Realistic ways to reduce ideological pressure

Hello, this is my first post ! I've noticed many people who've had trouble with unhappiness from ideological pressure (IP), and I may have some ideas for the modding community, or possibly Firaxis.

Firstly, there should be some tenet to reduce unhappiness from IP
Order:Government controlled media: -25% from IP
Autocracy: Propoganda: +25% happiness from causing from causing other civs unrest.

I can't think of one for Freedom

Secondly, there could be buildings to block IP (such as the constabulary, police station, Great Firewall, etc.)

Please add anything to make this idea better, and criticism is welcome, as long as it isn't hateful!

I find the ideological pressure to be too gentle even now, it's very annoying when laying tons of pressure on a large AI who is on "Civil resistance" or whatever that mode was called and yet they remain far, far in the double digits of happiness.

Perhaps there could be ways to increase IP also. But I just found it odd that the only protection from IP is culture/tourism

No, it's not the only one. Not by a long shot.

- get more happiness to negate the effects
- pick the ideology of an influential civ
- revolt to a more popular ideology
- fight off the influential civ
- vote your ideology to be the world ideology

My favorite is the last one, especially because Freedom ideology makes gaining CS ally votes very easy.

What if there was a unique unit that could build Propoganda trailers/broadcast towers in enemy territory, this could be cool, but I could see the AI either not being able to deal with it, or it becoming a major annoyance for the human. I see what you mean about the other ways, but I mean ways to slow/speed up the rate of increase for IP.

I tend to ignore IP and stay with an ideology. I usually have happiness over 100 well before the game ends.
If AI civs want to adopt a different ideology, it shouldn't affect a human player.

quantum42 said:

If AI civs want to adopt a different ideology, it shouldn't affect a human player.

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Uh, what do you mean? If the player can pressure the AI surely they should be able to do so back? Isn't the entire point of ideological pressure to force other civs to yield if they can't come up with some ideological defense?

VainoValkea said:

Uh, what do you mean? If the player can pressure the AI surely they should be able to do so back? Isn't the entire point of ideological pressure to force other civs to yield if they can't come up with some ideological defense?

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This.
If ways to speed/slow IP other than building tourism up could be utilized by the AI, the game cold be more challenging, and immersive. I feel that there is a lot more diplomacy that could come out of ideologies than there already is. Such as biased trade agreements, actual long term alliances, etc. (sorry for going way off topic )

Drewbdu said:

What if there was a unique unit that could build Propoganda trailers/broadcast towers in enemy territory, this could be cool, but I could see the AI either not being able to deal with it, or it becoming a major annoyance for the human. I see what you mean about the other ways, but I mean ways to slow/speed up the rate of increase for IP.

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I believe that is commonly known as the 'Great Musician'.

Long term alliances aren't really viable in normal play because eventually it's just one player that marches out the arena victorious - the rest lose. There should be more co-operative aspects though, like Freedom's economic union (that rewards trade between Freedom civs, albeit by not very much). That would reward players actively trying to get others to switch to the Correct System.

VainoValkea said:

Long term alliances aren't really viable in normal play because eventually it's just one player that marches out the arena victorious - the rest lose. There should be more co-operative aspects though, like Freedom's economic union (that rewards trade between Freedom civs, albeit by not very much). That would reward players actively trying to get others to switch to the Correct System.

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As it has been posted before in other threads, I wish there was some sort of co-operative victory, where you form an alliance and become the last civilizations to survive.

There is team play for that. Apart from that, I don't really like the idea of co-operative victories, it makes the entire concept of victory diluted if it isn't a team game all along...

It'd be better if ideology gave more unhappiness. BNW, it is too easy to find happiness, so a lot of guys can ignore your pressure even if they're losing -20 happiness.

Three points:
1) The AI still doesn't play by the same rules as the human player happiness-wise
2) Ideological pressure swings too massively on and off, causing enormous shifts in happiness from turn to turn. This makes no sense.
3) Ideological pressure from ideologies the same as yours do not seem to be of consequence, or it is very unclear how this works.

Until this is fixed, IP is an annoying part of gameplay. The way I usually solve it is by mass murdering those with another ideology.

Heart Break Kid said:

It'd be better if ideology gave more unhappiness. BNW, it is too easy to find happiness, so a lot of guys can ignore your pressure even if they're losing -20 happiness.

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I have changed my mind about the subject, after playing a culture victory as Venice. Before, as I played as Russia in my first few games of Brave New World, I completely disregarded both culture, and tourism. This led to my ultimate downfall from massive unhappiness. Which is why I had wanted to slow down the rate of increase of IP.

Now with a better understanding of tourism, IP, and culture; I played a cultural game as Venice (I should have gone diplomatic though , with +1100 gold per turn.). I was influential over two civilizations, and was the first to pick an ideology, so I picked freedom(+34% tourism from broadcast towers=). 30 turns later, the Iroquious picked order. I was only familiar over them , so their happiness dropped by 10-15, only causing their total happiness to go from 64 to 50. As the rest of the world picked order (except the Civs I was influential over, who picked Freedom), I slowly became influential over everyone, except the Iroquious, and the Maya (the culture powerhouse). Most order Civs were having a revolutionary wave (-40 or more happiness), yet their total happiness was still over 20. The only Civ that got less than -20 happiness was the Ottomans, who's happiness was -22 for one turn, then I instantly went down to -5 happiness.

I won the game, but I was expecting their cities to flip, just as mine had.

I think IP could be made better by making the change be gradual instead of "on-off". For example, when a nation starts experiencing ideological pressure, don't dump 20 unhappiness on them right away but 2 per turn or something until 20 is reached or the situation changes.

VainoValkea said:

I think IP could be made better by making the change be gradual instead of "on-off". For example, when a nation starts experiencing ideological pressure, don't dump 20 unhappiness on them right away but 2 per turn or something until 20 is reached or the situation changes.

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This would be great! Then it would be gradual (giving time for them to fend it off), and there would not be a limit, instead of going into Revolutionary wave, and there just being -45 happiness.
Also it could be like this.
-Exotic= -.5 HPT
-Familiar= -1 HPT
-Popular= -2 HPT
-Influential= -4HPT
-Dominant= -8HPT

You should read a guide on how the system works at the moment, though - currently you get no pressure from another ideology even if they are very influential on you - as long as you are more influential on them.

VainoValkea said:

You should read a guide on how the system works at the moment, though - currently you get no pressure from another ideology even if they are very influential on you - as long as you are more influential on them.

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I do understand this, but I also believe that the higher the influence, the more unhappiness should still be the case, instead of being -2 HPT if you have more influence over them than they have over you.