I think a possible solution is to add more resources, but vary the type. Just as apiaries/wheat/fertile land have different values (same w/ clay pit/marble quarry, and iron/ventri mines), maybe more lesser resourse nodes should be added. For instance, maybe a spent copper mine (from the 1st age) that only gives .3 or .5 metal per turn, but allows access to metal. Or City Ruins, which could add 1 material/1 tech per turn. In this way, even if secondary cities aren't getting prime resources, they are getting something, which would allow specialization and character.

Now that sounds really spiffy. It would allow for better resource dispersion, you'd still end up with 'hotspots', and add to the overall character that they seem to be going for. Thumbs up.

I turned the world settings down to normal and get more resources now. Not a lot, mostly a farm here and there. But I have seen a lost library close by on the 2 maps that I've played. So it's a big improvement as you have some incentive on where to place a city.

Dragging up a bit of an older thread here but have a couple more thoughts to voice.

Is it possible that the number of resources spawned is tied to the number of players/opponents? I don't know if the 'turn off the fog of war' switch lets you see all the resources right away, or do you still have to go discover them, but it might be a way of testing.

I am playing a large map in my current game, but since I wanted to just work my way through all the tech tree stuff, I chose only 2 opponents. I have explored almost the whole map and there are less than 10 food tiles (even after several of the list resource techs have been completed as well). That would not be enough even for a full game with all available opponents to start with. There are also a total of less that 10 shards in the entire world.

So I would say that at least some of the resources are keyed to the number of starting civilizations.

City resourcing in general just underwent a massive rebuild between 1.0 and 1.1. Massive. The issue right now is that you don't have to worry about the AI, so why build? They'll pretty much leave you alone. That's the reason to build new cities, to eventually have so many resources you can fight several aggressive AIs. Of course there's enough to get one city going, that's the point. Were the AI challenging you, you'd need at least 1 city you can build up from nothing to be competitive. I'm guessing the fact you can put everything in just about one city kills it for you? That I can understsand.

The more I think on it, the more I believe the AI not being all there is what undercuts many other parts of the game. Playing since release when the AI was super aggressive, and getting used to going after as much land as I can, makes me think the game is going to be way better when the AI is better. I spread myself out when I play and that usually keeps me spending resources and wanting more. I can't imagine just sitting in a single city the whole game. How boring. It's possible to do that and play the game right now. But half of the interesting parts revolve around trying to do more. If the AI were competitive, it would eventually steam roll you if you played like that.

One thing to note about the city building in Elemental.....none of the special constructions have punch. They all involve "increase x by y%." That's such a passive way of looking at things. That's why city building and building new cities seems pretty hollow too....you want to be wowed by the Abbey of Ibzil, but it's just more research points. It doesn't let you do anything special, create a special unit, nada. So the players attention goes back to their empire, and the meandering AI, and they don't feel challenged or excited to go after new resources, because it's just going to give them more or what they already have.

The resources are dropping at the same rate they are just VERY random so it's feast or famine.

I like the depleted resources.  It makes me work harder.  Even with that my last medium map I had 4 cities that I built and took over three more.  The cities were spread out and not on top of each other.

I would like them to be completely random though.  I don't even want the starting positions seeded with resources.

I've liked that randomness and rarity of the resources to be honest... it adds a nice level of replayability for me and makes each map unique.  On top of that, the whole "end of the world" thing that happened in the game's history lends a lot of credibility to a lack of resources.  I'm not sure I would want tons of resources all the time anyway, as it would make the game far easier to just coast through every time.  I enjoy the back and forth nature of warring for resources, and it forces the player to make some dramatic moves to get the best resources.  A game without conflict would be incredibly boring, and with an endless amount of resources for the player to control, there would be no conflict, no need to go out and interact with the other factions.

In my most recent game, I stumbled upon an ally's city that had access to 3 shards (super lucky) all within a few spaces of each other.  It caused me to start a war with them, the second most powerful nation on the map, after having JUST married my son to their daughter, because I knew if I could get those shards, I would be in a much better position to win.  If I had my own shards spilling over in my own cities, I wouldn't need to ever fight, or break a family alliance apart just to access the shards.  It adds conflict, which I love in games like this.

