Hydro Plant vs. Solar Plant

[scooch74]

I'm hoping you more established Civ players can help me better understand which plant to build. As I understand it, both add 50% to your factory output and each replaces any other plant you may have built. So the Hydro Plant and Solar Plant are redundant, correct? Meaning I would only have to build one or the other because neither would be cumulative with the other. Is my logic correct on all this? Neither produces pollution so I see no advantage to one over the other. If all my thinking is correct then building the Hoover Dam is the way to go and forego the Solar Plant altogether while waiting to build Nuclear Plants and Manufacturing Plants. So am I correct or have I missed something?

 

[Bamspeedy]

Yes, you are correct.

Solar Plant
Hydro Plant
Coal Plant
All of these produce the same and end up replacing each other, so only one of them is needed. Coal produces pollution, hydro needs fresh water, and solar has no requirements. So if you get Hoover's, you don't have to worry about any of these for the continent that hoover's is on. Islands and other continents, then you would want to build either hydro or solar since they don't produce pollution like coal does.

Nuclear plant would replace the above 3 plants. It requires fresh water, but produces more shields.

Manufacturing plant does not replace the other plants and can be used in combination with 1 of the other plants.

 

[Globetrotter]

Basically, the Hydro with cities next to a river, as mentioned by Bamspeedy, and they produce no pollution.

You can start with Coal Plants, provided you have Coal, especially if you discovered Industrialization before Electronics, and keeping in mind that Solar Plants come later, in the Modern Ages.

Then progressively replace the Coal Plants by Hydros where applicable, and later replace all remaining Coal Plants with Solar Plants (no pollution) / or Nuclear...

 

[Sim_One]

Solar Plants are pretty useless. If you can't build a Hydro Plant, just build a Coal Plant. A Solar Plant costs 320 shields, while a Coal Plant only costs 160 shields AND becomes available MUCH earlier in the game. Who cares about the negligible extra pollution when your cities are over size 20? If you build Recycling Plants, then Solar Plants are COMPLETELY useless.

 

[Turner]

Originally posted by Globetrotter
Basically, the Hydro with cities next to a river...

It should be noted that any freshwater access within the city squares is enough for a hydro plant. In the past, I've had cities that were seperated by one square with a lake, or for some reason I didn't build right next to the river (to maximize city square production) and was still able to build the Hydro plant.

 

[MTheil3508]

The fresh water just has to be in the cities radius, not adjacent to the city itself to build the Hydro or Nuclear Plant.

 

[Globetrotter]

Yep, fresh water should be in the 21 working tiles.

To Sim_One: i agree regarding the coal factory + pollution issue, but some guys out there just love ecological awareness

One thing i did not test: if you don't have coal anymore, will the available Coal factories still work?

 

[Gen]

Globetrotter: I suppose they will. Coal is needed only when plant construction begins. It's the same way with units: if you lost or trade last rubber source it doesn't suddenly turn all your infantry into riflemen. Additionally, production of already ordered infantry proceeds as usual.

 

[Globetrotter]

I noticed regarding the production already ordered, as several times it happened that i lost iron or rubber, etc.
I know it sounds funny, but i never lost coal to notice the effect on Coal Plants

Thx for the tip Gen