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Obtaining Scarce Resources
I've seen a lot of folks complaining about the scarcity of strategic resources (SRs) in the game and how they couldn't get coal or iron or such. I've played half a dozen games now and have only had a few problems getting all of the SRs I need to be competitive. In each game the method of securing them has been similar. I ignore no terrain when considering territory in the early expansion period of the game and will build cities on just about anything.
First, let's review the various tile types and what resources can be found on them. This is sorted by the number of SRs they can have:
Hills: Aluminum, Coal, Horses, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Mountains: Aluminum, Coal, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Plains: Aluminum, Horses, Oil
Desert: Aluminum, Oil, Saltpeter
Forest: Rubber, Uranium
Jungles: Rubber, Coal
Tundra: Oil, Saltpeter
Grasslands: Horses
Everyone wants to build their cities on grasslands. But if you just restrict yourself to that, you're guaranteed to not have the resources you need. They only give horses. Forget all notions of what's the best place for a city. Forget Civ2 where you and the AI ignored large desert or mountainous areas and left them unfilled. Anywhere is a good city site in Civ3. Yes, get as many cities as you can jammed on grasslands near rivers for super growers. That's a given. But every city can't be a super grower. You need a lot of "resource" cities. Moreover, you need potential resource cities. Since you can't see them until you get the advance, you have to anticipate. If you see a giant swath of plains and desert that you think would make terrible city sites, and thus ignore it, you're making a big mistake.
I've played all of my games on continents with standard settings. In these games you have a lot of contiguous tiles of the same terrain type. Sometimes over 100 squares of similar terrain bunched together. Typically, these areas end up being borders between civs. A lot have complained about this, but this is not right, use it to your advantage. This is how I've categorized them:
The Alps - tons of mountain and hill tiles. These make very natural borders between civs, and they also are highly likely to contains resources. So go ahead and build a city on a hill surrounded by mountains. It won't do anything for you production wise. At least at first. When your borders expand, you'll capture more of the mountains in the Alps in your territory and are much more likely to get that coal or uranium that you never seem to get. Late in the game it will come into it's own when you have every mountain mined and maybe get lucky and find iron and coal in same city and can build iron works.
The Sahara - vast desert & plains. Typically you see plains on either side of a core desert. These can be really huge. And seemingly poor for cities. But you must capture a lot of this territory. You'll have a high chance of getting saltpeter, oil & aluminum if you do. Don't be afraid to build a city of all desert tiles if it means preventing the AI from gaining territory. Again, it won't produce a heck of a lot for you, but you're upping your chances for later SRs. You're likely to get that early saltpeter from one of your Sahara cities and later oil and aluminum.
The Amazon - large tracts of jungle and forest. Jungle is particularly ugly for cities because of disease. But with a lot of workers, this can be cleared for fantastic late game grassland cities. In one of my games, I had an all jungle city I built for the iron in a lone mountain. It was cleared of jungle, later produced a coal and I was able to build the iron works. This city was useless early in the game except for access to iron, but in the modern era with iron works it was producing 120 shield a turn. It cranked out SS parts every 3-4 turns for a Monarch win.
The Heartland - River filled grasslands for your fast growing core cities. No need to go into detail here, we all know these are great city sites and should be the core of your empire. But they only make up a part of what you need in your territory for a complete civ.
The idea is to get as big a piece of each of these separate categories as you can in your empire. Typically, a continent will have at least one each of these four large contiguous areas. Not always, but mostly. Identify them early and try to get your piece of each one if you can.
In my current Monarch/16civ game, I have perfect placement. The Sahara was to the north, the Amazon and Alps to my south, and my core empire in a Heartland. I built/conquered 3 cities of all desert in the Sahara in the expansion phase. The Sahara established my border with America. I ended up with my only 2 saltpeters and my only oil with those "useless" desert cities. I'm betting aluminum will be in one of these cities when I need it later.
The Babylonians were to the south and Alps separated us. I saw iron before they did and was able to snag it all building an all mountain city and they ended up with none of it. Most of Babylon was in middle of a huge Amazon. I only had a little jungle, so I knew I must gain control of their territory or I might not end up with any rubber or coal. I concentrated on making the Babylons weak and thru the first two ages managed to knock them out and took over the now cleared jungle. This area is now giving me 3 rubber and 3 coals. Resources I wouldn't have had otherwise. The Amazon provided everything I needed and more. Now I have large pieces of the Alps, Amazon, & Sahara on my continent and I should be able to produce all the resources I will need.
You should do the same in your games. Make it a priority to get a piece of the Sahara, Alps & Amazon on your continent. These areas make very natural borders with your rivals. What's nice is that on the off chance you don't produce, say, a saltpeter in your piece of the Sahara, chances are there's one tantalizingly close on your rival's side of the Sahara border. A nice quick war for the resource shouldn't be a big problem in this case. Easier than getting the one deep in their territory anyway.
