Balancing of Nuclear Power Plant is so faulty that the strategy section here is near meaningless[]
Frankly, 400 
every 10 turns in standard speed is more than enough reason for Nuclear Power Plant to be 100% useless. A wiki should clarify benefits and drawbacks in neutral terms and let the readers decide for themselves. But in this case, the drawbacks are of a different scale than benefits. It feels comical to attempt neutrality here. 冷雾 (talk) 04:20, March 10, 2019 (UTC)
- I don't think the risk of accidents is as serious a drawback as it appears at first glance. In my games, I've had Nuclear Power Plants with reactor ages in the mid-30s and have never experienced any kind of Nuclear Accident, so the odds that it will happen appear to be relatively low (and the XML files also have a hard-coded limit of 1 of each type of accident per game unless the disaster intensity is at its highest setting). Moreover, late-game cities often have high enough Production potential that performing the Recommission Nuclear Reactor project will take them 10 turns or less, so even if you're lackadaisical with maintenance and always wait 30+ turns before recommissioning a plant's reactor, you're going to be losing at most 25% of the city's productivity...and your nearby cities will still enjoy the plant's Production and
Science bonuses. The Nuclear Power Plant may not be strictly better than the other kinds of plants, but I think calling it "useless" is an exaggeration. -Mythril Wyrm (talk) 04:48, March 10, 2019 (UTC)
- The probability of accidents is the key balancing factor here that has not clarified by the devs yet. But useless is not an exaggeration. To put in perspective, by the time Nuclear Power Plants become available, my most productively cities all have 90ish productions in stand speed and without Ruhr Valley or using Australia/Scotland's civ ability. In your case, Nuclear Power Plant is even more clearly useless. It doesn't matter what your specific production is though. In strict game balancing terms, it's about what that production can be used for something else. The value of production is defined by the relative costs of all other needs of productions. And 400 base production is overwhelming. It is 2/3 of the Nuclear Power Plant itself. In your example, 25% productivity is completely off scale compared to the direct bonuses it provide. Also, the plant's Production is strictly trivial. Not only +4 is small in itself. The Coal equivalent provides up to +12. Whether the science bonus is significant is more up for debate I suppose. Personally, it feels nice but does nothing. One great thing GS does is to give a base amount of Science and Culture from population. By the time of Nuclear Fission, the science you gain from a 12 pop city for population alone with no worked tile and no districts is already 6. In comparison, Nuclear Power Plant gives 3 science.
- The probability of accidents is the key balancing factor here that has not clarified by the devs yet. But useless is not an exaggeration. To put in perspective, by the time Nuclear Power Plants become available, my most productively cities all have 90ish productions in stand speed and without Ruhr Valley or using Australia/Scotland's civ ability. In your case, Nuclear Power Plant is even more clearly useless. It doesn't matter what your specific production is though. In strict game balancing terms, it's about what that production can be used for something else. The value of production is defined by the relative costs of all other needs of productions. And 400 base production is overwhelming. It is 2/3 of the Nuclear Power Plant itself. In your example, 25% productivity is completely off scale compared to the direct bonuses it provide. Also, the plant's
- I noticed in a number of articles that you put great emphasis on the slowing of Global Warming. I wish you are right in its importance for the sake of an interesting game. But in strictly gameplay terms, as is, slowing Global Warming is not important with standard settings. Productive cities have no issue erecting Flood Barriers in time. Only new cities settle on islands (thus with lots of coastal lowlands) have trouble erecting the barrier in time. Similarly, Dams would've been long completed with engineers before Nuclear Fission. So Global Warming stages don't really hurt. It gives the player more of a urgency in building up their cities. That alone is good. However, productivity comes from pollution. It's good that competing to pollute first is the natural optimal strategy for most civs but it's not good how overwhelmingly good that is and how trivial Global Warming is. Back to Nuclear Power Plant, when Global Warming isn't bad, the benefit is of Nuclear Power Plant is not "significant". I don't really think using the word significant here is neutral for a wiki.
- 冷雾 (talk) 07:03, March 10, 2019 (UTC)