I gather the AI was cheating on this one.

[Nosferum]

---I like to play on land-heavy continents, on Monarch level. My palace was near the center of this continent, with my civilization grown around it relatively circular. To the East was the Indian civilization, with it's capitol. To the West were the Japanese, which the Indians were destroying. The Indians were crossing my entire civilization to get to the Japanese, which I allowed because it opened new space for me to grow. As the Indians took cities, it reduced each city's cultural radius to 1, making pockets of room all around. A three square-wide pocket opened up, with an Iron resource in it.

---I was making Infantry at the time, and had already had ALL THREE of my Iron resources run dry on me ! In NEEDED that iron ! I plop a city right next to it and another city on the far side of the recently-captured Japanese town, so that my influence would take over the town and I could disband it.

---Both cities had grown their influence out-- one 2 spaces, the other 3, while the enemy occupied city remained at 1 square radius. Then, out of the blue, one of my cities was flipped-- the one with the iron.

!!!

[Wormwood]

What exactly did you need iron for? By that point you sohuld be worrying about oil and rubber.

[Nosferum]

---Railroads, both for forward expansion into enemy territory and for railroad repair.

[metalhead]

Iron is usually helpful when trying to build railroads.

[Arc]

I felt exactly the same when one of my city (size 6, culture raidus 3)flipped to a size 5 city with 1 culture radius. Not saying i was controlling half of the super continent i was playing on.

When the AI cheats, it is sooooooo obvious you want to beat the hell out of your computer

[Wormwood]

Originally posted by metalhead
Iron is usually helpful when trying to build railroads.

Well, I feel sheepish

[WarpStorm]

Did they have a global cultural advantage (not a local one in the area)? If so, it's not surprising at all because I do it a lot to the AI.

[Gastric ReFlux]

Bah.

Ever heard of bad luck?

[Nosferum]

---I own about 80% more land than they do, and my capitol was about 5 spaces closer then their's. Many Civs have 2 or more sources of iron, yet won't trade with me, in spite of my nearly spotless reputation.

---I bulked up my army, so they're a little more reasonable with me, but most have banded together into Mutual Protection pacts. Due to my placement, I can force almost all combat in the world to two medium borders. I'm building walls of Fortresses in anticipation.

[Arrian]

The AI doesn't cheat like that. That's a LOT of bad luck, though, I'll grant you. I rarely have more than 3 resources (of any type) deplete on me per game. In my current one (roughly 1500AD), I've had 1 iron, 1 coal, and 1 oil deplete thus far.

Are you playing a mod? The only reason I ask is that if the resource appearance/disappearance rates have been changed, it might explain what happened with your iron.

As to the flip... do you have a save or screenshot of the situation? What was the overall cultural ratio between them and you? It does sound like very bad luck.

-Arrian

[kring]

How much cultural improvements did you put into the city? Was is connected to your capitol, or the other civ's capitol? The amount of cultural difference between the two civs is a factor as well as how much of your city's big 'x' was under the other civ's sphere of influence.

[vmxa1]

It is just a bad roll of the dice. I have seen flips that made no sense, but i can't see it as calculated act.

[Minmaster]

i dont know about you guys, but all of my recent games, with the latest patch, i noticed that whenever my iron depletes, it appears on the exact same spot! i've had iron deplete maybe 3 games, but everytime it came back to the same spot it was at previously. maybe its just luck, since i havent been playing civ much lately. i was thinking wtf is the point of resource depletion if its gonna appea at the same spot!

[Moonsinger]

Re: I gather the AI was cheating on this one.

Originally posted by Nosferum
---Both cities had grown their influence out-- one 2 spaces, the other 3, while the enemy occupied city remained at 1 square radius. Then, out of the blue, one of my cities was flipped-- the one with the iron.

How many foreign citizens did you have in that city? I usually rush slave worker and slave settler in every other turn to reduce the number of foreign citizens to 1 just to be sure that it won't flip. Some players may starve them to death, that also work too. I just refer creating workers and settler instead.

[Cyclotron]

People who get frustrated easily by random occurences often cry "cheat" with no reason or evidence behind it. Cities flip, that's how the game works. To assume it is cheating is pathetic.