Are non-coal power plants underwhelming?

[Sostratus]

There is a button on the upper left side of the in-game screen for checking the climate change. It has several stages, and it is possible to finish the game before the consequences of climate change really hit.

That said, a common complain about the GS is that the consequences of climate change are really unimpactful.

It depends on difficulty. Often players are ahead of the AI. If the AI is advanced and has some resources they will pollute frequently. If it’s pvp and 4 humans are all polluting, things get go underwater fast.

 

[acluewithout]

No, Oil and Nuclear Plants suck. But I can’t say it bothers me. I’m happy just building Coal Plants.

The Nuclear Project seems like a really silly mechanic. I honestly think this was a big mistake. FXS should just quietly ditch it.

 

[Aurelesk]

Nuclear power plant feels very underwhelming. I do not understand neither why they have a carbon footprint on it, nor why we have to do the "Recommission Nuclear Reactor" project once in a while, nor why the Production bonus is so low for those drawbacks. After all, Coal Factory does not reduce Growth and Tourism from cities by 50% due to premature death they tend to achieve by existing, and ashes that ruin cities.

I would like to see the other way around:

• Converting Uranium into Power is a huge sacrifice already, because it means we will have less GDR / ICBMs: the bonuses of the Nuclear power plant should be way higher, maybe even "unbalanced" due to the opportunity cost.
• Switching to Nuclear power plant should be viewed as a "good" thing for Climate change like a green energy, and not the other way around.
• We should be able to turn off Factories in cities at any moment (the building is still there, maybe with some delay?), either as a way to combat Climate change or prevent disaster, without the need to wait the "Climate Accords" to show up in Congress.
• The silly project "Recommission Nuclear Reactor" should be transform into "Increase safety level" that prevent disaster from Sabotage (by increase defense level).
  
• A Spy that is saboting a Industrial Zone with a Nuclear power plant may provoke a nuclear disaster. The intensity of that disaster depends on the level of the Spy, the defense level of the Industrial Zone, if the Nuclear power plant was turned on / how much Uranium it is using per turn, and mostly: if the power plant is already pillage.

 

[JJOne]

A Spy that is saboting a Industrial Zone with a Nuclear power plant may provoke a nuclear disaster. The intensity of that disaster depends on the level of the Spy, the defense level of the Industrial Zone, if the Nuclear power plant was turned on / how much Uranium it is using per turn, and mostly: if the power plant is already pillage.

No one builds neighbourhoods because of that great spy mechanic. Let's add a worse spy mechanic for the IZ, yay.

 

[LoneRebel]

I dunno, I build lots of neighborhoods, and assign my highly-promoted spies to defend them. I kill and capture lots of enemy agents that way.

 

[Aurelesk]

No one builds Neighborhoods because the downside outweigths the bonuses:

• There is no such Housing crisis to the point of needing a Neighborhoods.
• Even if there is a Housing crisis, it start at ~15/20 Population. Growing Population over 10 Populations is not that rewarded, and even less after 19/22.
• Even if you want the Housing, you have to find a high Appeal tiles. Those tiles are already highly coveted: natural wonders (good tiles, holy site, national park), moutains (campus, holy site, national park), coast (seaside resort), woods (situational (old-growth) or late (second-growth), rivers (city-center, commercial hub, often face negative modifier from floodplains), meaning the odd of finding a remaining high Appeal tiles is quite low (except Eiffel tower). There is an opportunity in some way.
• The point of having high Population is to have a lot of Districts and tiles improvement. Taking the risk of facing a never-ending rebellious barbarian horde, ready to pillage everything is counter-intuitive.

If the Nuclear power plant have to face the same kind of "downside", the bonuses should be up to the risk. That is why the Nuclear power plants should be "unbalanced". If they are just a little better than the Coal power plants, this can't work (as the Neighborhoods).
But it also need some control from the player: increasing the safety level (basicly: wasting production to prevent nuclear disaster) or being able to shut down the power plant at any moment (like a on/off switch, not througth decommission or changing to other kind of power plant).
(Huge) Nuclear disaster should only appear when the Power plant is vulnerable like it has already faced a spy attack, the city didn't do the "increase safety level" project, and the Power plant is "on" on the on/off switch.

