Social Policy Game 1: Autocracy

My initial plan was to work on my existing cities a little bit before expanding because I really don’t have spare food or hammers (or gold!). But plans don’t always go as… planned.



First off, I didn’t plan to get 50 influence for clearing a barbarian encampment and another 30 for returning the worker. What this means is that I now have 20 turns of allied status to enjoy. With all this extra food, I think the best course of action is to build those settlers right after I finish my current builds. The disadvantage of doing this is I might have missed some better location that I haven’t explored yet. I was planning on making a more informed decision.

600BC: I asked my people to find me shiny rocks called gold. They gave me rocks, alright:



Anyhow, here’s my new cities:




450BC: Completed Oracle. So my plan A of getting more gold by failing wonders, failed, since I keep failing to fail getting these wonders. Time for plan B: build more cities.




125BC: my long-term partner Genoa recognises me for getting a great scientist. It’s like getting the job just for showing up to interview on time.
25AD: Conquered Ragusa. I don’t really like pandering to hostile city-states and I needed to silk anyway. Plus they weren’t cultural. The geography made it a little awkward though, so I had to lure the units out of the forests.



I made their rivals happy though. I don’t want too much maritime food but 2 cities should be manageable.
520AD: astronomy discovered. I would have purchase the caravels, except I would also be bankrupt afterwards. So no.
560AD: Porcelain tower complete.
760AD: Caravel meets the Iroquois and Arabs. Damascus is under Iroquois control.



820AD: Met the Romans. So who built all those wonders in the ancient era?
840AD: Hagia Sophia completed. Sold surplus gems.
860AD: Met Songhai. Only their capital is left - yikes! More importantly, I saw a unit of muskets under Iroquois control. I guess my gut instincts were right:

I was thinking of using frigates to bombard cities and then launch an amphibious assault with knights or something, but if they have muskets I won’t hold those cities. Maybe my fellow forumers are right, nothing short of rifles and artillery will do. But what that also means is I have to change my strategy. Usually I like to hit the leader first to ensure I maintain a technological advantage, but since I am now relying on land units, I have to do the opposite and hit the weakest opponent first to make sure I gain a foothold. That would, unfortunately, means I have to fight a land war, which I am not good at. I am really much better at using naval and air units, now I just hope I don’t mess up.

960AD: Met France. Another aggressive country. Thankfully they are weak. Musketeers are not cool to fight against.
1130AD: This is an important moment. 4 great scientists, check. Pre-requisites met, check. Potential targets identified, check. Culture: enough for 6, plus 1 from Oracle. Let’s launch!




(to be continued…)

Police State/Communism can be done a lot faster than I thought. Just completed it using the French on turn 124 using three Great Scientists. This appears to be about as fast as you can swing it. Everything timed out beautifully, earning the third GS two turns before Metallurgy finished up. Had an overabundance of Culture because the only city-states with resources I still needed were Cultural.

Plan works as advertised. I annexed everything and am sitting at the same Happiness level (+18) with something like fifteen size 4-7 cities.

So which policies did I pick?



My reasoning for choosing honour rather than commerce is that I am not generating a lot of gold to buy units anyway. My only advantage is technological; my only real choice is to upgrade my existing promoted units, make them even stronger with discipline, and then carefully attack the weakest player in the game to start pillaging cities for gold. Plus I really want to try out the “total war” social policy later on. It’s not the best policy but I think a number of you would think it’s cool.

1140AD: Rome asks me for gold. No. I also got a lot of requests from city states to bash each other. While bullying the weak would be fun, my answer is still no. I got bigger fish to fry.

1250AD: The Iroquois declares war on the Romans. Good, leaves me time to gobble up the smaller rivals. The intuitive decision would be to attack the Romans quickly but that would not be right because the two are quite evenly matched in strength, which means they will end the war just as quickly also. Plus the terrain between their nation is narrow, I think they would have difficulty just moving their forces towards each other.

1300AD: France asked me whether I was attacking them or not. Of course I am, but the sad thing is I have to lie about it too because my units were vulnerable at sea. You’re not going to make an omlette without cracking a few eggheads.

