[GS] Are Dams worth it?

[Socrates99]

I had to look up this expression, did not know what it meant
No, I don't try to 'straw man' you or anybody else, I just find that the question is too undefined, too open, and I'm trying to find some frame of reference, some criteria, whereby it would be possible to judge the 'worth it'ness. And I've listed them:

As for 'funneling the game into one VC', it is again, because OP question is very open and without any other conditions listed, I think that usually the fastest one under selected game speed and map size should be considered. If you take a look at the HOF subforum, RV seems to be a quite clear winner as far as fast victories go, followed by domination.
So my conclusion is that a game on a standard size map and standard game speed will probably end the fastest with a RV and in such a game you won't have time even to think about Dams, IZs or Military Engineers.

They could be useful in SV games, where you'll probably want an IZ and and Encampment in your main Spaceport city, however the real 'worth it'ness still remain doubtful. If you let your game go past t300, then yes, you get some value back, but mostly it is fun value, fun from building a nice looking empire for yourself, not that you really need all those shiny things, including railroads and tunnels. I've spent countless hours laying railroads across continents myself, only to move nothing good over them, as my game cut short by some Diplomatic victory. But good players get their SV well under t200 on standard speed, and then when every cog counts, very few things are 'dirt cheap' to be built without regard of whether you really need them or not.


I'll requote myself on that:

I didn't put parameters on the game. By doing that, you straw manned what I said so you could sweep it away. Textbook strawman. I typically play SV, or Dom and despise RV so I find them useful.

This is a funny reversal for me because I'm often the one arguing that building a bunch of extra useless stuff is frivolous and wasteful. Encampments are a less useful district but they're cheap and some of the buildings provide housing so the district slot in that city is generally quickly replaced. Having a big production city with an encampment is a speed boost to dom and SV whether from GG and exp for dom or engineers and integrated space cell for SV.

 

[MrRadar]

I didn't put parameters on the game.

Yes, and then this whole discussion is pointless. If you have no points of reference, how you can judge the "worth it" element? Then it all becomes based on what you feel like, and that is very subjective.

As for SV, you can look at some fastest SV Deity save files in the GOTM subforum. I did not see a widespread use of railroads or dams there. The projects probably are sped up by chopping them mostly, and using Royal Society. Cities do get helped by IZs though, and quite a few IZs have adjacent Aqueducts.

 

[civac]

A single encampment for GG points and engineers seems reasonable enough.

To judge the worth of a building in a vacuum you can calculate the payback horizon, ie. the number of turns until it has recovered it's build cost. Of course, this has to be compared with the number of turns you expect the game to last still. Later infrastructure usually needs a faster payback time than earlier buildings.

 

[Disgustipated]

I just do it for convenience. I hate my improvements being washed away completely (if they can be repaired it's not a big deal).

Are they worth it? Probably not from a high efficiency point of view. I still voted most of the time since they are worth it to me. Even if a high end player doesn't care about them, I do. As for the engineers, I find they come a little late in my games. I often hard build dams. I generally won't do it in a small city.

 

[Thormodr]

I build them. They prevent flood damage and give pollution free power later on.

The AI builds them too. I like blowing them up with spies.

Wish they had a beaver resource. Then you could have very early dams.

 

[Disgustipated]

So what about multiple dams? That one I'm more reluctant on. I'm assuming you do get the additional housing and amenity for the extra dam, right? It's just hard to justify taking up two hexes with dams. But I'm in a situation my current game where I do have 2 rivers going through my city, but I'm going to avoid the 2nd dam for now.

 

[PiR]

So what about multiple dams?

Since you can only get electricity from one, no for me.

 

[Tech Osen]

So what about multiple dams? That one I'm more reluctant on. I'm assuming you do get the additional housing and amenity for the extra dam, right? It's just hard to justify taking up two hexes with dams. But I'm in a situation my current game where I do have 2 rivers going through my city, but I'm going to avoid the 2nd dam for now.

Situational. If I need the extra safe space to build districts and improvements then I will. If both the dams can be placed adjacent to one IZ then definitely.

 

[Socrates99]

So what about multiple dams? That one I'm more reluctant on. I'm assuming you do get the additional housing and amenity for the extra dam, right? It's just hard to justify taking up two hexes with dams. But I'm in a situation my current game where I do have 2 rivers going through my city, but I'm going to avoid the 2nd dam for now.

I'd try for a neighboring city if just to spread the clean power and amenities out.

 

[Ordnael]

Yes most of time.
Not a elite player, far from it, although I've been enjoying immortal on epic speed in the latest games I've been playing, but I find dams always useful. By the time they get available I've already reaped the benefits of some serious floods and since I'm not interested in wasting time and resources on fixing or rebuilding the same improvements all over again, I always go for a damn unless the hex available for it is far too pornographic in its yields. Also the extra housing always comes in handy as well as the possibility to generate power out of it. There are other improvements that I quite not understand its importance yet, at least for my play style (I rarely train a military engineer!), but I get the dams and I salute Firaxis for bringing this district into play.

