Industrial park

[Catan_Settler]

Hey I just got BTS last week and am enjoying my first game with the Dutch. One question though, I just got up to Industrialism and have factories in many of my core cities which has unlocked the Industrial Park. Wow, that's a LOT of unhealthiness. All that to get one lousy engineer? Seriously, a watermill, lumbermill even a mine gives more hammers than an engineer, so what's the point? Is it just for those people trying to get a Great Engineer late in the game or is there some other purpose to having engineers, cause frankly they don't seem to compare to a normal citizen working a proper production tile in the late game... Is there some tech or wonder that can increase the number of hammers they give that I'm missing? I don't get it... Most of the additions to the game seem to have a clear and useful purpose, but not this one.

[magichj]

I've never understood the purpose for Industrial parks either... I'd be interested if there is one.

[marconos]

for cities that are capped on working tiles and you have a recyling center there.

Just a guess on my part, I have never seen the need to build one though.

[OTAKUjbski]

Spread either of the GM Corporations (Sid's Sushi and Cereal Mills) to your major Production Cities and you'll find a need for the Industrial Park faster than you can finish reading this post.

[Catan_Settler]

Ahh, good to know. I haven't even touched the corporations yet, I'll have to see about using those.

[marconos]

After reviewing the industrial park -- 1 free engineer + 2 additional engineers. Yes that items has quite a bit of power in giving you 3 engineers ( 6 hammers + 9 GPP ). The food items make it much more viable to be able to use these guys BUT sickness will be real problem in this city.

Edit: 6 hammers of power
6 Hammer = Forge (25%) + factory(25%) + Power(50%) == 12 hammers of production. Not to shabby of a gain. Add in other bonuses organized religion, state property etc etc and that 12 just keeps growing.

[Krikkitone]

Well it is at LEAST 2 hammer worth (1 free engineer) and an additional 2 Hammers worth (2 Citizens/priests that get turned into Engineers instead) if you have a food excess.

[paydro]

Except that you need an additional 4 food to support those extra engineers. So assuming you're at your health cap, you need a surplus of 6 food at the time of the building to pick up those 3 engineers (for 6 hammers).

They can be leveraged with corporations or recycling centers... but usually by that point the game is over.

[pxpdoo]

Originally Posted by OTAKUjbski

Spread either of the GM Corporations (Sid's Sushi and Cereal Mills) to your major Production Cities and you'll find a need for the Industrial Park faster than you can finish reading this post.

"... faster than you can finish reading this post"

[DigitalBoy]

It's kind of a niche building in my experience. You really have to wonder if the extra unhealthiness and investment in hammers is worth a free specialist that late in the game. Not useless, but not something to build in all or even most of your cities.

[BalbanesBeoulve]

I'll build it if it's a OCC. 3 extra beakers and more GPP are always worth it. I mean it's more GPP than a wonder.

[Saluki]

I have recently found it useful in low food cites, such as in a tundra or desert environment. In those cases, health was not much of an issue, so the extra hammers were a nice boost.

[Slip de Garcon]

If near the end of a game I have healthy building in reserve, I'll build it, so that if it brings on the green face I can remedy it. Otherwise, as above it's not the most useful building ever.

[Xan9bhaal]

If you beeline to recycling center, the health problems wont matter much. But it is true, it isn't one of the buildings you tend to build right away... Only if you REALLY need a great engineer for corps or wonder rush.

[LegionSteve]

It's handy on an archipelago map where many of your cities lack but have plenty of to run specialists.

[noto]

exactly. On a water map the ind park is amazing

[Hammurbabble]

I always build one in my Ironworks city, which doubles as a Great Engineer farm. Three more Engineers is a good idea.

It's also good to build in cities that have crappy production, where one free engineer is better than +100% of the nothing production.

Health problems, yes -- but by that time I'm usually running Environmentalism anyway, so big deal.

[Catan_Settler]

Originally Posted by marconos

After reviewing the industrial park -- 1 free engineer + 2 additional engineers. Yes that items has quite a bit of power in giving you 3 engineers ( 6 hammers + 9 GPP ). The food items make it much more viable to be able to use these guys BUT sickness will be real problem in this city.

Edit: 6 hammers of power
6 Hammer = Forge (25%) + factory(25%) + Power(50%) == 12 hammers of production. Not to shabby of a gain. Add in other bonuses organized religion, state property etc etc and that 12 just keeps growing.

I understand what you're saying as far as great engineer points, but in terms of actual hammers engineers just don't pan out. In your example 4x100%=8 of those hammers are at the cost of potentially working 2 really kick ass hammer tiles-- like a plains hill forested lumbermill, which is also multiplied by 100% and yields quite a bit more production.

Somebody else mentioned water maps, which is an excellent point. If you have a seafood heavy city with only a strip of land near it, then you're going to be seriously hammer challenged so this could be a workable solution to allow some ship building to happen in a timely fashion, as those engineer specialist slots are hard to come by and other than Moai statues or playing as the dutch, coastal cities are often terrible for production.

Thanks for all the tips and info guys, it's not nearly as useless as it first seemed.

[peterfrosty]

Indeed, not useless. Situational though…

A city can possibly work 20 land tiles. In cases where the city might only have access to half that (water, mountains, city overlap, boarder culture), and you're able to reach high population via Corporation (the power of the sushi), the Industrial Park comes in real handy.

[marconos]

Originally Posted by Catan_Settler

I understand what you're saying as far as great engineer points, but in terms of actual hammers engineers just don't pan out. In your example 4x100%=8 of those hammers are at the cost of potentially working 2 really kick ass hammer tiles-- like a plains hill forested lumbermill, which is also multiplied by 100% and yields quite a bit more production.

If you have real production tiles to work then you shouldn't be wasting time building an industrial park. It really only comes into play if you have the food and extra people to use that. That is the premise for my calculations for the hammers. Taking someone off of a mine tile is of course very foolish unless you are trying to pump out a GP.