Lacking Coal? What to do? Strategic resources in the endgame.

[krikav]

I recently played a game where I did the usual thing and went for assembly line, built factores and started to build coal plants.
It wasn't until I had built about 6 coal plants that I realized that "Oh, I don't have coal!"


What do you do, when you realize that you are lacking coal? Do you think assembly line is worth it just for infantry? Unpowered factories feel like a complete waste.
I can't remember any time I have gotten to late game without coal, usually you have conquered so much land that the odds for not having coal is basically 0%.

Is there some alternative teching path that involves fission instead to power factores that way? Perhaps ignoring the combustion line too, since you can power some ships with uranium instead?
Reaching for plastics and hydroplants is too greedy since it's soo expensive.

Is there some other common path where you simply postpone assembly line for longer instead?

 

[Bibor]

Well I don’t know what your win condition is, but if its late conquest you’d want nukes anyway, right? And if you go space, you need plastics anyway as it (also) unlocks a bunch of techs.

 

[Pedro78]

If you don't have coal, you can usually trade for it or capture it. In the extremely rare case where you can't have access to any coal, you can still break out with Artillery + something, given that you have a large enough empire. Kremlin whips are especially powerful and allow to skip factories most of the time. If you plan to go for space, then you can go for Fission / Plastics, and might even have the occasion to build the Three Gorges Dam (which otherwise never happens).