 

[AlexM29]

i like building dams....

 

[AlexM29]

To answer your question, in a high production city with flood plains, dams can provide major bonuses to industrial zones. They cut down on the need to incessantly have to keep buying builders to repair after floods and waste turns of production repairing buildings and districts. Plus they can be built for cheap with military engineers.

 

[Bibor]

I guess it really depends on victory type? For culture and science (my favourite games), a definite yes. Especially since I love to play with Wilhelmina, who builds a dam 50% faster and gets major riverside adjacency bonuses.

Dams are expensive, yes, but they yield production, housing (don't overlook this, +3 is a lot) and as others have already mentioned - most importantly - they make riverside stuff not blow up.

The floodplain blowup mandates a second look. It might not sound as much on paper, but repeated repairs that take 2-3 turns can really throw a wrench in your victory times. If your main production city for space (or culture) rests on a floodplain (which it most probably does in most games), 10, 15 or even more turns lost during a game is a huge deal.

 

[Just another Jaguara]

I often use Hercules to build dams , simply because they're the most expensive district (by that time), and other relevant districts are usually already in place.

 

[Aurelesk]

So what about multiple dams? That one I'm more reluctant on. I'm assuming you do get the additional housing and amenity for the extra dam, right? It's just hard to justify taking up two hexes with dams. But I'm in a situation my current game where I do have 2 rivers going through my city, but I'm going to avoid the 2nd dam for now.

Dams are clunky. Only one area per rivers can have floodplains, and each river can only have 1 Dam. For example, if two cities have floodplains tiles of the same river, you can only start 1 Dam on one of the city, the other city being unable to start the Dam like it was a Wonder.
If both cities are not from the same empire, they can both started it. When one Dam is completed, the other in progress is deleted like you would lose a Wonder race.

A single city can manage to have multiple Dams, as long they are from multiple rivers. Like Neighborhood, you can only have 1 building. Be careful though: if you lose a Dam race, not only your Dam in progress is deleted but also ALL your other already Dams in the city are removed for some reason.

Spoiler Dam it! :

I am 1 turn away from completing the Dam, and so is the evil neighbor.


The Mapuche completed the Dam first. Not only my Dam is removed, but also my other Dam next to it. Contrary to Wonder, I do not enjoy any Production recoup. I can still rebuild the other Dam that was removed.

 

[Ordnael]

@Aurelesk
Time for some heavy cavalry diplomacy!

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

The dam is an interesting infrastructure district with many strengths and weaknesses. While I always plan my floodplain cities using dams and seek them out for extra Industrial Zone adjacency, their high production cost and resulting long build time makes me wonder- are dams worth it? I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Hardly, unless you build industrial zones to help fuel a SV.
The flooding is really irrelevant (2 pop died, care), and the housing as well, plus it costs a fortune.
If I'm not playing SV (occasionally domination where I want certain core cities with high production), this district goes right to the bottom of my priority list.

Would maybe consider building them more regularly if they reduced their cost by at least 50-60%.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

I certainly disagree with that! Play Marathon, Deity and Huge continents maps with 12 civ's, I've only won RV once and that was a long drag...

It's essentially just about two things - getting a high faith economy to outproduce your opponent for Apostles (less than 300-400 or so faith per turn by the middle game and you're doing it wrong), and some combat modifiers to make the apostles beat enemy apostles.
After that it usually takes care of itself, as you have roaming Apostle wolf packs that flip regional enemy cities after every won theological battle.
The more faith you have, the more wolf packs you can afford.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Hardly, unless you build industrial zones to help fuel a SV.
The flooding is really irrelevant (2 pop died, care), and the housing as well, plus it costs a fortune.
If I'm not playing SV (occasionally domination where I want certain core cities with high production), this district goes right to the bottom of my priority list.

Would maybe consider building them more regularly if they reduced their cost by at least 50-60%.

But when you're thinking of the cost of the dam (which is high, granted) you need to also factor in the cost of extra builders and time lost as you rebuild the improvements you'll likely lose.

 

[Oberinspektor Derrick]

But when you're thinking of the cost of the dam (which is high, granted) you need to also factor in the cost of extra builders and time lost as you rebuild the improvements you'll likely lose.

Not really, because those are mostly farms. I usually have some idle bulders around for repair stuff across my empire anyway, and in the case that it does actually destroy (rather than pillage) those farms, farms are at the bottom of my tile improvement priority list to replace.
A mine or lumber mill sure, but a farm.. very rarely.
And even if I feel like I should rebuild said farms (which I dont often bother doing unless its a core city), even hard building a builder (usually I just faith buy or even gold buy) takes so little time that I cant justify building an entire dam just to avoid it.
A builder typically costs me around 4-6 turns to hard build at most, and can be built from any nearby city that isnt doing anything productive atm anyway, so its not really "time lost" in most cases..
A dam can cost everything from 15 to 60 turns (typically around 20-30), and I just cba dealing with that for a non-essential city, in a non-SV game.