[GS] What are the downsides to your cities not being powered?

[Leathaface]

The only negative I can think of is decreased yields from Tier 3 buildings in districts. Are they are other negatives?

 

[Elhoim]

Not that I know of. There should be an amenity penalty for cities without electricity in the modern era onwards.

 

[bladex]

stuff just takes longer to build

 

[Takfloyd]

stuff just takes longer to build

If all the information you have is vague guesswork to the same effect that the one asking the question already knew about, why post at all?

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[bladex]

welcome to the list idiot

and next time you get a city with no power popup you might want to actually READ the popup it tells you

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[ExemplarVoss]

The only negative I can think of is decreased yields from Tier 3 buildings in districts. Are they are other negatives?

The only one I can think of is if you add another building with a power requirement that exceeds the current power generation, they ALL turn off. I'm not sure why power is binary, but it's kind of crazy making. Especially since the power tile improvements come much later than the power plants and a lot of powered buildings. Its outright difficult to create power for a decent chunk of the game when you have a lot of buildings that need it.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

The only negative I can think of is decreased yields from Tier 3 buildings in districts. Are they are other negatives?

Not burning coal is a potential negative, but only if you're waging an offensive global warming campaign against AI's who have constructed space ports and what-not on tiles susceptible to flooding. The best government type IMO, Synthetic Technocracy, is also a negative in this context.

 

[footslogger]

I must say I am confused by the new power system. I have some cities showing the yellow flash symbol (fully powered), some showing the red flash symbol (underpowered) and some showing no symbol at all. Do those in the third category not need attention or what?

 

[Guynemer]

I've only played a couple games so far, but I think you need an industrial zone in a city (actually in the city, not the 6-tile radius) to provide power with a coal or oil plant. Or a hydroelectric dam, or possibly some other power source I haven't advanced enough in the tech tree to learn about yet.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I appreciate this thread and the questions.
This is because in the few games I have played and seen the yellow power light or red power light it didn't seem to matter.
I just kept Faith Buying or Gold Buying Military moving closer to World Domination.
The same goes for Oil problems with units.
All I have seen is a -5 modifier for no oil.
It didn't seem to slow me down one bit.
Perhaps if you go long enough without Oil you lose your unit but I didn't notice.
I would love to see some serious penalty for not powering up your city or not having enough resources for your units.
Something that would cripple you.
I expect some changes in the upcoming patches but I fear it won't slow you down enough.

I didn't want to build coal or oil power plants because I didn't want to put CO2 into the atmosphere.
Since it didn't seem to slow me down I just disregarded the red power light.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Your Research Labs are more garbage than they usually are.

And yea, power is pretty worthless.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

Your Research Labs are more garbage than they usually are.

And yea, power is pretty worthless.

Not to mention Railroads or Tunnels.
I forgot about them and found no use for them.
I even posted a picture thinking I climbed over a mountain but was corrected that I went through a Tunnel with Modern Armor.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Not to mention Railroads or Tunnels.
I forgot about them and found no use for them.
I even posted a picture thinking I climbed over a mountain but was corrected that I went through a Tunnel with Modern Armor.

Main issue is Military engineers being tied to the armory or whatever it is. I can't even remember lol.

 

[criZp]

Main issue is Military engineers being tied to the armory or whatever it is. I can't even remember lol.

Yeah, that's a dumb one. They tried to make encampments more relevant, ended up making engineers something you forget exist.

 

[Leathaface]

Now that I think about it, you need 5 power to build the Terrestrial Laser Station, this gives you +1 Light year per turn on the Exoplanet Expedition. But by the time you are building the Exoplanet Expedition, Solar Farms are available.

A builder can put down some of those, there is no need for an Industrial Zone.

 

[Arent11]

Civilization taught me that ziggurats are much more relevant for scientific advancement than electricity, industrialization and computers.

I mean, who needs electricity and computers, apart from people who play civilization games?

 

[L4Psha]

Now that I think about it, you need 5 power to build the Terrestrial Laser Station, this gives you +1 Light year per turn on the Exoplanet Expedition. But by the time you are building the Exoplanet Expedition, Solar Farms are available.

A builder can put down some of those, there is no need for an Industrial Zone.

But they will occupy 5 tiles. Nevertheless i also think that quite a low price for doubling the speed of the spaceship.

When i played my last game i built just 3 or 4 powerplants and 2 or 3 green ones. You should not build ordinary power plants in every city, that's not how it works.

I think that's okay that you don't get an amenity debuff. If you would be forced to power up every city without factories i think it'll take too much resources. I look at it like only industrial sector needs to be powered and civilian is always powered. There was powerplants later but that doesn't mean that cities were in the dark all that time. Also in real life afaik industry cosumes more electricity than civilian consumers, so that part can be negligible in some way.

And why research labs are garbage?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

But they will occupy 5 tiles. Nevertheless i also think that quite a low price for doubling the speed of the spaceship.

