Does one give you more hammers than the other, or is it just a matter of reduced pollution?

Also, if I build the Three Gorges Dam, and I have the lightning bolt in my cities, doesn't this mean I am already using hydro power? It is still giving me the option to build a hydro plant in my cities. I thought the Three Gorges gave you one in each city.

Thanks in advance for the help,

J.

It does still give you the option, but they all simply provide power - that's it. Nothing more, nothing less on the beneficial side.

Coal plants cause sick-faces.
Nuke plants melt down (waaaaaaaaay too often, I might add).
Hydro plants are clean, but can only be built on a river.

TGD, in my opinion, is often not worth building, but if you do, there is no point in building any type of power plant anywhere else on the same continent.

Hope that helps. :)

It does still give you the option, but they all simply provide power - that's it. Nothing more, nothing less on the beneficial side.

Coal plants cause sick-faces.
Nuke plants melt down (waaaaaaaaay too often, I might add).
Hydro plants are clean, but can only be built on a river.

TGD, in my opinion, is often not worth building, but if you do, there is no point in building any type of power plant anywhere else on the same continent.

Hope that helps. :)


If you do decide to build TGD, build or rush build a coal plant in that city first. You'll get the +50% production boost for the wonder and you won't have to pay the surcharge that comes with rush building a wonder when you're rushing the coal plant. The 2 :p from the coal plant go away once TGD is built.

NEVER build a nuclear plant.

It should be noted, however, that the Three Gorges Dam technically builds a hydro power plant in each city on the continent (therefore power at no drawback), even if the city does not have a river next to it.

All the power plants give the same production bonus, the only differences are their side effects and restrictions.

Coal: gives two points of unhealthiness. Is available earliest in most games. Requires Coal.

Hydro: Requires a later tech than coal power, and a river in the city radius. No penalties though. The 3GD counts as hydro power for every one of your cities on the continent, even if they could not normally build a hydro plant.

Nuclear: Appears later than coal, requires uranium, melts down with ludicrous frequency. Should never be built.

I mostly use coal plants simply because they appear much earlier, rather than hanging round waiting for hydro.

I stopped making nuke plants in civ III when I thought even then they were exploding more than I cared for. Nukes aren't as dangerous now though (don't cause the same amount of insane damage), but I still haven't bothered.

I really do love getting T3GD though, one of the most under-rated wonders for many reasons.

I agree that the nuclear plant's chance to melt down is ridiculous. At the very least, discovering Fusion should eliminate the chance whatsoever - after all, many countries in the world now rely on nuclear energy and you practically get not a single nuclear melt down since Chernobyl (which was the old technology that could be represented by Fission).

huh interesting.

What exactly is the chance to meltdown with nuke plants?
I've built them a few times and never had one meltdown on me. I always assumed that it was like civ 1 ... or was it 2, where it was the #of unhappy citizens that determined the meltdown. I didnt play a lot of 3, is that where it changed?

What exactly is the chance to meltdown with nuke plants?

According to the XML, its 1/2000 per nuclear plant per turn. Maybe I was just unlucky when I tried them, but they don't seem worth the risk to me. They only save 2 unhealthiness over coal plants, and you have to wait longer for them.

Nuke plants blow up on far more often than they should for me too. They need some major re-balancing, I'm afraid. And once one blows up the messed up global warming system takes over by slowly ruining your planet.

According to the XML, its 1/2000 per nuclear plant per turn. Maybe I was just unlucky when I tried them, but they don't seem worth the risk to me.

Those are actually pretty high odds of one blowing. With 20 cities, odds are one is going to pop every 100 turns. I'm playing a marathon game on a huge map, highlands no less, and I've got a lot more than 20 cities. I never build them, but I have inherited some from cities I've "borrowed" from the AI. My first priority in those cities is getting the culture jacked up, so I don't go around trying to replace them. They've popped on me once in a while as a result. I agree Fusion should eliminate the risk. Even without Fusion, it would be nice if it was dialed back some.

I captured one city that had just had a meltdown and was kind of spooked because I thought another AI civ had built ICMBs and was using them. After a little checking around, I figure it was just a meltdown.

Three Gorges Dam is one of the biggest candidates to be great engineer rushed for me. I usually save great engineers for rushing wonders and it's at the top of the list. I think Statue of Liberty is probably next.

I build nuclear plants all the time and never had a meltdown.

