couldn't decipher). It was a while ago and I don't have the test scenarios, but I seem to remember the AI civ would settle an area with a uranium resource rather than, say, an iron resource, even after modding the appearance ratios to be equal -- the uranium offers more bonus goodies (shields / gold) but the iron offers bonus goodies over hundreds of game turns - the uranium may never even be exploited by the AI. Just an example from memory, but it lead me to believe that the AI knows this particular mountain is a very valuable mountain, but not why it is a valuable mountain.

Regardless, still an advantage to the AI, of course.

Catt

vmxa1 · September 27, 2002, 17:29

The ctl-shift-M is not enough for some of us as the coal can still be hard to spot for old eyes. I would like a resource and or lux highlight on only known tiles and known to you (that is don't show me oil if I am not that far yet).