When i played my last game i built just 3 or 4 powerplants and 2 or 3 green ones. You should not build ordinary power plants in every city, that's not how it works.

I think that's okay that you don't get an amenity debuff. If you would be forced to power up every city without factories i think it'll take too much resources. I look at it like only industrial sector needs to be powered and civilian is always powered. There was powerplants later but that doesn't mean that cities were in the dark all that time. Also in real life afaik industry cosumes more electricity than civilian consumers, so that part can be negligible in some way.

And why research labs are garbage?

The game rewards you for being ahead on the tech and civics trees. The civ that's furthest along those trees tends to be the most powerful civ, has the deadliest military, the most productive economy, and will typically win the game quickest (though there are a few strategies for winning super quick without building up your infrastructure). This style of play isn't for everyone. Many people on the forum will describe this as "min-maxing", and by no means do you need to pay attention to any of this in order to win the game or have fun. I'm just setting this out as background for my comments.

When people talk about things needing a nerf or a buff, they're usually talking about it in this context, i.e. whether building the item speeds up or slows down your advancement through the tech and civics trees and your eventual victory. Building research labs - any of the tier 3 buildings, really - is unlikely to be helpful. They don't typically generate enough additional science to be worth the investment. Running projects, for example, will often work better than hard-building the research lab, and you'll likely have better things to buy with your gold (items that give eurekas or great scientists, for example).

Similarly, having even one Industrial Zone is of questionable value, having 3 or 4 is a very large investment in something that just doesn't pay off, in game terms. Not to say you don't want to have them for role-playing purposes or simply just like them or won't have more fun in a game where you build them, but that game will almost certainly last a lot longer than a game in which you build no IZs. Production is the second weakest yield in the game after food, and the IZ is relatively inefficient at converting current production into future production.

Finally, occupying 5 tiles is unlikely to be significant, as mid-sized cities tend to be more powerful than large ones (require fewer amenities, so can generate more gold and run more projects). Extra population beyond 4 to 10 people per city is another thing the game rules discourage, and so most cities should have plenty of empty tiles to place power improvements on (exception: one city for Pingala, see below).

My personal experience with the above is limited to R&F as I haven't played GS yet, but comments from others lead me to believe all of the above remains equally true in GS, with the exception that one high population city would now seem to be worth the investment in order to benefit from Pingala's boosts to population-based culture and science output.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

Not to mention Railroads or Tunnels.
I forgot about them and found no use for them.
I even posted a picture thinking I climbed over a mountain but was corrected that I went through a Tunnel with Modern Armor.

I found uranium to be rare and coal abundant in the only game I've played so far. I did note that GDR's (3 uranium per turn upkeep) could move what may be half way across a huge map in one turn if they used railroads. That let me protect more territory with less units.

 

[L4Psha]

The game rewards you for being ahead on the tech and civics trees. The civ that's furthest along those trees tends to be the most powerful civ, has the deadliest military, the most productive economy, and will typically win the game quickest (though there are a few strategies for winning super quick without building up your infrastructure). This style of play isn't for everyone. Many people on the forum will describe this as "min-maxing", and by no means do you need to pay attention to any of this in order to win the game or have fun. I'm just setting this out as background for my comments.

When people talk about things needing a nerf or a buff, they're usually talking about it in this context, i.e. whether building the item speeds up or slows down your advancement through the tech and civics trees and your eventual victory. Building research labs - any of the tier 3 buildings, really - is unlikely to be helpful. They don't typically generate enough additional science to be worth the investment. Running projects, for example, will often work better than hard-building the research lab, and you'll likely have better things to buy with your gold (items that give eurekas or great scientists, for example).

Similarly, having even one Industrial Zone is of questionable value, having 3 or 4 is a very large investment in something that just doesn't pay off, in game terms. Not to say you don't want to have them for role-playing purposes or simply just like them or won't have more fun in a game where you build them, but that game will almost certainly last a lot longer than a game in which you build no IZs. Production is the second weakest yield in the game after food, and the IZ is relatively inefficient at converting current production into future production.

Finally, occupying 5 tiles is unlikely to be significant, as mid-sized cities tend to be more powerful than large ones (require fewer amenities, so can generate more gold and run more projects). Extra population beyond 4 to 10 people per city is another thing the game rules discourage, and so most cities should have plenty of empty tiles to place power improvements on (exception: one city for Pingala, see below).

My personal experience with the above is limited to R&F as I haven't played GS yet, but comments from others lead me to believe all of the above remains equally true in GS, with the exception that one high population city would now seem to be worth the investment in order to benefit from Pingala's boosts to population-based culture and science output.

That's very unintutive. Don't want to sound stupid, but i can't get how industrial zone is useless? It gives you production. How are you going to build anything in reasonable amount of time without it? Same with pops. More citizens more production, more districts, more stuff. I don't understand. Research labs maybe have worse price\efficency ratio, but that's what we have it's better than nothing.