[BUG 1.09p] Spawned Darkling resource in enemy territory

from Elemental Forums

I don't know when it started, but since a few versions, researching the technologies that give you new resource nodes seemed strange. At least since 1.09e, I don't recall having a single node be spawned inside my own territory. Often, I had the nodes spawning just outside my influence.

I was wondering if this was working as intended, or a bug, but in my last game I had a Darkling resource pop up in the middle of my territory, without even having researched any Diplomacy tech (I was an Empire). That resource probably belonged to an AI, but instead of popping in the middle of their influence, it did so in mine.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, this is a big problem, in my opinion.

Players abused diplomacy to spawn a lot of resources close to their starting point. There are obvious bonuses to having multiple resources connected to a single city (for example, you can get a ventri and a normal metal ore mine, or 3+ gold mines, or 12+base food every game). In essence, diplomacy aimed at finding new resources was a very good option when starting a game.

Then in some patch they changed it so that the new resources would always spawn outside your influence zone. I think they've set it to be at a minimum distance from any city you hold, even.

Unfortunately, the change means diplomacy is quite bad late-game, as the resources you spawn actually end up in enemy possession.

Only if the player is aware of this can he use this wonky mechanic to spawn these resources early by researching diplomacy, then expanding to them before the AI reaches them.

I far prefer the previous system, to be honest. As a fix to this problem I would recommend moving the "find resource" technology further up the tech trees, but allowing them to spawn in friendly influence again.