Strategic resources

[mrmichaeln]

Can someone please tell me what would happen to the resources if you change the terrain? For instance, if a jungle square contains rubber and you clear the jungle, do you lose that resource?

And what about the reverse? Has anyone ever "discovered" a resource when changing the terrain?

Thanks for all your help!

[vmxa1]

No, for the purposes of resource placement the tile is forever considered to have its original traits.

[Last Conformist]

Um, unless I'm misinformed, the current terrain is considered when determining where a 'new' resource goes? I've never seen any turn up in the 'wrong' type of terrain, for sure.

[Goethe80]

Where a resource appears depends on what the tile was at the start of the game (ie.4000BC). This applies even for resources that appear later in the game (rubber, aluminium, etc). So for example, say at the start of the game, when the prog. generates the map, it decides that there will be a rubber resource in a particular jungle tile. If you were to clear that tile, converting it into grassland, the rubber will still appear on that grassland tile later in the game when you (or the AI) research the req. techs.

The only time when current terrain is a factor is when one resource is exhausted and pops up in another tile (but to be fair, the only time that's ever happened to me was for iron, which cannot pop on a 'cleared' tile).

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
Um, unless I'm misinformed, the current terrain is considered when determining where a 'new' resource goes? I've never seen any turn up in the 'wrong' type of terrain, for sure.

Yup you are mistaken. Clear jungles before rubber or clear marsh before oil and you still get that resource.

If you are not sure, gen a tiny map and give yourself the stuff to test it out.

[Donegeal]

I think what he meant was will a "new" source appear. I know that Rubber doesn't run out, but oil....

When one source is used up, another appears on the map somewhere else. Can a sourse of oil appear on a swap tile that has been cleared into a grassland?

[vmxa1]

If that is the question, then it does not change anything. I cannot remember a single case of a resource depletion and a respawn in C3C. I use to see them often in the early days of CivIII.

I can't remember any from late PTW either. Anyway they can respawn in any tile that had the proper traits at map gen time.

Horses and Rubber do not deplete.

[Aqualung71]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I cannot remember a single case of a resource depletion and a respawn in C3C. I use to see them often in the early days of CivIII.

I've definitely seen it. In AU501 I had a Saltpeter resource respawn in the middle of my territory....don't know where it disappeared from though.

[Plotinus]

I've seen Quarry disappear too. This was in the Middle Ages Conquest, I believe.

[Last Conformist]

I took vxma1's suggestion, and did a test scen - turns out I was not mistaken. New resources, by which I indeed mean ones popping up to compensate the depletion of old ones, turn up based on the current terrain, not the original one. That's too say, a resource allowed on Forest but not on Grassland or Plains will turn up on newly planted Forests, but not on Grassland/Plains that was Forest at generation.

The testing also seems to indicate that there's something screwy with the disappearance ratios - I set it to two, but the resources only depleted like every ten turns.

Testing done on C3C 1.22.

[joncnunn]

In my last game, I had a spare Iron sudenly pop into existance in my territory. Don't know for sure exactly where it came from, but I'm guessing there's a good chance it came from the Germans because the next time I bothered to check the trade advisor, they were missing it.

[Doomed]

I have definately twice had iron vanish and re-appear elsewhere on the map.
That is the only resource I have seen expire so far in alot of games of C3C.

[Fistleaf]

I have only seen uranium deplete and reappear in C3C. The disappearance likelihood of all resources appears to be greatly diminished.

[Theseus]

I also had SP deplete and reappear in AU 501.

[Last Conformist]

As mentioned, my testing seemed to indicate that the risk of depletion is much lower than it should be according to the disappearance ratio. Should we be reporting it as a bug?