Resource nodes

Iron deposit

An iron deposit is a strategic resource: its yield is small, its value is the door it opens. With no iron deposit inside your territory the Siege and the Artillery cannot enter a queue. Other units can batter cities too, but Siege's and the Artillery's power against them is far stronger than the others' (Combat).

The map owes you one

Iron deposits and Horse pasture are the rarest two node kinds on the board. In exchange the map generator makes a promise: at least 1 iron deposit is built within 6 hexes of every start, and the fairness check measures that independently (Map and terrain). The door to Siege is never fully shut on any seed.

The promise is about reach: the deposit sits inside that ring but need not sit inside your territory — to work it you either found a city out there or buy the tile.

It is not the same thing as a mine

A Mine yields more production and is nobody's prerequisite. An iron deposit yields less production but unlocks the only city-breaker in the game. Confusing the two is expensive: a city with a mine finishes expensive items faster, a city with iron can build Siege at all. The Workshop counts both: a mine and an iron deposit in the region each enlarge the Workshop's location share.

The prerequisite is empire-wide

If any of your cities has an iron deposit in its region, you may build Siege and the Artillery in every city. You do not need iron next to the front city that presses the attack; one deposit unlocks the whole empire.

Losing it does not empty the queue

If the deposit leaves your territory, a queued Siege is not deleted: the item stays in the queue, production does not flow into it, and the city panel states the reason. When you take the land back, the stored production is still there.

What to do

• If you plan to conquer, find iron early: Siege is an expensive unit (8) and building it still costs turns after you find the deposit.
• The rival AI also walks more eagerly toward a resource it lacks, and it raises its weight on Siege once its city quota is full and it knows a rival city (The AI opponent) — which is why the ground around a deposit so often becomes the front.
• Combat explains Siege's strength against cities: taking the deposit is what unlocks that number.

The numbers on this page are read from the game’s balance tables.