Power Plants and Manufacturing Plants

[szwanger]

What exactly is the difference between Power Plants,
Manufacturing Plants and Factories? The Civilopedia
says:

MP - increases shields by 50%, cumulative with Factories
PP - increases Factory output by 50%
F - increases shields by 50%

And what about hydro, nuclear and solar plants? Are they
cumulative with any of the above? Are they cumulative
with each other?

Is there an optimal setup to increase shield output?

On an unrelated note, why does Capitalization have a cost,
since it seems to take effect immediately?

[I apologize if this subject has been discussed before --
I tried to do a search of the forums but got a message
that I do not have permission to acess that page.]

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Duke of Marlbrough]

Factories increase production by 50%, the Power Plant types (which includes Power Plants, Hydro Plants, Nuclear Plants, and Solar Plants) will add another 50% (of the base level of shields), then the Manufacturing Plant will add another 50% of the base production on top of that.

So, if you city has a base level production (just what the city gets from the land squares) of 20 shields, the Factory adds 50% (20*.5), so the production woudl be up to 30 shields. Any of the Power Plant types will add another 50% (20*.5), so up to 40 shields. Then, the manufacturing Plant adds another 50% (20*.5), so it would be 50 shields of production.

Getting cities with a base production of 20 shields is great fro later in the game, so that way you can build a freight each turn once you have all the improvemenns built.

BTW, Hoover Dam counts as a Hydro plant in all of your cities. It also does your cities no good until you build factories in them.

Your guess is as good as mine on Capitalization. It is instantly 'there' and never actually 'completes' building.

 

[Cedric Greene]

Capitalization has a cost based on the most expensive wonder or improvement available to keep its position on the build list. Just a guess.

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by szwanger

Is there an optimal setup to increase shield output?

Thanks,
Steve

As DoM just explained, the best combo of city improvements is Factory + Power Plant (or Hydro or Solar or Nuclear) + Manufacturing Plant. If all those improvements have been built in your city the shield output is 2.5*S (S being the number of shields produced by the city without improvements).

IMO there are 3 levels that you may wish for the value of 2.5S:
1) 50 = Ability to build 1 caravan/turn: this requires S = 20
2) 80 = Ability to build an armour or a SS structural/turn: this requires S = 32 (and it also provides a battleship/2 turns)
3) Max = The best you can get from that city site (just for fun , or because you are a perfectionist)

S = 20 is generally easy to get:
Even in the 'worst' case = 1 square island in the middle of the ocean, you build an offshore platform and there you are.
On land, it is useful to have in mind that a mined hill provides 4 shields (with RR). This is the best you can get from an 'ordinary' square (no coal, no iron,...).
It is even more useful to remember that a forest provides 3 shields (with RR). If there are no hills in the city radius, transforming a few squares to hills is a long job for your engineers, but mining grassland to get forest can be done quickly.

2 more points:
1) If you wish to build 1 caravan/turn it is generally advisable to get S = 25 and build Factory + Power plant, instead of getting S = 20 and build the Manufacturing Plant (which is costly to build and also costly to maintain)
2) Keep in mind that high shield output creates pollution (no problem in ww2 scenario and some others, but can be very important in other games, especially if a nuclear war has started)

 

[la fayette]

About Capitalization, my opinion is that it is a very bad bargain:
it turns 1 shield into 1 gold, but you need at least 2 gold to buy 1 shield when you rushbuild something. I never use it.

 

[Ace]

Capitalization comes in handy when your cities reach the point where there is nothing left to build. ie, you have all the structures you want, and your only freight option is food, which you don't want. So, you either build spies or switch to capitalization. I do not use it very often, but it has its uses. You can also switch to it when you need coins fast, say to bribe something.

I think it was added to civ2 because one of the problems in the original civ was that you ran out of things to build and were forced to build something you did not need. With capitalization, at least, you can convert the shields to coins without wasting them.

 

[funxus]

And what about hydro, nuclear and solar plants? Are they cumulative with any of the above? Are they cumulative with each other?

As Duke said: power plant, hydro plant, nuclear plant and solar plant are of the same type. The two worst of these are the powerplant and the nuclear plant. The powerplant causes your city to produce more pollution, and with the nuclear plant you risk a meltdown. I don't think I've ever built a power plant (although I sometimes get one from enemy cities), and definitely never has built a Nuclear plant. I therefore don't have a feeling of how much the pollution increases, and hasn't experienced a meltdown (which I assume is like a nuke attack?).

I usually manage to get the hooverdam, which IMO is the best wonder in late game. So once my city has a factory, it automatically has the hydroplant, which is important to keep down pollution. IIRC the city can have up to about 42s production before it produces any production pollution triangles in the city.

