coal needed for operation of factories?

[Gori the Grey]

If I build a factory with coal that I've traded for, does it continue to operate at full effectiveness once I've lost the coal? Or like a unit that loses its resource, does it contribute less to the production of its city once I no longer have coal?

 

[vexing]

you can run the factory with negative coal. being in negative strategics only provides a combat penalty to units that use them

 

[w a i n y]

you can run the factory with negative coal. being in negative strategics only provides a combat penalty to units that use them

Oh noes! My ironclads no longer run properly

 

[wcbarney]

you can run the factory with negative coal. being in negative strategics only provides a combat penalty to units that use them

Oh noes! My ironclads no longer run properly

Yeah, right. Anyone who would waste time & energy building ironclads deserves to have them not run properly, don't they????

 

[Waywocket]

Yeah, right. Anyone who would waste time & energy building ironclads deserves to have them not run properly, don't they????

I've never even seen the AI build an ironclad. I think the only way to get the Turtle Power achievement may be in a hotseat game against myself - assuming achiements even work there.

 

[joncnunn]

I've never seen the AI build an Iron Clad either.

Iron Clad's are really niche; the one purpose I can see for them in Civ V is if you had a critical resource you could park one on it and not have to worry about it. (AI controlled Frigates really having no chance to dislodge a human controlled Iron Clad.)

 

[Nightshades]

You can upgrade Iron Clads to Battleships you know.
They are good on archipelago maps where you usually don't have to cross over oceans - you just cruise along the coast, from island to island. And once you get the tech to build Battleships, you upgrade all your experienced Iron clads into experienced Battleships.

They are not "great". But they are not crap either.

 

[surb]

I got "Turtle Power" by gifting an Ironclad to a nearby city-state and then declaring war on it

 

[Johan de Witt]

I've never seen the AI build an Iron Clad either.

Iron Clad's are really niche; the one purpose I can see for them in Civ V is if you had a critical resource you could park one on it and not have to worry about it. (AI controlled Frigates really having no chance to dislodge a human controlled Iron Clad.)

In my last game this weekend, Rome built no less than four Ironclads. I destroyed them all with fighters...

 

[Waywocket]

I got "Turtle Power" by gifting an Ironclad to a nearby city-state and then declaring war on it

Heh, good idea. Sounds like the way to go.

 

[Lokos451]

Yeah, right. Anyone who would waste time & energy building ironclads deserves to have them not run properly, don't they????

They're not TOTALLY useless, just very niche. I agree with Joncnunn there. In Civ4 I would tend to use them to keep important coastal cities from getting blockaded, sort of like a garrison for fishing boat investment. They'd be very good for the same in this game if the AI used naval power more effectively, and perhaps someday they even will!

 

[wcbarney]

I got "Turtle Power" by gifting an Ironclad to a nearby city-state and then declaring war on it

Thanks for this tip! After reading it I quickly built an ironclad just under the wire before they became obsolete; I still had 3 old Turtle veterans kicking around from the earliest days. And so -- when within a few turns of a (take your pick) cultural, science, or diplo win -- I gave the ironclad to my oldest CS ally (one of only two that I could actually reach with my turtles). I then declared war on my CS friend, took out his new ironclad with one shot from each of the turtles, got the turtle achievement, made peace, became allied again, and won about 3 turns later.