Playing with Freedom and Dealing w/Revolution

Going for diplomatic victory right now on emperor and choose the Freedom ideology as I like the covert action level 1 tenant.

Problem is, most of the other Civs are order, so they hate me, and I am dealing with an overall unhappiness of 12 (with 34 unhappiness from ideology) since the 5th civ just choose order.

How do you handle these problems? Is it worth it to switch to order, or I think I can get the happiness down to zero (it will cost me though) until the next WC meets when I have asked for the Freedom Ideology to become the world ideology.

How many turns until the WC meets again? Do you have enough votes to push it through?

how many policies in freedom do you have? If its just the one...switching wont hurt you much.

How many turns till your next policy? Universal Healthcare and Capitalism will both be available in X turns. Both are usually good for at least 5 at this stage of the game. Also if you have two tenets in the first tier of freedom...then you can select Universal Sufferage which is one of the top tenets available in the game. That will allow YOU to control the happiness in your empire simply by adding or subtracting specialists.

Can you trade the AI for luxes? Thats the next simplest solution.

Check City States. Can you buy an alliance with one that has a lux you lack? Be sure you also lpok for CSs that have a quest for a lux...then try to buy other CSs that have that lux...then you get from their lux plus a cascade effect where completing one city state quest could complete others automatically for you.

Of course be rigging elections since you bought that tennant! Use the heck out of that skill. Sounds like you probably are already.

Buy Zoos and Stadiums if you can afford them. Zoos are reasonably priced at like 740 gold I think. Sell resources for gold if necessary.

You need to attack this problem from all angles. It can be easy to overcome. Honestly as long as you done have 10 or more then nothing really bad will happen. You will just suffer a minor loss on production and your troops combat effectiveness.

rover6695 said:

Going for diplomatic victory right now on emperor and choose the Freedom ideology as I like the covert action level 1 tenant.

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What? This is like the worst tenet available. I don't even know what it does.

Determining who rigs an election is done by the highest level spy in a particular CS. In the event of a tie, the spy who has been in the CS longer will win. What does doubling your chance of rigging an election do? Who knows? Does anyone know? Either way, it's absolutely useless.

adsin15 said:

Also if you have two tenets in the first tier of freedom...then you can select Universal Sufferage which is one of the top tenets available in the game. That will allow YOU to control the happiness in your empire simply by adding or subtracting specialists.

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The only problem with that is that if he's going for a diplo victory then his 2nd Tier tenets should already be vouched for by Arsenal of Democracy and then Volunteer Army. I mean, he could pass on Volunteer Army in leiu of Universal Suffrage if he absolutely has to but I'm always picking up Volunteer and Arsenal when I go Freedom for DV.

Pop Great Writers because they give you alot of culture. Preferably during world fair. Boost your culture production as much as possible by exploring the ancient sites around the world. If you manage to increase your culture enough, their tourism will stop affecting you and your people will love freedom again.

How many cities do you have. To be losing 34 happiness from an ideology is pretty grim tbh. You're probably fighting a losing battle there. Might be better to flip to Order and just focus on gold so you can buy citystates.
Freedom is pretty hopeless for happiness tenets. The tenets mostly rely on buildings you'll be unlikely to have in every city (watermills, medical labs, stock exchanges, mints)...

Universal Suffrage is great but it is going to take a lot of specialists to cover that and you'll delay arsenal of democracy.

Phew. I was able to buy some happiness then buy votes to get this ideology passed.
I happen to like freedom for diplomatic and culture, the biggest downfall is the AI NEVER seems to choose it though.

There are sometimes a couple of civs who choose it. From my experience some of the civs you were friendly with before you chose an ideology might choose the same ideology as you if their civ favours that ideology; like the aztecs for autocracy or siam for freedom.

The advantage of freedom is also the bonus from specialist slots, I'd take the specialist slot bonus' before arsenal of democracy or volunteer army.

The level 2 tenant of specialists decreasing unhappiness by half REALLY helps out.

rover6695 said:

The level 2 tenant of specialists decreasing unhappiness by half REALLY helps out.

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This is especially true because it's actually rounding this portion for every single city and then combining the totals.

Unless this is the capital [and you've also gone Monarchy]
First specialist in each city is effetely free from unhappiness.
Second one has no effect.
Third specialist in a given city again is effectively free from unhappiness.

