Empire Without Coal

[T-hawk]

Somebody stop me if I'm wrong, but late game in BTS, I recently noticed a strategy of intentionally keeping your empire coal-less. If I've added it up correctly, this is the entire list of benefits provided by coal:

1) powers Coal Plants
2) powers Ironworks
3) feeds Mining Inc
4) feeds Aluminum Co
5) enables Ironclads
6) enables Railroads (and Oil also does)

But the downside of coal in BTS is severe: +3 unhealthiness total from the factory and industrial park. (And I believe this does not disappear with the Recycling Center, because the unhealth is from the resource, not directly from the buildings.)

So in the later game, once you have clean power (Three Gorges Dam and nuclear plants), and access to oil and aluminum, why not renounce coal entirely? Powering Ironworks is a minor detail, and Ironclads are useless. The only significant use of coal is to feed either of two corporations, and they might not even be in play at all if you missed founding them or are using State Property or using CreateCon instead.

So why not just say no to coal entirely? Build something else on the tile, or trade them all away?

 

[DaveMcW]

So in the later game, once you have clean power (Three Gorges Dam and nuclear plants), and access to oil and aluminum, why not renounce coal entirely?

Because you are too busy building the spaceship.

 

[batavier]

Unhealth is overrated. The production boost that you get from coal plants and railroads while waiting for oil and hydro plants is much bigger than losing 1 or even 2 pop from unhealth. It's 3 for the pop to go down by 1.

 

[Mizar]

You have a valid point for the state property case, once you have oil, there is little need for coal.
Regarding the other case, whenever I run corps, I almost always run the sushi/mining combo, so multiple coal ressources are superior to 3

 

[Joshua368]

Aside from mining inc, where the reason to keep it is obvious, I still wouldn't disconnect my coal. The 50% ironworks bonus (usually in an insanely powerful city) is worth more than the little unhealthiness problems which become a non-issue anyway if you build all the modern health buildings.

 

[Skallagrimson]

This is a key reason why I'm very selective about chopping. Those extra trees in the late game allow 1, 2, or sometimes 3 extra pop (working railroaded lumbermills, which is 5 hammers each on river plains, with levee, IIRC) even with coal hooked up. So then you get the IW bonus without the destruction to all the other cities.

I tend to stay a little more tech and points backward early on due to less chopping, but it pays off big time in the industrial/modern/future eras. Internet? BING. Got it. And so on...