Production improvements

[Tizzy]

Which production improvements (i.e. factory, manufacturing plant, solar plant, hydro plant, etc) do you build?
Which give the biggest production boost?
I've been building them all, and mass transit and recycling centre, the full works, until I discovered I could sell off my recycling centres without causing any pollution. Does it become effectively obsolete after a solar plant is built? How does it all fit together?

Thanks
Tiz

[Hawkman]

I always make Hoover Dam a TOP priority, so if someone else gets it first then it's time to think about war. Against the AI, I always get HD. I build factories, mass transit, a few recycling centers, and solar plants. Manufacturing plants are useful in most games. I also fund the factories, solar plants, and manufacturing plants with the money I've saved up. I have the cities build about half-way, sometimes less, then pay for the rest. (This sometimes leaves my treasury in a poor state, but it's worth it).

[debeest]

I consider Hoover Dam to be the most vital Wonder. If you're not in a position to get it, you're in big trouble and not likely to catch up; if you can get it, it's hugely valuable and must also be kept out of opponents' hands. I generally build only factories and Hoover Dam, which combine to double my production, and then mass transit for cities with big enough population to need it. I rarely build manufacturing plants, partly because they're so expensive, partly because they so often yield a production number that doesn't divide well into the costs of things to be built, so that lots of the extra production is wasted. I rarely build pollution control improvements, because with HD and mass transits I rarely exceed a few warning triangles per city, and engineers can take care of the occasional pollution. In short, I don't think you need much other than factories, HD, and mass transits.

[RNF]

A factory gives you a production boost.

Power plants, hydro plants, atomic power plants, and solar plants all provide exactly the same additional production boost on top of your factory, so there's never any reason to have more than one of them in a city. They differ only in their pollution consequences.

A manufacturing plant gives you a further production boost beyond your factory and power plant.

Hoover Dam is equivalent to a hydro plant in every city, so if you have HD, there's never any reason to build any kind of power plant just for the production boost.

Furthermore, since a hydro plant also has pollution benefits, the combination of HD plus a recycling center is enough to suppress production-caused pollution in most cities. (You still need mass transit for population-caused pollution.) However, in your most productive cities you may find that you still have some pollution, even with HD and recycling. At that point you need to build a solar plant for its pollution benefits, not its production benefits, and then sell the recycling center, which is no longer needed.

If you don't get HD, it's trickier. I guess I usually build either a hydro plant if the location allows it or a power plant otherwise, with the expectation that the power plant will have to be replaced with an atomic or solar plant later.
[This message has been edited by RNF (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

I'm certainly not the expert, but I've been doing well with nothing but Hoover's Dam and one factory, and possibly an offshore platform. The size eight cities I'm fond of hardly ever generate pollution.

What the improvenents do is to affect only the base shield score, adding 50%. So if a city makes 10 shields, the factory will make it 15, a power plant of any kind will make it 20, and a manufactuting plant will make it 25.

With Hoover's, a single factory will double the city's production.

That's what I do in my my quasi-ICS strategy; perfectionists probably build more stuff. Do you build a lot of cities of just a few?

Here's what I've found out about pollution, using cheat menu tests:

Pollution warning indicators (the yellow triangles) due to shield production goes by the formula W = S - 20, meaning that with mass transit you'll get warnings for every shield past the 20'th one. A hydro plant or nuclear plant makes the formula W = (S-40)/2, so you'll get a warning for every other shield past the 40'th one. A recycling center makes the formula (S-60)/3, no matter what factory you are using. This means a warning for every third shield past the 60'th one. A solar plant eliminates this pollution entirely.

So if you're using the dirtier power plants, recycling centers will help a lot. The effect won't be as great if you're using cleaner forms of power. Once you get solar plants, you can sell both the initial power plant and the recycling center.

I couldn't figure out the formulas for how population affected things. Basically, Mass Transit and Solar Plant should eliminate all pollution.

[N35t0r]

as an expansio-perfectionist, i usually don't build any factories till i get Hoover's (don't play MP) and then build factories. i usually have aleady built mass transit.
As for manufacturing plant, i nearly always build them, but after the solar plants. never used the recycling centers.

[ColdWizard]

i build hoover's, factories, manufacturing plants, and then solar plants. i don't build recycling centers.

i'll generally build mass transit when i start to get some pollution (more than 3 triangles worth)

[Drago Sinio]

I will sometimes play a game with the object of building every improvement, in every city. Just for fun. But in an ordinary game, I just build Hoovers and factories, and let the engineers clean up any pollution. I have found that if you have about five engineers set on "automatic", you dont even have to think about the pollution. I have rarely built manufacturing plants, so I am not sure how they would affect things.

[East Street Trader]

If you build a solar plant in a city where you already have a recycling facility you can sell off the recycling plant - they both affect the polution effects from shield production (recycling 50%, solar plant 100% from memory).

No duplication with mass transit - that kills the pollution from population. In a 20 plus city the pollution from population alone is sizeable.