Nuclear Power Plant Question

[Protozoan]

Has anyone ever had a nuclear meltdown in a game? Just curious. I've never experienced this. What are the odds?

 

[Griff72]

Yup, got one the first time I built a nuclear plant - never happened since in about ten full games (but I tend not to build them much after that...)

 

[Scoottr]

Get them quite often actually. Build more of them and the occurance increases disportionaltly too from what I understand.

 

[Protozoan]

What happens then? Is it like what would happen if you got nuked in that city?

 

[Revenant]

It's funny I've never ever actually built a nuclear power plant. In Civ 1, 2, 3 or 4! I always think that the extra pollution/unhealthiness caused by alternative power plants is more acceptable than even a slim chance of a catastrophic meltdown.

 

[Disgustipated]

I do build them in civ4, as far as I can remember, I never got one. But i may have got one way back when civ4 first came out, and just don't remember.

In civ3 I used to always get one, no matter what. So I got in the habit of not building them.

I play a low enough level that I have a reasonable chance of getting 3 gorges (though I didn't get it last game ), even if I have to use a GE, I do that. I only build nuclear plants on my island cities, or cities on another continent. If I really need the production asap I'll build coal. But I usually don't have enough health resources to do that.

 

[Ghpstage]

My advice would be to never build them, ever. They cost more than any other power plant 250 against 150 for coal or 200 for Hydro, come later than coal which conveniently comes with the tech needed for factories and well.... the explosions um...

They pack the punch of a nuke and happen with ridiculous frequency and if your on Marathon your 3 times as likely to get meltdowns . Basically when (not if) one of these goes up the cities going to be useless for quite some time as many buildings and improvments will be lost, pop and maybe units will die and it can even permanently destroy floodplain tiles

I use coal plants the most by far and failing that I will make a run on the 3Gorges but never nuclear.

 

[Uranus Reamerz]

3 gorges or bust
I do use nuke power late in game on large cities on small Islands
and yes they do pop and its nuke nasty ... but on an Island ... no sea scrubbing necessary

 

[s.bernbaum]

I used them a fair amount in Vanilla without any meltdowns ever. The first time that I used them in BTS, the one in my major production city melted down. I had to rebuild lots of buildings and decontaminate the surrounding tiles before I could rebuild the improvements. Since then I use coal plants when I can't use hydro. If I can't use coal due to the city health, I do without power until health improves or hydro comes along.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Get them quite often actually. Build more of them and the occurance increases disportionaltly too from what I understand.

If I remember correctly, it is 1 in 2000 per turn per plant, irrespective of gamespeed.

Get them quite often actually. Build more of them and the occurance increases disportionaltly too from what I understand.

I think the occurence increases proportionally. e.g. double the number of plants you have and you double the chance that one will go off each turn, though individually they all still have the same odds per turn.

 

[6K Man]

I don't build 'em, for the reasons enumerated previously by others.

They're a good example of a building that is unbalanced in a negative sense.

 

[Protozoan]

They should have some sort of rule that as you increase in turns and keep teching your nuclear power plant technology gets better and safer.

It should be seen as a safe form of energy. IMHO 1/2000 is even a way too high number for a meltdown to occur.

I'm just surprised some of you have gotten bitten by it.

 

[Ataxerxes]

1 in 2000 sounds low, but if you have 10 cities for 100 turns, you're 50-50 to get a meltdown. If you can trade for enough health, use coal plants and then 3 Gorges for the smaller cities. I prefer to nuke my enemies, not myself.

I never build them in 4. Used to build them all the time in 3 as long as my cities were happy. In 3 they give more power than any other plant.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I thought it was 1 in 1000? Is it 2000?

Anyway the meltdowns tip the balance scale pathetically away from nuclear, to the point where players avoid them entirely. They should be BETTER than coal, since they come later on and cost more . They are in health, but the tradoff of a random alien dropping a nuke on your city sometimes makes the coal unhealth look inviting.

