Great Works - Which and Why

[UntCaptain 6]

So These great works that we can build, have any of you built one yet?

Which did you build, and why?

[AshTym 31]

By far, the most useful great work is the solar array. It provides seemingly unlimited electricity to connected cities, which allows you to build huge manufacturing operations without having to waste loads of space with all the power plants you'd otherwise need.

 

The least useful, in my opinion, is the arcology. Sure, it makes available a tonne of workers, but they must all commute into your city every morning and back out every night, which will eventually cause massive traffic delays no matter how well your city's roads are set up.

 

The other two - international airport and space centre - seem to not do a whole lot, to be honest. Their effects on your city are nowhere near as noticeable as they're made out to be.

[Griffon 19]

By far, the most useful great work is the solar array. It provides seemingly unlimited electricity to connected cities, which allows you to build huge manufacturing operations without having to waste loads of space with all the power plants you'd otherwise need.

 

The least useful, in my opinion, is the arcology. Sure, it makes available a tonne of workers, but they must all commute into your city every morning and back out every night, which will eventually cause massive traffic delays no matter how well your city's roads are set up.

 

The other two - international airport and space centre - seem to not do a whole lot, to be honest. Their effects on your city are nowhere near as noticeable as they're made out to be.

agree, I've built all but the space center and the international airport gave me around 500 medium wealth and 500 high wealth tourists on average or so it said, I never noticed it in my city though and I had a tourist city too, plus it was a pain to supply workers to

[UntCaptain 6]

Provided power isn't an issue for me at all. I have 2 very profitable trade city's. 1 with 10 oil refineries making fuel, and another city with 3 computer processing plants. The computer city has 2 nuclear power stations both with 3 mk3 gen thermal reactors, they put out 4800 mw together so my entire region is covered safely.

I was wondering if anyone has actually built the space station. I have trade ports with all the fuel, alloy and computers ready to build it instantly.

[MayorQuimbie 13]

Urgh poor old cynical me thinks the whole great works thing is just another way into duping us into accepting their arguments for online play.....

 

Id agree that the only beneficial great works seems to be the solar plant....  but even then a fully upgraded Nuclear Plant in one city does me fine....

[CaribbeanSail 33]

The Space Station is the only one I have not built. 

 

Arcology creates traffic issues, bringing in unneeded commuters looking for work.  Obviously a bug, once fixed it might be a useful great work.

 

Solar array, yeah, it works.  But thoughtfully placed oil power in each individual city works fine enough with little detriment to not bother with the effort to build the solar array.

 

International Airport.  Since tourism is basicly broken until an upcoming patch (and this is admited to by the develoeprs), it does little good.  But i think after a tourism patch this could be the favored great work.  I really want to build a decent large tourism or casino city that is long term profitable.  I have yet to see anyone manage to do this though due to the tourism bugs.

 

Most of my recent regions I dont bother with great works at all.  I am looking forward to that changing with some bug fixes though.

[UntCaptain 6]

Ill build the space station tonight then as I have all resources stockpiled in trade ports ready to go. Once it's built ill post my findings here

[Griffon 19]

The Space Station is the only one I have not built. 

 

Arcology creates traffic issues, bringing in unneeded commuters looking for work.  Obviously a bug, once fixed it might be a useful great work.

 

Solar array, yeah, it works.  But thoughtfully placed oil power in each individual city works fine enough with little detriment to not bother with the effort to build the solar array.

 

International Airport.  Since tourism is basicly broken until an upcoming patch (and this is admited to by the develoeprs), it does little good.  But i think after a tourism patch this could be the favored great work.  I really want to build a decent large tourism or casino city that is long term profitable.  I have yet to see anyone manage to do this though due to the tourism bugs.

 

Most of my recent regions I dont bother with great works at all.  I am looking forward to that changing with some bug fixes though.

tourism may be broken, but have you read this?  guide actually works for tourism, I tried it before

[Horza3003 1]

I've built the space port and its fairly useful.  Every two ingame days, you get $100,000 from tourists resulting from a satalite launch there.  It can be very useful when your starting out a new city (if you havn't sent it money from another city already).  Also, it seems to mean that there is no low/medium tech instrusy in the region either, regardless of whether you have Uni or colleage in the city. 

 

I started a new city in a region that I'd build the space wonder in and all of my industry went straight to high tech.

[CaribbeanSail 33]

The Space Station is the only one I have not built. 

 

Arcology creates traffic issues, bringing in unneeded commuters looking for work.  Obviously a bug, once fixed it might be a useful great work.

