[1.12][BUG]Where are all the resources?

Either the software heard me, or the "balanced" map is actually the only one that is balanced. I started a new game and I spawned within reach of clay and crystals. Plenty of resources to settle nearby as well.

This still seems an issue for other map types where resources apparently do not spawn.

I had experienced this as well.

Also modded game, but As far as I know no mods had changed anything in regard to resource spawn.

It is assummed that you should have at least basic amount of resoruces per player spawned but this is not guaranteed.

I've even checked few times on cheat mode to see if the map is populated with full set of resources and I was witnessing few large maps that had 1 crystal cave and 1 iron mine total and only shard and food resources after that.

It had bitten me sharply, because I was playing huge map (the modded one), and after clearing 1/4 of the map I was still in stoneage despite having all the techs I had not found a single source of iron or crystal, so spearmen and archers were the only option.

There are two approaches to that. ctrl+N until you find an iron/crystal mine in sight. second (that one I am now using constantly) is to set resources to dense.

This lead to to game were you're guaratnteed to have iron/crystal and that AI will field large number of decent troops. Both are welcomed changes.

That devious RNG monster has struck again!

Seriously, resources are not very common on default. Missing a specific one close to your starting cities is completely normal. I believe starting locations and resources get scarcer if you play on larger maps.

I have now been playing on the "balanced" type map and while I still re-roll new starts I seem to have enough resources even with normal resource amounts. Sometimes I will have to place cities specifically to grab some iron or wargs but overall, there are enough to go around. This was not the case on the "mountainous" maps though. While it may have something to do with map sizes, I do think the generator for some of those types is bugged.

One of the charms of this game is the random maps. There are no guarantees you will have iron, or crystal, or whatever readily available. It makes for some interesting situations and gives the game good replayability. Of course, you can have a starting position that is absolutely horrible, and you can have some games where the resources are too sparse. So, random maps are a tradeoff.

It's possible you've simply had bad luck with the random number generator that created your maps. For example, in 10 games so far (with normal settings for resources) I had one terrible starting position. I had another where I couldn't get access to iron; this was not fatal, however. Other than that, I have had reasonable starts with reasonable resources (not to say all resources but plenty to be competitive).

I was not talking about starting positions. I do well enough to play with whatever I am rolled onto. I meant situation where there is a single mine of iron and no crystal crag on the large map.

I understand. I was trying to make a point (and apparently failed) about the random element simply being unlucky. As you can have a map with a bad starting location (which you accept), you can also have a large map missing a key resource (which you apparently do not accept).

I admit only one iron mine and no crystal on a large map does seem extreme, so there is probably room for tweaking how random maps are generated.

Understood

In about one or two dozen games I've so far seen exactly one (1) gold resource. 1 game resource.

I have also played a few maps that were extremely crystal poor.  So it goes.

Gold is pretty rare. If it is on the map, I usually find around the AIs starting location. Wild-game, on the other hand, I see about once or twice per game.

Note also that it is entirely possible to beat the all the AIs without using any crystal or iron resources, even on insane, and even when the AI has these resources (though of course combining all of these makes the game quite difficult and victory is not guaranteed).

possible but boring. believe me. always spearmen and archers en masse. been there, done that

Possible without spearmen and archers, for some factions...

@ OP I had the same problem.

Everything was fine when I turned off mods, but with it on, no/few resources spawned.

What fixed it for me was cleaning out my mods directory of unneeded files. It seemed that none of the mods installed and my custom edited files were causing the problem, but some of the files that I didn't want loaded and didn't expect to load were causing a problem. I had a lot of renamed files and backups that I didn't think were doing anything but seemed to be, example lots of .BACKUP .ORGINAL .111 .112 files that I didn't think were loading seemed to be doing something wrong.

Hope this helps

After expanding across a good portion of my (randomly generated) first map, I started to realize that there was a definite lack of resources, including wargs, horses, crystal, and iron. Infact, I found none, and neither did the AI, it seemed (as they had none of these things for trade).

I restarted the game and made resources "Dense" and managed to get a number of worlds that gave these resources from the very getgo. I'm guessing I just had bad luck the first time. Still, it seemed as though on my last map that not a single iron or crystal resource was found, and quite possibly no horses or wargs, either. That's pretty extreme. My settings for the first game were as follows:

Mods: Stormworld, Customization Unlocked, Huge Maps, Female Henchmen, Large UI, River Bridge, Snaking, Summoner Units

World Size: Huge (Mod)

Map Type: Balanced

Wildland Frequency: Balanced

Champion Frequency: Dense

Quest Frequency: Plenty

Difficulty: Challenging

Monster Frequency: Dense

Pacing: Normal

Magic Strength: Moderate

Resource Frequency: Moderate

Events: Default