It's interaction with monarchy in the capital is complex and depends upon if the capital currently has an even or odd population, because that policy is also applied before the rounding occurs.
The points at which everything takes affect may be different on Warlord and below / for the AI / large & huge maps.

You can try the following:

1. Close your trade routes and borders to civs of other ideologies
2. Work on happiness first then culture
3. Use your existing ideology to get tenants that help happiness

Alternatively, I played a domination game where I stationed a bunch of military units around my capitol and just killed all the revolutionaries that spawned. It was a brutal repression but it got my through the hurdle to win the game.

The guides I follow all seem to recommend for most games, like science, culture, diplomacy, that freedom is ideal all things equal. I'm wondering though if at immortal and dirty, would going with order still be good for those victories given I'd have less unhappiness and at the level am much less likely to be the dominant culture or have the WC votes to make it the world ideology?

rover6695 said:

The guides I follow all seem to recommend for most games, like science, culture, diplomacy, that freedom is ideal all things equal. I'm wondering though if at immortal and dirty, would going with order still be good for those victories given I'd have less unhappiness and at the level am much less likely to be the dominant culture or have the WC votes to make it the world ideology?

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Sure, order is a very nice tree actually. But especially if you are struggling with the Tourism mechanic. It has nothing for diplo VC, but that probably is okay. Kremlin is lame compared to SOL and Prora. You still get a free SP, so worth building just for that. Are you at least getting to Ideologies ahead of the AI?

Thanks, so for science and culture, order can work, whereas for diplomatic, best to stick with freedom?

No, Order is okay. Diplomacy requires only gold. None of the tree is very good at that. The only advantage Freedom has is the trade route influence mechanic that I can't even remember the last time I needed it to ally a city states.

At least Order has short term science bonuses to make you go to either Globalisation or triggering the World Leader vote faster.

Focus on trading posts after your ideology and it will be far enough money to ally everything twice, no need for a policy.

Unless you're going for a super turbo speedy victory that requires a specific strategy, just switch ideology. It costs you basically nothing and removes -30 unhappiness or some BS.
Not a well balanced mechanic overall lol.

For diplomatic victory though if you have patronage filled out you should be swimming in happiness as there's a tenant that gives you like +2 happiness from luxuries or something like that.

Pressure is generally only a problem for scientific victory because you don't need to generate much culture for that and you have to concentrate on better things. With culture victory you are generating enough culture so counter it and with domination you're just killing the big wonder spammers first anyway.

Don't bother filling out patronage, it's a waste of policy. It's enough to get Scholasticism. If you really had too high of ideology pressure, you should really examine why is that the case. Unless it's one of those rare map that doesn't have culture CS, they should be priority since more culture allows you to fill policy faster and also defense against tourism from AI. Also you need to be winning WF and using GW to bulb at least 8 turns after WF. Also, if you have time, try passing world ideology and it'll help a ton. Like Acken, I see that Order is very viable and I take it as long as there is coal. It has some nice short term science boost that helps getting to info era quicker.

rover6695 said:

Thanks, so for science and culture, order can work, whereas for diplomatic, best to stick with freedom?

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No that is not what I wrote, and I did not mean to give that impression. Order has nothing in particular for Diplo VC, but that is okay because Diplo VC is straightforward. It sounds like your immediate priority is getting a handle on managing the game mechanic of Ideology pressure. The easiest way to do that is to run Order (because that is what dominates most games).

But you are not locked into Order every game. At the very least, Ideology choice is more flexible than picking Tradition (or not), or filling out Rationalism (which is so OP, it is hard to skip).

poxpower said:

Unless you're going for a super turbo speedy victory that requires a specific strategy, just switch ideology. It costs you basically nothing and removes -30 unhappiness or some BS.

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It costs you two tenets (if you have them) and zero's out your accumulated culture. Also two turns of science and production. I would not characterize that as “basically nothing”. It is a significant penalty.

Switching is costly, but it is not altogether terrible either. I used to do it routinely: Adopt Freedom, build SoL, get the six FLs, switch. But as I got better and more experienced, I found that I have more options. Nowadays, switching is not usually how I play it out.

Yeah I never switch because there's always some kind of a way out of the negative happiness, but it gets pretty stupid when you're at like -45.
But if you went for diplomatic victory, might as well switch. You won't get world record finish times but it saves you a ton of hassle and 2 turns of production for your empire is somewhat inconsequential most games. A lot let costly than sitting at 30 from unhappiness and having the 2-3 strongest AI hate you...