Dams worth it?

[Disgustipated]

Your thoughts on dams? I mainly build them so I don't get annoyed having everything wiped out with a flood. In my Netherlands game I found them especially useful. Though I starting building a spaceport in a city that only had a couple of tiles that could flood thinking aww, it will be okay, it hasn't flooded all game. It wasn't okay, had a 1000 year flood followed 2 turns later by a moderate flood. Problem was my industrial zone was on the river. Had to put off spaceport and get a damn dam built first.

I'm actually starting an Egypt game. And dams seem really useless to them. I'm looking forward to playing Egypt however. Though I wonder if they will get increased fertility from flooding events, seems like they may not.

It seems to me dams prevent fertility bonuses from flooding events, is this correct? If you only plan on placing farms on rivers, is it just better to go without a dam? For the sake of discussion, we'll assume we don't care about clean energy options later (hydro electrics are pretty expensive anyways). Clean energy at the moment seems useless since the world will hit level 7 regardless.

 

[Sagax]

Seems like dams lower the fertility effects.

In my games, they are generally not worth the cost. But I had one particular river in one of my games that flooded and removed improvements so often, that I wanted to put a dam just out of annoyance.

Egypt needs no dams.

 

[Weraptor]

Dams are worth it early game it if you manage to get Armory for the Engineers to rush them in your productive city.

 

[iammaxhailme]

I usually build them once I start needing power. Rarely before

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I build them.

They provide housing at a time when there aren't many sources.

They can be rushed.

They keep districts and improvements from getting wrecked by floods and fertility loss due to drought (I had a couple of cities get the double-whammy before).

They provide power with their hydroelectric plant buildings. Not super useful, but sometimes I have a few power-consuming 3rd tier buildings that can benefit, particularly Broadcast Centers when going for a CV.

I kind of wish they had adjacency bonuses for City Parks, Farms, or gave +1 Appeal.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

I like dams but they take a long time to build. Being able to rush with military engineers is a big plus.

 

[Archon_Wing]

They're pretty good, but sometimes you do want floods for a while to build up those floodplains.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

What the heck, give them +production for water mills.

 

[Phoenix1595]

As Eagle mentioned, the hydro plants are useful if you want to power river cities without resorting to the riskier oil/coal/nuke route (barring dam-bursting spies). Also, dams just make life easier late game if your powerhouse cities just happen to straddle floodprone rivers. It is a pain stopping production on victory items just to restore buildings and districts wiped from a major flood.

I don’t mind dams, but I also enjoy the Egypt game without them too.

 

[Halcyan2]

I build them.

They provide housing at a time when there aren't many sources.

They can be rushed.

They keep districts and improvements from getting wrecked by floods and fertility loss due to drought (I had a couple of cities get the double-whammy before).

They provide power with their hydroelectric plant buildings. Not super useful, but sometimes I have a few power-consuming 3rd tier buildings that can benefit, particularly Broadcast Centers when going for a CV.

I kind of wish they had adjacency bonuses for City Parks, Farms, or gave +1 Appeal.

I agree on the value of the Housing.

Actually, Dams and Canals actually do improve appeal (at least according to the entry for Appeal).

 

[Brutus2]

Basically if you are able to place only farms on your floodplains, I would skip the dam because they reduce fertility and it's so easy to have a worker repair improvements (although sometimes they do get removed completely and then you have to spend a charge to rebuild something), unless you need the housing or power.

Some civilizations depend on them more like the Dutch or Hungary who need to place districts on rivers, for them a dam is vital (unless your river doesn't have floodplains of course) because repairing districts and buildings takes much more time. Egypt doesn't really need them at all unless you really need the extra housing or power.

 

[Sostratus]

Dams are wonderful.
+3 housing, and an Amenity!
No floods wiping away districts!
No drought problems! (Droughts can be brutal for civs like Inca, Aussie, etc, whose special improvements just get wiped out.)
6 power is huge. Lets say you don't care about the climate like a good little industrialist. Your real constraint on pushing out more research labs and broadcast towers is how much coal you have. Each city can charge 11 power (with some extra for stadiums.) That's almost a whole coal deposit per city. You'll never afford that without some hydro plants. Even if you only do 2 or 3 electric buildings per city, you can see that you don't have coal mines in half your cities.
I really like the Green districts. I wish we had an industrial era civ that had a focus on using and benefiting from them- it's fun!

