Does coal plant work without coal in city?

[Torvoni]

Does the coal plant work without coal inside the city?

I know that you can't build a hydro plant unless the city is on a river.

It seems like you can build a coal plant even if no coal is inside the city limits ... but I can't figure out if it works right or not.

In the case of iron works, you can build it anywhere you want, except that if you have coal and iron inside city limits you get a big bonus, and if you have just coal or just iron inside city limits you get a small bonus, and if you have neither then you can still build a rather pointless iron works. I also learned that the game mocks me, because it put coal and iron into a city which already had two national wonders from much earlier in the game (from way before coal was revealed).

My question is really about how the coal plant works, and why the game lets you build it anywhere, and if it still provides power.

I'm hoping that the coal can be anywhere.

Does anyone know?

[potatokiosk]

Coal can be anywhere. It's not like your civ can't, you know, move the coal around.

[Lord Olleus]

You neeed to have access to the resource. Whether the coal tile is actualy within your city makes no difference what so ever. Same for iron works.

[Torvoni]

Originally Posted by potatokiosk

Coal can be anywhere. It's not like your civ can't, you know, move the coal around.

Originally Posted by Lord Olleus

You neeed to have access to the resource. Whether the coal tile is actualy within your city makes no difference what so ever. Same for iron works.

Really?

That is good news.

Must be a change from Civ3, because I remember trying very hard to get a city with coal and iron inside city limits.

So basically this means that for any production city I will want a forge, factory, and coal plant. If the city is on a river, then I will want a hydro plant instead of a coal plant. For one of my top production cities I will build the iron works, depending upon hitting the two national wonder limit per city.

The more I think about it, the better this gets. It means all I need is ACCESS to coal for a coal plant. It might be in a city limit, or inside my cultural borders, or obtained by trading.

I also learned that the coal needs to be MINED. That seems obvious, but I kept wondering why I wasn't getting credit for the coal when I first discovered it. Turns out that the coal was under a windmill ... so I needed to force a worker to tear down the windmill and build a mine. Basically the windmill was built before I discovered coal.

To be clear, we are saying that being connected to coal is sufficient for building and using a coal plant.

[grumbler]

Originally Posted by Torvoni

Must be a change from Civ3, because I remember trying very hard to get a city with coal and iron inside city limits.

You remember correctly. This has changed from Civ3.

To be clear, we are saying that being connected to coal is sufficient for building and using a coal plant.

Exactly.

[CivGeneral]

Even in Warlords, the Japanese Unique building, Shale Plant, does not require any fuel resources.

[Lord Olleus]

it does need it to provide power. Without coal, it just gives +10% production (I think).