I feel like I'm missing out. :(

Is the chance of meltdown the same on Epic or Marathon speeds?

Is the chance of meltdown the same on Epic or Marathon speeds?

Shouldn't be, but who knowns? Might be one of those little details they missed.

Far, far more turns on marathon, so if the odds are the same then someone is really getting the shaft there.

In any case, here is a good question:

If you could save 2 pollution green-faces per city, but had to give free nukes to your AI opponents to hit you in return for this privilege. Would you do it?

And therein, lays the answere.

Nuke plants can be fixed easily. I think it can be done through the xml file. Once I get BTS, I'm going to change the chance from 1/2000 to 1/20,000. That seems more accurate and fair. Also, I plan to edit out global warming because it's mostly based on voodoo science anyway.

The problem with that, is the variance skyrockets so high, that you break the system even further.

Now the guy who has one blow up, is pissed off because he considers it to be on the level of winning the lottery. He'll be so mad, and gripes that statistically it should not have blown up at all, and how he got totally screwed by bs incredible luck. He'll insist it should not have counted.

Which xml file contains the meltdown probability?

Which xml file contains the meltdown probability?

BuildingInfos. There, just search for 'nuclear' and scroll down until you see NukeExplosionRand. The default value for it is 2000. Set it to higher if you want less meltdowns.

Does one give you more hammers than the other, or is it just a matter of reduced pollution?

Also, if I build the Three Gorges Dam, and I have the lightning bolt in my cities, doesn't this mean I am already using hydro power? It is still giving me the option to build a hydro plant in my cities. I thought the Three Gorges gave you one in each city.

Thanks in advance for the help,

J.

Well....at this point in the game whatever city you build the TGD in shouldn't be vulnerable....but if you finish it as the AI is ripping through a part of your empire and the dam is about to be taken....you at least have the option of building power plants in your other cities.

The whole power plant thing is extremely confusing to me.

Why do you retain the option to build each kind of power plant after you're already powering your city? If you start with a coal plant, then build a hydro plant... why doesn't the game eliminate the coal plant if you don't receive more hammers? It's like the investment in better tech does nothing for you. And if you want electric right away, you're penalized for building coal to begin with?

Thanks Vivaldi - got it :)

The whole power plant thing is extremely confusing to me.

Why do you retain the option to build each kind of power plant after you're already powering your city? If you start with a coal plant, then build a hydro plant... why doesn't the game eliminate the coal plant if you don't receive more hammers? It's like the investment in better tech does nothing for you.

Actually, thats exatcly what the game do for you: if you build a coal first, and then you build a nuclear (or hydro), the coal plant is "deactivated", so you get no sickness. So one plant replaces the other.

And thats also the reason why the game lets you build a plant even if you already have power: so you can change the techonology to a cleaner (or safer) one.

But im not sure how the game chooses which plant will be the active one (if all 3 are present). Im sure that Hydro replaces Coal, and i guess Nuclear replaces Coal too (but im not sure). But will Hydro replace Nuclear, thus eliminating the risk of a meldown?

You still get +2 sick faces because of the Power, regardless of the source, though =/

BuildingInfos. There, just search for 'nuclear' and scroll down until you see NukeExplosionRand. The default value for it is 2000. Set it to higher if you want less meltdowns.

Or 0 if you want to stop meltdowns altogether. ;)

You still get +2 sick faces because of the Power, regardless of the source, though =/

At least not in Vanilla. Ive never built a Coal plant, as i always got for TGD. But the AI does, and when i capture cities with Coal plants, they are deactivated, meaning they show no sick faces. Am i mistaken somehow?

I don't know, i only play BtS. But i've heard that it's much harder on pollution than Vanilla, so maybe it's a BtS thing.

I didn't see it mentioned that Coal Plants are also cheaper to build than Hydro/Nuke Plants. That's the deciding factor for me - 2 sickos can usually be managed.

It should be noted, however, that the Three Gorges Dam technically builds a hydro power plant in each city on the continent (therefore power at no drawback), even if the city does not have a river next to it.

Exactly why it's good to build it. The non-believer heathens can continue to build coal plants or whatever in their non-river cities. :goodjob:

It should be noted, however, that the Three Gorges Dam technically builds a hydro power plant in each city on the continent (therefore power at no drawback), even if the city does not have a river next to it.

In BTS though, as Percy noted, you'll still get 2 unhealthiness simply for having power of any kind. So TGD gives power at no additional drawback.