[Tuning] Ideologies: Tier 2

[Stalker0]

G asked for the Ideology discussion to occur based on Tiers, so I am reorganizing the threads with that note.

This thread looks at the Tier 2 Ideologies.

Freedom

Arsenal of Democracy: +15% production of military units. +10 CS influence with all known CS when you expend GP.

(A)

This is what a good tier 2 policy should do. The military bonus is nice, but the CS influence gives you a new way to use your GP boost from your specialist play to boost diplomatic gains.

Capitalism: 5 specialists in each city no longer cause unhappiness.

EDIT: Changed my vote from an F to an A do to recent unhappiness changes.

(A)

Recently, specialist unhappiness was changed and I find it much higher in the late game now. So this went from a mild unhappiness reduction to a fairly major one, and I think its solid now.

New Deal: Landmarks and Great Person Improvements produce +4 of their appropriate yield.

(C)

This one is ok to me. Ultimately even for a tradition player GP improvements are not that common, but it does also net you more tourism as well. So its a decent one at Tier 2.

Their Finest Hour: +33% CS to cities. Can build B17 bombers.

(A)

At this point in the game, the main threat to a freedom player is from a military attack by an autocracy player. This gives you a great boost to resistance that attack, and the B17 is a great upgrade to an already great unit.

This is a tenant I won't always take, but sometimes its the tenant you really need.

Transnationalism: Each turn, a chance a corporate franchise will appear in a city, +20% to maximum franchises.

(N/A)

I don't know about this one. I don't have a big problem with spreading franchises normally so I don't see the appeal there. The 20% maximum could be good I guess in some cases. Don't have a lot of experience on this one.

Universal Suffrage: +1 happiness to each city, +50% golden ages.

(C)

Its not that the bonuses are not nice, I just don't find freedom players lacking in happiness or GAs at this point in the game.

Volunteer Army

(F)

This is a panic button tenant, so it should be Tier 1. The maintenance free is not that much of a benefit.


Order

Academy of Sciences: Free public school in every city, -10% illiteracy.

(F)

At Tier 2, most of my public school building is behind me, and the illiteracy is worthless.

Cultural Revolution:: +34% tourism to other Order civilizations. Spies steal technologies at double rate.

(Varies)

This one hugely varies in its power depending on who is the other order civilizations. Culture victories often come down to 1 or 2 key civs....if those are Order you are golden with this policy. If they are not, this is worthless.

The double spy stealing, stealing is really hard at this point in the game, I don't know if the double rate is enough to make them competitive again, curious to hear other thoughts.

Five Year Plan: +2 hammer/city, +1 hammer to mines, lumber mills, quarries, and unique improvements.

(C)

A decent one, though it takes a improvements to really make it worth it as a Tier 2 policy.

Nationalization: Corporate Offices function as franchise. Foreign Franchises no longer benefit your corporation.

(N/A)

There is a big question here that I don't know, and it completely affects how strong the policy is. If I make an internal TR between a corporate office and this "franchise" , do I get the corporation benefit I normally get by making a TR to a franchise?

Is so, this tenant is amazing, if not its weak.

Party Leadership: +2 food, production, science, culture, and gold in each city.

(C)

I think it would have fit in decently well in the Tier 1 pool, as a tier 2 its just okay.

Resettlement: Existing cities get +2 people, new cities gain +3.

(A)

For that late game expansion surge, this policy helps significantly in getting those new cities off the ground, more so than Party Leadership imo.

Further, you get growth in your old cities as well, and at this point in the game this is likely stronger growth than the peace land bread or party leadership growth and food bonuses.

Worker's Faculties: Factories gain +3 science and are built in half the time.

(F)

The science is pretty meh at this point, the half hammers is okay but tapers out. To me, if you want to make this one work, remove the coal requirement from the factory. Then at least you can build a factory in all of your great big Ordered empire.


Autocracy

Tier 2

Lightning Warfare: +3 movement to GGs. +15% attack, +1 movement, and ignore ZOC to Gun/Armor units.

(A)

This is a definitive war tech to me. Makes your core units stronger, faster, and the ability to ignore ZOC gives you a big military advantage.

Martial Spirit: +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. War Weariness rate reduced by 50%, razing speed is doubled.

(A)

50 turns at this point in the game is often close to the game. This can help your one key weakness in the loss of happiness from WW. I think this is better a bit later in the game than Lightning Warfare when gun/armor units tend to fall away a bit more but both have good uses.

Nationalism: Reduce Gold Maintenance by 33%

(C)

Compared to the other Tier 2's of Autocracy this is pretty weaksauce.

