Why no more metal mines?

[Wtface]

You cant rush filtration, the minor next door may not have any and you may not have any scavenging assets beyond the city one which may only have a few thousand.

I'm all for lots of randomization but if your country didn't have a metal mine you wouldnt be a major power. I'd just separate resource balancing from "AI bonus amount"

[Maerchen]

You cannot directly rush Metal Soil Filtration, but you can nudge the scales to your favor. Only discovering with 1% researching, boosting mind profile and having a good counselor, BP production, relation with the corp and assets that boost research do help, as is pushing BP into economical council.

Starting at Tech III is recommended in this case, too, as the discovery diversity isn't as broad as it is at tech IV start, so you can research strategically.
If you can afford to neglect the military research for a while, you can do that, too to pump more BP into the economical council.

Once you discovered MSF, streamline everything to research it as early as possible.

FYI, here's the R&D guide. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 2314732568