Autocracy Either Needs Buff or Remake
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Vidszhite
Ya Girl Juniper & Friends
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I think it's only for GWAMs, but let me check. If it does, even more reason to go to war.
Yeah, only GWAMs.
Heart Break Kid
Warlord
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I've been using autocracy and it's pretty nice. I thought it was weak at first, but it has a lot of useful abilities imo. If you're warmonging while going for a diplo/cultural based win at the same time, it's pretty useful and it gives decent happiness too (I really like the court house tenet where it gives 3 happiness and you can built courthouses in half the time). I actually like their tier 1s, even opted to pick them as opposed to rushing tier 3s.
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
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KillingMeSoftly
Warlord
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I don't see anything wrong with Autocracy. It plays differently than Freedom and Order. Both of these allow you to have a small military and build tall going for Culture or Science. Autocracy is a different style that gives you a lot of nice bonuses for having a strong military, or willingness to goto war. It may not be as "easy"/straight forward as a Freedom ideology win never needing to build any units or ever fighting a war.
First of all, due to the wild variance in happiness as cities are captured and razed, the tendency of the AI to avoid autocracy like the plague, and happiness capping how many new cities you can take at once, ideological unhappiness hits this ideology the hardest. That's fine. But I think not being able to raze and puppet quickly is a problem, and a key factor in why many late game domination attempts end with alternative VCs. I pitched in another thread a passive at Dynamite tech called Controlled Demolition that allows you to raze a city at double rate, and a passive at Radio tech called Assimilation that allows puppeteers to return their cities in resistance back to function at double rate. I think it would be a subtle, but effective way of speeding up late game warmongering (which has gotten rather slow) and would be a large indirect buff to this ideology. Perhaps it could replace one of the more mediocre autocracy tenets? But I also think they also need to take a look at the double strategic resources policy, because it may be too strong. Maybe it should provide 2 coal, 2 oil, 2 aluminum, 2 uranium & +50% strategics instead.
Just throwing out my 2c & a few ideas. I've only played a few Autocracy games so far, so take it for what its worth.
Just throwing out my 2c & a few ideas. I've only played a few Autocracy games so far, so take it for what its worth.
Arachnofiend
Perturbed Pugilist
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@Dtekkar: The happiness issue that comes with razing cities is actually very well addressed in Autocracy. Autocrats obviously get Prora which is by far the best happiness boost in the game; +2 happiness from military buildings is also huge, as they're all so much cheaper to buy than stadiums. Happiness boosts from defensive buildings is also nice as puppets tend to prioritize them.
headcase
Limit 1 Facepalm Per Turn
All I'm about to write is gut feeling as I haven't played enough yet.
Tourism
Autocracy needs a better or additional tourism tenet. I know they were trying to associate tourism bonuses with war with the "fighting with same enemy" one but it's way too hard to pull off unless everyone's fighting everyone which isn't reliable.
Since Order has a bonus vs empires you are happier than (which I feel needs to be buffed beyond 34%), Autocracy might be better with a bonus vs empires you have more military strength than.
My rough idea is to do this:
Cult of Personality - move down to level 2, change effect to "when a unit is killed, gain tourism with every other civ who is at war or has denounced that unit's civ".
New Level 3 Tenet - +50% tourism with civs with less military strength.
Military
Autocracy has some good tenets, but then Freedom has +25% production of ALL military units (and +25 influence for gifting units). The idea is you would build a lot and give them to CSs. Problem is you also have the option of keeping them, and +25% for the rest of the game for ALL units is quite a lot for a level 2 tenet from a ideology that doesn't even have the military victory condition!
So this is more of a call to nerf Freedom than buff Autocracy, though they could probably remove the time limit on Clausewitz' Legacy. True that 50 turns is a lot, I just don't think it needs a limit.
Edit: On the other hand it's fair to say that Autocracy enjoys a lot of happiness bonuses which will inevitably help in any victory condition. Still, on paper it doesn't feel like much for Tourism Victory.
Tourism
Autocracy needs a better or additional tourism tenet. I know they were trying to associate tourism bonuses with war with the "fighting with same enemy" one but it's way too hard to pull off unless everyone's fighting everyone which isn't reliable.
Since Order has a bonus vs empires you are happier than (which I feel needs to be buffed beyond 34%), Autocracy might be better with a bonus vs empires you have more military strength than.
My rough idea is to do this:
Cult of Personality - move down to level 2, change effect to "when a unit is killed, gain tourism with every other civ who is at war or has denounced that unit's civ".
New Level 3 Tenet - +50% tourism with civs with less military strength.
Military
Autocracy has some good tenets, but then Freedom has +25% production of ALL military units (and +25 influence for gifting units). The idea is you would build a lot and give them to CSs. Problem is you also have the option of keeping them, and +25% for the rest of the game for ALL units is quite a lot for a level 2 tenet from a ideology that doesn't even have the military victory condition!
So this is more of a call to nerf Freedom than buff Autocracy, though they could probably remove the time limit on Clausewitz' Legacy. True that 50 turns is a lot, I just don't think it needs a limit.
Edit: On the other hand it's fair to say that Autocracy enjoys a lot of happiness bonuses which will inevitably help in any victory condition. Still, on paper it doesn't feel like much for Tourism Victory.
kaspergm
Deity
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No, that's not true. I captured Statue Of Liberty in my last Autocracy game.Turns out ideology wonders are razed on capture.