Police State: +3 happiness from courthouses, +1 happy from police stations. Court Houses build in half time.

(A)

This tenant is a powerhouse way to combat unhappiness from excessive warring. That is its only purpose, but if you need it, it will do the job powerfully.

Syndicalism: Corporate Franchises count double in civilizations you are at least popular with. Does not count against global franchise maximum.

(A...?)

The way I read this, is you can in theory have twice as many franchise as you normally could have. If so, that is super awesome! IF not....well then I have no idea what this does.

Third Alternative: Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10 to all yields in the capital.

(F)

I don't find autocracy players have trouble securing strategic resources. Even if they did, there are so many great Tier 2's for autocracy to compete with here, ones that make nonstrategic units strong enough to take on strategic ones.

Total War: +25% production when building military units, workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.

(C)

Its pretty good, but just doesn't match many of the other Tier 2's. This one seems like more of a buildup tenant, which I think is more Tier 1 suitable.

 

[Stalker0]

Including Quotes from the Other Threads:

Volunteer Army :
Is quite good with early ideology. I've once managed to take it during mid-industrial era, and it makrs defensives war a lot easier.

Third Alternative :
Frequently my first pick, because I'm never lucky with coal, so I need it. The Iron is cool too.

Capitalism is good if you're a Wider Empire trying to transition into a Specialist Economy.

Syndicalism does in fact work the way you want it to. The trouble is finding people to trade with that are: struggling enough with Culture to have you be popular in them, friendly enough with you that they're not going to declare war on you, close enough to you that your trade routes aren't at risk from enemies, and large enough that you actually get enough franchises from their cities. The best targets are probably people you attacked and vassalized in an earlier era, but the trouble there is getting enough franchises out of them. If you're on a hard Tourism push, of course, the popularity requirement isn't hard to meet, and if you're not actually fighting anyone then your TRs aren't in potential danger - but in that case, why are you Autocracy?

Third Alternative I find is quite useful as a way to squeeze monopolies out of things you really shouldn't be able to. Autocracy Russia especially is able to get global monopolies out of nearly nothing. This is especially nice for Uranium, which usually is concentrated into something like 6 sites across the world and has a global monopoly bonus of +10% science.

 

[Stalker0]

This is a repost on behalf of Funak. These are his comments and not mine.

Arsenal of Democracy: +15% production of military units. +10 CS influence with all known CS when you expend GP.

(A)

This is what a good tier 2 policy should do. The military bonus is nice, but the CS influence gives you a new way to use your GP boost from your specialist play to boost diplomatic gains.

Strongest tenet of the tier, by far, the influence from expending GPs usually let you control half the CS on the map without sending any diplomats, the production-bonus on top of that is just gravy.

Quote:

Capitalism: 5 specialists in each city no longer cause unhappiness.

(F)

As a tier 1 this would be an F, the unhappiness from specialists isn't that much that this saves you massively. Also Tall, specialist civs that normally go freedom don't usually have problems with happiness.

Completely worthless, gives you around 1 happiness per city, which is really worthless even by freedom tier 2 standards.
Quote:

New Deal: Landmarks and Great Person Improvements produce +4 of their appropriate yield.

(C)

This one is ok to me. Ultimately even for a tradition player GP improvements are not that common, but it does also net you more tourism as well. So its a decent one at Tier 2.

Weak, even if I plant all GPs I get throughout the game this policy is going to provide me with like 40 yields at most, and most of that is going to be science or faith.
I have experimented with picking this up and setting up landmarks to work, but landmarks just feel underwhelming when compared to artifacts even with this tenet.
Quote:

Their Finest Hour: +33% CS to cities. Can build B17 bombers.

(A)

At this point in the game, the main threat to a freedom player is from a military attack by an autocracy player. This gives you a great boost to resistance that attack, and the B17 is a great upgrade to an already great unit.

This is a tenant I won't always take, but sometimes its the tenant you really need.

I usually take this, mostly because the rest of the tier 2 tenets are so bad. I think I've built 1 B17, so I'm not sure exactly how good they are, but I mean heavy bombers are good and they are upgraded heavy bombers, so why not?
Quote:

Transnationalism: Each turn, a chance a corporate franchise will appear in a city, +20% to maximum franchises.

(N/A)

I don't know about this one. I don't have a big problem with spreading franchises normally so I don't see the appeal there. The 20% maximum could be good I guess in some cases. Don't have a lot of experience on this one.

