Any reason to have plantations after hydroponics? Libraries after Research Labs?

[Oddible]

Is there any reason to use plantations in the modern era? Also should I just upgrade everything if I can afford it?

[jlking3rd]

A corn plantation can actually produce more corn than a hydroponics farm can. It uses more workers and more land, but it can help supply your factory ranches a bit more dependably.

[Kunovega]

Libraries have other work modes, I use them to boost education

[Bored Peon]

Plantations get the multi-crop bonus, hydroponics do not. Depending on your fertility a plantation can outperform hydroponics easily.

The advantage of hydroponics is it ignores fertility and pollution decreasing fertility.

[Baron von Tansley]

I prefer hydroponic farms and demolish all my plantations, but I think that's just because I like space efficiency. It's nice being able to cram all those farms in a tight area.

Originally posted by Kunovega:

Libraries have other work modes, I use them to boost education

I think this is an especially important point if you switch to hydroponics, since all of those workers require a high school education. The big 30% bonus can be nice when stacked with everything else like interactive education and the literacy program edict

[jbrowes]

In my current game, I wish I had not upgraded to hydroponic farms (20) as I have plenty of space and good fertility from ranches.

[JIM PARRY]

When to use plantation over hydroponics: If you start your game modern-era, most of the time, its not a good idea to build hydroponics straight away due to the lack of educated workforce at game start, and it being easy to effectively place your plantations within the fertility zones.

I perceive the main benefit of hydroponics to be efficiency (space + workforce) & flexibility (fertility), most useful in "late-game" scenarios, where space and fertility-shapes can become issues to setup new plantations for your bigger production chains.

However, if you started in colonial age and have already been growing your city for a while before reaching modern times, then it will be alot easier to setup new hydroponics vs setting up new plantations. Also, upgrading the plantations that are close to your city is an easy way to quickly get more space for growing it.

Its easier to stack the area bonuses of hydroponics, i.e. Sugar for instance: "Increases the Effectiveness of all other nearby Plantations and Hydroponic Farms by 10 based on effectiveness (max 30). Maximum range is 12 tiles."

Also, unlike plantations, you may use electricity to boost output.

[Z-40]

The only "advantage" for me is that hydroponics takes less space than a plantation, which u can use to build houses or other buildings nearby so the employees are happy.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Z-40:

The only "advantage" for me is that hydroponics takes less space than a plantation, which u can use to build houses or other buildings nearby so the employees are happy.

Despite this being a 2 year old necro post, you answered it backwards.

[Z-40]

Originally posted by Oddible:

Originally posted by Z-40:

The only "advantage" for me is that hydroponics takes less space than a plantation, which u can use to build houses or other buildings nearby so the employees are happy.

Despite this being a 2 year old necro post, you answered it backwards.

Yeah but i didnt revive this thread so yeah