Age of Rocketry with almost no Rare Earth Metals?

[TheCollector]

I just reached Age of Rocketry and there were no Rare Earth Metals in my 6 regions.
- I managed to get a single source with Claim Territory.
- Another one may be reachable with an outpost but the nearest region has already 3 towns, so it will take time to absorb that outpost.
- One source is in the territory of a tiny vassal (only 5 land tiles) not worth integrating.

The Computer Factory converts 1 Rare Earth into 1 Computer, so I guess I have to play Age of Rocketry with only 1-2 Computers at all ...

[easte]

I was able to get to the moon first with no computer factories. They're not mandatory to win.

[xyzapip]

You can go silicon valley, to get at least one.
You can trade it from other nations
Well, that tiny vassal would at least double your income :)
You don't need it. Won games without it.

[alan_buchbach]

Aside from entering the Age of Singularity, you don't need to build computing improvements at all - personally, I don't even bother with researching that tech.

[cthulhu.mac]

Yeah, the balancing on computers and all their downstream resources seems off. There are a bunch of improvements for converting computers into other things, but the actual supply of computers is so low it seems pointless. Even if you actually have rare earth metals, it still takes two tiles and two workers just to produce one computer, so it does indeed make sense to just ignore them entirely, unless you're aiming for age of singularity, in which case you'll really need to go out of your way to get there.

[Stealthkibbler]

The final age has a tech that lets you spawn a special prospector that can spawn rare earth metals. Although i think the unit should really be moved to the previous age where abusing the metals has the threat of triggerring singularity. Tho who needs computers when we can make it to the moon on the back of the almighty paper.

[TheCollector]

In the late game the map can get so crowded in starting regions that prospectors trying to spawn additional resources may not find empty tiles to do so ...