The strategic importance of ideology in cultural victories

So let's say you are planning to win through the sheer power of your culture, you are building up great works while teching as fast as you can and you finally reached industrialization.
Now you might think that you should build those factories ASAP and get an ideology before everyone else for those 2 bonus tenets, right?
Well In this topic I'm going to argue that perhaps you might not want to do that.


I'll submit here a pretty self-explanatory document regarding my last game.



As you can guess I was playing as Venice and you can also guess that the whole world hated me with a passion.
Now at the time I took that screenshot I had already won a diplomatic victory which was my objective since the beginning. So for a diplomatic victory it was perhaps a good choice to have a different ideology because that helped me in defending against their cultural invasion but it still had severe repercussions.
Were it not for the two civilizations that didn't survive the communist wave I have no doubts that the whole world would have DoW on me at the same time. Instead I had to fight just three of them, one of which was Babylonia with a slightly better tech than me.

Now in this situation I really found myself wanting to change ideology, after all are two tenets which I even got for free worth making the whole world against you? Of course not, I really wanted to adapt with the flow and switch to Order but I couldn't.

And here is one of the main point of my argument: "if your citizens aren't unhappy you can't change ideology". Now there I did push my culture quite a bit but imagine if I did so since the beginning, I didn't even chose aesthetic there!
In other words if you are pursuing a cultural victory there are high chances that you won't be able to change ideology, because your culture will be so high that not even the whole world against you will make your citizens unhappy. BTW the game I played there was Emperor difficulty.


So why in a cultural game you don't want to have an "unpopular" ideology? Well apart from the avoid wars part, let's consider which helps you in spreading your influence:

+25% trade route
+25% shared religion

You can have these two regardless, the religion one might be hard to get with everyone, but the trade route is pretty easy.

+25% open borders
+34% sharing the same ideology
--------------------------------
-34% different ideology
+25% diplomat

Now the first two are the main reason you want to have the same ideology as the others. the +34% is a huge bonus, and the 25% is directly related to it. Because if you have the same ideology they will like you or at the very least they won't hate you too much unless you really angered them. So they will give you open borders if you ask and that's a whole +59% influence gain! Just think how faster you can influence them just with that.
Now if you have a different ideology they might still like you at first but eventually they will hate you, it's a certainty. That means a -34% which can only be attenuated by placing a diplomat in their city.
So to make a comparison
same ideology: +59%
different ideology: -9%
There's a 50% difference. Just how many turns you could save?

There are of course bonuses to tourism and influence depending on the ideology themselves but those are situational so I won't discuss them here, at any rate there isn't anything that can beat a constant +50% bonus on the cultural influence.


So now that I have exposed these facts, I'm proposing that if your objective is to achieve a cultural victory fast you should hold your factories and wait for the most culturally advanced civilization to choose an ideology first.

There are two reasons for this:

1) The most culturally advanced civ is your main obstacle to achieve a cultural victory. It will be the last civ you'll try to become influential with and so that's the one you want to enhance your influence against.

2) When the two most culturally powerful civilizations choose the same ideology (and you should be the first if you plan to win with culture) then you know that the rest of the world will have to adapt or get in a lot of troubles. You can expect that with this move most other civs will choose the same ideology and the rest will most likely convert or will become unable to expand and develop due to happiness issues.

Now if the AI was smart enough to understand that, there wouldn't be any problem, but it will more likely not be so. If you are fairly sure it will join you because you love each other then that's another matter, but there's a high chance that a cultural civ will have a religion and you'll have one as well, so they won't really be happy with you.

It is important to note that by having the same ideology they also get the same bonuses so they will also have an easier way spreading their influence on you. But you are supposed to beat them anyway, so I think it's still better to speed up your battle, least someone else might beat you both with a diplomatic or scientific victory and you don't want that.

Also you can get open borders with them, but you aren't required to give yours open border. Open Borders also become very useful to send in your great musicians.
If they hate you, they'll likely not open their borders and you'll have to DoW them to get your musicians in.


So this concludes my argument. To sum it up I'm arguing that when you are aiming for a cultural victory you should stall the production of your third factory until the second most powerful cultural civ chooses an ideology.
You'll lose precious advantages and that might cost you a whole two tenets (one for sure) but there will be more advantages later.

Now is your turn. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Argument your opinion.

