Iron (Ore) Mines

The rarity of the mines is bugging me, I can own over half a content and not have an iron mine, this meens I can't build decent armys, but I can still buy the same items in shops?? How about a cost modifyer if the ore is not directly avible?

Silly gamer. These are affects of the current build. You will get your iron when you finish your vegetables.

Iron should be a bit rare (not just something you need hills for).  If you lack iron, then you will need to trade for it, or simply make do with a spearman/archer or horse archer army for conquest/defense.  Or go the route of having strong heroes, or an incredibly powerful channeller.  Not everyone should have a strong, ironclad army.

No, but you should be able to extract, say, one quarter of the iron per turn out of a hill that you can from a mine.

It would allow you to build basic things like weapons, but not provide enough for the metal-intensive armors.   The truth is, iron is relatively plentiful naturally...and it's just an arbitrary metal in game a the moment.  It could be copper/tin/lead/some strange alloy. 

I'd second the ability to use hills for iron, but make it at a much reduced rate.  Kinda like there's gold mines in the game now, but you don't need them for gold, lumber yards in forests but you don't need them for materials.  Let there be a way to get a slow trickle of metal that isn't 100% crippling, but slower than you'd like.

 Edit: Since I quit writing for a living, I seem to be repeating the same series of words.  Therefore, I had to edit this post and remove a few repetitive redundancies to prevent people from seeing two copies of the same thing immediately next to each other.

Sounds like perfectly valid reason to build yourself a horde of guys with spears and go invade the guy who does have iron. 

I like the way this one thinks..... efficient you are..

Absolutely.  Nothing better than taking my (ironless) horsearchers to show those farmbound peasants just how little their iron will protect them.

Even if they have you outgunned (because of their iron), just user your spearmen to keep them busy while you cook up a nice tropical thunderstorm and fry everyone involved.  After all, their weapons and armor are probably highly conductive...  Since your guys have, essentially, wooden sticks some of them might even live. 

/shrug

An extremely minor bonus.  Or possibly a detriment, because now I have to pay them.  To shamelessly steal from a movie, "use up the Irish!  The dead cost nothing."

One quarter sounds like a good rate to me. As I posted above the option to build in a swamp/bog to collect bog iron (a common practice for a long time I might add) with maybe the same rate or slower.

The current setup just seems so arbitrary concerning resources.  I mean why are we allowed to build leather armor shouldn't there be a requirement to have a tile with cattle or something to get the leather? 

Wonderful idea there, make a cattle farm.  Provides food and reduces the materials cost for leather items built at the city...

Hey, I'm all for the invading spear-wielding army, but let's talk about the IRON ROD that doesn't require iron to build.  Also, what are your materials made out of anyway?

I feel that an iron deposit should be a major advantage, but let's be honest and say that you can get metal out of lots of things.  Rocks, bogs, dirt, broccoli, spinach and in a world with magic in it, probably by conjuring a small amount of it out of thin air.  So yes, use your army of spear-wielder to slow them down for the thunderstorm because it's cooler than building a small force of guys with claymores to chop them in two.  But let us have a little bit of iron because it makes sense.

Thanks.  Yes that is the idea those certain resources (iron mines, horses, cattle farms, etc.) should just reduce the costs of things, and provide huge bonuses to your city for having them.   The way it is now feels like a half-assed RTS resource game.

MoM was elegant in that it didn't require you to have an iron mine to build units beyond spear or bow.  The iron mine gave a 10% bonus to production which could be huge depending on the location and the size of your city.  Elemental should not care about common resources so much except in these special cases where they provide a large bonus to the city it is placed next too (reduce unit costs, faster build times, maybe a few better items [for instance the inclusion of an iron mine in a city could yield a better sword that your heroes can buy than a city that doesn't have one], etc.)

Meh, I'm not as it just speaks of some kind of RTS rush which is lame.  You should build spearman because a balanced army that gives appropriate bonuses for combined arms and that spears are good against other kinds of units.

Yeah there that too.  If you are keeping track of one type of common resource then you should be keeping track of other ones such as the aforementioned leather.  What about lumber?  Why isn't it required to stockpile to build wooden weapons aside from say the most simplest of clubs?

I agree, iron deposits and other special but common resource tiles should be there because they represent a huge deposit that offers a significant bonus to the city [and through that your kingdom] and not because it is just arbitrarily required.

I have to say I agree with the OP here.

There are basic resources and then there are special resources.

Basic resources, Lumber, Food, Iron should be available to everyone

Special Resources Clay, Gems, Marble, Prestige Tiles, These can be rare and if you get them great if not oh well.

But the three basics, Food, Iron, and Lumber are kinda must haves and as such should be relatively freely available.