Does anyone build nuclear power plants?

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Nov 14, 2006
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These things are so frustrating. It seems like they have sucked in every single civ game all the way back to civ2. And yes, I admit I forgot to do maintenance on it and it blew up. I even renamed the name of the city to Nukeville in hopes I would remember to do the maintenance, but I still forgot. These wouldn't be so bad if the bonuses made them the far superior option, but I still feel like coal plants are better in every way. The only reason I built one to begin with is for the Eureka.

On a side note, does anyone build anything other than coal plants? I find myself building them in nearly every instance aside from the 2 Eurekas for oil and nuclear.
 
Only if I'm bored otherwise I never bother. I'll build oil plants if I don't have a lot of coal but a lot of oil and there isn't an easy war target to get extra coal from. Oil plants are fine if you are only after power because you don't need every industrial zone to have a coal power plant.
 
I usually go for oil plants as they give production bonuses to surrounding cities. Nuclear plants are indeed too much of a hassle. And I rarely have more than one source of uranium anyway.
 
Nuclear power plants definitely need a buff, especially given how superior they are to other plant IRL.
 
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These things are so frustrating. It seems like they have sucked in every single civ game all the way back to civ2. And yes, I admit I forgot to do maintenance on it and it blew up. I even renamed the name of the city to Nukeville in hopes I would remember to do the maintenance, but I still forgot. These wouldn't be so bad if the bonuses made them the far superior option, but I still feel like coal plants are better in every way. The only reason I built one to begin with is for the Eureka.

On a side note, does anyone build anything other than coal plants? I find myself building them in nearly every instance aside from the 2 Eurekas for oil and nuclear.
I haven't built a nuclear power plant in years. If only there was some sort of reminder that said "The Nuclear Power Plant in [city] is [X] years old. You should think of fixing it before there is a meltdown" then I'd build them all the time. Or maybe just a simple red "!" next to the yellow lightning bolt indicating your city is powered. But as it is, you have to routinely click on each of your cities, scroll down to the Projects section, and hover over the project in the list to see how old it is. I don't handle those types of memory reliant tasks very well, so it's very tedious and micromanagy to have to check them on every turn.

As for oil power plants, I find I always have more important uses for my meager oil resources. After unit upgrades, I rarely have any left over. In fact, quite often I don't have enough to do all the unit upgrades either.

So lately, it's been coal plants all the way and let the world drown (unless they're banned in the World Council, at which point I'll just wait it out).
 
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I've always preferred the 'environmental correctness' (and greater power) of nuclear plants, and it is very rare that I delay maintenance too long. I don't need those GDRs at Prince -- they're too ugly et cetera.
 
I build them if I'm a pursuing a science victory. If I'm not pursuing a science victory, I rarely make it that far anyway.
 
My go-to is coal. I tend to have lots of coal and little to use it with. Oil I generally reserve for armies. Even if I'm peaceful, it's useful to have that supply in case a war happens.

Nuclear...rarely. I normally want the Uranium for GDRs (either to destroy others or if I want to rush a defence or to just mop up other civs), but if I have an abnormally higher number of sources I might build a couple...the remembering to recommission them is a problem though.
 
Since I tend to go for high adjacency, I usually go heavy on coal plants. 12 production in one city > 15 production spread around 5 cities.

But yeah, also given that oil is way more valuable for units, I'd rather power my empire with coal if I can. I do sometimes switch to Nuclear later in the game once my empire's power needs get a little more critical, but more often than not, I don't have more than 1 or 2 sources of Uranium nearby, so I can't even reliably get nuclear power online.
 
Apropos of which, I think it's ridiculous that infantry needs oil. Mechanized infantry, yes.

(I also don't like that chemistry lets you build anti-tank guns, long before tanks have been invented lol)
 
How long can you go (how many turns) with a nuclear power plant before meltdown? I do build them occasionally and then seem to do nothing but those nuclear recycling projects to refresh the plant....
 
How long can you go (how many turns) with a nuclear power plant before meltdown? I do build them occasionally and then seem to do nothing but those nuclear recycling projects to refresh the plant....
The chance of an accident increases every 10 turns with the severity of the accident increasing every 10 turns as well. You could, in theory, never recommission the plant and never have an accident from my understanding.
 
the way i play, by the time i get nuclear power plants ive already got a few cities well enough developed that i can afford to build nuclear plants in em and use the queue to schedule a recommissioning every 10-15 turns, interspersed with other district projects while i coast to victory. that being said i usually only go for either science or culture wins, and in culture games i dont tend to get to that tech before winning
i usually dont build power plants until i get nuclear ones cos i dont wanna bother switching them later and never need the earlier production since i only play singleplayer games on prince difficulty
 
I never build them, I think they are a terrible building. The building costs by itself 480 and the recommissioning project costs 400. Let's assume that the project is completed by turn 15, since after 10 turns you can have an accident. Let's say the regional area affects 6 cities, it makes a total of 24 production per turn and 18 science per turn.
In 15 turns, you would get 360 production and 270 science. For the sake of simplicity, it makes a combined yield of 630 since according to the specialists yields, 1 production is equal 1 science.
At this pace of recommissioning, the nuclear power plant still hasn't reached break even point after 30 turns. An Oil power plant would have by turn 20 and will always have a higher yield.
The nuclear power plant actual yield is diminished by the recommissioning project. By taking the same period of 15 turns, and subtracting its average to the nuclear power plant production and science, it makes 8.8 production and 6.5 science per turn. You can also just subtract the project average only to the production, and you will get an average yield per turn of -2.6 production and +18 science.
Also, this scenario isn't even risk-free since there are 5 turns where an accident can happen. I don't know the probabilities of accidents, but they are probably costly, and if taken into account, would bring the average yield even lower.
 
I build them for amusement. Electricity isn't normally an issue at all unless I'm going for Science and the game is close.
 
I build Nuclear Power, but I have modded out the stupid "doubles adjacency bonus" (or whatever it was it did) of the Coal Power plant, so I guess that doesn't count.
 
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