Are Factories nerfed too much.

[Arlborn]

Never really liked factories. Now they are, like coal plants and etc, not worthy much until you can get your health under control(corporations or techs like medicine(which gives a cop.).

I don't build them much. In truth, dunno when was the last time I researched Industrialism lol.

 

[Stylesrj]

You need Industrialism to get Aluminium which translates to getting the spaceship built faster.
Health isn't much of an issue in the late-game, so a factory causing sickness isn't going to affect much

 

[magicalsushi]

Make the industrial Revolution a dangerous and pollutive time and then perhaps in the Modern Era have those environmental laws put in (not Envirnomentalism, but regulations to reduce pollution, buildings or technologies and make options, like reduces from a city by 2 points, but reduces city production by 10%) to regulate factories.

I'd say Environmentalism already models this perfectly. You say we should be able to enact regulations to reduce pollution, but what exactly do you think the Environmentalism civic is supposed to represent? Why should there be environmental regulation *and* an Environmentalism civic; the whole point of the civic is that it models modern environmental protection laws!

Okay, you don't like using it because it has some downsides. I'm afraid that's one of the many tough choices in Civ 4. Environmentalism didn't used to a be a tough choice, prior to BtS - the choice was basically "do I use Free Market or State Property?". With BtS, there is a genuine question about which of the four economic civics will work best for you; Environmentalism finally has a purpose.

That doesn't mean it shouldn't have downsides. It has downsides in real life. The horrendous levels of pollution in the industrial era weren't created just for the sake of it; people were burning massive quantities of fossil fuels for a reason. Even today, there's fierce opposition to environmental laws. Why do people oppose them? Because they stifle commerce and production, and they cost money to enforce. Just like Environmentalism already does in the game. Heck, your 10% production penalty already corresponds nicely to the existing "because I'm using Environmentalism, I don't get the 10% production bonus from State Property" opportunity cost.

What you're asking for is already modelled perfectly well in the game. If anything, this discussion has made me even more impressed with the balance of the economic civics in BtS; even in isolation from the other civics columns, those four civics provide excellent models of several important modern issues.

[apologies if any of this seems personal, it isn't intended to be - I just disagree with that particular suggestion. ]

 

[Arlborn]

You need Industrialism to get Aluminium which translates to getting the spaceship built faster.
Health isn't much of an issue in the late-game, so a factory causing sickness isn't going to affect much

I normally go for culture, I hate SS. If I go that late, I normally only get Assembly line for defense(if AI is AGG.), then shut down research!

Really, I only did one time Industrialism in BTS...

 

[Stylesrj]

I think of environmentalism as the civic where everyone is concerned about the environmentalism and everything is restricted heavily. Not like the Free Markets of today's with government regulation. I think there should environmental laws, but nothing too strict like Environmentalism runs...

I know the laws restrict business and all that. But the people are glad for it, the CEOs ain't. So why are you whining about a bunch of rich guys whining?

 

[magicalsushi]

I think of environmentalism as the civic where everyone is concerned about the environmentalism and everything is restricted heavily. Not like the Free Markets of today's with government regulation. I think there should environmental laws, but nothing too strict like Environmentalism runs...

I know the laws restrict business and all that. But the people are glad for it, the CEOs ain't. So why are you whining about a bunch of rich guys whining?

No, don't get me wrong, I'm not whining about it - I'm very, very pro-environmentalism. My point though, is that it isn't a total no-brainer, even in real life. If it was, people wouldn't complain about it all the time, and we'd all agree it was the way forwards. There *are* costs to environmentalism in real life, in the form of slower economic development. I think these are represented well in the game. In particular, consider the fact that you're likely to experience a total disintegration of your empire due to health issues if you industrialise like crazy but continue to run one of the other economic civics...I think that's rather realistic.

I agree with you about real life: the benefits of most environmental legislation vastly outweigh the costs. I also agree that most of the effective opposition is due to selfishness, particularly on the part of the very wealthy. However, no-one would listen to them if it was completely obvious what the correct balance is. In BtS, like in real life, it's not a simple issue. Well done, Firaxis!

 

[DigitalBoy]

That was the point really...now people sometimes may have to consider environmentalism and maybe not fully industrialize.

Maybe, but honestly, I don't think the choices are there. Even with the horrible health problems, I still think factories are a must-build. The only thing the added unhealthiness does is make Environmentalism and health buildings a must-adopt/build. It's like less choices.

Um, don't you think this is somewhat realistic?