The Nuclear power plant should be those overpowered building that attract other players to do everything to prevent you from using them, while you do everything from keep them from harm. Reciporcally, you want other civilizations to not have Nuclear power and go pillage / sabotage them as quickly as possible to prevent them to enjoy the good bonuses. Well, high reward with high risk.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The thing is I need power, and actually I don't care about which power plant the power comes from, I also don't care a lot about the yield of the power plant.

A coal plant may provide 10 production, but its oil and nuclear counterparts definitely yield much more than that. However all I need is power, and coal plant comes first.

 

[hhhhhh]

The thing is I need power, and actually I don't care about which power plant the power comes from, I also don't care a lot about the yield of the power plant.

A coal plant may provide 10 production, but its oil and nuclear counterparts definitely yield much more than that. However all I need is power, and coal plant comes first.

Good point. That's another problem of Civ VI - once you are a bit good then power is the last interesting mechanism in the game.

 

[Tarry]

Coal all the way. until hydroelectric dam's

Oil needed for a modern military.
Uranium needed for GDR and nukes.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Sometimes there's not enough coal but too much oil. Rare, but can happen. Also 1 oil plant can further give production to other cities if you want to run the Vertical Integration meme. it's a meme though. Maybe you could build Casa.

Nuclear Power is of course, as always, maligned unfairly in the game, but usually I don't really use nukes anyways.

Power is not relevant outside of Science Victories, so you're just not going to see it much.

Also a thing for Diplo victories, because pollution penalties are often just as brutal as almost wiping another civ out. Figures.

But is this a problem? I mean coal being the cheap and efficient option is certainly not something imagined.

 

[8housesofelixir]

But is this a problem? I mean coal being the cheap and efficient option is certainly not something imagined.

Coal as a cheap and efficient source of electricity generation is true for the 20th century or contemporary counties with a rich coal deposit (e.g. China and Poland).
(On the other hand, oil isn't a major source of electricity generation IRL anyway, therefore a weak oil power plant is reasonable.)

But as of now, at least in major industrialized countries (G8), coal is being gradually replaced by a fossil fuel that doesn't exist in this game - natural gas. Which is a much cheaper and more efficient fuel than coal in terms of electricity production.

 

[Sostratus]

Which is a much cheaper and more efficient fuel than coal in terms of electricity production

I like to think that Oil Power Plant represents natural gas generation. It's not super perfect, but NG is quite plentiful in many oil deposits. Anyways, I really think oil plants should give 6 or 8 power per resource as a balancing mechanism. Either I disregard Co2 and acquire hammers -> All hail King Coal; Or I have let Kupe soften my heart and don't want Co2, so i really want renewables + nuke. There's no middle ground where i actually want to go to oil for the environment. And nuke should be co2 free and not have the recommission project -. It doesn't make game mechanical sense that an environmentally conscious player simply cannot use the power plant in any form! Caring about reactor age is needless tedium.
I am not going to touch the realism of pollution+nuclear power because last time people did not behave and the whole thread got cleaved in two by a moderator. I just think mechanically, the plants could do with some simplification and converge a little.

 

[Galvatron]

The project to renew the nuclear power plant takes production away again. Let's say there are 5 cities nearby so you get 5*4=20 production each turn. The projects base cost (according to wiki) is 400. So it takes 20 turns for you to gain the net worth of this project in this example. I usually renew the reactor every 15 turns which means I get 300 production in this time. So in fact this thing is COSTING me production instead of adding some. If I need the science I can just build a coal power plant and run the campus project instead.
Also as many already mentioned the oil or uranium is better used for military.

What if every time you run the project the project got cheaper and the chance of accident decreased? So there's still a cost to getting nuclear energy, but you can chose how risky you want it to be, and over time it becomes efficient.

But is this a problem? I mean coal being the cheap and efficient option is certainly not something imagined.

It's not efficient and it's only cheap for the first bit of modern society. Coal is FIRST, and is not needed for vehicles. Not to mention it terraforms your city into hell

 

[Victoria]

It all depends on the game you are playing.
Fast games, coal
Longer games Oil - I really have no issue at this stage of the game buying a settler to settle on ice if need be.
V long games it’s either sink your opponents of spend too much time looking after stupid nuke plants. The long game is arduous enough and then they introduce nuking yourself because the AI doesn’t

as LL says, it’s all about power really, prod is just a fun different game if that floats your boat.
The game is (or should be) about the whole package, not just the size of your chimney.