Later in game, a city's production usually is far greater than 42s, especially if it also has a mfg. plant. Here you can either build a recycling center or a solar plant. The recycling plant allows you production up to 62 (can't remember the exact production), and might be good if you don't plan to have a larger production in that city. If you go past that you should build a solar plant, which eliminates all production pollution, and also allows more pollution (0.5 skulls/plant?) in the field before global warming takes place.

Only one of these is enough to increase the production in your city. So, if you build a better plant than is allready in the city, you should sell the other. The order is Power plant->Nuclear plant->Hydro plant->Solar plant, but I'm not 100% sure about the two first, Nuclear is better as long as nothing happens. If you build a solar plant, you should also sell the recycling center if you have any, because with a solar plant, it doesn't do anything.

All this only affect Production Pollution, and not Population Pollution. Population Pollution is eliminated if you build Mass Transit, so all cities should have one of these.

I'm sure there are some inaccurate numbers here and there, so please correct it if there is. This is what I can remember of Starlifter's pollution thread, which would explain all this in more detail. Unfortunately I can't search for it.

 

[ElephantU]

Starlifters Pollution thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=765

One other niggly thing: you cannot build a Hydro plant anywhere you want. The city must be next to a River or Mountain.

Originally posted by Ace:
Capitalization comes in handy when your cities reach the point where there is nothing left to build. ie, you have all the structures you want, and your only freight option is food, which you don't want. So, you either build spies or switch to capitalization.

Switching to Capitalization wastes one shield per gold. Far better to keep producing those food freights. You can stockpile them like gold and "cash them in" later for instant Wonders and Spaceship parts. Or produce Spies and send them like locusts against your enemies cities.

 

[Ace]

Originally posted by ElephantU
Starlifters Pollution thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=765

One other niggly thing: you cannot build a Hydro plant anywhere you want. The city must be next to a River or Mountain.



Switching to Capitalization wastes one shield per gold. Far better to keep producing those food freights. You can stockpile them like gold and "cash them in" later for instant Wonders and Spaceship parts. Or produce Spies and send them like locusts against your enemies cities.

Once all the wonders have been completed (and you are not using the FCT), food freight is next to worthless. If you play long enough in a game, you will reach the point where capitalization becomes the only thing left to build. And spies become redundant when you have the AI reduced to one pet city.

Capitalization is really only valuable in the end-game phase. In the early phases, (when it is available) it is usually not useful.

 

[ElephantU]

If you have gotten to that point, build the Spaceship or kill those last pet cities! What are you waiting for?

 

[Ace]

Originally posted by ElephantU
If you have gotten to that point, build the Spaceship or kill those last pet cities! What are you waiting for?

A higher score!

 

[la fayette]

Who cares for score ?
Early landing and early conquest are the fun ways to play this game.
High scores are just a bore (and prove nothing except that you are patient ).

 

[Mercator]

That's what you're saying now that you've mastered the game at Deity level, and are just trying to find other challenges.
And if you're just going for a fun game, why do you even need pet cities or food caravans?

And GOTM players would care for score, at least.

 

[la fayette]

Originally posted by Mercator

And GOTM players would care for score, at least.

Not me
I have played the last 15 GOTMs or so...
You can check the results: always among the earliest conquests or landings, always among the lowest scores

(I use many food caravans, mostly for wonderbuilding, sometimes for growing my SSC when there is very hard fighting going on and I prefer to stay in Monarchy or Communism)

 

[Mercator]

Originally posted by la fayette
Not me
I have played the last 15 GOTMs or so...
You can check the results: always among the earliest conquests or landings, always among the lowest scores

Well, those who want to win anyway.

 

[Old n Slow]

Best plus for capitalization is the easing of the micro management load. -- Once the many major cities are set, one can go ahead & focus on the other aspects of perfecting the world.

 

[covok48]

So how come the game allows you to build a solar plant after you either have the Hoover Dam or an alternate power plant?

 

[Ace]

You can always build a solar plant because it is the only way to stop resource pollution when you get more that 61 or 62 shields in a city. And, a solar plant negates 1/2 of a polluted hex to help you prevent gobal warming! ie, if you have 3 polluted hexes and two solar plants, only two of the polluted hexes count toward the gobal warming threshold. When you build a solar plant, you should sell off your recycling center. It is superceded by the solar plant and is no longer needed.

 

[ElephantU]

You can always build a "better thing" when things overlap, like Recycling Center and Hydro Plant (each have overlapping effects on Resource Pollution). The Solar Plant is the "best thing" for power plants, so if you have a "lesser one" (power/nuc/hydro) it will show you Solar as an upgrade option.