Realistic, yes, but it seems a bit silly that adopting Environmentalism goes hand-in-hand with building population-spewing factories and power plants in all your cities.

 

[CivDude86]

You can always get rid of all your coal for once you got 3GD (if you don't have another continent to power) and oil for railroads since it will only be useful for your ironworks city.

 

[magicalsushi]

Realistic, yes, but it seems a bit silly that adopting Environmentalism goes hand-in-hand with building population-spewing factories and power plants in all your cities.

Well, I'd say the idea is that it's a consequence of industrialisation, both in the game and in real life. You can hold back on idustrialisation, or you can industrialise and be forced to insititute ecological measures to counter the pollution problem. Or you can industrialise and continue to pay no attention to the environment, and hence suffer unhealthiness. It's exactly the same choice as in the real world. If you industrialise and adopt environmentalism, your cities are healthier than if you don't adopt environmentalism - but if you didn't industrialise in the first place, they'd be even healthier.

Environmentalism becomes necessary as a countermeasure against insdustrial pollution. In the game and in real life, it's mostly because of pollution from factories and fossil fuels that people need to pay attention to the environment You can have big factories, *or* you can ignore your civ's impact on the environment. If you try to do both, that's when you get conequences. It makes sense to me.

 

[strollen]

No - I think you overestimate the importnce of having a "clean" city. All that unhealthiness does is to reduce the growth potential of a city. But a production city is the city type where growth is least important. In my industrialization phase, I often let cities run with high unhealthiness for extended periods of time. As long as they don't starve, and as long as the city doesn't have to give up production tiles, the drawback from the unhealthiness remains marginal.

What BtS has changed however is that building factories now isn't a no-brainer anymore. I tend to limit my factories to the production cities now.

I went back and looked at my (winning) game and I think you are right. I am a perfectionist builder and if I had just concentrated on keeping the cities from starving and not worried about keeping the cities clean I would have lost perhaps 1 population of growth which translates into one specialist. But Biology+ State Property do cause a growth boom.

I guess it is good thing that building factories is no longer a no brainer.

They didn't nerf Factories, they buffed Health (Hospitals, Expansive Trait, etc.)

Hum another way of looking at it. In hindsight I think you maybe right. In my typical Warlord game which was a combo of warmonger and builder (monarch or Emperor level) I generally had enough health resources that I didn't have to build any health building beyond groceries and the ocassional aqueduct. Now in BTS it looks like I will have build aqueducts PLUS one or more of the late game buildings.

I just returned from tour of China, which is going through a massive industrialization characterized by building zillions of factories. The pollution is off the chart bad and only getting worse with the introduction of Oil (i.e. cars). I am wondering now if there lack of pollution controls is a deliberate attempt (i.e commie plot) to reduce population growth by making their cities so unhealthy? Did Firaxis give a really early version of BTS to China

Oh and 3 Gorges only supplies enough electricity for the 32 million people of Chongqing.

 

[Stylesrj]

In my opinion, I just find Environmentalism the one where hippies take control and basically everything is restricted because it hurts mother nature. I do not see Environmentalism as today's society. Our society today is a free market with government regulation at key points, which also includes environment.

I don't want to go overboard with saving the environment, but I don't find it right to see in a modern society, that the Free Market is still pumping out lots of pollution.

Even if environmentalism represents today's regulations on industry, I'm still not adopting it. I can always get more health resources or increase food production to counteract sickness

 

[ezwip]

I don't see why people refuse to adopt environmentalism and then complain about the pollution. I've made plenty of sushi and cereal on this game. My cities grow faster when I have environmentalism, and I don't have to build health bonus buildings non stop. It is ridiculous to sit there building all of those when you can just switch over to environmentalism. I don't even notice a difference in the money I'm bringing in, because at that point in the game I'm stinking rich and it just doesn't matter. I'll build corporations, so nobody else has them. As for the +25% corporation expense increase... who cares the ones I'm spreading are aluminum company and creative industries. I'm giving them to other civs not myself so I've only got one city with that corp in it. In the end with sushi corp in every city on the map you might grow 1 population point extra compared to my enviromental civic. However, in that time while you were building health increases over and over and over.... I will have won a domination victory. If I am completely mistaken and there is some huge gain in staying with free market please enlighten me. I could care less about free market and at the end of the game it usually compares me to Caesar.

 

[Stylesrj]

I choose Free Market because I don't choose State Property, I don't want a Decentralised economy, and I want foreign trade. I don't choose environmentalism, because I just don't.

