Factories and thier power supplies...

[larsenex]

So now I am building factories. I see I can build a coal plant to power it up. I also note that later I can build a hydro electric plant and a bit later I can to Nuclear power plants. I ask what is the difference? The manual has no clear reason to build a nuke plant over keeping my old coal version. Do I get more hammers?

On a side note I am researching The manhattan project. I just cant wait to be able to back my words with NUKES hehe.

Why build subs when I can build Destroyers?

Are planes really worth bothering with? I own the continent I am on and other civs would be idiots to attack me as I have a HUGE fleet of destroyers patroling my waters. Aircraftcarriers? Should I?

Any advice is much appreciated..

[Tennyson]

Bombers rule all. They can reduce units down to half strength, as well as destroy tiles and city defenses. They are vital since artillery was nerfed.

[Quillan]

Strictly in terms of the effect on the factory, a power plant is a power plant is a power plant. None has more or less effect on the hammer modification than the other. The differences are in other areas. A coal plant (which probably requires you to have access to coal, but I haven't really looked) pollutes. It gives 2 points of unhealth, which can't really be cleaned up. The hydro plant has no drawbacks at all, but it can only be built in a city that has a river within it's city radius. The nuclear plant seems to be buildable just about anywhere, but it has a small chance of melting down. I don't know the specifics of the meltdown chance; in Civ 3, it could only happen if your city went into disorder, which doesn't happen in CIV. I'm guessing it's one of those one in ten thousand chances every turn. None have happened to me yet.

As to why build subs, not for use as warships. Think of them as caravels with more movement. You use them for sneaking spies and such through enemy waters, as they can move through another civs water boundaries without an open border treaty.

[Hayden]

The experience that I had in my latest game (Monarch difficulty), is that all my cities had coal plants providing power. And shortly after this time, I got environmentalism and genetics etc which gives you a large health boom late game. So I found that it would be an absolute waste of time to build either Hydro or Nuclear plant. Basically the way I see it, you would only ever build Hydro or Nuclear if you had big health problems in your cities.

Oh and I had two meltdowns in the one game a few games ago. So I would be interested to see the stats on its likelihood, but I think it must be higher then 1/10000.

So yeah for me its coal all the way!

In regards to the bombers, if you intend on attacking and not just defending then bombers are critical I have found, particularly the stealth variety. Even if they are intercepted by fighters, you find they arent destroyed just damaged. With bombers you can reduce the health units to 50% before you need to bring in your tanks. So if you have an army of say 10 bombers to weaken the enemy first you only then need say 10 tanks to back them up to take some cities.

Also I havent built any subs yet either, havent worked out there benefits, I think they would have been much more useful if they had some bonus versus battleships or something.

[Philotas]

Originally posted by Tennyson
Bombers rule all. They can reduce units down to half strength, as well as destroy tiles and city defenses. They are vital since artillery was nerfed.

And they do collateral damage

[clarkcd]

Re: Factories and thier power supplies...

Originally posted by larsenex
Why build subs when I can build Destroyers?

In addition to being a suped up caravel they can also sail under the oceanic ice. That allows them to sometimes go places they couldn't normally get to or to go places quicker than other ships with higher movement.

[larsenex]

Thanks to all of you for the advice!!

[Dis]

Originally posted by Quillan
Strictly in terms of the effect on the factory, a power plant is a power plant is a power plant. None has more or less effect on the hammer modification than the other. The differences are in other areas. A coal plant (which probably requires you to have access to coal, but I haven't really looked) pollutes. It gives 2 points of unhealth, which can't really be cleaned up. The hydro plant has no drawbacks at all, but it can only be built in a city that has a river within it's city radius. The nuclear plant seems to be buildable just about anywhere, but it has a small chance of melting down. I don't know the specifics of the meltdown chance; in Civ 3, it could only happen if your city went into disorder, which doesn't happen in CIV. I'm guessing it's one of those one in ten thousand chances every turn. None have happened to me yet.

As to why build subs, not for use as warships. Think of them as caravels with more movement. You use them for sneaking spies and such through enemy waters, as they can move through another civs water boundaries without an open border treaty.

I had a nuclear meltdown in my second game . I was kind of pissed. I rarely build nuclear plants anymore.

[tekbj]

On many occasions, after building the 3 Gorges dam, I still am allowed to build power plants. Does that mean the production in any city on the same continent as the 3 gorges dam and has an additional hydroplant gets a stacked effect of power?

[MidKnight]

Powerplants don't stack their power. And to requote "Power is power is power" only means increase in your factory power (25% I think, but I didn't bring the manual to work - maybe we could post it to Apolyton so I could do some useful online stuff...)

You can build powerpoints continuously, even if they are not needed. unfortunately, you can't sell them for much needed GP (In Civ I there was no such thing as wealth and building, then selling, improvements was the only way to get money from production. The only benefit of having a better powerplant (hydro or 3 Gorges vs. coal) is Mr.Yuck goes away.

I don't like Mr. Yuck...

[Brutus66]

Don't undervalue submarines.
They have a 50% withdraw chance to start.
Add more flanking promotions from drydock and civics, and you have a good hit-and-run raider that can damage a battleship and escape.
I would think if you gather them into groups of two or three, you would have a dangerous wolfpack...