The fertility thing is a dice roll mechanic, and dammed rivers get a 50% reduction in fertility bonuses. What step of the math that is applied to, or if that's real 50% or 50% like how spies have a 50% escape chance, I don't know.
I believe some people who had played Egypt said that they don't get reduced fertility - they are simply flood immune.

There is that pesky thing where one city near 2 flood zones can build 2 dams but can only build one hydro plant.

 

[gunnergoz]

I've had more than one 1000 year flood mitigated to nothing by having a dam upstream, so yeah, they work.

 

[Red_warning]

Since farms are the only improvement you can build on a flood tile it ain't that bad of a trade. They also give adjacency bonuses to districts.

 

[Elhoim]

Yes, they are good.

Also, you missed the opportunity to name the thread "worth a dam?"

 

[Pietato]

Basically if you are able to place only farms on your floodplains, I would skip the dam because they reduce fertility and it's so easy to have a worker repair improvements (although sometimes they do get removed completely and then you have to spend a charge to rebuild something), unless you need the housing or power.

Some civilizations depend on them more like the Dutch or Hungary who need to place districts on rivers, for them a dam is vital (unless your river doesn't have floodplains of course) because repairing districts and buildings takes much more time. Egypt doesn't really need them at all unless you really need the extra housing or power.

Agreed with this. Repairing districts is very costly.

 

[King of Prussia]

Short answer, yes.

housing is nice, as is the power. I don't find them that costly to build(plus rushing), and the hammers you save on repairing because of the floods pays off. With that said, i like letting the rivers flood for the first 1/3 or so of the game, so the yields on those tiles can be made better.

 

[kb27787]

If your city centers are on flood plains (sometimes unavoidable due to spacing) then I would build one in the city as upstream up the river as possible. Avoid putting any districts on flood plains--I remember a game where a single river gave me 3 1000-year floods and some minor ones to boot. (but then again I've had games where I was WAITING for the river to flood as Egypt and it never ever flooded).

1000-year floods WILL break your districts and all the buildings inside them... as well as reduce pop by quite a bit if your city center is on flood plains. I'd say build them if you have a lot to lose. Hungary in particular needs to build them because a lot of the time to get the 50% production boost you are forced onto flood plains--unfortunately the 50% boost does not work when constructing dams (Firaxis probably needs to fix this, since dams should also be districts).

 

[UWHabs]

I haven't played a ton of games, but if I have districts on the floodplain I like to have dams. If it's just farms, then I prefer the fertility and occasional need to repair.

 

[Disgustipated]

I believe some people who had played Egypt said that they don't get reduced fertility - they are simply flood immune

Yes I appear to be getting fertility bonuses as Egypt. I'm quite enjoying the way Egypt plays with gathering storm. I was initially annoyed by starts with other civs too close, and massive forward settling by the Mapuche, then I figured I'd make use of the chariot archer. Their uu is better than I remember, takes only 2 techs to research, is boosted by agoge, and has a range of 2. Quite devastating to Alexander who surprised war on me, Scotland who forward settled Alexander who would have gave me massive loyalty problems, and finally the forward settling Mapuche who I purposely avoided building the Sphinx so I wouldn't get a classical golden age for. 3 civs wiped out by the end of the classical era. I let the Ottomans live so I have someone to trade with on my continent, he's friendly, but won't do declaration of friendship. First time in GS I've done the aggressive first 2 eras and peaceful after that. Makes things a bit easy. Hard to stop warmongering once you start. Massive barbarian spawns are annoying but the chariot archer made that fairly trivial, then fog bust with scouts/warriors.

As for dams, I may build them later for power. I didn't realize their housing bonus is 3, is that correct? Are people sleeping in the dam?