Factories / Power Plants

[CivMcNut]

I was playing the game last night and got to thinking, are these factories and power plants that the computer recommends so much really the right thing to be building? It seems that they are certainly something you'd want in a wonder building town, but what about those smaller towns? Seems like industrialism comes so late in the game, that by the time you've got a factory up in some towns, the game is over. Does anyone have some guidelides for where the best spots for factories are or how many hammers per turn kind of town gets a factory.

A lot of it is a pollution thing, putting all this extra unhealthiness in some towns often means you turn around and build some sort of health building right after that, by all this time you could have built like 4 troops or be halfway done with a national wonder right then. Is it worth it to get the +25% increase in production.

What about power plants? Once you get a factory, is it folly not to go ahead and get the coal power plant? What about waiting till plastics and throw up a hyrdo plant? Or Fission and Nuclear even.

I'm guessing that a lot of this depends on the type of win you're going for and how close you are to getting it.

 

[daniel smith]

Well, it also depends on the speed of your game, playing normal will lead to quicker games where you don't have time to build some of the stuff you would on epic and marathon.

 

[Nobikaigan]

Well, it also depends on the speed of your game, playing normal will lead to quicker games where you don't have time to build some of the stuff you would on epic and marathon.

I may be totally off, I usually only play normal speed, but isn't the build times of the different speeds done proportionally to the years, so in essence builds are the same in every speed? So under the exact same conditions, with the exception of game speed, a granary built in quick vs. one built in epic will still finish the same year, just the amount of turns needed will be different.

 

[Gooblah]

Technically, yes. The problem is that the extended timeline in Epic/Marathon results in longer (or shorter) wars, and getting a production spurt through Factories and Power Plants (since you can sometimes get to Industrialism in the 1400s due to the long speeds, especially with planned economic strategy) could make or break a game. If a Tank takes 5 turns to build in Quick, it could take 20 turns to build in Marathon. If you can build that Marathon Tank in the same 5 turns, you have a massive advantage over the opposition.

 

[lilnev]

The dilemma is usually whether to build factories and coal plants right away, or build infantry first to take advantage of the window of opportunity you have against riflemen. I usually choose factories, and rely on drafting and/or upgrades to support a war. I generally play for late-game domination, and Mining Inc is a very large part of that. In those circumstances, every single city will be producing enough hammers to make factories worth it. Even if you're playing for space, you'll probably be bringing in enough hammers from towns under US to make it worth it in most cities (they'll end up building casings and thrusters), though maybe not as universally as for domination. And once you've built the factory, build the coal plant right away, only possibly inserting a health building in between. Don't wait for Plastics or Fission. Sometimes I'll get to Plastics and build the 3 Gorges as a sort of Hanging Gardens: +2 health in all cities on the continent.

peace,
lilnev