Games with no iron

[Dis]

I finished the game. I lost by way of space race

I was lacking many resources. Iron, Saltpeter, Coal, Oil, Aluminum. I had none of these. Although oil did later appear on my map.

It was an interesting game, though I don't like losing . My only hope was the United Nations. I was thinking of attacking India before they built it. But they attacked me just before I attacked them! I wouldn't have succeeded. They had TOW infantry, and I still had tanks. I got my ass whooped. But even after building the U.N. they never held a vote. They weren't too popular anyways.

Many years later I loaded up 30 tanks on an attempted assault on their capitol. I could not get through the mech. infantry .

Years later after finally geting synth fibers I was preparing with another assault of 30 modern armour on their capitol. I was certain I would get it this time and then I would attempt to hold an election for diplomatic victory. India was weakened from wars with the celts and other nations- and from war with me (I bombarded and disconnected their coal, oil, and uranium- and they never reconnected it!). I was certain I could take and hold their capitol with modern armour.

But alas, Germany completed their spaceship. I lost

A few notes here. I was able to obtain iron to build my factories and build some of my ansar warriod dudes. And I was able to get a golden age through a victory of my uu. I then was not able to get iron after that . I could not meet their demands. At various times I was able to get iron, but no coal. It wasn't until 1934 I was abled to obtain both at the same time and begin railroading my continent . I was able to trade uranium for aluminum though , allowing me to build modern armour.

[Dis]

as a final note I should mention I messed with that resource seed that's at the top of the page in the game setup screen. I still haven't figured that out yet. I think I put it at 7 on a standard map. I'm not sure what went wrong. It just wasn't a very good map.

[Kuciwalker]

Sounds like an ugly game.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Aeson
Iron is nice to have, but you can win without it. Especially when you neighbor didn't have Iron either... easy pickings for Horsemen. At some point you should have traded for one of the Celt's Iron sources (sign an ROP and use your own Workers to build the roads if you have to), upgraded a bunch of Ansars, and gone and claimed both sources though.

I was never able to get Iron from them- even though they had 2 I think.

I did get some from the Ottomans on a different continent 3 seperate times though.

I should have switched to war mod when I found out I had no iron. I'm not sure how far behind that would have put me though in infrastructure development. I would have had a massive sized empire- which I don't like. but I see no other way I could have done anything with this game.

I'll include a screen shot of my empire. This is an old save- 1305 A.D. My final save has a few less cities. India took over Damascus and Bagdhad and 2 other small cities in my first failed attempt at preventing them from building the U.N. And Damascus was the city that ended up building the Hoover Dam. The last wonder I was able to build. I fell hopelessly behind.

I can post a save, but I'm done with this game. I'm not going back .

As you can see, I ran out of space. So I crammed cities together ICS style. Something I normally don't do. I don't see how ICS is all that great. I ended up with a bunch of cities that had average production. I had no high production cities. Which made it hard to get wonders. I was lucky to get Hoover Dam.

I had my workers all lined up ready to start railroading, only to find out a few turns later I had no coal . Actually since I'm researching medicine, this means I had already researched steam power, and found out I had no coal.

[CarnalCanaan]

Wow. Germany got the space race win? Not bad for what I'm guessing was a smaller empire at end game.

This is why Civ4 needs a more dynamic diplomatic model to simulate the Great Powers conflicts. This one looks ripe for just such a scenario.

[Dis]

Germany was larger at the end of the game than on this map. That screen shot was for 1305 AD

Germany ended up taking much of rome along with India. And later Germany took the Indian cities that were in the former Roman empire. The Ottomans got a couple of Roman cities iirc.

Rome and Scandinavia were completely wiped off the earth.

As I said in the other thread, I did no reloading this game. My first game without reloading once!. No cheats whatsoever. And I really didn't use any exploits either that I know of. I played it by the book.

India was the tech leader for much of the game. That's 2 games they have done this with less cities than me. I don't know how they are able to build up such a tech lead. If the computer stays out of wars (as India did for much of the game until the modern age), they seem to do alright in developing infrastructure. This is why I play on less aggressive (one notch below normal). It provides more challenge- at least for me. the only thing that can challenge me is a technologically superior AI.

[Shogun Gunner]

Hats off to you Dissident to seeing this game through. It may have been dissappointing, but it was interesting to see the result. Thanks.

[Solomwi]

Dang, that's tough to pull out of, Diss. That's also the very reason I grab as much land as quickly as possible.

Still, for sticking it out and for keeping us updated.

[Dis]

and I was very close to winning (assuming I could get the diplomatic vote to go my way- I think I could have). I just needed a few more turns to build up some modern armour.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Dissident
and I was very close to winning (assuming I could get the diplomatic vote to go my way- I think I could have). I just needed a few more turns to build up some modern armour.

Nothing like MAs to convince 'em to vote for ya!

Yeah, I know you needed to capture the UN, but upon rereading your post, it sounds kinda funny.

[Arrian]

Interesting stuff, Diss.

I was playing a game last night as the Celts (monarch, 8 civs, standard across the board) and I had no iron. There was only one source on my continent, and it was literally as far from where I started as it could possibly be (on a mountain on the coast, at the far end). I would need to go through two entire AI civs to get there (well, actually, I did send a settler team via galley but wasn't fast enough to beat the border expansion that ate up the last coastal tile next to the iron I was hoping to build on).

Luckily I was able to seriously out-REX my two neigbors (Spain and England). I had that Ag trait, a 4-turn pump site (albeit a slighly less common one: 2 grass wines + a bundle of bonus grassland), and a chokepoint.
I also lacked horses, btw. My only attack unit was archers.

I built a stack of archers, added some catapults and spears and launched an attack on Spain. This succeeded, netting me the Pyramids and a source of horses. I was a little too builderish, though, since I found that I brought too few archers and had to wait for reinforcements to take anything beyond Madrid. That was irritating. But the 2 MGLs took the sting out of it.

By the time I decided to invade England and get the iron, I was advanced enough to see that the English also had the continent's only source of saltpeter. So, with a horde of horsemen, longbows (including, get this, a 3x longbow army) and trebuchets, I took them on. Actually, that's not quite true. I took them on with a settler, who marched two tiles in, built a city that stole the saltpeter, and then upgraded 40-odd horsemen to Cavalry. They died rather quickly after that. That's when I quit for the night. I probably won't play it out.

To make a long story about one of *my* games short and relevant to *yours* - lacking iron is definitely annoying and a potential problem, but if you focus on going and getting it, it's doable (though I admit on a higher level I wouldn't have had such an easy time of it).

-Arrian

[Cookie Monster]

Sounds like a pretty cool game you had there Arrian!


I guess that the lesson learned here is that to be a true master at Civ one must be able to extract a win from any map, any starting position, any lack of resources, etc. etc.

[Arrian]

Three words:

So. Very. Cold.

-Arrian

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by Arrian
Three words:

So. Very. Cold.

-Arrian

Dissident please don't take offense at my statement. I meant not to be a jerk. What I was trying to say is that just because something does not go the right way doesn't mean to immediately give up on a game. Your tenacity in sticking it out to the end despite ultimately losing is an example we can all learn from.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Arrian
Three words:

So. Very. Cold.

-Arrian