I've tried a couple of quick runs in the early game and it looks like exploring in the ancient era is just a safe way to get your scouts killed without any reward. I haven't seen a single curiosity during the ancient era so far. Is the scenario scripted to do that?

That's weird, curiosites do spawn for me. I've loaded the savefile, and I was litteraly swimming in science curiosities, all around the starting locations.

Waykot wrote:

That's weird, curiosites do spawn for me. I've loaded the savefile, and I was litteraly swimming in science curiosities, all around the starting locations.

I'm talking ancient era, not neolithic.

My bad, I misread.

Nonetheless, I've seen some curiosities in Ancient Era.

Curiosities only spawn in unclaimed territories. To be honest, I've only seen some on water, but I don't remember the era.

Ansive wrote:

Curiosities only spawn in unclaimed territories. To be honest, I've only seen some on water, but I don't remember the era.

Well, that would already be a rule change, since you can see curiosities in claimed territories in the normal game (as long as they appear in a fogged tile, it's fine). Maybe I'm just seeing fewer of them because the enemy has ton of units exploring the land very quickly, which reduces the fog available every turn.

It's not a rule change, curiosities don't spawn in claimed territories. But, already existing curiosities might remain until claimed.

Ansive wrote:

It's not a rule change, curiosities don't spawn in claimed territories. But, already existing curiosities might remain until claimed.

Interesting, I didn't know that. Do you know where is this explained? I can't find anything about this rule in the Encyclopedia.

Just first hand experience, not sure if it's documented.

In games I used to keep unclaimed areas just to farm curiosities. And continuously roam coasts and oceans for the same reason.

Really tedious... but profitable mechanic (money, research, influence, UNITS). I wish they'd change it to make it less grindy.

Also, I think they stop spawning once you reach industrial era. And curiosities spawn separately for each player (no competition).

Yes, curiosities do not spawn in owned territory. However, I don't recall for sure if a territory needs to be "fully owned" to make them disappear, or being an outpost is already enough.

So, after getting bored with this scenario (too much grinding for my personal taste), I went back to a normal game, and I have ZERO doubts now. This map definitely spawns WAY fewer curiosities during the ancient era than pretty much any random map. I don't know if it was intended, a bug, or just some weird coincidence because of how units spawn in this scenario. But the difference is huge. I got probably like 20 times more curiosities in the very first ancient era I played after abandoning this map, it's like a completely diferent game.