Early Oil - so good is it a bug?

[The Priest]

I had a complete surprise in my last game when the build queue starting suggesting I build destroyers, long before it should have done.

We all are used to the deal with oil. One tech (sorry can't remember which) makes oil appear, but another tech quite a big later allows you to build the wells (on land) which allows you to get at it. (Platforms at sea being later again.) So oil appears and you can make sure you have your supply identified, but its still a long time before you can make those destroyers.

But there they were being offered to me. I still didn't have the tech to build a well, but oil was flowing in all my cities.

The answer? Well, one of my cities was located on top of an oil resource, and it appeasr that one was flowing. I though the rule was that if a resource was under a city, you didn't get the added hammers etc. but taht you did get acces to the resource when you had the tech necessary to access it (i.e. build on stone and once you research masonry you get the stone.) But, in this case, I still didn't have the tech necessary to research it, only the tech necessary to make it appear. But it was flowing.

Now, i'm not one to complain ... just call me Mr Rockerfeller. But:

1. In a game focused on war, this would be very powerful. Is it really right, or a bug? I can see myself now deliberately dropping a settler on an oil in the future to get this advantage.
2. The same isn't true of other resources is it i.e. silk which is visable but you can't build the planation until later. You don't get that by putting a city on it do you?

[Vampgelus]

Once i got a random event allowing me to see oil on the map, it was about 1200 BC... damn good thing, but i didn't notice the bug you are mentioning. Are you playing with an old version or a mod wich could carry this bug?

(btw, you can get a "tile advantage" of a ressource under your city... just build a city on a corn tile and you will have +1 on the cities tile)

[MoonWolf]

Oooh, wish I'd gotten that event...

Well, sometimes "lucky" stuff has happened in history giving someone a real boost or changing the path. So if you got oil like that just consider it a lucky happening

[Supr49er]

Scientific Method reveals oil.
Combustion allows wells.

The event that reveals oil is the 'Man Called Jed'. If your Scout/Explorer ends a turn on top of the unrevealed oil, there is a chance the oil is discovered.

Remember you can also put a fort on the revealed oil to get the resource without a well.

[anhalibut]

I noticed that the other day playing. I was able to build destroyers without any oil wells, but I did have oil in my borders. I wrote it off as having access to uranium, but now that I think about it, shouldn't you need the fission tech to use uranium?

[The Priest]

I'm playing a standard game, with the standard up to date BOS - no mods or anything. And there wasn't an event involved either - or at least not one which showed itself. And, it can't be nuclear powered destroyers because oil did turn up on my city screens as a resource which the cities had.

Its probably just that I am so nice the game likes me

[Fleme]

Or should go to the "I'm so bad at CIV that..." thread

"I'm so bad at CIV that it lets me build units without their corresponding strategic resources."

[The Priest]

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by anhalibut
I noticed that the other day playing. I was able to build destroyers without any oil wells, but I did have oil in my borders. I wrote it off as having access to uranium, but now that I think about it, shouldn't you need the fission tech to use uranium?

You shouldn't be able to, that was definitely fixed in Vanilla at some point (unless you're playing an old version).

Oil I thought had the same fix, but I could be wrong. (Preventing cities and forts from giving you the resource if you aren't able to use it yet)

[The Priest]

Apologies folks.

My, embarrassing, mistake.

I had in fact already researched combustion. The oddity was that I had researched combustion before I researched scienfic method, and there was oil under a city. So as soon as I researched scienfic method, destroyers were popping up in my build queue, when I am used to first seeing oil on the map, then the wait until you can build wells, then you actually move the workers to build the wells (which always take ages) and then finally the destroyers appear.

[anhalibut]

Originally posted by snoopy369


You shouldn't be able to, that was definitely fixed in Vanilla at some point (unless you're playing an old version).

Oil I thought had the same fix, but I could be wrong. (Preventing cities and forts from giving you the resource if you aren't able to use it yet)

I am playing the older version. I haven't played in a while so I started on vanilla before moving to BTS.
Thanks