Grand Changes in your Civ - the Hoover Dam and Coal Plants

So while I was reading these forums yesterday I saw a couple comments about selling off Coal Plants after you get the Hoover Dam. So while playing the game last night I managed to build the Hoover Dam. I had a great deal of cities on my main island with Coal Plants so I checked up on them. All of my cities had both a Coal Plant and a Hydro Plant.

I remember someone commenting on selling these Coal Plants and how it wasnt really worth the micromanaging to get the 20 gold per Coal Plant. At this time I had just come out of a war and I wanted to rush build a pile of temples and was short of cash. Now when I went into the city view ( I never seem to go here I noticed that each of my Coal Plants were costing me 3 gold a turn. I had roughly 20 cities with Coal Plants so spending a couple minutes going through all my cities and selling the Coal Plants got me about 400 gold and 60 gold per turn! This is not something to ignore and I will always make sure to spend these couple of minutes and do this.

Anyone else have any simular tips for optimizing your Civilization when a tech is researched or wonder built?

I always go for Hoover first without even building coal plants. That early there would be way too much pollution and greenhouse effects.

Like Slothman, when I'm gunning for Hoover Dam, I hold off and don't even build coal plants. So far I haven't failed...

I only build a coal plant in the city that I will use to construct the Hoover Dam, cuts the time in half. Then sell off the coal plant after the wonder is built.

BUILD the Coal Plants! Even if you're gunning for Hoover. Your core cities will come out ahead in shields, easy. What's a Coal Plant cost--160 shields? It'll probably be around 20 turns between the time your core cities complete Factories and the time you get Hoover. That means you need only get 8 shields/turn to come out ahead. Most of your core cities are probably sitting on ~40 shields/turn, so getting 8 more is easy. And then factor in the gold you recoup from selling the Coal Plants later (cool) and the pollution (no big deal), and Coal Plants actually turn out to be pretty profitable, if only for a short time.

I usually build a coal plant in the city I intend to build hoover dam in. I hate being beaten to a wonder.

I too usually try to avoid building Coal Plants; I will build one in the city in which I intend to construct the Hoover Dam, and that's about it. Except of course Hoover only covers one continent, so cities on other islands get Coal Plants until the availability of other plants. They produce too much pollution, but a great production increase I must admit. Once I can build Nuclear Plants, I take the opportunity wherever I can: 150% increase compared to 100% for Coal and Hydro, and 50% for Solar. But Coal Plants still have their place - cities on another continent with no source of water. Just make sure you keep some engineers handy...

I definitely would have to agree that Coal plants and Factories Stink together too much pollution. At least in my experience the AI plants corruption exactly where you don't want it to happen. I basically just said screw the Coal plant and got lucky and got a leader and I held onto that leader to the exact point I could build the Hoover and as soon as i got it i switched production over to the Hoover and burned the leader and BadaBING you got yourself a much more eco friendly production shield boost. And the amount of money I saved without having the power plants was a life saver I was in the middle of a war with the Aztecs and Iroqouis on the same continent and because of the production boosts I shoved the both back B**tch slapped the Iroquois's attacking technology impaired force and then created a huge force of 30 cavalry man 20 infantry men and 10 artillery and rampaged across their border and I went *STAR CHASING* in other words I would send my army to their capital city and when it came crashing down I looked to see where their new capital went and I went to go take that city. It was pretty fun. Anyways I think Coal plants suck

The problem with Coal Plants is they become available just when your workers are at there most productive since the beginning of the game. Is the cost of lost worker time (Cleaning polution squares) warranted against using the workers to railroad everything and increasing productivity anyway and whilst doing that gunning for Hoover. Ive never built Coal Plants in any version of CIV (Cant remember if they were in first). Must admit the World Polution factor in Civ3 is not as harse as it was in previous versions. A lot of the time the squares affected arnt even within towns limit.

The Hoover Dam is the only Wonder I will sacrafice a leader to hurry production of. I know when the tech to build it is coming up then just send a leader to the city I want to build it in, usually on my "main" continent.

I also did something rather silly with coal plants. I thought having a coal plant and a solar plant in the same city was a good idea until I worked out that when you build a solar plant it destroys the coal plant and vice-versa. I wasted A LOT of resources trying to get both in most of my main cities. Needless to say 2050 came around and I wasn't prepared... :suicide:

I agree that coal plants are a waste of time. I think that they cause way to much pollution and from what I have noticed this game does have much more pollution then my previous Civ II games. It is a more efficient use of workers strategies too lay the railroad tracks to boost the production of the cities. With large populations in cities and factories, the coal seems to inspire huge ammount of pollution. I have not had a game yet where terrain was not being changed due to the greenhouse effects, especially when all of the other civs are polluting as well. I like to go for the hydro plants instead. Most of the time I will not even put factories in any cities that I have over half corruption in. The best use of the massive production boost in my opinion are the cities near your palace and forbiddon palace. Just my opinion and I am still learning the tricks here so wheter or not it helps...
:crazyeyes

When you first get pollution and railroads, it's usually okay to just let the pollution stay there (unless pollution zapped your food bonus square or something). Focus your workers on railroading the place, and worry about the pollution later. It's no big deal. Really.

I'm telling you guys, don't be too quick to dismiss the Coal Plants. Do your math & shield calculations, and you'll see that several of your good cities will come out way ahead in shields, just in the time between when you complete the Coal Plant and Hoover Dam. Even if you GL the Dam.

Coal Plants rock!!!

nothing like doubling shield production (CP + factory)...

Pollution is never a problem for me, once in democracy, which comes well before factories and coal plants. Just how many workers per city do you maintain? I have around 2 per city plus roughly 2 more per city freebies from earlier wars, on average, and that is plenty enough to build rail and clean up all pollution.

Don't forget the big reason to go through your cities and sell off Coal Plants after you have the Hoover Dam is not just for the 20 gold each or less pollution, but because each one drains three gold per turn from your treasury . The sooner you sell them off, the better your cash flow! So do it immediately!

Also, it seems odd that in one part of the civpedia Nuclear plants are a 150% bonus, but in the manual all plants give only a 50% bonus. Which one is right?

Menelaus
"Knowing prevents learning"