Coal (Civ5)

Coal
Strategic resource
Introduced in Civilization V
Revealed by	Industrialization
Found on
Grassland
Grassland
Plains
Plains
Hills
Hills
Resource value
1
1
Improvements
Mine +2 (Req.  Mining)
Required for
Ironclad
Ironclad
Factory
Factory

Back to Resources (Civ5)

Game Info

Mid-game strategic resource. Used by Factories and Ironclads.

Strategy

Coal is the first new strategic resource to become available after a long time with only Horses and Iron. Coal is accessed with a Mine and used for two very specific things: Ironclads, which are a transition between ships with sails and modern engine-based ships; and the construction of Factories.

Of these, the second is much more important, firstly because Factories are a major Production booster for a city, and what's more, they're required for a civilization to adopt an Ideology early. Since each Factory consumes 1 Coal, you will need at least 3 Coal to be among the first to adopt an Ideology and reap the free bonus Tenets.

Along with Uranium, Coal is perhaps the rarest of all strategic resources - it is found in locations that are difficult to access, like Jungles, and its sources are much fewer than Horses or Iron. You will often realize that you have practically no Coal that you can easily access, or that the sources within your reach are much closer to another empire, and you will have to expand further to get it. You should be prepared for that come the Industrial Era, or you will be forced to trade for Coal for the rest of the game. Luckily, once you build a Factory, there doesn't seem to be any negative effect if you start consuming more Coal than you produce.

Its second use, the Ironclads, are only a temporary drain - when you replace them with the later Destroyer you will liberate the Coal they used for more Factories.

In vanilla Civilization V, Coal is revealed by Scientific Theory.

Civilopedia entry

Coal is ancient plant matter that has decomposed and compressed over the millennia into a highly combustible black compound. Found in substantial quantities across virtually the entire planet, coal has been one of the most important sources of energy to mankind throughout history. Coal is not a clean fuel and its extraction and burning is a major source of pollution around the world. Scientists are frantically looking for the elusive "clean coal" technology, but that remains as of yet undiscovered. Remember that coal is a strategic resource, and thus it is consumed as you construct the associated units and buildings.

See also

• Coal in other games