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.

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.

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

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 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...

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.

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.

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

Lan Mandragoran? Tai'Shar Malkier!

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.