Usually end up getting this one, mostly because of the lack of better alternatives, the +20% is decent and the random faster spread could possibly give you some benefit at some point, maybe.
Quote:

Universal Suffrage: +1 happiness to each city, +50% golden ages.

(C)

Its not that the bonuses are not nice, I just don't find freedom players lacking in happiness or GAs at this point in the game.

Clearly better than Capitalism, no prereqs and an additional effect on top of the happiness, decent I suppose but I'm usually skipping this because 5 happiness is not worth a tenet.
Quote:

Volunteer Army

(F)

This is a panic button tenant, so it should be Tier 1. The maintenance free is not that much of a benefit.

Never really seen the point of this tenet, I mean sure free units are nice, but you're not unlocking the ability to build them and they aren't exactly amazing at anything. The free maintenance is pointless.

 

[Stalker0]

So because of the recent change in specialist unhappiness, Capitalism went from an F to an A for me. I tried it out and got 20 unhappiness reduction off of 9 cities. The new specialist unhappiness is MUCH greater than previous.

 

[Gazebo]

Re: Nationalization, it works as you would suppose - internal routes to cities that 'have a franchise' (i.e. an office under nationalization) gain the bonuses attached to international franchises. So you can, theoretically, run all internal routes as Order and prosper.

G

 

[Strigvir]

Run Order as Ottomans with mediocre outcome you meant. Because Order is opposite of "prosper", let alone internal TRs Order.

 

[Funak]

Run Order as Ottomans with mediocre outcome you meant. Because Order is opposite of "prosper", let alone internal TRs Order.

You can't really blame Order for that, the Ottomans is a disaster.

 

[Rean]

Run Order as Ottomans with mediocre outcome you meant. Because Order is opposite of "prosper", let alone internal TRs Order.

Civ that relies on external trade routes does poorly when using a strategy involving internal trade routes. Never would've guessed it.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

I think you are selling the happiness tenets short. I often crave for any point of happiness I can get and grab any tent that reduces unhappiness or provides happiness, for sheer necessity. For my playstyle at least, these tenets are all either A or C.

Fully agree on academy of sciences though. It was one of my favorite picks, but now that ideologies got pushed back, schools no longer cut it. The free building should be replaced by a contemporary one, maybe labs?

 

[merill]

Third Alternative: Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10 to all yields in the capital.

(F)

I don't find autocracy players have trouble securing strategic resources. Even if they did, there are so many great Tier 2's for autocracy to compete with here, ones that make nonstrategic units strong enough to take on strategic ones.

In one game, i go Autocracy almost only for this one tenet, as i desperately need more iron.

But i like maps without huge amount of strat resources, maybe i'm biased.

 

[Braum]

Academy of Sciences: Free public school in every city, -10% illiteracy.

Maybe change this to free research labs or add a bonus to public school yields because this policy arrives long after I've built all my public schools.

 

[Strigvir]

Free research labs at possibly Industrial Era?

 

[Galbias]

Strongly agree that Academy of Sciences needs a buff, either free Research Labs or build RL in half the time + passive bonus or something.

Switching it up so that Academy of Sciences gives you faster RL build time and Worker's Faculties gives you a free Factory in every city (and +1 free Coal per city) might be kind of interesting, gives you a nice fallback if you can't secure Coal for whatever reason.

 

[tu_79]

Cultural Revolution is the worst policy here. Let me explain. It's a tier 3 policy, therefore it's meant to be the final hit on your desired victory path, culture in this case. At first sight, you may think that such a good bonus will make you win in no time. But.
Scenario 1. Your civ culture is so amazing that everyone follows you into Order. Well, in this case you are already winning, isn't it? You cannot be the top cultural civ without being good at everything else. CR will make it just faster.
Scenario 2. Your main contender in culture has Order ideology too. You both turn the other civs into Order, effectively influencing them all but your rival. That culture civ is likely to pick CR too, so none is taking advantage. You are not going to win this game by faster influencing your rival, he/she is doing the same thing.
Scenario 3. You are second to culture, and the leader has something different than Order. This time, your rival is going to make all civs switch to his ideology sooner than later. Even worse, most of your most influenced civs probably won't have an ideology by the time you pick CR, and when they choose an ideology only some of them, for a few turns, will share Order.

So only in case 1 under some conditions Cultural Revolution might be of some help, and we are talking about the definitive last cultural weapon of this ideology.