If you find some benefits in it, that's great, but I'm sticking with Free Market

 

[ezwip]

Do you have a reason or you just some die hard conservative? With public transportation and oil you get a +9 health bonus and +2 gold from towns. Eventually you will get recycling and can switch back. It doesn't mean you have to be a hippie forever.

 

[weasel77066]

If you find some benefits in it, that's great, but I'm sticking with Free Market

Free market wins the game. Bottom line.
Now I can suck up the green face, I can eat the foreign corp. costs, and I can deal with the penalties for defying the hippy resolutions....

At the end of the game, its cold hard cash that pays for the military.

 

[Stylesrj]

One thing I don't understand is the whole trade routes thing. I get all this free trade route stuff, but I have no idea how it gets me extra cash. I research Currency. Guess what? Nothing happens to change my gold levels.

What do trade routes do anyway? I don't see any trade routes giving me a benefit in gold

 

[weasel77066]

One thing I don't understand is the whole trade routes thing. I get all this free trade route stuff, but I have no idea how it gets me extra cash. I research Currency. Guess what? Nothing happens to change my gold levels.

What do trade routes do anyway? I don't see any trade routes giving me a benefit in gold

Trade routes go directly into your base commerce, unlike some buildings and such which add a percentage to your base commerce (you have designated towards wealth).

So....... The trade route addition is directly divided via your sliders (into research, espionage and wealth)

If you never see a difference in your cash per turn, that because you have a high percent allocated towards science (or possibly espionage)

Now if you run mercantilism or such, this takes away from the base commerce (as you lose the international routes) which directly affect you science.

Now its rather strange...... customs houses add directly towards the trade route income. As such it goes into your slush fund for science and such-

Whereas Banks add a percent to your base commerce, but only to your commerce denoted towards (commerce).

 

[Piemaster]

I'm going to go against the grain here and say that global warming shouldn't be included in the game. For starters, the really noticable affects of global warming (if any) are unlikely to occur until after 2050, which makes it outside the scope of the game. Secondly, global warming is only really a theory at this stage. It's a theory based on reasonable scientific evidence, but it's a stretch to say that if society builds a load of factories in 1894 then temperatures will rise x degrees and sea levels will rise by y inches by 2010, but if you don't then they won't. The link just hasn't been proven in that way.

Thirdly, how are you going to simulate minute changes in global temperature in the game? Tundra isn't suddenly going to become Plains if the temperature rises by 2 degrees. Cities aren't suddenly going to find themselves underwater (although they might be more prone to flooding). Most of the long-term affects of global warming will be exactly that - long term. A Civ player isn't going to care that his imaginary world will descend into an ice age in 2183, because the world ends in 2050. He isn't going to care that certain animals become extinct, because they don't exist. So if GW is implimented it will have to either have an effect that is so minor that the player won't care about it or so unrealistic that it makes a mockery of the sim.

 

[weasel77066]

Pie- I agree with you a hundred percent. However it is in the game and it has a real playability surrounding it.

I have my issues with the entire green movement. Thats in real life.

In the game it makes a very good counter tick to the nuclear age. Ive refrained from pushing that flashy red button, merely because I know that global warming will set in and it may hinder my progress towards the BIG WIN.

Its a shame that such a sophmoric theory is included into the game, but it plays well as a counter for actions that a player may attempt to exploit a numerical AI......

I honestly have no problems with it.

Now the nuclear power plant odds of melting down are about unreasonable. Seems like some programmer or another is still drifting around in the ole 70s age of LSD and flashy protest signs.

 

[yatta77]

I don't want to go overboard with saving the environment, but I don't find it right to see in a modern society, that the Free Market is still pumping out lots of pollution.

I disagree.

In real life, compared to Enviromentalism, Free Market generates more profit and also more pollution, for many reasons. Just think about the pollution from transpoting goods producted in some country for economical interest but commercialized everywhere; or the pollution generated by pushing the production over the needs of the population; or the trend to produce products that won't last too long, to be able to produce and sell upgraded products later and maintain high levels of production and profit for that good in the future.

In my opinion you cannot have a "pure" Free Market adopting laws witch put the reduction of the pollution and saving the Enviroment as priorities.

This is why I like there's 2 [or better say 4] balanced options in Civ IV:
1. more healt (Enviromentalism)
2. more commerce (Free Market)
[3. (State Propriety); 4. (Mercantilism)].

I hope my english is not too bed...