 

Solar array, yeah, it works.  But thoughtfully placed oil power in each individual city works fine enough with little detriment to not bother with the effort to build the solar array.

 

International Airport.  Since tourism is basicly broken until an upcoming patch (and this is admited to by the develoeprs), it does little good.  But i think after a tourism patch this could be the favored great work.  I really want to build a decent large tourism or casino city that is long term profitable.  I have yet to see anyone manage to do this though due to the tourism bugs.

 

Most of my recent regions I dont bother with great works at all.  I am looking forward to that changing with some bug fixes though.

tourism may be broken, but have you read this?  guide actually works for tourism, I tried it before

Yes I have read that, and to the limited degree he has taken his guide, it does work.  But getting to the point of working stadiums and high wealth casinos, in the long term does not work at the moment.  You can make landmarks and the basic casino work very well though in smallish cities.  The EA/Maxis developers have stated that advanced casinos and tourism are not working properly at the moment.  You can get some initial profits early on, but your city will tank eventually due to issues with how tourist agents work right now.

[UntCaptain 6]

I've built the space port and its fairly useful. Every two ingame days, you get $100,000 from tourists resulting from a satalite launch there. It can be very useful when your starting out a new city (if you havn't sent it money from another city already). Also, it seems to mean that there is no low/medium tech instrusy in the region either, regardless of whether you have Uni or colleage in the city.

I started a new city in a region that I'd build the space wonder in and all of my industry went straight to high tech.

That's great info to know thanks. Do you know if the $100k goes to all cities or how does it work?

And will be instersing to see if with the tech level the space centre gives if it will provide tech lines for safe nuclear plants in the region too

[Horza3003 1]

I've built the space port and its fairly useful. Every two ingame days, you get $100,000 from tourists resulting from a satalite launch there. It can be very useful when your starting out a new city (if you havn't sent it money from another city already). Also, it seems to mean that there is no low/medium tech instrusy in the region either, regardless of whether you have Uni or colleage in the city.

I started a new city in a region that I'd build the space wonder in and all of my industry went straight to high tech.

That's great info to know thanks. Do you know if the $100k goes to all cities or how does it work?

And will be instersing to see if with the tech level the space centre gives if it will provide tech lines for safe nuclear plants in the region too

 

Basically, after 48 hours (ingame time) you get a pop up saying that there will be a launch in 24 hours and that tourists are flocking to your city as a result.  Then you get a lil mission logo on the right hand side of the screen.  This counts down the 24 hours and once that up, you get another message saying the launch was a success and the educational satalite is in a stable orbit (don't know if it can ever be unstable or what would happen if it did).  Once you get that message, you get £100k like the rewards for the missions.  Then, after that, the whole process starts again 48 ingame hours latter.

 

As far as I'm aware it occurs for all cities in that region.  It occured in my main city of the region (which actually built the whole wonder itself) and it also occurs in a new city I built AFTER I had completed the great works.  My girlfriend also has three cities in the region (two built before and one after the greatworks) and all three of them get the same process too.

 

I THINK you also get a boost to the number of tourists in your cities.  I seem to think that my tourists attractions made more money when I was on the 24hour countdown to launch than when I wasn't.  I will have a look tonight and see if the number of tourists do actually increase or not.

 

In terms of the tech level, when I started my new city, it was already at 2 before I'd built anything at all! Then after building residential, it shot up to 2.5 and I started getting high tech industry staright away....I've decided to turn that city into a high tech indsutry/electronics city.  I haven't used a nucealr power station yet, so sorry I don't know if it has an effect or not.  Would be great if it did though; could potentially make nuclear power stations less of a risk to power a region!

[UntCaptain 6]

Horza3003, what server do you play on? I'd like to add you to my friends list to talk more when I'm online later.

It's great to know that all cities get a share of the 100k, even though I'm playing alone in a private region, just means less loading other cites to gift the occasional $1m just before I go bankrupt for spending to fast

And much <3 to nuclear reactors! Mine survived 2 meteor showers last night, even had a reactor destroyed, no radioactive fallout though

When disasters strike, switch it straight off

[Horza3003 1]

Sure, add me on Origin and I can have a chat with you latter. My user name is the same on Origin as here (Horza3003)

[Xr3iracer 5]

Provided power isn't an issue for me at all. I have 2 very profitable trade city's. 1 with 10 oil refineries making fuel, and another city with 3 computer processing plants. The computer city has 2 nuclear power stations both with 3 mk3 gen thermal reactors, they put out 4800 mw together so my entire region is covered safely.

