Hoover w/Power Plants

[candybo]

...Sorry if this is a dead topic, couldn't find any history...



I feel like a real newbie to have to ask this, but are coal/nuclear, etc. plants cumulative? I.E., if you've built Hoover's, you're still given the option to build other plants. Is there any point other than making more pollution? Thanks.

[Eli]

Normally plants arent cumulative, but i'm not sure how the Hoover Dam affects it.

[candybo]

Originally posted by Eli
Normally plants arent cumulative, but i'm not sure how the Hoover Dam affects it.

Thank you, Eli. That's exactly what I'm asking. Normally, If you have a plant, then build a diff type, the first one becomes inactive. but with Hoover's, it only ACTS like a Hydro. You can still build the others....

[Catt]

They are not cumulative. Having a coal plant just adds pollution; having a solar plant does nothing; having a nuclear plant gives the advantages of a nuke plant (produciton boost of 100% instead of hydro's / coal's / solar's 50%, and the risk of meltdown).

Catt

[candybo]

Thanks, Catt. Just to make sure I've got this, then: If you've built Hoover, go ahead and build nuclear, too? Is there already an explanatory thread on all this? Thanks again.

[GusSmed]

Originally posted by candybo
Thanks, Catt. Just to make sure I've got this, then: If you've built Hoover, go ahead and build nuclear, too? Is there already an explanatory thread on all this? Thanks again.

Yes, you do get a benefit from this, but the risk is prohibitive in my opinion. The plants seem to melt down at random, and the meltdown is quite severe - pollution in almost every tile in the city's radius, and loss of tile improvements if I recall from the one time I used them.

By the time you get nuclear plants the game is well over anyway.

- Gus

[badams52]

Hmmm, I've never had a meltdown and I build them all the time. Maybe because my cities are never rioting.

[Catt]

Originally posted by candybo
Thanks, Catt. Just to make sure I've got this, then: If you've built Hoover, go ahead and build nuclear, too? Is there already an explanatory thread on all this? Thanks again.

Building nuclear plants is entirely optional. With Hoover, every city on the same continent gets a free hydro plant (even those cities without a river in the radius). A hydro plant offers a 50% production boost (factory required) and doesn't pollute. A city may build a nuclear plant provided it has fresh water (river or lake) within its radius. A nuclear plant offers a 100% production boost (factory required), doesn't pollute, but carries a 50% risk of meltdown in the city goes into civil disorder, including anarchy during a government switch. A meltdown results in: (1) population cut in half; and (2) eight tiles surrounding the city are polluted. However, unlike a nuclear strike (which also results in the surrounding 8 tiles being polluted), a meltdown will not destroy city improvements (not even the nuclear plant), will not injure units, and will not destroy the 8 tile improvements surrounding the city. All in all, not a huge amount of damage, especially if you stay out of civil disorder.

I personally rarely build nuclear plants -- not because of risks of meltdown so much, but because the 50% boost over any of the other plants isn't always terribly significant, particularly that late in the game (I play with all victories enabled, so nuclear plants tend to arrive just before the game is over, if I make it to Nuclear Power at all). Way back when, I played many games with diplo, culture, and SS victories turned off, and would build nuclear plants in those cities where the small output boost would make a difference (for example, bumping a city's shield output from 50 to 60+ shields to enable a 1-tun reduction in modern armour construction, etc.) If you do build them, you might get a meltdown or two -- even the one-turn anarchy of a religious civ between governments is enough for a meltdown.

Each of the power plants will replace an existing power plant if you already have one. Have a coal plant and build a hydro plant? The coal plant disappears. But with Hoover, the hydro will always appear in the city screen, even if another plant is also in the city. If you build Hoover, it is a good idea to go back and sell any coal plants (or even hydro plants!) you may have already built (doesn;t have to be right away - the existing plant won't disappear with Hoover). With the coal plant, for example, building Hoover adds the free hydro plant, but doesn't make the coal plant disappear -- even after Hoover, you will continue to pay maintenence on the coal plant and it will continue to contribute pollution icons to your city. If you don't build Hoover but decide to upgrade an existing plant, you should generally sell the existing plant the turn before the new plant completes -- otherwise it will disappear without even any gold returned to you.

