+50% H with Power.... 'Power' ??

[guermantes]

I don't understand the function of the word 'power' in the image below. The tables in the back of the manual says 'Provides power with coal/uranium....' but that gives me no real clues.



Could someone please explain what is meant?

Thanks!

[ZEE]

i believe power means you have both a factory and either a nuclear/coal/hydro plant. basically maxed out until you switch to a different nuclear/coal/or hydro plant.


please someone correct me if im wrong...



you know what im gonna say next...

[docfrance]

If you have a plant (coal, nuclear, or hydro) then you have power. If you have power, then your factory will give you an extra 50% to production. Simple as that.

[guermantes]

I see... it would have been a lot clearer if they in the civilopedia wrote "with power plant."

Thanks!

[Tattila the Hun]

Well, you could also have Three Gorges Dam. Not sure if it simply provides power, of if it actually gives you a water-power plant in each of your cities, though.

[binTravkin]

Dam gives power in all cities on that same continent (and connected to the Dam city iirc), but is also damn hard to build.

[popejubal]

The Dam gives power to all cities on the continent. It can only be built in a city located on a river.

In addition to giving power to all cities on the continent, it also removes pollution from all cities that currently have an existing Coal Plant (which is handy since you can't sell/destroy any city buildings).

The only use for Power is to make Factories give +50% production instead of +25% production.


...well, that and giving each city a cool lightning bolt icon.

[Blake]

Factory without power gives +25% production.
With power, it gives total +75% production.

Relative to a forge alone, the factory gives +20% extra hammers, the factory+power plant gives +60% extra hammers. +60% to production is a huge boost which is why Assembly line is a powerful tech.

Since the majority of the advantage comes from the power, it's dumb to build Factories and then not proceed by building a coal plant (which is cheaper than a factory while providing more benefit!). You only really need other plants if you don't have coal.

3 gorges is not that useful because you still have to build the factories which as I said are more expensive than coal plants so it doesn't help that much in getting production poor cities up to speed. One exception might be if you're badly hurting for health and most your cities are hammer poor.

[MoonWolf]

Wow, didn't know it was additional +50% with power. I thought factories gave +25% hammers without power and +50% with. That changes the picture a abit... I often head for the dam after reacing assembly line and most often rush it with a saved G. Engineer and don't bother to build coal plants cause of unhealth. But now that'll change!

[Dis]

yeah the ole' coal plants vs. 3 gorges. I'd build a coal plant in the city building 3 gorges (to help get it built faster- along with the GE).

I think the general consensus is if you have 6, 8 or more cities go ahead and go for the dam. Anything less than that, building 3 gorges is worthless.

On the other hand, even with a lot of cities, if you are in a tight situation, running neck and neck with the ai, you may want to consider coal plants to pull ahead. Esp. if you antipate needing the production for a war.

[AshenPlanet]

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I'd say 1, 6, 8, 20, or 40 cities, it's always better to build the coal plants than to wait for plastics.

Plastics comes so much later in the tech tree than assembly, that it could easily be hundreds of years between those developements.

Waiting for it is just counter-productive - you'll lose out on much more than you gain.

.

[Quillan]

I agree. I'll still build 3GD later to remove the pollution those coal plants cause, assuming I can, but the hammers now are just too valuable in a lot of cases to justify waiting for a wonder that I might not even be able to get. However, 3GD is one of two late game wonders I tend to horde great engineers for; I built the Space Elevator in a single turn in my last game with 3 consecutive great engineers.

[Dis]

Originally posted by AshenPlanet
.

I'd say 1, 6, 8, 20, or 40 cities, it's always better to build the coal plants than to wait for plastics.

Plastics comes so much later in the tech tree than assembly, that it could easily be hundreds of years between those developements.

Waiting for it is just counter-productive - you'll lose out on much more than you gain.

.

you can get plastics pretty early if you are beelining. But you are missing out on many important techs. Including defense techs. If you get attacked in this time, you could be in a world of hurt.

[AshenPlanet]

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Assembly, you need chemistry and steam for.
Plastics, you need assembly plus railroad, combustion, scientific method, physics, electricity, industrialism, and others.

There's no beeline from one to the other, but you could delay assembly for a long time by researching all the pre-requisites to plastics before taking assembly and industrialism.
It would be the same as if you took assembly earlier, built factories without coal, and just waited hundreds of years for power.
It's certainly an option; it's just not a good option.

Your best bet is to get your factories powered right away, and let future techs like hydro plant, recycling plant, or 3gorges remove the health penalty of using that power.

.

[Adagio]

Coal power doesn't really have any disadvantages, as when you get to build it you rarely have problems with health (the +1 health penalty doesn't really do any damage)