Once again: Hidden Specials

[ramses II.]

As you know, grasland covers hidden specials fields.
If the pattern matches and there's a shield on the field, it's a special field. Otherwise not.

[Scouse Gits]

Hidden specials can also be found from grassland tiles with no shield.

----------------------------

SG(2)

[Scouse Gits]

Your best indicator for hidden specials is the fact that every hut has a special two squares away either to the NE or SW - if you can't see one it has to be a hidden.

SG[1]

p.s. yes that does mean keeping track of exactly where those early huts lay...

[Straybow]

A couple of lessons

¤–¤–¤–¤–¤     First, take a look at a region with lots of grasslands. The shields
¤–¤–¤–¤–¤     are in this very simple pattern. You can go "three up, one right"
–¤–¤–¤–¤–     and stay on the shields, but you can't go "three right, one down"
–¤–¤–¤–¤–     and have three in a row on shield grass (try it, you'll see).
¤–¤–¤–¤–¤         It might work out that the only hidden specials you've seen
¤–¤–¤–¤–¤     on the game you experimented with were all on shield grass.

I contributed a free tutorial to one of the Succession games a while back. I'm currently negotiating a deal with PBS for a documentary version entitled "Crouching Buffalo, Hidden Specials" Meanwhile, catch the previews in the old thread The Sticky Mouse Senate starting on post # 259:
Sticky Mouse Senate (259) (note shield & plain grass in same pattern)
Sticky Mouse Senate (272) and the two following posts

[rah]

Yeah, many moons ago, I thought that the grassland had to have a shield on it for it to be a possible.

But much to my surprise. I mined a grassland river square once to boost production and was quite pleased when it turn into a silk. Now if I have settlers momentarily idle, i'll check a few out to see if i get lucky.

RAH

[La Fayette]

I would advise anyone to read the posts mentioned by Straybow: the pictures make it very clear to understand.

(BTW Straybow, who or what is PBS?)

[rah]

PBS=Public Broadcasting Service.

RAH

[Straybow]

Once upon a time I had a website, but it was on geocities and their in-house javascript page editor has a habit of crashing users' browsers (various makes and versions). So that one was abandoned in place (as engineers like to say).

I signed up with another provider, worked on preparing a new site, then the provider decided they were no longer going to offer the free sites, or even cheap-ish sites to compete with some other hosts, but instead concentrate on business sites only.

One of these days I'll get around to signing up with a decent host service, then my brilliance will be on display for all to see

[La Fayette]

Originally posted by Straybow
, then my brilliance will be on display for all to see

(La Fayette, saying thank you to Apolyton for providing the opportunity to read lessons in canalbuilding and grasslandmining)

[ramses II.]

I always use to mine some unshielded grassland - sometimes I'm very astonished to get a special far away from the next special pattern

[Marquis de Sodaq]

Originally posted by ramses II.
sometimes I'm very astonished to get a special far away from the next special pattern

Because you've hit upon the start of the next special pattern in that direction!

[Caesar the Great]

whats happened to the game we used to all know and love.....

[rah]

We've just gotten to know it better. But we still love it.

[ramses II.]

And there are still some questions left - can you predict the type of a hidden special ?
You can mine a field (silk, pheasant) - or you can transform it and then mine (wine, coal).
I'm sometimes very surprised to get a special far away from the next pattern

[samson]

Originally posted by ramses II.
And there are still some questions left - can you predict the type of a hidden special ?

Yes.
If I know the location and type of 3 specials in one pattern, I can predict the location and type of every special on the map.