1320AD: my back-stabbing force was ready:



1330AD: Beachhead, check. A pile of gold, check. Counting 5 turns before the portal is created and I summon the legions from hell.



I’ll also say one thing: populism is powerful. The 9-health rifleman took down half the health of a size-9 city all by itself.

1350AD: my research agreements bear fruit. Acoustics and archeology. The two worst techs I could ever have. What a waste of gold.



1380AD: Napoleon sues for peace for most of his country. Hmm… okay, I accept. Although if I do that, I might have to start throwing money at buildings rather than troops. Or maybe not, because 31 unhappiness one too many theatres to buy. I don’t even think police state can control this kind of mess. My only option left is genocide, I’m afraid.

Surprisingly, cities that are being razed don’t count as occupied. Moreover, as soon as I stop razing, the hammers I invested in the previous building stays. Just something to keep in mind.

1390AD: Rome asks me why my troops are sitting on their borders. So my Russian generals are not the most able strategists, I’m afraid. This time I decided to be honest mostly because he doesn’t have any mounted units. He did move his muskets in front and his cannon in his city for a defensive formation but he would’ve done that anyway.

1400AD: I decided to end the day here. My battlefront:



Again, I know militarism + mercantilism is strong, but populism + discipline is not too shabby. If played by China or Japan I’d say it’s pretty scary.

(the war has just begun…)

Police State/Communism can be done a lot faster than I thought. Just completed it using the French on turn 124 using three of Great Scientists.

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So are you launching your spaceship using order/autocracy rather than liberty/rationalism then? That'd be interesting.

Interesting games. I'm following it because I need some advices for Emperor and above levels and it's a really interesting round.

Honor synergies rather well with Autocracy. The base Autocracy policy (-33% upkeep) for example makes Military Caste much more cost effective (though still much less cost effective than hapiness buildings), and Discipline works great with the large armies that Autocracy is geared to produce.

The best case scenario for the game would be a big final confrontation between Russia and Iroquois. That would also be a great time to get Total War.

Edit: Also, if you haven't done so yet, tech Banking and build the Forbidden Palace. It has great synergy with Police State.

sylvanllewelyn said:

So are you launching your spaceship using order/autocracy rather than liberty/rationalism then? That'd be interesting.

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That would be pretty funny, wouldn't it? But alas, the Universities arrive too late for a quick Spaceship. I'll probably just go over to the other continent and trample them.

was wondering if you can show some more insight to Autocracy use...

between your updates, just saw you complete almost all of Autocracy...tx
otherwise, it looks just like a standard early rush, rex game...
prob don't even need Autocracy to achieve same/better result.

First off, let me say again that I am not a warmonger. I would happily finish the game without ever declaring war. The problem is that trying to demonstrate autocracy without declaring war would make no sense. As for the rush in the beginning, I had the two worst leaders to be situated next to. Since the AI enjoys advantages in a number of parameters on emperor, it would be mathematically impossible for me to maintain parity in troop numbers with an aggressive AI. Pre-emptive striking against these lunatics was the only hope of survival.

Now, back to our situation: the straight-forward battle tactic would be to use my artillery to pound the muskets, then the city, then charge in to capture the place. The problem is that it takes too long, which violates the principle of not fighting a long war. I also risk the Romans getting artillery themselves. A direct assault works but I’ll suffer losses and I won’t be able to take the next city.

So here’s what I’ll do:



It looks like a simple case of covering my attack using ships but it’s more than that. What happened was by moving sideways into the waters, the Roman muskets had to respond by shifting their battle-lines and my elite riflemen in the South could pick them off once they are out of cannon range. As my troops appeared next to the other city, that cannon is now out of range also. My rifleman in the forest is drill2, should be able to take the knight and longswordsman.

1500AD: Long story short, my maneuver worked and I managed to straddle his forces, allowing my ships to pound them before my rifles knock them out. Not that the Romans were innocent: they had 2 generals while I only had 1 until I fought them, so they are not nice people either. Meh. No nice cultures in this game I suppose.