Finally, the requirements and benefits of the available power plants, as they appear in the game, follows:

Coal: 50% boost; pollutes; requires coal
Hydro: 50% boost; doesn't pollute; requires river in city radius
Solar: 50% boost; doesn't pollute
Nuclear: 100% boost; doesn't pollute; requires uranium and fresh water in city radius; can meltdown

It's actually a nicely put together series of related improvements -- the earliest is polluting and requires a strategic resource; the next is clean, but can only be built in certain cities; the next is clean and can be built anywhere; the last is the most powerful, but can be built in certain cities only, requires a resource, and comes with the risk of meltdown.

Sorry for the novel -- I did a lot of testing with power plants a long time ago after not fully understanding their ins and outs.

Catt

[candybo]

Thanks, Catt. I think that about covers it!

[badams52]

Originally posted by Catt

If you don't build Hoover but decide to upgrade an existing plant, you should generally sell the existing plant the turn before the new plant completes -- otherwise it will disappear without even any gold returned to you.

Catt

Great info Catt, but one of the strange things that happened to me recently and surprised me was that right after one of my cities finished it's nuclear plant (thus replacing my hydro plant) instantly the domestic advosor showed up and said "hydro plant sold for x amount of gold." At first I was thinking, who gave the order to sell that plant for me? Then I realized that the plant was just replaced by another one. Maybe they changed it in 1.29. I usually don't have that happen since I almost always have Hoover.

Early on in my civ 3 playing career, I remember one time I was thinking I could have both hydro and nuclear in the same city (since I had hoover on my continent and had both in those cities). I'd build the hydro and the nuclear would disappear. I'd build the nuclear, and the hydro would disappear. For a while I just though I hadn't built it yet in those cities, then I finally figured out that cities can't have both. Talk about a waste of production!!!

Actually if you have the city governor manage the moods in your cities, when you do change governments, your cities usually wont riot unless there are some major problems with them. So if you have (want) nuclear plants, then when changing govt. make sure you switch all your nuclear plant cities to gorverner managed mood and meltdowns won't occur.

But I agree with Catt in that nuclear plants (and manufacturing plants) usually come too late in the game to make a difference. By that time, I've usually either won or lost the game and the little help they give won't matter. But sometimes it's nice to see just how much production your cities can have maxed out to their full potential.

[Catt]

Originally posted by badams52


Great info Catt, but one of the strange things that happened to me recently and surprised me was that right after one of my cities finished it's nuclear plant (thus replacing my hydro plant) instantly the domestic advosor showed up and said "hydro plant sold for x amount of gold." At first I was thinking, who gave the order to sell that plant for me? Then I realized that the plant was just replaced by another one. Maybe they changed it in 1.29. I usually don't have that happen since I almost always have Hoover.

Cool I haven't seen it do that for me, and I actually played a coupla 1.29f games in which no one could build Hoover becuase there were no rivers at all! I learned to appreciate coal plants during that game (and think that I upgraded a few to solar plants, but maybe I managed to time the sale correctly so my advisor couldn't do it for me). Like you, I try very hard for Hoover in most cases, and so actually have little true in-game experience with manually upgrading plants -- kudos if they did change it along the way so at least you get a few shekels out of an upgrade.

Early on in my civ 3 playing career, I remember one time I was thinking I could have both hydro and nuclear in the same city (since I had hoover on my continent and had both in those cities). I'd build the hydro and the nuclear would disappear. I'd build the nuclear, and the hydro would disappear. For a while I just though I hadn't built it yet in those cities, then I finally figured out that cities can't have both. Talk about a waste of production!!!

In my first (maybe second) game I built the Palace improvement in 6 or 7 cities and kept getting to build it in cities where I knew I had already built a palace. I eventually figured it out.

Catt

[TacticalGrace]

It is stupid that nuclear plants can only be built next to fresh water.

AFAIK, most nuclear plants in this country use sea water.