Vidszhite
Ya Girl Juniper & Friends
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I agree that Clausewitz could just have its limit removed, but why are you complaining about freedom getting military production to all, when so does Autocracy, and that same tenet also gives you a Brandenburg gate's worth of exp in every city, making it MUCH more powerful for keeping your units.
Your suggested tourism changes would totally change the way autocracy is meant to win a tourism victory. There isn't just one tourism victory anymore, the ideology you pick radically changes your playstyle, and right now, Autocracy's is the only one that's not a "sit on your ass and build more things" game. Stop trying to turn Autocracy into freedom with tanks.
Freedom probably doesn't even need to be nerfed, people seriously over value its tenets, forgetting to look at the big picture, which is Freedom civs are all tall, which makes their army production capacity less than Order and Autocracy by default. Fewer build queues means fewer units. I have 8 cities that can ram out tanks in 3 turns or less. You think I'm upset that freedom has 3? Hell, half my production cities are annexed from prior conquests, so they are 3 happiness higher than my default cities.
If you want double raze speed, pick the Huns. I know I don't have happiness problems, in my ongoing game I have over 40, the most aside from Freedom Portugal, who is getting over 1500 tourism a turn from me due to CoP.
I'm telling you, you can't just read about autocracy. You have to play it, and with an active mindset that refuses to sit back and just win. Although, gunboats does feel that way sometimes...
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
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Maybe its just Kremlin then.
That's way too drastic. I'd make a MUCH smaller level of change. And I don't know about change that makes it even better domination players because it's already the hands down best at domination without contest.
Maybe just a small change
Industrial Espionage replaced with
Propaganda: Spies can choose to boost tourism to a civ instead of steal a technology.
It would not be some sickengly large boost as big as a great musician but when you have a runaway you'd behind on you'd actively stick your spies in his city as spies and not diplomats and then choose to blast him with tourism instead of steal tech at the end of the countdown. The spy still has a chance of being killed in action while spreading your propaganda but less of a chance then when you steal tech. I think that would be better then it's current state as a spy meat grinder. On success the spy would level up just like if he killed a spy or stole a tech.
It would fit the active theme of autocracy much better. They are already reasonable at a diplo win because of gunboat and the money savings and they are great at domination but this small change would help the autocracy tourism game.
Also Clausewitz should scale with game length because when I'm playing a possibly 1500 turn marathon game screw 50 turns and if I was playing a quick game though 50 turns would pretty large percentage of the game.
I've played two immortal games using autocracy and it seems like some of the tenents just need to buffed up slightly. One I'd really like to see changed is futurism to a percentage modifier. It didn't seem to help very much in my games but maybe I'm wrong.
VainoValkea
Emperor
I'm actually enjoying some of the best Autocracy tenets right now, while playing a warmonger. Yeah, they can really help with conquest. The only problem is that I don't have enough second level tenet slots for everything I want!
For culture, autocracy really, really needs a buff if it really wants to be competitive with Order and Freedom. Futurism should be replaced with a stronger ability, at least.
For culture, autocracy really, really needs a buff if it really wants to be competitive with Order and Freedom. Futurism should be replaced with a stronger ability, at least.
I thought about it's happiness boosts and tried it in a brasil game recently so I had it for my UU I attacked someone to kill their units for golden age points and spammed though golden ages the second I got my UU and there was an explosion of culture and death. It worked out well but that was very civ specific.
Maybe that's why their UU comes in so late. you can switch gears suddenly with the infrastructure you have already have and ride the golden ages to victory.
Maybe that's why their UU comes in so late. you can switch gears suddenly with the infrastructure you have already have and ride the golden ages to victory.
Lightning Warfare is pretty good, yes.
But 6 Foreign Legions at once, though they will never be replaced, is huge:
- If you are behind in military techs (as you'd be when bee-lining Refrigeration, which you can do just to get the first ideology) you get 6 technologically advanced units compared to what you'd normally have.
- If you are right on pace with techs, it's 6 units to add to whatever GWBombers and GWFighters you have, or whatever Artillery you have. These 6 units can become your very-effective meat shield when moving onto an attack.
-If you are ahead in military techs, you can upgrade them instantly into standard Infantry, in which case the Foreign Lands bonus is huge.
-And if you have a low-production empire, these 6 units may save you from needing to hard-build an army quickly to stave off the enemy. Often, simply by taking Volunteer Army, my army size jumps at least one or two places, which is enough to keep a perpetual war-monger (Attila, Genghis Khan) from picking me as the wounded wildebeest to finish off.
Moreover, Arsenal of Democracy is a great war-monger tenet in Freedom. Especially when coupled with Statue of Liberty, which is only available to Freedom now. Having those two things lets you build not just armor, but any unit that much faster.
And as far as armored warfare goes, Order can get the Kremlin if armored units are really the key unit one wants to use, so Autocracy doesn't have a monopoly there, either.
Arachnofiend
Perturbed Pugilist
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Nope
Nope nope nope
Other than Total War, Industrial Espionage is the best tenet in Autocracy and the #1 reason you might want to pick it up if you aren't planning on taking all the capitals. You can pretty much catch up to the tech leaders with the lightning fast steals you get out of it.
