[GS] GS, Resources & Power: how FXS almost got it right

On power = amenities.
My assumption was that since discontent about living standards is almost universally conveyed by amenities in VI, that gating modern+ amenities with power would be the way to go. I mean you could even add power needs to neighborhoods if you really wanted to enforce the idea that major metropolises need electricity.

A couple points about power as it stands:
there does not seem to be a prioritization on power source. I built precisely one nuke plant and used 2x Tesla on it, and for a few turns my entire empire converted to the way of the atom. But then, inexplicably, it went back to purely coal. I couldn't get it to go back to nuke. Very frustrating. I would have thought they'd have set things so nuke>oil>coal, but maybe not. I suspect the distributor function just runs down your city list or something. This needs to be internally fixed so we have 3 lists (one for each power source) and they are allocated in order. Outside a warming context, I would say fuel value is uranium>oil>>coal in that those fuel resources are extremely valuable for the military late game while coal is more by the wayside.
Even if the plant isn't providing power to that city, if it has a strong enough aura it will overpower a local plant. (Unlike what the tooltip suggests about a local plant blocking all others.)
 
I think doing power via auras was a mistake. It’s too fiddly. It should have just been a power pool. To stop everyone just building one Powerplant, you’d have to have a max power generated by each plant.

I also don’t think coal and oil PPs need to have different effects. You just use whichever is more convenient (usually coal). But I do think Oil should be needed for things other than units and power, eg each city has a small oil requirement. Between petrol (cars and planes) and plastic, Oil is utterly essential for Everyday life.

One other random thought: why is there no natural gas? I guess that just gets lumped under oil?
 
For those of you who enjoy abusing the coal plant:
Spoiler :

upload_2019-2-22_18-23-54.png

There's an Aluminum under the +5 CH, hence the 11/11/10 hansas. That little straggler at 6? My shame! Funny enough, Hamburg has the panama canal going to a lake with a city serving as access to the ocean. Best port in Germany!

I mean just look at that coal plant in Aachen (with tesla 2x and magnus)
Spoiler :

upload_2019-2-22_19-19-24.png


It's not maximizing one city, but it is getting decent yields everywhere. 4 of those 5 coal plants are giving 20+ production! I also have 2 lesser triangles with more like ~8 yields average. Not bad.

But this is exactly why power plants need to be reconsidered. They are very one sided in favor of king coal.
 
Just noticed something re power improvements (solar panels, wind farms, etc).

If you build them in city A, but then swap the tile to city B, the power generated stays with city A.

Not sure if its a bug or intended, but makes managing power even more tedious IMO.
 
“Hey Gilgamesh? Have you got 20 iron?.... here is some gold”

Don't know what game you are playing where the AI improves its strategic resources.

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.28.42 PM.png

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.29.03 PM.png

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.29.49 PM.png

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.30.01 PM.png

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.30.31 PM.png


In my experience, there is like 1 civ who bothers to improve iron and they'll trade 7 for 500 gold.
 
Last edited:
In my experience, there is like 1 civ who bothered to improve iron and they'll trade 7 for 500 gold.
OK... well that’s not what I am seeing but yes they can take a while to mine a key resource. I’ll load a game tonight and have a look. (You could have just pasted the global resource screen, that tell a truth individual cities do not, your screenshots mean 0)
 
OK... well that’s not what I am seeing but yes they can take a while to mine a key resource. I’ll load a game tonight and have a look. (You could have just pasted the global resource screen, that tell a truth individual cities do not, your screenshots mean 0)

Oh yeah, forgot that thing existed.

I don't tend to have early saves but here is Standard Pangea(so I could meet the other civs), diety, 2 got iron and 1 got horses. Those with "1" traded for it, they don't actually have a node.

Spoiler :
Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 12.48.40 PM.png


Anyways, I found out how to do it in another thread, turns out you can just exploit the AI by trading 20 times for 1 iron/horse instead of 1 time for 20.
 
Yes, but that's late-game, eventually they do figure it out(well... sometimes).

