The Hoover Dam

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Thrawn05


I never had a prob so far with Nuclear Plants... so if firaxis planed on having nuclear plants used rarely, they did poor job.

I had one game a while back (probably Nov. or so) where 3 cities detonated within a turn of each other. A minor annoyance, the empire was large enough to withstand that, esp. since every city was building MA's. It is a minor burden pollution wise, but that gets cleared up in a turn or so. I have since learned how to control war weariness better, so it doesn;t happen anymore to me.

[Catt]

First "power plant" thread I've seen in a long time which wasn't chock full of misinformation - good job guys (and gals)

Power plants were something that bugged me early on in the game -- the manual saying, for instance, that they increased shield output of a factory by XX% - did this mean increasing a city's base shield output by 25% for most PPs (since a factory bumbed a city's output by 50%)? Answer: no; poorly worded (or post-manual printing game-change) manual, PPs work just like factories except that a factory is a pre-requisite for a PP. After a lot of experimentation, I've come to believe I have a fairly good understanding of powerplants, and to add to the already great posts in this thread:

Hoover Dam does indeed provide the benefits of a hydro plant to every city one of your cities on the continent (river or no river present). It will not cause an existing coal plant to disappear from the city improvements screen - but you will only receive the benefits of one plant -- Watch Out! however - I haven't tested it myself but was told elsewhere that while construction of Hoover wouldn't cause your coal plant to disappear, it also wouldn't automatically "shut down" your coal plant -- until you manually go and sell your coal plant, it will still generate pollution shields in that city.

THe "progression" of power plants, in terms of pre-requisites and effects, both positive and negative, are:

Coal Plant: 50% increase over base shields; requires coal in strategic resource box; increases pollution.

Hydro Plant: 50% increase over base shields; requires river in city radius; no pollution.

Solar Plant: 50% increase over base shields; no pollution.

Nuclear Plant: 100% increase over base shields; must have uranium in strategic resource box; must have fresh water (river or lake) in city radius; no pollution but has a chance to meltdown. Meltdown will occur with a 50% probability any time that the city is in civil disorder - a meltdown will cut the population in half, and pollute the city's 8 surrounding tiles. Unlike a nuclear missle attack, no city improvements will be destroyed, and the underlying terrain improvements are left intact (and obviously the underlying terrain isn't degraded) - if you have a ton of workers available, meltdowns really aren't too troublesome.

Note the pre-requisite progression as one gets further up the tech tree: First plant (Coal) requires strategic resource; Second plant (Hydro) requires terrain feature; Third plant (Solar) requires nothing; Fourth plant (Nuclear) requires both strategic resource and terrain feature, but provides production step-up. I find it a nice progression of tactical choices (assuming you don;t build Hoover, of course ).

Catt

[Wormwood]

So if my understanding is correct, I should sell my coal plants on that continent just before getting Hoover?

[Thrawn05]

Originally posted by Wormwood
So if my understanding is correct, I should sell my coal plants on that continent just before getting Hoover?

Sounds like a good idea, but I generaly don't build coal plants due to the pollution.

[David Murray]

Cities which are given free hydroelectric power plants should in theory have any existing power plant removed because if you build a power plant normally it will automatically replace any existing power plant. However, by some quirk of design, the hydro plant simply coexists with any existing plants - so your coal plants will continue to pollute your cities.

So in other words, if you have lots of coal plants you will need to manually sell them all if you build the Hoover dam. This makes no sense at all because if you build the Pyramids all existing granaries will have their support cost removed, same with barracks if you build Sun Tzu.

Probably some kind of bug

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Wormwood
So if my understanding is correct, I should sell my coal plants on that continent just before getting Hoover?

Or just after or at any time.

I usually only build one Coal Plant on my main continent. I build it in the city that will be building the Hoover Damn. Then I sell the smelly dirty thing. Just don't lose the city.

Later I build nuclear plants in any large city that can UNLESS I am in an extended war because having my cities going into disorder could result in a melt down. I only really need a few of them for building SS components but since by that time most of my cities are producing wealt it does help with that as well as speeding up the last few components.

I think I really build them because the cities have nothing else to do if they aren't producing Modern Armour.

[Belmont R.]

Unless of course it just so happens that after you sell a bunch of coal plants, your city with the Hoover Dam gets invaded or worse yet, razed.

[Ethelred]

If you lose the city with the Hoover Dam you deserve to lose in most instances. I suppose if you built it with a Great Leader that you obtained in defensive war that you were losing. Then again if you are losing a defensive war with rail and riflemen thats pretty hopeless anyway.

Since the game came out I have never lost the Hoover Dam. Don't expect to either at least in single player games. Its usually buried so deep in the empire that I can even use its defensive units elsewhere if things are going less then well. I wouldn't pull that trick if tanks or worse yet panzers were around though.

[vmxa1]

It is a pain to have go around and sell obsoleted items due to a wonder, it would be nice if automated. Hoover and Sun come to mind. I sell all of my barrack the turn before unless the city is under attack or making a new unit. I never make coal plants either because of pollution and it is a hold over from Civ2 were pollution was more painful with global warming.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by vmxa1
It is a pain to have go around and sell obsoleted items due to a wonder, it would be nice if automated. Hoover and Sun come to mind. I sell all of my barrack the turn before unless the city is under attack or making a new unit. I never make coal plants either because of pollution and it is a hold over from Civ2 were pollution was more painful with global warming.

IIRC, the sell all was a feature in Civ2. I wish that it was back as well, quite a pain to go through the cities selling things.

[WarpStorm]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I never make coal plants either because of pollution and it is a hold over from Civ2 were pollution was more painful with global warming.

Huh? Global warming can be brutal in Civ3. I've gotten into the red zone and had 20-ish tiles a turn change into worse terrain. The entire world became a desert. But I won and that's what's important.

[Belmont R.]

I'm just saying that it doesnt hurt to keep the old plants just in case. A sortve backup. But if you're short on cash or certain enough that the city wont fall, by all means.

Really one of the better wonders right now.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by WarpStorm


Huh? Global warming can be brutal in Civ3. I've gotten into the red zone and had 20-ish tiles a turn change into worse terrain. The entire world became a desert. But I won and that's what's important.

Red zone? You mean the Sun icon changes from yellow. I have never seen that.