An Order civ, imo, is tipically a large empire, self-suficient, with some monopolies, without many friendly civs (only some CS), almost no foreing trade routes, few Great People, with a large (possibly outdated) army and great production. That means: fewer Great Musicians than a Freedom civ, fewer trade routes, fewer open borders agreements, some unfavorable WC enacts and little time to crush cultural rivals with an army. So, what's left? Raw tourism from the sheer number of buildings.and/or cultural unique improvements. I'm not sure how big the bonus to base tourism needs to be to counter a Freedom rival (with +40% from trade routes, open borders, and their extra musicians and great works), but I'd say that "Cultural Revolution: +50% to base tourism (from buildings and tiles)" can be a beginning.

 

[grmagne]

Cultural Revolution is the worst policy here. Let me explain. It's a tier 3 policy, therefore it's meant to be the final hit on your desired victory path, culture in this case. At first sight, you may think that such a good bonus will make you win in no time.

Did the Order tenets get changed around? Cultural Revolution used to be a tier 2 policy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat was tier 3 (both +34% tourism in different circumstances).

I don't think I've ever tried a tourism victory with Order, though I do understand the point you're making (in fact it kind of reinforces it).

 

[tu_79]

Did the Order tenets get changed around? Cultural Revolution used to be a tier 2 policy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat was tier 3 (both +34% tourism in different circumstances).

I don't think I've ever tried a tourism victory with Order, though I do understand the point you're making (in fact it kind of reinforces it).

Maybe I mixed policies, prob. is tier 2 as you say, but I remember that this policy did nothing to help me win culturally, and there is a reason it actually doesn't help.

 

[intelli]

Are Tier 2 ideologies being restricted to 4 necessary for balance, or is it just a throwback to vanilla Civ?

 

[joosegoose25]

Are Tier 2 ideologies being restricted to 4 necessary for balance, or is it just a throwback to vanilla Civ?

I wonder if it's hard coded. I hope it's not, because it feels kind of unnecessary to have that restriction imo.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I'm going to focus on those I wouldn't really take.

Autocracy:

Nationalism. At this point, after having gone Authority-Piety-Imperialism, I have no need to increase my GPT. Sure, it's neat, but I don't need it. It doesn't help me, I can rushbuy an unit in my favoured city every turn anyway.

Total War. I don't really need slightly faster unit production, I've likely gone Imperialism anyway so that's not a problem, and if I went Industry I have so much Gold I'll just buy stuff, no point in building it. (Tbh even with Imperialism I likely can buy army too anyway) I'd rather get stronger units. It feels a bit like that Ancient Era Progress policy which gives the same, except Buildings instead of units. The worst one of T2 Autocracy.

SUGGESTION: Nationalism : -33% Gold maintenance. 50% faster Worker improvement speed. Receive a free Great Writer. - basically a policy that helps in a few ways. All makes sense - there's lots of nationalist writers, the rest is reasonable too as the people work harder for a civilisation they're proud of, even if they're not rewarded as much. It'd be fine to take it as a 4th policy, or 3rd if you're somehow desperate for Gold. I'd still not first take it ever, I want my Lightning Warfare first into Santa Clausevits.

Total War : +25% unit production. Instantly destroy and pillage all Trade Routes of the enemy Civ when you declare a war against them and receive 3x yields from pillaging. - basically a troll policy. Since Total War encompasses all spheres of life, something like that feels fitting. The yields you'd receive upon a war declaration would be some neat sweeteners, and it'd be a nice way to cripple the enemy, if possible to do that is. It'd basically be the Brother Policy of Lebensraum, with both being made only to troll (though Lebensraum is not too good)

Another one I would rather not take is Third Alternative: most of the time, at this point I've conquered lots of stuff anyway so I have all the SR I could ask for. It does make getting monopolies easier which is fun, but I think it should also give some yields per Strategic Resource.


Freedom

Universal Suffrage. Maybe +1 Happiness, +50% longer GA and a free instant GA and WLTKD in all cities? Good instantly, but falls off.

Volunteer Army - hard to say what'd make it good. It's good if you get to it fast, but if it's buffed it'd be broken in that case.


Order

Hard to say. T2 of Order is its weakest part by far and nothing stands out too much (except Resreach Labs probably, because they'll be gotten very early now), and Workers Faculties IIRC were buffed or something and I don't remember what they do now.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

I feel these 2 Policies ought to be buffed. I'll agree that T2 of Order is a bit weak.

On Party Leadership: +2 food, production, science, culture, and gold in each city.
This is like the Piety Finisher, I feel this being a T2 Ideology policy, it should be stronger than that.

Five Year Plan: +2 hammer/city, +1 hammer to mines, lumber mills, quarries, and unique improvements.
The other UI Ideology Policies give 2 Food (Freedom) and 3 Science (Autocracy). Should probably be changed to match those Policies.