I don't see a +34% boost for sharing ideology in my game, unless I'm blind it's actually:

+25% open borders
--------------------------------
+25% open borders
-34% different ideology
+25% diplomat

So only a difference of 9%, I didn't find the different ideology to be so much of a negative modifier to our diplomatic relations. I still remained friends with all my different ideology friends.
I do still agree that it's better to share ideology, but I wouldn't delay it just because of that.

So you can use a Great Musician on a civ you are at war with?
I was hoping to send a GM to Egypt for a concert in my current game, but he won't give me open borders. Must be because I captured Thebes about 20 turns ago....
So if I declare war on him, guard the GM on the way into his lands, the GM will function as if we had OB?

I agree with you if you are weak militarily. If your military is large enough to just make the AI mumble and grumble, get order or freedom first and get your two free tenets. Those two free tenets mean you're just four more tenets away from media culture or dictatorship of the proletariat.

Even if everybody goes for the other ideologies, you have to think of how much more time it would have taken you to get to those two very awesome tourism tenets. Both of those tenets essentially cancel out the different ideologies negative, and if they adopt your ideology -- you're sitting pretty.

Also, if you go order and you're lucky enough to have some civs follow you, you probably already have the cultural revolution tenet (just one more tenet if you are the first to order). So as soon as they adopt, you could get a +68% mod. Yeah it's a chance, but it's super awesome if it happens.

All in all, I think players are going to have to play a lot more games or take a peak at the code in order to determine which ideology the AI is most likely to pick. If you can predict which ideology most of the civs will pick, that's obviously the one you want to go for (unless it's autocracy). We just need a better understanding of why the AI chooses a particular ideology. I've got a couple of ideas just based off of experience, but sometimes I get a real shocker like an autocratic Venice (which could be really fun now that I think about it).

like one of the other posters noted, there is no "34%" bonus for same ideology. It just a negative for opposing ideologies that can be offset by a diplomat (25% +). The net negative is 9%. You only get bonus for diplomat in opposition, you get none for same ideology.

The best positive you can be with same Ideology: 75% (borders, religion, trade all 25% each)
The best positive you can be with different: 66% (borders, religion, trade, diplomat =100%, minus 34% ideology cost)

Or, you can just hold CS, pick Order, and exert influence so everyone follows in Order. Then, get the double stacked influence bonus.

If you have early influence, you should get an ideology ASAP. If you don't have early influence and are switching to a culture victory mid-game, then yeah, you'd want to see where everything is before committing.

Hey everyone,

I'm an Immortal level player, going down a level just to learn BNW.

I may be missing something, but I don't see any modifier for sharing the same ideology. Since getting BNW, I've only been focusing on a Cultural Victory. I love it. So many things to consider - the diplo aspect, making friends, religion concerns, and my new favorite (never considered it in my first game) swapping art/artifacts with other Civs to achieve the theming bonus.

Back to the thread. In my first game, I went Freedom. Only another civ did, and 5 Civs went Order, and one Autocracy. Now I was applying huge pressure on the Order Civs, but not enough to flip them. At the same time, I was losing out on the shared ideology modifier, which in the end made me win a Diplo Victory instead of a culture victory. The One remaining civ I needed to make influential I couldn't (Rameses- lots of culture himself).

Anyways, in my current game, I was first to get an ideology again, and chose Order since this seems to be the AI's preferred ideology. Sure enough, the 2 Civs after me chose Order. However, I don't see the bonus modifier. Am I missing something? Is there a time I need to wait?

Same with the diplomat. I've have a diplomat schmoozing but I am still not getting a modifier.

Does it take some turns before the modifiers kick in? In my current game, I could easily hit over 100% with some Civs.

I'm also starting to believe that when going for a cultural victory, one should choose the dominant ideology, or that of the runaway civ.

At least on Immortal/Deity. I almost won a Deity culture victory earlier but having the wrong ideology cost me the game.

cairnsy44 said:

So you can use a Great Musician on a civ you are at war with?
I was hoping to send a GM to Egypt for a concert in my current game, but he won't give me open borders. Must be because I captured Thebes about 20 turns ago....
So if I declare war on him, guard the GM on the way into his lands, the GM will function as if we had OB?

Click to expand...

Yes, that also works. I did the same thing in my last game.

You can only get +34% for sharing the same ideaology if you go Order. One of the tenants is to give +34% to other Order civs. Also, there is one to give +34% to give with less happiness than you. See here: http://imgur.com/mAQloB7