I was wondering if anyone has actually built the space station. I have trade ports with all the fuel, alloy and computers ready to build it instantly.

Blimey!!! That must have destroyed ur hourly rate?! Did u even have enough workers for them?

[Xr3iracer 5]

Provided power isn't an issue for me at all. I have 2 very profitable trade city's. 1 with 10 oil refineries making fuel, and another city with 3 computer processing plants. The computer city has 2 nuclear power stations both with 3 mk3 gen thermal reactors, they put out 4800 mw together so my entire region is covered safely.

I was wondering if anyone has actually built the space station. I have trade ports with all the fuel, alloy and computers ready to build it instantly.

Blimey!!! That must have destroyed ur hourly rate?! Did u even have enough workers for them?

[UntCaptain 6]

I'm not fussed about hourly rate in that city. It's about -$55k and hour

But my electronics sales bring in $3.8m a month so I'm still waaaaay in the green.

I built the space station last night, so my great works is now up and giving me educated sims

[Xr3iracer 5]

I seem to have a negative hourly rate in 3 of my cities and it bugs me lol! Even tho I'm making money from trade! I'm building space centre too lol

[Horza3003 1]

I find the hourly rate is only any good until you set up the city specilisation.  Once you've set the specilisation up, the upkeep is never covered by your taxes, but it doesn't matter as the trading makes it all back for you plus a healthy profit

[SockoJr53 51]

I asked this in another thread, and didn't get much help, but I am trying to build an International Airport, and have 5 cities in the region. I heard, but not confirmed, that only 4 cities can contribute to a great works? Is this true? Because right now city number 5 is not connected, i.e. when I load that city, the great works site is blank and it keeps prompting me to build something there. The other cities are happily contributing resources though.

I have played city 5 for 2 game years and still nothing. This is aggravating because this is my big ore/steel producing city, and it needs to be a key contributor to this project.

EDIT: to clarify I am on the Reflection Atoll map, 7 city tiles total and 1 great works site.

[Griffon 19]

I asked this in another thread, and didn't get much help, but I am trying to build an International Airport, and have 5 cities in the region. I heard, but not confirmed, that only 4 cities can contribute to a great works? Is this true? Because right now city number 5 is not connected, i.e. when I load that city, the great works site is blank and it keeps prompting me to build something there. The other cities are happily contributing resources though.

I have played city 5 for 2 game years and still nothing. This is aggravating because this is my big ore/steel producing city, and it needs to be a key contributor to this project.

EDIT: to clarify I am on the Reflection Atoll map, 7 city tiles total and 1 great works site.

with the exception of 2 regions that only have 1 great works in them, the max is 4 cities per great work

 

as long as the cities are connected to the great works they benefit from it, but most people say 4 because in the majority of the regions it is 4 cities only

also to be considered connected, that means by road only although rail sometimes connects cities from 2 groups of 4 cities connected by road and you can gift across the rail connections to cities outside the 4 cities connected by road (also works the same with water transportation)

 

btw I like the Reflection Atoll because it has the most cities all connected together

[SockoJr53 51]

Thanks for the help Griffon, I like the map too, but without that 4:1 ratio of cities to GW on that map, I would assume all 7 would be able to contribute materials for construction. Its odd though that the GW won't even show up when viewing it from the 5th city I built. It's just blank.

Now since 4 cities see an Airport being built, could I theoretically start a completely different project on the same site with that 5th city? That breaks so many rules of physics, time, and space!

[Griffon 19]

Thanks for the help Griffon, I like the map too, but without that 4:1 ratio of cities to GW on that map, I would assume all 7 would be able to contribute materials for construction. Its odd though that the GW won't even show up when viewing it from the 5th city I built. It's just blank.

Now since 4 cities see an Airport being built, could I theoretically start a completely different project on the same site with that 5th city? That breaks so many rules of physics, time, and space!

your welcome and no you couldn't build a different great works there in a different city (at least you shouldn't be able to), all 7 cities should of been able to contribute to building it and all 7 will receive benefits from it, wait about 20mins in your other city that you can't see the great works in, the game should sync before that time and it will be built in that city again and you'll have to do a ribbon cutting again from that city

[DVDGuy 16]

It was a toss up between the solar array and the space center for me, but fate decided my GW because I accidentally clicked on the solar array build icon and am now stuck with it (and just after I had decided that I wanted the space center too ... typical).