If you don't border one of these vast regions, than see who does have what you're missing and concentrate your energy on conquering them and getting your piece of the resource rich area.
This lesson in one sentence: Don't ignore any tile in this game!
e
First, let's review the various tile types and what resources can be found on them. This is sorted by the number of SRs they can have:
Hills: Aluminum, Coal, Horses, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Mountains: Aluminum, Coal, Iron, Saltpeter, Uranium
Plains: Aluminum, Horses, Oil
Desert: Aluminum, Oil, Saltpeter
Forest: Rubber, Uranium
Jungles: Rubber, Coal
Tundra: Oil, Saltpeter
Grasslands: Horses
Everyone wants to build their cities on grasslands. But if you just restrict yourself to that, you're guaranteed to not have the resources you need. They only give horses. Forget all notions of what's the best place for a city. Forget Civ2 where you and the AI ignored large desert or mountainous areas and left them unfilled. Anywhere is a good city site in Civ3. Yes, get as many cities as you can jammed on grasslands near rivers for super growers. That's a given. But every city can't be a super grower. You need a lot of "resource" cities. Moreover, you need potential resource cities. Since you can't see them until you get the advance, you have to anticipate. If you see a giant swath of plains and desert that you think would make terrible city sites, and thus ignore it, you're making a big mistake.
I've played all of my games on continents with standard settings. In these games you have a lot of contiguous tiles of the same terrain type. Sometimes over 100 squares of similar terrain bunched together. Typically, these areas end up being borders between civs. A lot have complained about this, but this is not right, use it to your advantage. This is how I've categorized them:
The Alps - tons of mountain and hill tiles. These make very natural borders between civs, and they also are highly likely to contains resources. So go ahead and build a city on a hill surrounded by mountains. It won't do anything for you production wise. At least at first. When your borders expand, you'll capture more of the mountains in the Alps in your territory and are much more likely to get that coal or uranium that you never seem to get. Late in the game it will come into it's own when you have every mountain mined and maybe get lucky and find iron and coal in same city and can build iron works.
The Sahara - vast desert & plains. Typically you see plains on either side of a core desert. These can be really huge. And seemingly poor for cities. But you must capture a lot of this territory. You'll have a high chance of getting saltpeter, oil & aluminum if you do. Don't be afraid to build a city of all desert tiles if it means preventing the AI from gaining territory. Again, it won't produce a heck of a lot for you, but you're upping your chances for later SRs. You're likely to get that early saltpeter from one of your Sahara cities and later oil and aluminum.
The Amazon - large tracts of jungle and forest. Jungle is particularly ugly for cities because of disease. But with a lot of workers, this can be cleared for fantastic late game grassland cities. In one of my games, I had an all jungle city I built for the iron in a lone mountain. It was cleared of jungle, later produced a coal and I was able to build the iron works. This city was useless early in the game except for access to iron, but in the modern era with iron works it was producing 120 shield a turn. It cranked out SS parts every 3-4 turns for a Monarch win.
The Heartland - River filled grasslands for your fast growing core cities. No need to go into detail here, we all know these are great city sites and should be the core of your empire. But they only make up a part of what you need in your territory for a complete civ.
The idea is to get as big a piece of each of these separate categories as you can in your empire. Typically, a continent will have at least one each of these four large contiguous areas. Not always, but mostly. Identify them early and try to get your piece of each one if you can.
In my current Monarch/16civ game, I have perfect placement. The Sahara was to the north, the Amazon and Alps to my south, and my core empire in a Heartland. I built/conquered 3 cities of all desert in the Sahara in the expansion phase. The Sahara established my border with America. I ended up with my only 2 saltpeters and my only oil with those "useless" desert cities. I'm betting aluminum will be in one of these cities when I need it later.
The Babylonians were to the south and Alps separated us. I saw iron before they did and was able to snag it all building an all mountain city and they ended up with none of it. Most of Babylon was in middle of a huge Amazon. I only had a little jungle, so I knew I must gain control of their territory or I might not end up with any rubber or coal. I concentrated on making the Babylons weak and thru the first two ages managed to knock them out and took over the now cleared jungle. This area is now giving me 3 rubber and 3 coals. Resources I wouldn't have had otherwise. The Amazon provided everything I needed and more. Now I have large pieces of the Alps, Amazon, & Sahara on my continent and I should be able to produce all the resources I will need.
You should do the same in your games. Make it a priority to get a piece of the Sahara, Alps & Amazon on your continent. These areas make very natural borders with your rivals. What's nice is that on the off chance you don't produce, say, a saltpeter in your piece of the Sahara, chances are there's one tantalizingly close on your rival's side of the Sahara border. A nice quick war for the resource shouldn't be a big problem in this case. Easier than getting the one deep in their territory anyway.
If you don't border one of these vast regions, than see who does have what you're missing and concentrate your energy on conquering them and getting your piece of the resource rich area.
This lesson in one sentence: Don't ignore any tile in this game!
e
and it was all pulled off in a completely peaceful manner.
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