I'm guessing the final answer is found by selecting a pattern of characters from the intro text. The intro text is pretty clunky.
I'm stumped at the moment, though. Don't feel like randomly crunching the data looking for patterns, it doesn't seem like the intended approach either.
Mardoc made a good point that the rice resource on the starting location is superfluous in terms of getting the right tile yields. (In fact, shouldn't settling on rice yield three food, regardless of the base terrain?) The same goes for the banana resource, where a regular grassland tile would produce the same tile yields as the tundra banana. The other resources are necessary to get 2 commerce, as far as I can tell.
I think this, along with the "shift resource starts" message, points towards the presence and/or location of the resources having some special significance, directly or indirectly.
Look at the starting letters of the resources, not the yields/locations of those tiles.
I don't think there are any more hints to give after that one.
I thought I had... Here's my work
d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c
i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h
b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a
g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f
r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q
i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h
i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h
i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z a b c d e f g h
However, if we're ignoring duplicate resources, I guess it makes sense...
Is the answer
QUOTE (QVOTE)
(IV in the title indicates that I is shifted to V)
