3 Gorges Dam: problem with sickness from power

As I understand it, if a city has a power source (either a power plant, or on the same continent as the Three Gorges Dam) it will get +2 sickness from power, and +4 from a coal plant.

Now the TGD provides power to all the player's cities on the same continent, but not to cities on other landmasses. Hence the +2 sickness should follow the same pattern.

What's happening is that cities that already exist anywhere in the player's empire are getting the sickness. And further, cities built on the same continent as the TGD but after the TGD was built are not getting the sickness but still get power for factories.

The following save file illustrates this. Please follow these steps once you've loaded it.

1) Load the game and use the GEs to complete the TGD in Madrid.
2) Check that both Madrid and Barcelona are getting the sickness from power. This is as it should be.
3) However, also check Seville to the east of Madrid. It is on a different island to Madrid, but is also getting +2 sickness from power, although it is not showing as having power (the lightening bolt icon).
4) Lastly, use the settler to the south of Madrid to found Cordoba. This is on the same landmass as Madrid, and it's correctly getting power from the TGD. However it's not getting the +2 sickness from the power.

My theory as to what's happening is that the sickness caused by the TGD is applied once only when it's built, as a permanent modifier to all the player's cities regardless of their location, and it's never updated after that.

lmao, thats ridiculous

Sorry to have to bump this - just want to know if it can be confirmed as a bug or not.

Im unclear on how TGD works (i thought it gave no sickness) but the save does work as you say. Sounds like a bug.

The power provided by the TGD should work the same as any other power plant - provides a production bonus to factories, but causes sickness. It's just that where it provides the bonus and the penalty should be consistent.

I agree. The least Firaxis should do is acknowledge the bug (if indeed it can be confirmed).

If it turns out to be hard to fix, the bug isn't worse than I could live with it, so then they could simply change the civilopedia definition of TGD to match the actual programming...

Why would hydro electric power cause sickness to any city, much less distant ones (albeit on the same continent) is beyond me...

As far as your situation goes, yeah, that really does seem like a bug.

Why would hydro electric power cause sickness to any city, much less distant ones

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LOL

Thats one of the modern Health controvisies isnt it. Along with moble Phone Phylons.

The argument goes like this....

"Cells in the body split at a specific frequency, which I think is about 13Hrz. This frquency is produced by the planets field itself.
Now when we say "Cells in the Body" this incude feotus development and blood production, and skin etc.
Removal of the field, ie in the shuttle or Mier etc produced state of vomiting etc in the astronausts, to the point that all modern Space veicles have a fake electric field that reproduces this frequency of the earth.
So to the controvicy, "If this field is so improtant, what happens if you "Flood" it with a totaly different field". In this case the electric supply itself.
People who think that does cause heath problems will point to things like increased lukemia in children who live near cables, and depesstion in people who live constantly in these fields. (And other)"

Now Im not going to say if actual Electric field caused by the electric supply is or isnt dangious, cos then ppl would argue with me. What I am saying is that there is enough evidence to suddgest that its a possibility. Sort of like the amount of evidence they had in the 50s about smoking

All the BTS team have done is taken on board these health concerns, and in their game have said, ok electricity is unhealthy, put making it by water power is less so.

Mind you this other contenent power this is a bug

Dams are also not without their own bad environmental effects. Formerly open waterways are closed, water flow shifts and the composition changes... Not strictly a health problem for humans per se, but given that health is supposed to be replacing pollution and environmental effects as well, it makes sense to treat hydro power as "dirty." Though in the case of Three Gorges, I suppose it is a bit unrealistic to have the effect spread to every city on the continent rather than producing lots of in the host city.

All previous versions of CIV the Hydro Electric Wonder did not produce *sickness*. In fact it was the One Wonder/build for Factories that Did Not produce additional unhealthiness. That's why you build it! To get power and reduce :yuck in every city you owned on that continent. Why should it now do so?

The balance between :yuck and Health in BtS seems to have been skewed to the :yuck. It's definetly much harder to keep health in your ciries now than in previous versions of CIV.

JosEPh

I just wanted to say that I've seen this same bug. I built 3 Gorges, and then every city in my civ got -2 unhealthy, whether they were on the same continent or not.

H&K said:

LOL

Thats one of the modern Health controvisies isnt it. Along with moble Phone Phylons.

The argument goes like this....

"Cells in the body split at a specific frequency, which I think is about 13Hrz. This frquency is produced by the planets field itself.
Now when we say "Cells in the Body" this incude feotus development and blood production, and skin etc.
Removal of the field, ie in the shuttle or Mier etc produced state of vomiting etc in the astronausts, to the point that all modern Space veicles have a fake electric field that reproduces this frequency of the earth.
So to the controvicy, "If this field is so improtant, what happens if you "Flood" it with a totaly different field". In this case the electric supply itself.
People who think that does cause heath problems will point to things like increased lukemia in children who live near cables, and depesstion in people who live constantly in these fields. (And other)"

Now Im not going to say if actual Electric field caused by the electric supply is or isnt dangious, cos then ppl would argue with me. What I am saying is that there is enough evidence to suddgest that its a possibility. Sort of like the amount of evidence they had in the 50s about smoking

All the BTS team have done is taken on board these health concerns, and in their game have said, ok electricity is unhealthy, put making it by water power is less so.

