Firaxis - Possible bug with island resources

[solo]

It appears that resources that appear on small islands within a city's cultural boundaries can not be connected and used except on the islands themselves.

Below is a picture from one of my recent OCC games, in which coal appeared on a small island within my city's boundaries. So I sent over a worker and mined the coal.

Normally, to use a resource, a connecting road to the city using it must be built. However, roads can not be built on sea tiles so I just built a road on the coal's tile, before moving my island worker to the tile to the right, where he appears below.

Even though coal did not appear in my city's screen of available resources, this island worker was able to build a railroad on the grassland tile you see him on. (By the way, he was unable to do this until I put a road on the coal mine's tile).

However, the worker two tiles above on the mainland, was unable to build a railroad in his tile. Why not?

[solo]

Below I have attached a zip file containing the save game used in the illustration above:

[GeoModder]

Put a city on the coal tile, and you'll have the resource civwide.

point is that you need a city there to connect the island to your trade network. Otherwise it stays 'local'.

[solo]

Well, I would if it were not an OCC game, in which I am only allowed to have one city.

My point is that if a city can conduct coastal trade without having a connecting "road" along the sea route, it should be able to connect to resources within its boundaries by the same mechanism.

[Cort Haus]

I don't see how this is a bug, Solo. It was the same in Civ 3 - we needed a city with a harbor as well as a road. Now we just need the city.

Cities are a bit expensive for this kind of thing now, though. Maybe we need a Civ 3 style colony, built with a worker but allowing sea-trade with your civ if within, say 3 or 4 tiles of one of your cities. It would have to be balanced to avoid easy first-come monopolisation of island resources, though.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by solo
My point is that if a city can conduct coastal trade without having a connecting "road" along the sea route, it should be able to connect to resources within its boundaries by the same mechanism.

But a resource on your mainland coast won't connect with your capital by sea alone - you still have to build a road to a city. So it's consistant (but annoying, especially in OCC) to have to build a city to harvest it.

[solo]

Resources do not always need a road, to be used by a city. They can be connected to a city with a river. Coastal connections are made in the same way, by a path along a body of water.

This is implemented correctly for trade routes in OCC, but not for strategic resources.

[Enigma_Nova]

Strategic resources don't connect to the coast like cities do. They can, however, road to a river which then connects to the coast.

The good thing is the 2-tile restrictions on city placement don't matter for 2 different civs on nearby islands.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by solo
Resources do not always need a road, to be used by a city. They can be connected to a city with a river. Coastal connections are made in the same way, by a path along a body of water.

This is implemented correctly for trade routes in OCC, but not for strategic resources.

No roads required for non-strategic coastal resources in OCC? Ah, so that must be a special rule. I should play some OCC.

[Enigma_Nova]

Heh. It's just newbies coping with the anguish of learning new tactics. Give him a day or so, he'll grow out of it.

I'm so proud that I can identify weakness in others, class them as childish n00bs and gloat about it. It's what I do best.

[Cort Haus]

E_N, have you read Solo's One City Challenge thread? He plays OCC on Deity now, I believe.

[Enigma_Nova]

I acknowledge that I am not "Teh Pwninator" of Civ 4, Cort Haus - but there's a Heirachy that you have to understand

Developers
Gods <--- That OCC Deity dude is here
Elites
Veterans <--- You're probably here
Serious Players <--- I am probably on the lower end of here
Players
Newbies <--- Original poster is here, and moving up
Idiots
Starlightdeath

Not all players have a(n obvious) weakness, but those whose first instinct is to complain rather than to adapt are more like Starlightdeath than Velocyrix.

[Risa]

I can feel your pain, solo. But it is always that way. You need city to connect resources (strategic or not) on other landmass.

[solo]

Well, at least this noobie knows that you can not found a city (or colony in Civ III) within another city's cultural borders.

The fact remains that the coal in the situation above is not usuable because of the road "requirement".

When a resource pops up within your borders, the game should provide a means of making use out of it.

I still believe this is a bug, but maybe oversight or omission is a better term for describing this shortcoming.

I suppose an additional structure that could be made by a worker, such as a warehouse or depot on the coal's tile could be added to represent the higher difficulty of making use of island based resources.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Enigma_Nova
I acknowledge that I am not "Teh Pwninator" of Civ 4, Cort Haus - but there's a Heirachy that you have to understand

Developers
Gods <--- That OCC Deity dude is here
Elites
Veterans <--- You're probably here
Serious Players <--- I am probably on the lower end of here
Players
Newbies <--- Original poster is here, and moving up
Idiots
Starlightdeath

Not all players have a(n obvious) weakness, but those whose first instinct is to complain rather than to adapt are more like Starlightdeath than Velocyrix.

I may be wrong, but...
This dude

Gods <--- That OCC Deity dude is here

is this one...

Newbies <--- Original poster is here, and moving up

He's the author of the above referred thread... (OCC at deity)