I've argued the complete unrealistic joke these are in other threads, so I'll only rehash one thing: meltdowns in civ IV fail both checks that could allow a feature to be reasonably included in a game:

1. Realism: The worst meltdown in recorded history did nowhere near the damage firing a tactical nuke into the region would have done. Technology today or even 15-20 years after that incident made meltdowns of a similar scale impossible (insufficient fuel in the reactor at any one time to cause such widespread damage).
2. Gameplay/Balance: People like to pretend that reactor meltdowns add game balance. That assertion is ignorant. Fission is long after an assembly line beeline, and even if one doesn't beeline AL, it is probably still coming later than coal plants by a significant margin. That the thing costs significantly more is yet another drawback...you'd think for that expense they could take the precautions or construct a plant that can't physically have a catastrophic meltdown. These things are already enough that in a lot of games people would skip nuke plants.

But they added anti-nuclear bias and threw meltdowns in anyway, despite the fact that they fail both balance and realism checks in their current form. Since the developers are biased against nuke plants here, it's best to avoid them so that you don't suffer unnecessary and unrealistic penalties.

 

[clif9710]

Here's another nuke plant thought if I were designing the game - make it something that can only be built 2+ tiles from any city with a meltdown radius of 2 tiles. Cities would be safe but resources within 2 tiles would not be. Meltdown could be a sabotage option but would be expensive.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Here's another nuke plant thought if I were designing the game - make it something that can only be built 2+ tiles from any city with a meltdown radius of 2 tiles. Cities would be safe but resources within 2 tiles would not be. Meltdown could be a sabotage option but would be expensive.

Still fails realism and balance unless available earlier/cheaper.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I thought it was 1 in 1000? Is it 2000?

Pretty sure it's 2000.

Civ4BuildingInfos.xml

<BuildingInfo>
			<BuildingClass>BUILDINGCLASS_NUCLEAR_PLANT</BuildingClass>
			...
			<iNukeExplosionRand>2000</iNukeExplosionRand>

CvCity.cpp

if (GC.getGameINLINE().getSorenRandNum(GC.getBuildingInfo((BuildingTypes)iI).getNukeExplosionRand(), "Meltdown!!!") == 0)
[COLOR="SeaGreen"][B]// If a random number between 0 and 1999 is equal to 0...[/B][/COLOR]
{
	if (getNumRealBuilding((BuildingTypes)iI) > 0)
	{
		setNumRealBuilding(((BuildingTypes)iI), 0);
	}
	[COLOR="SeaGreen"][B]// i.e. Gets rid of the building that caused the meltdown (nuclear plant)[/B][/COLOR]

	plot()->nukeExplosion(1);
	[COLOR="SeaGreen"][B]// Set off a nuclear explosion (same as tac nuke or ICBM)[/B][/COLOR]

	szBuffer = gDLL->getText("TXT_KEY_MISC_MELTDOWN_CITY", getNameKey());
	gDLL->getInterfaceIFace()->addMessage(getOwnerINLINE(), false, GC.getEVENT_MESSAGE_TIME(), szBuffer, "AS2D_MELTDOWN", MESSAGE_TYPE_MINOR_EVENT, ARTFILEMGR.getInterfaceArtInfo("INTERFACE_UNHEALTHY_PERSON")->getPath(), (ColorTypes)GC.getInfoTypeForString("COLOR_RED"), getX_INLINE(), getY_INLINE(), true, true);
	[COLOR="SeaGreen"][B]// Tell the player about it.[/B][/COLOR]
	
	break;
}

It's funny to see that nuclear meltdowns are actually worse than ICBM explosions (and tac nukes) because at least the bombs don't automatically destroy the nuclear power plant.

 

[6K Man]

1) Change the 'meltdown' effect to mimic the effect of a successful water poisoning. Radiation leaks don't blow up cities, but a bad enough one could make people sick and kill a small number of them (small relative to a city of a million or more).

2) Make them cheaper to build, more efficient (hammer bonus) or provide some other benefit to make them better than Coal Plants.

Since Civ5 resources are said to provide a benefit to a finite number of units/cities, I wonder whether people will be tempted to build Nuclear Plants if they are short of Coal or Oil (or their Civ5 equivalents)?

 

[Protozoan]

@ 6K, suggestion 1 seems reasonable.

I was just thinking this, and I know it's been brushed on.

But say you have an empire of 20 cities with a nuke plant in every city. The probability of you not getting a catastrophic nuclear explosion in any of them is (1999/2000)^(20n) correct? Where n is the number of turns

In 70 or so turns that probability will equal a 50%

(1999/2000)^(20n)=50/100. Solve for n you get 69.3

So playing on Marathon you are screwed. That's just unfair odds. If anything it should be a 1/E6 or 1/E9 risk of a meltdown.