If this path were followed, I would suggest the following adjustment:
When a new metal/use/technology is discovered, please don't automatically reveal the sources on the map. If one of the sources happens to be in one of your existing mines, sure...your miners will recognize it. On the other hand, if you have recently discovered a use for that dark red rock that you used to think was just a rock, you need to re-explore your kingdom to find where those rocks were. If they are in the bounderies of a city, you know about them. If they are in a remote valley that you have not visited since your initial exploration a decade back, you need to explore again to find them.
You know, you ought to check those remote valleys from time to time anyway. There might be a group of gypsies who set up a camp there and who could read your palm and tell you whether your next child will be destined for glory or turn out to ba a traitor (reveal stats of next child). Or there may be a band of orcs preparing to raid your villages! So my mildly related suggestion is that we ought to have random events occur in previously explored areas that are outside of our active visibility range, and we ought not to know of these events until we discover them somehow.
I agree with your suggestion about how other metals shouldn't be revealed if they are not in your vicinity as it makes perfect sense.
Goodmorning all
The only problem with this is that it then requires you to do manual scouting. yuck. Part of the premise of the game is that the world is alive, bands of explores leave your town and walk around all the time, marching into caves and getting themselves killed, or returning with gold and getting tottally hammered in your bars(providing you the gold via taxation, or a fraction of it.) we're going to be able to watch this all happen.
Perhaps having those people 'discover' the resourses over time, So the red ore is there, but untill a team of adventures, or you if you insist on faster results, who happen to have one person with mining training or ore recognition, pass by and return alive you don't know about it.
That could work.
Robbie Price
I'm not sure who are you replying back to specifically, but I feel if we left adventururs to discovering random resources, it could be an interesting feature but for one as major and army-oriented as metal is, I don't think it is a good idea. Furthermore, I can't see how they would still come upon much when we have your civilizations miners going dozens of feet below the ground digging for ore. My argument isn't based on realism, but practicality and strategy in my personal perception, being I feel all metal resources should be contained altogether and as you discover the required technologies to reveal and mine them, you'll see if you have them or not as you will receive, say, a pop-up and an gradual but major expansion of that particular mining site. I feel if we approach this kind of depth this way, it will force the human players and artifical intelligences to become more preoccupied with the really few metal hotspots on the map and naturally become more paranoid about what makes your empire progressing and being great and all your neighbors jealous of your resources.
For example, say we have three players and one continent. These three players know there is three metal spots on the continent within close reach of each other. That's good there is a balance of power between each other and no one is really considering teaming up together and overwhelming the 3rd momentarily. We are progressing late into the game and all three still remain aggressive but never overextending for fear of their other neighbor taking an advantage. All three have moved past Iron and discovered Mithril in their metal spots. However, player 1 and player 2 have noticed that player 3's metal mine has expanded three times as large instead of two like theres, looking like a damn strip mine project with many caravans hauling more ore meaning one thing: all this mining equipment and larger facility are here to accomodate the extraction of Adamantium, the next step after Mithril. You can naturally see what happens in this example. Player 1 and player 2 know if they do not quickly move to usurp player 3's new force multiplier, their Mithril-based armies will both combined, eventually be outmatched by player 3's smaller but Adamantium-based army that will overpower them if fully equipped with the new metal.
Personally, I just don't see it feasible gameplay-wise and realistic how any group of adventurers should be allowed to discover game-changing resources when your civilizations agents and miners couldn't. Artifacts, ancient ruins, hostile caves shouldn't hold something that can equip your entire army with superior equipment. I think its far more understandable and suitable if they could discover an ancient artifact that can change landscape, battlefields, transform several hundred men into demons temporarily, cetera...
