Iron Works, how to find the city?

[Sena]

I always mad to find the city that can build this small wonder, Iron Work. This happens when I reach about 50 cities in my empire and I think it's very waste of time to see every city to find out which one can build it.

I have tried with Trade Advisor to see which city that Coal and Iron pointed to. Too bad they were cramped up too dense to track.

Anyone has a tip for this? Thanks in advance.

[Harovan]

You might even not find the city in the trade advisor's window, because he shows only connected deposits. You get the message, when you discover Steam power, and coal just appeared at the map. Probably you still have a lot of unconnected coal.

It's a real pain to find the city, I agree with you. The message should be "The people of xxx want to build Iron Works, maybe we should...". Provided, all iron is already connected, I write all cities with iron down and check the cities manually for coal. Just happened in my game too. I have also more than 50 cities, at a standard map, and had to search for a while, sigh!

[chiefpaco]

They could make it so the city glows with a bright fury visible from the heavens! (even after you build it!)

The best way now, for me, is to do the Shift-Ctrl-M to clean the map & look for it. In fact, I do a scan of the entire map so I know all the possible locations. I even check it later from time to time in case the resources move. It's a pretty powerful weapon I want & do not want other civs to have!

[Skanky Burns]

Yep, basically the only way to find the city is with a manual search.

If you download one of the graphics patches that include icons next to the resource, it makes it a lot easier to spot resources.

[Zachriel]

2!

Playing as Romans, I just got a world with two places to build Iron Works, but it will only let me build one.

[DrFell]

I only remember seeing a place where I could have built Iron Works once ever. Unfortunately, it was a long way from my captial, right in the middle of the former Aztec core cities (I razed 8 Aztec cities, and destroyed about 6 wonders). Although the area was deserted I'd never be able to make a productive city out of it, even worse it was on deity so I only had a few centuries of game time left.

[Saurus]

Recently I was able to build Iron works for the first time ever.

But the situation was in many way unique.
First I only had a source of Coal next to my capital witch was
building the Wall Street - it was a few turns from completion.
The next turn a far-away city lost it´s iron...and that source of iron moved to near my capital.
Then I remembered how easy it is to lose Coal so I switched
production from wall street to Iron works...witch was finished in
2 turns i think. Cool. Oh yes, and guess what?
3 turns after that I had built Iron works my source of Coal
dissapeared.

Well, I guess that even the human player should have some luck
occasionally

-Saurus

[Akron]

In my last two games I've been able to build iron works, once in my capital, once in a productive city near my capital. However, it was on a tiny map with 16 civs, so the resource placement was very concentrated. On large and huge maps, I've never been able to build it since rarely falls within the radius of one of my established cities, and corruption is too great to try to found an iron works city far from my capital.

[Harovan]

In my current game (I mentioned above) I was able to build the Iron Works in a 2-shield jungle city size four. Great, no? It was roughly 15 tiles from both Palace and FP on a standard map, what means it's about 50/50 wasting. Here's what I did: I took 2/3 of my workers, cut the jungle and mined/railroaded all around. Meanwhile I build (partially rushed) a harbor, an aqueduct, a courthouse and a factory in the city. At this point it grew to size 7, and with having Hoover dam in another city it makes 47 shields. Not enough for a Tank in 2 turns, oh well, I let it build Battleships. Hopefully when it grows larger, it will make about 70 or 80 shields. Not much for a Iron Works city though, I had jewels with 120 shields (others even more), but I think it's worth the effort.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Saurus
3 turns after that I had built Iron works my source of Coal
dissapeared.

That seems not to matter. In a former game I had the right to build the Iron Works in a totally corrupt island city. Of course I didn't, there was no hope ever to get more than 1 shield from this city. With the time, the iron depleted, but the opportunity to build the Iron Works remained till end of game.

[Coracle]

To find this city just check on "Change Production". If it shows up in the options THAT is the city. It is really quite simple.

BTW, I trust you all have Edited up the ridiculously rare resources. If not, you will almost never have the opportunity to build it.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Coracle
To find this city just check on "Change Production". If it shows up in the options THAT is the city. It is really quite simple.

In 50+ cities?? I don't think so

BTW, I trust you all have Edited up the ridiculously rare resources. If not, you will almost never have the opportunity to build it.

No. And I have built the Ironworks in many games.

[Zachriel]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
In 50+ cities?? I don't think so

No. And I have built the Ironworks in many games.

Press F2. Mouse-over the resource icons on the top left of the screen. It will tell you which cities have coal and which have iron.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Zachriel
Press F2. Mouse-over the resource icons on the top left of the screen. It will tell you which cities have coal and which have iron.

Provided the coal is already connected, which may be not the case.

[Ghengis Brom]

I don't know what the problem is. Whenever I or another civ has discovered an advance which brings with it a strategic resource I always search the map to find out if the resource has appeared within my borders, where the resource is located and which of my rivals now have access to the resource. If I don't get the resource you can be sure I'm searching the map to find where it is.

As far as having the resource connected, one of my first priorities is to make sure all of my cities are connected by roads. In my current game I'm playing the Americans. It's around 700 BC and there is one source of horses which was located approximately 20 tiles from my nearest city. I have built more cities to the point where my closest is now 5 or 6 tiles away but I've had a road leading to the area for the last 10 or 15 turns because I sent workers to build a road as soon as the horses appeared.

The short of it is that I've been able to build Iron Works in any city whenever I have coal.