With my war objectives completed, I accept peace. One thing I want to say is that when the AI says “I do not see a way to make this work” but they are about to die, what it really means is they will accept any deal you throw at them, so just propose anyway. So why did I accept a peace deal? Two reasons: 1) I want to deal with Iroquois a.s.a.p. and 2) I saw he had a rifleman unit. Tech is close to parity, no point forcing every last Roman to fight to the death. So I have to focus on the Iroquois and Arabia. But it’s no walk-in-the-park:



Do the maths: the Iroquois lead in everything that counts, except troop count, but I strongly believe our military lead is only slight. The average is around 67000, but this is considering the peaceful Arabs, the tiny Songhai and the beaten-up Romans, French. Assuming the 3 small nations are roughly equal in strength, Arabs around average, the Iroquois must be very close. And note that they have higher literacy too.

1510AD: France and Arabia declares war on Rome. I don’t get it. Do they really think they will get something out of Rome or are they just programmed to dogpile on the weakest nation?

1520AD: I was asked (again!!), this time from the Iroquois, whether I was planning to attack them. Might as well declare war now.



1540AD: Forbidden palace helped my happiness somewhat, but this will only last until I capture a few more cities. As for capturing cities:



My caravels scouted and confirmed my concern. The Iroquois now have rifles and artillery, but way in the back and not in the front. I therefore decided to strike as fast as I can, even sacrificing two riflemen, one of them shock3, just to push quickly. It was during my push that I realised they had lots of cities inland too, and were not just a coastal power.

What I wasn’t happy with is inability to declare war on the Romans again because of the peace treat. Why is that annoying? Because a single worker was blocking my escape path. My elite riflemen could’ve lived if it weren’t for some ******ed 1upt rule between civilian units and military units of different factions.

But I still got time. My frigates could focus fire and shoot down the artillery, just like chariot archers rush in and shoot down catapults. As long as I stick to the coast I can use my naval tactics. My total war civic is also available next turn but I'm not sure whether I should activate it now or wait. If I wait, I hold until I get more Cossacks or until my unhappiness is completely out of control and I'll need it against the Arabs.

... you could ask for the rest of their gold and GPT if they'll take any deal for peace?
That way, they can't afford to build a new army until the deal wears off.

After some thought, I have decided to use the “total war” social policy immediately. My rationale is that I should try to demonstrate how to use it to tip the scales in my favour, rather than a silly “win more” button.



The first thing I notice is this: The displayed description that the effect lasts 20 turns is wrong. The correct number of turns is 33. Maybe nobody picked this error up because nobody actually went all the way down, but there you go. In either case, I have to change my tactics and advance much more quickly. Most importantly, I have to start moving my units right in front of cities. Casualties are inevitable. They will be replaced by gold from sacking cities.



Since someone has to move in front and take damage, I choose to let my ships do it with 30 strength. The open coasts also help in that I could bombard any reinforcements. It’s very hard to explain using screenshots, but in short I killed more units using my ships than artillery and rifles combined.



Bombarding cities is another matter though. ONE damage?! That’s some big and dangerous cities right there.



I also suffer barbarian problems back home. I’m not sure what’s more insulting: Russia being plundered by barbarians, or the fact that they are causing me more economic damage than the Iroquois.



As I press deeper into their heartland, I can no longer rely on my frigates. I really have to press my elite regiments forward now, even into uncharted territories, to keep the pressure. He really does have many cities, and big cities too. The bright news is that Cossacks have a… read this…50%... bonus against damaged units. This is one late game UU that can turn the tables.



Their maritime allies can get quite irritating too.



Okay, they are learning to build their own navy, this is bad. Must keep pressing as fast as possible.

1605AD: He finally feels the pressure and offers me peace. I don’t accept it though; I have to take his capital first.



Finally, the moment Russia has been waiting for. After the city we can take the peace treaty. It took me a few turns. Size18 city was tougher than I thought.

