Jeff Morris: another Civ 3 bug

[Solver]

Didn't hear this bug being reported ever before.

In my game, I had one source of Iron, and several of Horses. Some of my cities were building Knights. Suddenly, the only source of Iron was exhausted (sp?), but my cities continued making Knights. I didn't see them in queues any more, but those who were building them continued doing so.

Haven't seen this before, though I might be wrong. And it's clearly a bug, not a feauture.

Anyone else had this?

Generally, this one can be exploited. I just changed production for Knight builders, not to be a cheater, but anyway need to fix this...

[Libertarian]

Yes, I've seen it often. But why is it a bug? If you're building a unit requiring iron, then you've already extracted the ore required to build it. Fabrication takes place long after mining.

(edited to correct spelling)

[Solver]

I disagree. Say, the Knight is jun one third complete. He has his horse there, his helmet, but would he go to fight then with a half-ready sword and half of its armor not present?

I still strongly doubt this being a feature.

[Libertarian]

I think that's a rather sanguine view. It's not as though you go extract a bit of ore, enough to make a breastplate, say, and then make the breastplate; and then go back and mine a little more, and then go make the spurs; and then go back and get a bit more ore, and then go make the sword.

Rather, you would be fabricating from a stockpile of ore that you had already extracted from your now empty source of ore.

You don't mine-move-build, mine-move-build, etc., in a long and redundant series of half-steps. In other words, it isn't like moving units around the map.

[Solver]

This is just chatter. Question is, whether it's supposed to be this way!

[Libertarian]

A rather trivial extrapolation: yes, I think it is.

[Alex]

Yeah, that happened to me too. But I don't think it is a bug. It's part of game mechanics.

The game won't change production of an item on the fly, unless you order it to do so. If you are building a knight and your only source of iron exhausts, then production of the knight will continue, unless you want to change it. It's hard-coded.

[Mongoose]

This feature allows some of the crippling effects of lack of resources to be mitigated.

Consider the case where you have horses and iron, but no saltpetre. You have just discovered Military Tradition. Sadly, no Cavalry for you!

Build as many Knights as you wish to have Cavalry. When those are complete. THEN make a deal to buy saltpetre. It will probably only last for 20 turns, but in that time you can upgrade all your Knights. Even were saltpetre available by trade continuously from the discovery of MT, it will probably be less expensive to buy it only for one 20 turn period and upgrade than it would be to purchase it for the duration of the time it would take to build all the desired cavalry.

Similiarly, if you lack coal (as I ALWAYS seem to do!) but have iron, you can do this:

Build as many factories as you can manage and as many workers as it will take to rail your empire in 20 turns. THEN, buy coal, at whatever price necessary. In those 20 years, start all your coal plants and rail as much as you can. Properly planned, the greatest detriment of coal lack can be overcome without war. (Assuming, of course, that some other civ is willing to sell at some price.) If not, .....

The other side of this coin is your ability to sell a resource even if you have only one of them. In the case of iron, for example, you might begin construction of your factories and then sell the iron for 20 years.

Myriad other applications of this principle exist. Creativity and skillful diplomacy can offset a large degree of resource shortfall!

I believe that this type of action, this alternative to acquisition of resources through conquest, is intended. It seems to fit into the 'interesting decision' category that we hear Sid seeks to provide to players.

I conclude, it isn't a bug...it IS a feature!

[Travathian]

Sadly, this is old news. Its in the v2.0 bug list.

And actually I don't see it as an exploit, since the AI can do the exact same thing, and I see no reason why it would change its production until the unit is finished and its forced to choose another.

[Fidel]

i do not understand why it is in the bug list. it is a feature, and a rather normal one it is...
of course an embargo should not start taking its toll IMMEDIATELLY, nor should any lack of resource.
otherwise, you buy a resource from the civ, they immediatelly declare war and your tanks are screwed. human could exploit AI through that a lot....