I strongly feel 1.1 = R.I.P sandbox game because of resources.

Learn to use the map editor, it is the only way forward now, and i love it!

I think a 'grid drop' system for the resources might not be a bad idea.  What I mean by this is divide the map into 12 sectors (example: on a 12x18 map these would be 3x6 'megasquares' each).  Inside of each of these sectors would be a random seed (say 3 food, 1 metal, 2 materials, 1 or 2 shards, etc.).

Each Sovereign would randomly start within one of these sectors. In an 11 player game (10 AI plus player), this would leave 1 sector 'unpopulated' for the Neutral.

If you have multiple Neutrals in play (aka Heavenfall's mod), they would also be randomly seeded similar to sovereigns.

Resource techs would spawn in the player's 'starting sector' as they are attained.

This would help ensure that there is a metal resource somewhere near you at least, plus you might have some 'hot spots' where resources in two adjacent sectors seed near each other...

Here's the thing...when a civilizatrion is rebuilding, people wouldnt go to a random spot of land and just decide to build a city.  New villages and population centers get built near resources, or rivers or oceans at the very least to have easy access to those resources.  This game is many things, but to me at its core its about reuilding a civilization.  If there are no resources to go after, it takes a lot of the motivaion away to care about building.

Guys, what level of world difficulty are you playing? I think that the world difficulty affects both the level of monsters and the scarcity of resources. If you set your world difficulty lower then I think there will be more resources. This will not affect AI difficulty.

Also, have you tried the experimental EXE that Frogboy released with better AI? I believe it also increases the amount of resources.

Just so you know, I just started up a new game with the new 1.1c EXE that frogboy gave and near my first city there is a arcane temple, earth shard, horses, iron ore, farm and out of reach of my city but a prime spot for my second city is a lost temple. This is just from 2 minutes of exploring, actually not even two minutes so I would say that resources have been increased.

If you play without the new exe Frogboy gives us, 1.1 indeed have the same resources as before.

But gold mine, arcane and lost libraries are much rarer than 1.09 is a fact, especially if you play at ridiculous difficulty, large map, and 10 AIs.

And if you have keen eye and keen mind, you'll know the answer.

Why gold mine, arcane and lost libraries are much rarer than 1.09? Here is the true answer, that's because they replace gold mine, arcane and lost libraries with shards, don't you notice that shards are much more easier to find now.

Their reason? They rework the magic system and most of the spells from 1.09, notice that many spells in 1.1 need shard, and they want us to use spells more often than in 1.09, that's why they replace gold mine, arcane and lost libraries with shards.

I'm playing 1.1 on ridiculous on medium maps with max AI players and I'm finding it advantageous to city spam as much as possible (i.e. civilize the wastelands) to stop the insane monster spawns originating from barren forests. It's actually enjoyable to micromanage my supply lines (everytime I send my SOV or armies out to conquer, I have to retreat to squash a monster horde behind my lines). I was doing the "place a city only near resources thing" but I found the length of roads between cities made it more difficult to protect the caravans. As long as I leave them as pop 5 outposts, they will civilize a portion of the map, won't drain my food, allow me to station garrisons, create roads for logistics, add 10% gold routes to my capital, and push the barren boundary back over time. In mid-game, as I obtain more food and optimize housing, I can start to throw a hut or 2 their way to grow them to level 2 and 3 (casting Fertility on each one to get them to level 2 so I can build an Inn). My current game is still developing but I'm enjoying it. This whole approach is kind of like rebuilding Malkier to push back the blight.

On a completely random note, those Troll Warriors are nasty killers of melee heroes, even heroes decked out in heavy master plate. That special they have to do 3x their melee damage is something else. I made the mistake of not reading their card and got roflstomped. Learned my lesson on that one. That's my two gildars!

Hey blackrainZ, where would I get a hold of that version of 1.1?

https://forums.elementalgame.com/403035

Lan Mandragoran? Tai'Shar Malkier!

I think they should add a slider to let everyone pick what they want, I personaly like it the way it is now i like that in my current game I have no metal and have to trade for it.

Just started a game where I had fertile land, a crystal deposit, an iron deposit, the +5 tech thingee, +5 arcane thingee, a water shard and an air shard. All close to my starting city. Fun.