[NFP] Coal vs Oil vs Nuclear

[JasTiger]

I couldnt find this dicussed elsewhere so I wanted to make sure I wasnt crazy.


So the coal power plant offers production equal to its adjacency bonus, which is how you can get to crazy high production out of a well placed industrial zone using dams, aquaducts, and so on. Throw on the craftsman civic and youre rolling in production.

But then I look at the oil power plant and that isnt listed. It says it grants additional efficiency and lower pollution, but gone is the adjacency bonus listing from coal. Nuclear. Same thing, it just says it grants as much is needed, but doesnt provide adjacency bonus as extra production.


So am I right in noting that if I transition a coal power plant to oil, i get a higher base yield from it and more efficiency, but actually LOSE overall production since I dont double a substantial adjacency bonus? So i would be foolish to convert to oil or uranium since I actually get WAY more production from coal?

Or is it built-in that all the new plants get the bonuses of the other? It isnt clear and so far I never convert to oil out of fear of losing production.

 

[The Highwayman]

Oil power plants give +3 production as a regional bonus, so if you have an IZ hitting 6/7 cities it could be better than a coal plant that only gives a bonus to the city where it's built. The nuclear plant gives +4 production and +3 science regionally. More importantly, it is far more efficient for production in science games (1 uranium = 16 power vs. 1 coal = 4 power), since you're not reliant on mass amounts of aluminum and can spam the Terrestrial Laser project with impunity, provided you have at least 1 source of uranium. Furthermore, the nuclear power plant almost negates carbon penalties in the late game, so you don't have the -diplo favor penalty and you can sell off the diplo for tons of cash.

Bottom line: each has their place dependent on available resources, city layout, and win con. If you have a +15/+30 w/ card IZ adjacency and wish to stack production in that city as high as it can go, it may be beneficial to stick with coal. If your adjacency is meh and the IZ hits many cities, then oil and nuclear are superior. For science victories, the nuclear plant is more efficient for power, which offsets the negatives of the Terrestrial project as described above.

 

[leandrombraz]

Oil/Nuclear is better if you're going for a regional strategy, building only enough IZs to cover every city with the regional effect. Coal is better if you're spamming IZs everywhere. Coal plants give more production, but you need to spend time spamming IZs and build a lot of redundant factories. Oil/Nuclear gives less production and it's unlocked later, but you won't need to spam IZs, just build some in a few cities that can still benefit from coal while you wait to unlock oil/nuclear. Nuclear power also gives Science. Which strategy is better depends on what you're trying to achieve and on the map. You might even end up going for a mix of both. In a Diplomatic Victory, you don't want to generate CO2, so you shouldn't build more than 2-3 coal plants, and you should replace it ASAP for oil/nuclear. In a scientific victory, you want 2-4 super productive cities, sticking with coal helps achieve that.

Or is it built-in that all the new plants get the bonuses of the other? It isnt clear and so far I never convert to oil out of fear of losing production.

You lose the coal bonuses when you upgrade. You're literally replacing the building for another, so it will be as if you never had a coal plant there. Power plants production also don't stack with each other, so if you build a coal plant in one city and a oil plant on another, the coal plant city won't get the regional effect of the oil plant, it will get the highest production coming from a power plant, which will be the coal plant production, assuming you have a decent adjacency.

 

[JasTiger]

Thanks for the answers.

It just seems strange to me that they dont stack. In most situations its better to have a city with 40+ production than a few with maybe +5. It seems way heavily slanted towards having the coal bonus in multiple places, unless your specifically going for diplo.

Even a science victory, its better to have the mega high coal production in the city than big power numbers, since you can just crank out the projects

 

[Caprikel]

I just stick to Coal since it's the most fun, I was never much of a fan of regional effects since their effects aren't as noticeable.

 

[leandrombraz]

You can mix coal with nuclear. You can build coal plants in your cities that will get a spaceport, and build IZ in some other cities, meant to get a nuclear plant later, in a way that you cover every city with the regional effect and in a way that every, or at least some nuclear plants reach a specific spaceport city. That city will get Magnus with Vertical Integration. This way your spaceport cities can benefit from the coal plant higher production output, you can put Pingala in one city and Magnus on another to boost production further, while you generate some extra science from nuclear plants. The remaining cities that won't get an IZ, since they're getting production from the nuclear plant's regional effect, can focus on building campuses.