1620AD: Took the peace treaty. I annexed all their cities because it would generate less unhappiness. Turns out it doesn’t matter: I am now on 36 unhappiness, basically off the scale. I have officially reached the point of no return, where only continuous war and expansion is the only way to prevent total collapse of the USSR.



I think this is becoming a pattern. If it weren’t for the timer on total war I could have started hostilities after I place my units into better position. But that’s not my only problem:



58% bonus in friendly territory!? Is this another “undocumented feature” I must have missed? How do you get that many bonuses anyway? Suddenly those furry camels are not so cute anymore.

1675AD: Finally broke into Mecca and he yielded his empire like the rest. He did have an intricate defense of hills, camel archers, muskets and cities that refuse to be bombarded for even 1 damage. My solution was as blunt as Russians can get: throw Cossacks at it with my gold production in former Iroquois lands. I’m amazed I didn’t suffer horrendous casualties. But my empire is another story. Rapid conquest might be cool, even powerful for gold and science, but if you ever start losing, you are utterly screwed. 46 unhappiness is beyond anything I ever experienced. I also only have 9 turns left on my total war bonus before all my units become wet noodles.

One enemy left: the Songhai. They’ve been friends with me throughout, but now it’s time to backstab and hunt them down. I chose them last because they were the weakest. Somehow they still had muskets.



You see that flag? It’s the red flag of domination. That, and reading some civiopedia entries, it’s obvious the designers are politically left-leaning and believe that communist-like economic policies lead to a strong military. I am left-leaning by US standards myself but I think game designers should maintain their neutrality to avoid offending their customers.

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Now for the autocracy social policies:
This is a powerful branch, one that you can only really feel if you play immortal/deity. In other words, I think if AI become more powerful, so would this policy branch as compared to lame tree-huggers that believe in freedom and liberty for all.
1) Autocracy: not bad but nothing to go home about. By the industrial era, you are paying a lot more for roads and buildings. Unit upkeep doesn’t scale properly with your gold income. In theory it helps if you have a massive number of units, but you’ll never have the gold or hammers to make so many units in the first place. If you only intend to grab one policy, don’t take it.
2) Militarism: a powerful one. Even a few purchased units will save a lot of gold. Is it worth 2 policies? Maybe, perhaps. Contrary to posters here, I think this is best if you do not have Big Ben or mercantilism. The key is marginal benefit, not the coolness of stacking bonuses together. A mixed bag of miscellenous and unfocused effects do not seem much but that’s actually more powerful in the long run.
3) Police state: if you really aim to destroy some powerful AI this is a must. But make sure you have the happiness to support the cities, or you plunge into an unhappiness black hole. Use with caution.
4) Populism: my favourite policy out of the branch. People say discipline is good because it is effectively +15%. Well I think this is effectively a +25% strength since you almost never have the luxury to wait until your unit is fully healed. I see it as a superior version of discipline, feel free to disagree though.

5) Facism: I never benefitted from it, so I can’t say anything. I guess it’ll be useful once I have uranium and I can nuke the planet, who knows?

6) Total war: I feel it’s something you need more than you want to use. Others disagree, but I feel the -33% from strong unhappiness to be crippling. As the title says, if it buys you 33 turns more of insanity, make sure it’s truly ground-breaking. It’s extremely powerful but the timing is also extremely delicate. I’m sure a story-teller or a fantasy mod could make a cool story out of it though.

My next social policy will be commerce. I’ll start one in a few days. In the meantime, I attached the save file of my last turn.

Nice read-thru. A few notes...

Oligarchy +33% homeland defense
Himeji Castle +25% homeland defense
Nationalism +25% homeland defense

Consider yourself lucky you didn't have a +83% defense pikeman?

Also, since you were playing Russia the Fascism definitely would not come into play methinks. If the game actually allowed you to build an army that could use all you Russian resources and not go bankrupt then that would be one thing, but as it stands, double the resources is silly.

Finally, I take it you would agree that "Total War" appears to be merely a counterbalance to a "very unhappy" civilization? Allowing you to finish that last push after still being in the red?

you dont get def bonus from nationalism just attack bonus in your own land.

