odd coincidences "New Source of XXX" on Chieftan multiplayer

[phooey73]

large size
archipelago
Wang Kon - human chieftan
Ragnar - human chieftan
Brennus - AI chieftan (human left)
Louis - AI noble
Frederick - AI noble eliminated already

Don't pick on me for playing chieftan, it was for the sake of new people. :-D

So far as we had discovered, with not much territory still under cloud of darkness, there was only 3 coal on the map. I had one and Brennus had two in his territory without the tech to get it.

I'm Wang and Ragnar is playing on the computer beside me, *****ing about how he doesn't have coal and can't get it. After I've built my necessary railroads (and because I don't have coal power plants), I cave and give up my coal.

The very next turn after that deal, Ragnar discovers a new source of coal in his own lands. Coincidence?

But it gets better. 10 turns later when I cancel that deal, I discover a new source of coal too! The very next turn.

Best I can figure, is that (1) the game was being nice to chieftans, (2) it knew there wasn't enough coal on the map and was anxious to give us some, but (3) it won't give you a resource you don't already have, and perhaps even (4) when you acquire (by whatever means) a new resource type that you don't have currently, it specifically considers whether to give you another one of that same type.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I think it's pretty dodgy. I would love to know if the hidden resources (meaning both the ones that you don't have the tech for, and the ones that appear occasionally when you mine for long enough) are preset at the start of the game, or if they are "allocated" by whatever means.

I also think that the "recommended" city sites (the blue circles) take undiscovered resources into account. I have seen it written that they don't, but I've seen the following scenario play out too many times:

1. Blue-circle spot is clearly less desirable than another spot (due to presence of unworkable tiles - i.e. mountains, desert, and not being on a hill).

2. I build on the hill, which gets me the same resources as the blue-circle spot, plus an extra hammer for the hill and +25% defence.

3. I pat myself on the back for outwitting the dumb blue circle generator.

4. Ten, fifty, or three hundred turns later, gold/oil/coal/iron/aluminium/whatever pops up just outside my city's fat circle.

5. D'oh!

I can't be the only one noticing this, can I?

[khines]

I've noticed the psychic blue circle thing, too. I always thought it knows the future location of materials also.

[LordShiva]

Firaxis swears it doesn't.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Firaxis swears it doesn't.

Maybe when I have time, I'll start a game, go into worldbuilder and do some testing.

[Dr. A. Cula]

From what I've seen, there are 2 kinds of resources: the ones that pop up on the same turn you discover the required tech (I include here resources that don't requires a tech and are always visible, I'll call them "regular") and resources that pop up a number of turns after you discovered the required tech, but only on a mined hill (hence, this doesn't happend to all resources).

From my experience with the world builder, only regular resources are present from the beginning of the game, so only these can be used when placing the blue circle. The second kind of resources are computed randomly at the beginning of each turn, and appear only if you have the required tech. For instance, I only got copper or iron in the acient era, but got alumin(i)um, uranium, copper and iron in the modern era.

If the game knew in advance where to pop the second kind of resources, I think they would have appeared in the world builder, possibly with some sort of marker to distinguish from regular. Since this is not the case, it follows that either the world builder has a bug, or non-regular resources are randomly generated. I'd go with the second conclusion.

The situation described in the opening post is just a case of random blessing from the RNG gods.
As for the second post, it seems to me that the resource popping up just outside city limits is a regular one. If you already had the required tech, then it popped up on a mined hill, and then it should already be exploited by another city (hopefully, also yours), so you only need to adapt your strategy to the resouce going somewhere else.

[Martinus]

I don't know about "random" discoveries, but I am 99% sure the blue circle takes into account resources which are already there, but you don't have a tech to find them. Yesterday, I settled my second city a blue circle in a rather bad spot, with a lot of desert around. It turned out two of the desert squares had bronze and iron respectively, making the city great for production.

[Prussia]

The game doesn't only take the blue circles in for resources or city production, food, and gold, it also takes in strategic placement, for example, blocking someone else off from expansion.

[phooey73]

The RNG Gods may well be involved, but this is just too freaky to be purely RNG. It happened twice, once on the very next turn after the deal (where the recipient of the coal immediately found his own coal), and then again the very next turn after deal cancellation (where the person taking back his own coal immediately finds another source of coal).

If that was all "RNG Gods" then there really ARE "RNG Gods" and they really like playing with our minds.

Here's my new theory... the steam tech had been out for a while, and somewhere over that multitude of turns, Ragnar scored a RNG Coal, BUT the game won't give you a new source unless you already have at least one (Is this true or not?), so it just put it on hold -- and then when he finally had my coal, it awarded him the coal that had been on hold.

Then the same thing probably happened to me over one of the next ten turns before the cancellation of the trade. RNG wanted to give me a coal, but it couldn't because I had traded away my only source and I now had zero in my possession. So it went on hold. And then when the trade was cancelled, I was awarded my new coal.

I'm satisfied with this explanation unless someone tells me that its not true that the game "won't give you a new source unless you already have at least one".

[phooey73]

You know I don't think that my premise is true in general, because I have found silver before without having any silver. But I do think it may be true still for Coal, Iron, Copper, and the strategic resources.