hoover dam

[medgen]

I usually end up getting the wonder hoover dam, but i refuse to build factories in my cities because I can't deal with the pollution. With hoover dam, i get hydro plants in my cities but does this do anything if i don't have any factories? Am I just waisting my time with this wonder?
How do you guys deal with factories?

 

[Zouave]

Pollution?? DEAL with it. If you don't, everyone else will quickly outproduce you by a mile.

 

[muppet]

Hoover Dam places Hydro Plants in all your cities on that continent. Hydro Plants are shown in the .bic file as having a prerequisite building -- factory? So, I think we can safely assume you are out of luck.

Pollution from a factory will only add 2 points to your city's pollution output. Which I think means only 2% per turn per city of having that silly orange thing show up. If anything, population at 1 pollution point per pop over 12, is worse. I would prefer to generate my production via a factory rather than overblowing my population.

 

[davidttm]

This one puzzles me too.

Once I've built Hoover Dam, Hydro Plants are shown in all my cities on that continent; even cities away from rivers (which the civilopedia seems to say can't have Hydro Plants).

I have assumed that they give a production boost to all those cities, but I haven't checked to be sure. It usually comes along at a time when production is already good in cities near the capital.

It would be nice to hear whether others consider Hoover Dam a must have or a who cares.

 

[Switch625]

Originally posted by davidttm
This one puzzles me too.

Once I've built Hoover Dam, Hydro Plants are shown in all my cities on that continent; even cities away from rivers (which the civilopedia seems to say can't have Hydro Plants).

I have assumed that they give a production boost to all those cities, but I haven't checked to be sure. It usually comes along at a time when production is already good in cities near the capital.

It would be nice to hear whether others consider Hoover Dam a must have or a who cares.

Hoover Dam is a must-have, in my book. HOWEVER, you must build factories to take advantage of the production boost. If you don't, then those "free" hydro plants sit around doing nothing.

I suppose it's all about whether you are happy with "good" production in your cities, or would rather have "great" production in your cities.

 

[Mr Spice]

High production is a neccesity. I always build factories in all my cities. Pollution from production is not that bad, you only need to have a few workers standing by to clean it up. A little inconveniant, but no biggie.

Pollution from population on the other hand is a nightmare. It increases very fast and before you now it every single one of your workers are busy cleaning up pollution. Then global warming kicks in and your tiles start changing to less productive terrain. To avoid this I build hospitals in only one city or two before I get ecology.

 

[Mozenwrath]

I always switch basically every city to factory when i can. I love to be able to build a battleship in 3 turns! However, i NEVER EVER build coal plants under any circumstances. It's just an unnecessary waste of worker time. I usually build the Hoover Dam or if im beaten to it i get nuclear plants. As for population pollution. I build loads of workers for the rail system when i get it and keep them around until pollution arrives. With around 14 workers, an average empire will have no pollution worries whatever in my experience.

 

[davidttm]

Originally posted by Switch625
Hoover Dam is a must-have, in my book. HOWEVER, you must build factories to take advantage of the production boost.

But in a city with a factory and NO river does the free hydro plant have any effect?

 

[Mr Spice]

Yes, that´s the whole point of the wonder. You get a free hydro plant in every city on the continent, including the ones where you otherwise can´t build hydro plants.

 

[davidttm]

Originally posted by Mr Spice
Yes, that´s the whole point of the wonder. You get a free hydro plant in every city on the continent, including the ones where you otherwise can´t build hydro plants.

Thanks.

 

[praestare]

Actually the cities without access to river or sea can't build hydro plant, even with Hoover Dam. Those cities don't get the free hydro plant as other cities. For those cities, I usually go for Solar plant, much more expensive though.

 

[HellboundHeathcliff]

Originally posted by praestare
Actually the cities without access to river or sea can't build hydro plant, even with Hoover Dam. Those cities don't get the free hydro plant as other cities. For those cities, I usually go for Solar plant, much more expensive though.

*Every* city on the same continent as the hoover dam gets a hydro plant, even if they can't normally build one.

 

[praestare]

Well, I did some experiment, and found out that I made a mistake. All the cities on the same continent get the free Hydro plant, though
the hydro plant won't appear on the aerial views of the cities that can't normally build it.

 

[sealman]

Does the Hoover Damn replace any Nuclear Plants that you have in continental cities?

 

[Jimcat]

The hydro plants appearing in the city display are kind of misleading. Actually, the Hoover Dam is one BIG hydro plant that provides its benefits to every city on the continent. But the easiest way to show this in terms of game mechanics is to show a hydro plant in every city.

Good question about the nuclear plants though. I've often wondered how building a nuke plant would affect your productivity when you already have the Hoover Dam.

 

[praestare]

Nuclear plant should replace the Hydro plant and increase the factory output by 150%. This is my understanding.

 

[Ordep]

1) Polution is no big deal if you have a bunch of extra workers automated and lots of railroads. Any polution I generate gets cleaned up that turn.

2) If you don't build factories because of polution, you're missing out. War or peace, having a group of core cities that give you 70+ production is a big plus.

3) If I don't have any GLs sitting around I'll build a few coal plants for wonder building purposes (including the Hoover Dam). After you build the HD, the coal plants in those cities DON'T go away and continue to cost money and generate polution, but give you no shield boost. Be sure to go around and sell them yourself.

4) As noted before, it doesn't matter if a city is on a river or ocean or anything, HD gives it the production boost of a hydroelectric dam.

I think that's it for now.

 

[Shaitan]

This is interesting. Production increases from improvements all use the same field of the editor. This field increases production in the city in 25% increments. Normally, a plant cannot be built without a factory because the factory is a prerequisite of all plants. If you build a factory and plant you can later sell off the factory independently of the plant. Other improvements that have dependencies will still function when their "parent" is removed from the city (temple/cathedral, for example). With the Hoover Dam wonder, a plant is put into every city. There is nothing in the bic file that would prevent the plant from increasing production immediately, without a factory.

Could someone verify this hypothesis? I believe that as long as a plant is in a city it functions, regardless of whether there is a factory or not. I'll check on this tonight, if nobody else does first.

 

[planetfall]

Just to give you all an idea of the effectiveness of Hoover. I am playing {warlord} and it is only me and the French left. Before hoover, production was about 3400. After hoover, production is about 3850. { I don't have the exact numbers with me. but the boast was significant.} Almost all cities already had factories, but no power plants until hoover.

I plan to replace hydro with nuclear power when available, but on a city by city basis. Hoover is the greatest increase in productivity I have ever seen. {Well maybe some ironworks would be better, but that is hard to get.}

 

[muppet]

Originally posted by Shaitan
[BCould someone verify this hypothesis? I believe that as long as a plant is in a city it functions, regardless of whether there is a factory or not. I'll check on this tonight, if nobody else does first. [/B]

Thank you for your contribution to the community. I would add to this, but have no saved games in this era. There is coding the prevents the sale or destruction of aquaducts after a city reaches size 7 - this prevents a possible sale of aquaducts exploit, maybe they didn't consider a possible no-factory exploit. Do post your results. If such an exploit exists you might consider submitting it to the 'bugs' list.

Planetfall:
Hover only increased emprire-wide production from 3,400 to 3,850 for you? That's only a 13% increase from the base. Are a number of your cities not on the same continent, are you suffering from lots of corruption?