58% is as you said from himeji castle + oligarchy

Feyd Rautha said:

Wait... is this an ICS or a Culture game? I can't imagine them working in tandem.

If you are pushing culture then I'd make one more city at MOST. Five cities makes it almost unbearably long to get policies. Six pretty much removes the option of late game culture options.

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huh? I've won cultural victories with 10 of my own cities and only minimal cpt from puppets. you can get tons of culture from CS's, and freedom will get you a lot more especially if you are able to get a wonder in several cities. In fact, I had a very early cultural victory as the mongols a couple weeks ago, I just kept taking over cities with wonders. I annexed every city with a wonder and puppeted/burned the others, I think I ended up with 8 cities in that game. Once you get the ball rolling on your desired victory type (military, science, cultural, UN) it's pretty tough for the ai to do anything to stop you unless you're way behind in units, he's right next to you and he pulls a surprise dow.

DonChipotle said:

Same reason you can't have Piety and Rationalism. They wanted you to have to choose between different compelling options. The only thing that throws off the balance is that Liberty and Freedom are so awesome, and Autocracy is so meh. They need to balance the game a bit more so that it's actually a difficult decision for a conqueror.

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yeah, autocracy would be better if you could get it earlier, maybe they could move it back to medieval and/or buff the bonuses a bit. for example, make total war last the rest of the game, that would make it much more useful for warmongers.

sylvanllewelyn said:

3) Police state: if you really aim to destroy some powerful AI this is a must. But make sure you have the happiness to support the cities, or you plunge into an unhappiness black hole. Use with caution.

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This is probably my favourite policy from the branch. When combined with Planned Economy and/or the forbidden Palace it becomes the poor man's Indian special (much like Populism is the poor man's Bushido).

4) Populism: my favourite policy out of the branch. People say discipline is good because it is effectively +15%. Well I think this is effectively a +25% strength since you almost never have the luxury to wait until your unit is fully healed. I see it as a superior version of discipline, feel free to disagree though.

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Another thing to note here is that Populism isn't listed among your attack bonuses so apparently it's an actual multiplier. I'd have to examine unit strengths to make sure, but if my assumption is correct it's a lot stronger than Discipline when you already have some other bonuses. For example a Pikeman with Discipline gets a 115% bonus vs mounted units, but a wounded Pikeman with Populism would effectively get a 150% bonus.

5) Facism: I never benefitted from it, so I can’t say anything. I guess it’ll be useful once I have uranium and I can nuke the planet, who knows?

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Fascism is most useful in the Modern Era when it doubles your Aluminium and Uranium. The idea behind it seems to be allowing you to make big armies of units that require resources, but it is perhaps even more useful for buildings that require resources. A fascist empire can build Hydro and Nuclear Plants and still have enough of those resoruces left to field an army.

6) Total war: I feel it’s something you need more than you want to use. Others disagree, but I feel the -33% from strong unhappiness to be crippling. As the title says, if it buys you 33 turns more of insanity, make sure it’s truly ground-breaking. It’s extremely powerful but the timing is also extremely delicate. I’m sure a story-teller or a fantasy mod could make a cool story out of it though.

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This one is probably most useful in multiplayer where you actually can find yourself on the losing end of a mdoern war. In singleplayer however, I never really found it necessary because the AI is so hopeless at fighting.

I don't get why, when the unhappiness dropped below -10, you didn't just start burning cities. Post-patch, you shed all the unhappiness from a city the moment you set it on fire.

Nunya said:

But I wonder how come then that Order is not incompatible with Commerce.

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Because they can go well together. See China.

Modern China is communist in name only so it's more like Autocracy + Commerce.

Nunya said:

Modern China is communist in name only so it's more like Autocracy + Commerce.

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Oh dear. Where to start...

Order is not a synonym for communism. Not in CiV nor in real life terminology.

To imply that China is an autocracy is absurd.

Whether or not China is a "true" communist state (if that even exists) is another matter.