can you explain me what's the point of hydro plants?

You have a city with 35 production (which is ok) and it takes 35 TURNS to build the hydro plant. the hydro plant cost 3 gold to maintain, takes x2.5 or so production time to complete compared to the windmill, cost x1.5 more to maintain than the windmill and yet give less than the windmill.. at best, the hydro plant only gives +5 hammers or maybe 6. sorry but can someone explain me what's the advantage in building hydro plants? oh yeah and i forgot that an hydro plant takes an aluminum...

It would be better built on already production heavy cities so that it can benefit more from those extra +% production buildings. Or alternatively it can be purchased on population/gold heavy riverside cities to jump start its production.

If I ever build one, it's be in cities for spaceship parts; if that helps answer your question.

I've got one built, and one more in production.

In the city I've got it built for, it's adding 14 hammers to the BASE terrain production.

That city now has a total of 130.65 production (for buildings, will vary depending on multipliers for other types of builds, currently working on another building.)

Lesee here, save game and delete the hydro plant...

Production drops from 130.65 to 105.3 without the hydro plant.

For 3 gold a turn? Yeah, I think 25+ production is well worth it. Plus, I'm working farms, trading posts, plantations, etc. as well as sawmills and mines on that river.

Is the windmill worth more? Well, I've got one in the same city, and like I said, I'm working on another building right now, reload and delete the sawmill...

Production drops from 130.65 to 111.6 without the windmill - but a lot of that is from losing the "+15%" building modifier on the rest of the hammers. (And remember, NOW I've still got the hydro plant giving me +14 base.)

A hydro plant is very much worth it. Whether it's better than the windmill, Jim, not sure how you'd measure it - they're different, windmill comes earlier, helps buildings, and is quicker to construct. But everything works together, it's not one or the other.

Jim Bro said:

You have a city with 35 production (which is ok) and it takes 35 TURNS to build the hydro plant. the hydro plant cost 3 gold to maintain, takes x2.5 or so production time to complete compared to the windmill, cost x1.5 more to maintain than the windmill and yet give less than the windmill.. at best, the hydro plant only gives +5 hammers or maybe 6. sorry but can someone explain me what's the advantage in building hydro plants? oh yeah and i forgot that an hydro plant takes an aluminum...

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Having a city with 35 at the turn you get Plastics is not ok.

I'm my "moving up to emperor" video my size 8 capital has 20.7 at turn 100 (no Iron works).

Hydroplant add base hammers, for as many river tiles you have. Base hammers get multiplied by railroads, workshop, armory, marble etc. In case of 10 river tiles you might very well be adding 20 hammers, all things taken into account.

It should take 10-15 turns to build one in one of your main production cities. If you are going for a science victory that is more than enough time to complete it before you tech particle physics and nanotechnology. They are kind of useless if you only have 4-5 river tiles but if it is built in a city with criss crossing rivers you can get a ridiculous amount of hammers from it. I think hydro plants are the best building in the game given the right circumstances.

Andoo said:

It would be better built on already production heavy cities so that it can benefit more from those extra +% production buildings. Or alternatively it can be purchased on population/gold heavy riverside cities to jump start its production.

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These 2 answers.

1) Spaceship cities.
2) Buy with cash in production/gold/GP farm cities that are in vast floodplains and are production poor, and all of a sudden they start cranking.

Jim Bro said:

You have a city with 35 production (which is ok) and it takes 35 TURNS to build the hydro plant. the hydro plant cost 3 gold to maintain, takes x2.5 or so production time to complete compared to the windmill, cost x1.5 more to maintain than the windmill and yet give less than the windmill.. at best, the hydro plant only gives +5 hammers or maybe 6. sorry but can someone explain me what's the advantage in building hydro plants? oh yeah and i forgot that an hydro plant takes an aluminum...

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That late in the game, I've had production cities with over 100 production. A capital with a few maritime CSs can be huge that late in the game with massive production. I usually don't build it though, I tend to buy it. That late in the game, my economy is typically cranking along, and I have / make enough gold for significant rush buys.

OK thx for your tips but i remain unsure how they work. i thought they gave +6 hammers for a city with 6 river tiles....

Jim Bro said:

OK thx for your tips but i remain unsure how they work. i thought they gave +6 hammers for a city with 6 river tiles....

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Lets say a city works 10 river tiles.
+10 from riverside tiles +
Railroad +2.5
Factory +2.5
Workshop +1.5
= 16.5

they used to be better before the GA nerf to production.

they would put 1 hammer onto every tile with a river beside it. Hit up a GA and all of those tiles now have 2 hammers. Made grassland riverside tiles very useful.

I think they should be buffed up by adding a multiplier to production (25%, for example). I usually play with small continents maps, and there are lots of small rivers with only 3 or 4 riverside tiles. I would build hydro plants in those locations if they had a production multiplier, but a small 4 hammers base production is near worthless IMO.

I don't think it needs a multiplier at all. They're niche, yeah, but that's fine since in the cities where they work well (not that hard to find; rivers are usually plentiful) they give an enormous boost to base hammers –base hammers that are multiplied by workshop, windmill, railoroads etc.

Besides, even those small 4-tile rivers will give you the same yield as an Ironworks (4 tiles of river = 8 riverside tiles) but without the construction prerequisites and without the 1-per-empire restriction. The real problem, if there is one, isn't yield, but how late it comes. But for long games, particularly science wins, they're a completely legitimate use for your aluminum.

Lyoncet said:

I don't think it needs a multiplier at all. They're niche, yeah, but that's fine since in the cities where they work well (not that hard to find; rivers are usually plentiful) they give an enormous boost to base hammers –base hammers that are multiplied by workshop, windmill, railoroads etc.

Besides, even those small 4-tile rivers will give you the same yield as an Ironworks (4 tiles of river = 8 riverside tiles) but without the construction prerequisites and without the 1-per-empire restriction. The real problem, if there is one, isn't yield, but how late it comes. But for long games, particularly science wins, they're a completely legitimate use for your aluminum.

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Well, I think you didn't catch my point or I didn't explained it properly (Sorry, but English is not my native tongue!). I was talking about 4 riverside tiles (only 2 tile river), common in Small Continents map. In those cases, I prefer not to build the Hydro Plant because it's benefits are not enough for its costs. With a production multiplier, I would built it if the city were a high production one.

Hydro plants are so useful in the later stages of the game, I quite often (if reasonable or possible) will go out of my way a few tiles on city placement to settle by a river.

spider1 said:

Hydro plants are so useful in the later stages of the game, I quite often (if reasonable or possible) will go out of my way a few tiles on city placement to settle by a river.

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Same, although I am usually doin that for a watermill. Also I feel as though my city will be healthier if on the river...

Hydro plants are very situational. In some cities they're awesome, in some cities they're terribad. As stated, the worst thing about them is just that they come too late to have much impact at the end of the game.

bryanw1995 said:

Hydro plants are very situational. In some cities they're awesome, in some cities they're terribad. As stated, the worst thing about them is just that they come too late to have much impact at the end of the game.

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A city with a good river, a hydro plant, decent non-river production and a spaceship factory can crank out the last couple of spaceship parts in 10 turns. Hardly "not much impact".

That's a lot of things that need to go right to get that 10 turns for spaceship parts. How many turns would a hydro plant save on the spaceship in your hypothetical perfect situation? 5 or 6 maybe? Sometimes that is the difference between winning and losing, but other times it's worth next to nothing. I didn't say that hydro plants were useless by any means, please re-read what I wrote.

IMO, what also is needed to make them valuable is to remove the aluminium requirement. The requirement of been next to a river tile is enough, I think.