You have a lot of people with niter assuming it's standard size, here is a huge map t160 where I'm just roleplaying with a bunch of alliances and not doing much(hopefully my first diety DiploV). Only 3 AIs have niter although I guess it's just because it's too early even for diety AI.

Also, with late-game stuff it's hard to know who actually has nodes or is just trading.

France and Sweden don't actually have horses(france put a farm on her horses, they love to do this), Sweden obviously didn't beeline refining(I traded her the oil), kongo, australia and egypt have no iron(australia has a node around melbourne but never improved it), Canada and USA don't have niter.

Spoiler :

Screen Shot 2019-02-23 at 1.37.23 PM.png

 
Last edited:
One thing that this power system has started to expose for me is the glaring decision to not allow players to sell buildings like in civ5. There's no way to undo or turn off those power consuming buildings.
Kind of gets you in a bind sometimes, especially since you can't always control what city gets power and for what buildings. (I'd rather turn off the stock exchange than the research lab, etc)
 
One thing that this power system has started to expose for me is the glaring decision to not allow players to sell buildings like in civ5. There's no way to undo or turn off those power consuming buildings.
Kind of gets you in a bind sometimes, especially since you can't always control what city gets power and for what buildings. (I'd rather turn off the stock exchange than the research lab, etc)
Next release we will be able to build a switch to do this but the cost will be scaled like dams.
 
For what it’s worth, this is how I would buff IZs and their buildings, along with England’s WotW:

...

Industrial Zone. Stays as is, but gets an additional +1 adjacency from Strategic Resources (so Horses give +1 and an Iron Mine gives +2, one for the iron and one for the mine). Hanza remains unchanged in terms of adjacencies, but now provides an additional +1 Great Merchant Points.

Workshop. Unchanged, save it provides +1 housing and all Camps provide +1 food.

Factory. Factory provides additional production equal to the IZs current adjacency, and an additional +4 production when powered. No aura effect. Japan’s electronics factory keeps its +4 culture but also provides +2 housing.

PowerPlants. Powerplants when powered all provide additional production as an aura effect. Coal plants provide +4 range 6 tiles, Oil provides +4 range 9 tiles, and Nuclear provides +6 range 9 tiles and +4 science in the City with the Nuclear Powerplant.

Tech Hub. New Tier 3 IZ building. Can’t be built in same city as a Power Plant. City benefits from overlapping aura bonuses. When powered, provides +2 science and +2 production and an additional +1 production for each district in this City (including City Centre and IZ). [That would be a backdoor buff for Neighbourhoods too.]

Military Engineers. Stay as they are, but can also build roads without spending charges (cost, 1 iron); Can rush Sea Walls; and Are required to build Offshore Oil Rigs or Windfarms (builders lose this ability). Forts also now provide +2 strategic resource capacity.

Okay... so after all that ...

Workshop of the World. Everything stays the same (eg iron and coal yields, ME bonuses) except for the power yield bonuses which are changed. Instead, England now gets an additional +4 production and +2 science from powered factories, but factories have increased CO2 emissions during the Renaissance and Industrial Eras. [I’d still want to buff RNDs a little too - see original thread].

I think Tier 3 buildings should have higher yields when powered, but should maybe also have some other bonuses. To my mind, I think the policy cards that buff these buildings should be much stronger and there should maybe be some additional cards too that let you use these buildings in more situational ways.

I’d particularly like to see cards which all Broadcast Centres to increase +% tourism and loyalty pressure (Soft Power), and another which makes Research Labs provide additional Great Scientist points and Diplomatic Favour (Open Access Research).

I’m not really sure how to make Power less optional. I think making cities have a power requirement or use oil could actually really hurt the current balance. Perhaps a partial solution could be requiring Space Ports to be powered. At least then Civs going for SVs would need power.

Sigh. The more I look at the power mechanics (and diplomacy mechanics) the more I feel - again - that FXS really haven’t done as much with these as they could have. It’s the same as with loyalty and governors / government plaza. Is that unfair?
 
Top Bottom