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Okay, I've played for awhile. I fixed my technical probs with the game pretty much, after two months, (thanks anyway Sid, better late than never
) and I like most of what I see, though it's darn different than Civ3, which I personally loved, (but not enough to sideline this new stuff.) I'm going to throw a thread out there now and see if I can get some ideas for myself and help others.
I'm thinking a general talk on use of resources, or lack thereof, which I didn't see too much specific discussion about on the other strategy threads other than for the early game. Consensus seems to be that these problems can resolve themselves out with expansion/diplomacy/conquest/alternative technologies. After playing a couple dozen now on various difficulties, (but mostly large maps with a lot of foes,) I find this frequently to not be the case. The rarest resources I think, after playing what I have, are coal and horses. (With honorable mention for deer, which you can work around.) Am I nuts?
In the real world, coal is probably the most common fossil fuel and a very common occurring substance (mineral?). Horses disappeared in prehistoric times for still unclear reasons from the North/South American continent, putting guys like Montezuma in a real pickle when he had to go up against imported ones, but they don't seem too uncommon, in the real world, anywhere else. Arabs had them, Russians had them, Mongols had them (ever play Civ4 as Genghis with no horses?
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Even Tokugawa on his island empire had them. Sir Lancelot had them on his island, though the Romans might have brought them over. (Note to self, mod transplantable resources sometime.
) As many have noted, Civ isn't a totally realistic simulation, but it at least reflects a lot of real world conditions. Are coal/horses exceptionally/unreasonably scarce or is it just me?
I'm a builder; and a bit of a "castle"-type player. I don't want to conquer the world to get that one missing resource site. (At least they don't "dry up" in Civ4, the way they did in Civ3.
) I find it in fact more than a little difficult to conquer the world without railroads and an early UU. I'm also not much of a modder, finding that if you add something for "play balance" you might well upset something else. I prefer to leave that to game design professionals.
It would seem here we could have a discussion about whether coal and/or horses are really scarce and what people do about it, (As Genghis, or Peter, for instance.)
If anybody wants to chime in about frequency, use and/or avoidance of other resources, that would seem to be fruitful too.
) and I like most of what I see, though it's darn different than Civ3, which I personally loved, (but not enough to sideline this new stuff.) I'm going to throw a thread out there now and see if I can get some ideas for myself and help others.I'm thinking a general talk on use of resources, or lack thereof, which I didn't see too much specific discussion about on the other strategy threads other than for the early game. Consensus seems to be that these problems can resolve themselves out with expansion/diplomacy/conquest/alternative technologies. After playing a couple dozen now on various difficulties, (but mostly large maps with a lot of foes,) I find this frequently to not be the case. The rarest resources I think, after playing what I have, are coal and horses. (With honorable mention for deer, which you can work around.) Am I nuts?
In the real world, coal is probably the most common fossil fuel and a very common occurring substance (mineral?). Horses disappeared in prehistoric times for still unclear reasons from the North/South American continent, putting guys like Montezuma in a real pickle when he had to go up against imported ones, but they don't seem too uncommon, in the real world, anywhere else. Arabs had them, Russians had them, Mongols had them (ever play Civ4 as Genghis with no horses?
) Even Tokugawa on his island empire had them. Sir Lancelot had them on his island, though the Romans might have brought them over. (Note to self, mod transplantable resources sometime.
) As many have noted, Civ isn't a totally realistic simulation, but it at least reflects a lot of real world conditions. Are coal/horses exceptionally/unreasonably scarce or is it just me? I'm a builder; and a bit of a "castle"-type player. I don't want to conquer the world to get that one missing resource site. (At least they don't "dry up" in Civ4, the way they did in Civ3.
) I find it in fact more than a little difficult to conquer the world without railroads and an early UU. I'm also not much of a modder, finding that if you add something for "play balance" you might well upset something else. I prefer to leave that to game design professionals.It would seem here we could have a discussion about whether coal and/or horses are really scarce and what people do about it, (As Genghis, or Peter, for instance.)
If anybody wants to chime in about frequency, use and/or avoidance of other resources, that would seem to be fruitful too.
? I hardly ever find myself with Stone or Marble anywhere near my starting point.
) There's one guy on the "what I hate about this game" thread who maintains, not without reason, that the food and terrain tiles appear by formula and with no logic to the real world, i.e. they were programmed to appear in regular frequencies around potential city sites without regard to geology, or climatology. He claimed this was far worse than Civ3. I initially agreed with him, but have had some games since where things suddenly get more available; and rational. All this occurred after patch 1.52, so that ain't it.
Maybe a design type will monitor this and change the terrain/resource mix in a future expansion. Or we can mod, which as I said at the beginning, I don't like to do, but some things may demand it over time.
in my game experience so far. My recollection of the real "Manhattan Project" is that Oppenheimer and company had to scout around bigtime even in mineral-rich U.S. and Canada to find the proper weapons grade and in Civ, this stuff pops up all over the map, including on previously built farms and cities where I'd least want it and can't use it. 
Horses... well, mounted units are, IMO, much less powerful in CivIV than they were in CivIII. If I lack horses, I really don't mind. I'd rather have 'em, but it's no biggie.
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