Mind you this other contenent power this is a bug

Click to expand...

Its not the electricity per-se that is unhealthy. Instead, the unhealthiness could come from two sources: from increasing industrial activity and promoting a sedentary lifestyle. IE, an aluminum plant opens up downtown, and people start spending their leisure time on watching television and playing on the computer instead of going outside and tossing a football around.

Its a bit different than expected, but totally understandable that providing power to a city gives unhealthiness regardless of what is done to make that power.

JosEPh_II said:

The balance between :yuck and Health in BtS seems to have been skewed to the :yuck. It's definetly much harder to keep health in your ciries now than in previous versions of CIV.

Click to expand...

It definitely has, and intentionally so. I believe it's been stated that Firaxis wanted to make staying healthy in the modern era harder than it was previously (which is to say, actually a challenge).

Its not the electricity per-se that is unhealthy

Click to expand...

Well I think that it might be, Re Electric field. But your reasoning as to people are just lazier is OK as an explination

H&K said:

People who think that does cause heath problems will point to things like increased lukemia in children who live near cables, and depesstion in people who live constantly in these fields. (And other)"

Click to expand...

This concept comes from a study done in the 80s that has since been shown to be flawed. They polled people that lived near high voltage power lines (the huge buzzing ones, not standard powerlines) and found that they had higher incidents of health problems than the national average. Childhood lukemia was particularly high. Thus a huge outcry against electricity. There was even a bad Eddie Murphy movie "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" type movie that used it as a plot point.

However, they study was flawed because they didn't account for other factors (ie the homes near these powerlines are cheaper, so have more low income families living in them, and low income families as a rule have more health problems.

A few years later, a huge, multi-year double blind study was done, and done properly, and found no link to electricity causing health problems. (ie lower income kids not near powerlines had the same higher incidence of lukemia as those who lived near them)

If their rationale for making power innately unhealthy is the power itself, they are basing it on false information. Not that they have to be accurate, but I do have a minor issue if all power = unhealthiness. Living next to a coal plant should cause sickness. Or a nuclear plant that has a partial or full meltdown. But living on the same continent as TGD should not make one unhealthy. If anything, having power should increase the health of a city, based on other buildings in the city. (ie refrigeration and hospitals should be more effective at increasing health if the citizens have electricity)

H&K said:

LOL

Thats one of the modern Health controvisies isnt it. Along with moble Phone Phylons.

The argument goes like this....

"Cells in the body split at a specific frequency, which I think is about 13Hrz. This frquency is produced by the planets field itself.
Now when we say "Cells in the Body" this incude feotus development and blood production, and skin etc.
Removal of the field, ie in the shuttle or Mier etc produced state of vomiting etc in the astronausts, to the point that all modern Space veicles have a fake electric field that reproduces this frequency of the earth.
So to the controvicy, "If this field is so improtant, what happens if you "Flood" it with a totaly different field". In this case the electric supply itself.
People who think that does cause heath problems will point to things like increased lukemia in children who live near cables, and depesstion in people who live constantly in these fields. (And other)"

Now Im not going to say if actual Electric field caused by the electric supply is or isnt dangious, cos then ppl would argue with me. What I am saying is that there is enough evidence to suddgest that its a possibility. Sort of like the amount of evidence they had in the 50s about smoking

All the BTS team have done is taken on board these health concerns, and in their game have said, ok electricity is unhealthy, put making it by water power is less so.

Mind you this other contenent power this is a bug

Click to expand...

thats one interpertation of it. there is also the possibility that running electricity allows consumption and activity roudn the clock leading to more pollution.

Other anomalies of the TGD is that alternative power stations are still on offer in the cities. One should also be able to 'de-comission' the old coal fires power station. In fact it should be automatically removed.

fanie said:

Other anomalies of the TGD is that alternative power stations are still on offer in the cities. One should also be able to 'de-comission' the old coal fires power station. In fact it should be automatically removed.

Click to expand...

No You have to be able to build other plants - or else when you lose the TGD city you lose power in all your cities. The same is true for cities that already have plants - they are fine as they are since they do not work unless you lose your other power source. They should not provide (I am not sure if they do) while inactive but should not be auto deleted.

This isn't related to the Dam, but I built the Eiffel Tower before I had the Tech that gives me access to broadcast towers. I got a broadcast tower in every city even though I didn't know what they were yet (Tech wise). Shouldn't I have received the free towers after learning that Tech? If not that's a great exploit if you have the Apostilistic building. Mass Media obsoletes the palace in return for towers (and a few other things), but is not needed as a prereq for anything else. That make sense?

Though this should be another thread, I have noticed this as well. I think they should have linked the Eifeltower to both technologies.