Power Deals - No longer available

[Cougar2004 127]

I have all my cities connected via power lines.  When I click them, they say that they are connected, with no power deal. 

I have been building cities in this region, and a couple regious previously this year, since reinstalling SC4 in January, and adding the NAM.  I have never gotten a single power neighbor deal to work, be offered, or available. 

Could this be a bug in the NAM?  I thought I was able to get power deals, but I may be thinking of SC3KU.  Can anyone thikn of reasons why, when i go into my neighbor deals of connected cities, there is never an option to do a power deal? The item does not even show up as unavailable in the list.  I do not use cheat codes (at least not since the new SC4 install on this new 2009 Computer.

Open to suggestions.  Thanks.

[Chptrk 86]

I guess, first: Have you patched and updated the game from the official site?

2nd: You have the power lines going through to each city right? Have you then gone to the other city and connected the power lines to zones?

3rd: Are there power plants connected to the power lines? If there aren't any power plants, there can't be any deals.

4th: Before you make a deal, you have to have somekind of thing zoned or plopped so there is a demand for power.

5th: The power deals is found in the neighbor deals section of the budget, just in case you weren't sure where it is.

Well hope this...numbered...list helps.

[bigthing 35]

Also make sure your making more than enough power for the city with the power plant in.

You cant make a deal if there's no power left :-P

[jmusacha 2]

Two other things are a must for power deals to be offered.  1)  The "buying" city must have some kind of budget surplus to spend on the deal.  2) The "selling" city must have a power production capacity in excess of its needs. 

I believe the cost of the power sold in the "selling/production" city is directly related to the production capacity of the city, i.e., a city with 20 coal plants is going to sell their power for less than the same city with just 5 coal plants.

[Cougar2004 127]

Wow. These are all excellent tips. I have a feeling i didn't get them all right. So im going back into my game with your guys' comments as a checklist and ill see what i did wrong now. Thanks!

[Chptrk 86]

Let us know if it worked! So we can have that warm, fuzzy feeling knowing we helped somebody. Or, we can continue to help. Let's hope it's the first one!

[bigthing 35]

Well, that just makes us sound like teddy bears

[Cougar2004 127]

Okay, I was successfully able to get a Power Deal going! Thanks for all your advice.

Im not positive which element did it from your list. But I believe it was because there was not enough excess in the city i wanted to supply it, and there was not enough money in the city i wanted to buy it. Now I just have to figure out why all my other cities dont have power deals as options yet.

[Impala26 1]

It's pretty key. One strategy I employ, and actually is a pretty fair to the real world, is building a nuclear power plant in a rural area and stringing the power lines great distances to neighboring cities.

When I first started, I really wanted to do this, but I couldn't because you need to meet huge population requirements in order to build the Maxis nuclear plant. Instead I got a great set of large capacity nuclear plants from the STEX. You can plop them in a brand new region... I was thrilled!

Long story short, yeah, power neighbor deals is pretty key.

[Cougar2004 127]

Well its happening again. I have a city 1 connected to city 2 with power lines where both sides are connected through to the zones. City 1 has a surplus only using 86% of their power leaving 14% surplus. City 2 is at 100% usage and needs power. No Power Zots occasionally are rolling through areas.

I have gone back and forth between city 1 and 2 leaving it up for a year, and saving each time. But no power deals ever are available in the Neighbor Deals panel. Ideas??

[Chptrk 86]

Maybe the game doesn't think 14% is a large enough surplus? That's all I can think of.

[tungston 19]

That would be one reason, try adding another power plant.  Make sure the purchasing city has enough "income" to pay for the power

[Cougar2004 127]

Originally posted by: tungston

That would be one reason, try adding another power plant.  Make sure the purchasing city has enough "income" to pay for the powerquote>

That was definitely a great idea.  Thank you.

However, i took it down to less than 50% utlization, with 10,000MW excess/mo.  Both cities are making over +$2,000 a month safely.  And still No Neighbor Power Deal.  I went back and forth bewteen the two cities, saving after 6 months to a year each time.  Still nothing.  There must be some other variable im not knowing (perhaps an ordinance?)

[tungston 19]

The only time I have had trouble is when I wanted extra power to do more building without running low on power.

Those requirments are the only ones I know of, surplus power in one city. and a need, and income to purchase in the other.

[Cougar2004 127]

I'm going to try removing the conserve power ordinance and see if that helps.

I wonder if it has to be after a certain year in either city to get power deals.

I wonder if it has to be a city of a minimum size to share in a power deal.

If all that fails, I'll probably try adding another city on another side, that is fulled with massive power. I wish someone actually knew all the inner workings of when deals become available.