Favorit ideology poll

Welcome to the poll for civ 5 bnw favorite ideology.

I voted Freedom because I only get to take it when I'm winning. I like winning, therefore, I like Freedom.

When I'm not the first (or second, or third, or...) to an ideology, I usually don't get to choose, and therefore I have to go Order because the AI has such a boner for Order. It isn't a bad ideology by any stretch, but it's a tough one to WIN with. Freedom, on the other hand, gives you the tools to win a culture or science victory, and isn't too terrible for conquest.

Autocracy is great for conquest but not much else. If you are trying to come from behind and win a domination victory, the "wrong ideology" unhappiness is going to ruin you... so you better be quick about it.

Freedom feels the most flexible to me, with a lot of happiness boosts, a big tourism boost, and the +25% military production. Being able to buy spaceship parts is much more useful than rushing them with engineers. Order just isn't at all exciting to me. Autocracy is great for crushing everyone in sight and it's always sorta fun to me when I finally decide to pick the attack bonus policy, because that's when I know that I'm in the war to end all wars.

Voted Order.

It has by far the best T1 and T2 (unless you take Freedom's 6 Foreign Legions very quickly, in which case this T2 is not as good), but it's T3 tenets are beyond horrible.

Freedom is my second choice. Meh T1 with some useless policies (+3 gold for trade route with other freedom civs? Is it even trying?) with it's only saving grace being the exact copy of Order's Hero of the People (+25% GP generation tenet, whatever it's called) and -1 food per specialist, T2 ranging from decent and awesome, all of it saved by by far the best T3 of all three (UNLESS every single AI wants City States embargoed, in which case Autocracy would be superior for diplomacy).

I find Freedom very overrated.

Autocracy is also good, has great T2 and T3 that however require you to do some work. Depending on your game plan, T3 can be better than Freedom.

I don't know why I don't pick it much myself, but I really think Autocracy should get a T1 +25% GP generation tenet just like Order/Freedom. Has some sweet tents, though.

I prefer freedom to order but it really depends on the game. If I am not leading in culture I usually chose order to avoid a revolution, since the AI usually goes for it. I haven't tried autocracy in BNW so far.

Since BNW came out, I have gone freedom. I tend to produce a lot of GP tile improvements and have at least one city where GP is the focus. Specialists with 1/2 food and 1/2 unhappiness, and +25% GP production and +4 GP tile improvements fits my gameplay nicely.

I've recently tried Autocracy in a couple of games, and I agree with Octonde that it's fun to trigger the Attack bonus properly. I've only gotten Gunship Diplomacy to work a few times. The double chance spy didn't work too well in the games I've been playing, but I guess that's because I wasn't to smart with my city targets.

I've played mostly culture victory games, so I'm torn between Freedom and Order. Both are very effective in their own ways.

Enrico Swagolo said:

Voted Order.

It has by far the best T1 and T2 (unless you take Freedom's 6 Foreign Legions very quickly, in which case this T2 is not as good), but it's T3 tenets are beyond horrible.

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What's so great about Order Tier 1? I'll take Civil Society over Skyscrapers. There are too many places where you could be spending gold (RAs, unit upgrades, CSs, diplo bribes), and even if you do devote yourself to buying all your buildings, you can only do so once per city. At least Mobilization never goes out of style. Socialist Realism is okay, but I can wait until Universal Suffrage to get my happiness boost, and get something other than happiness in the deal. Worker's Faculties and Five Year Plan are what make Order good. The problem with Order's vaunted production advantage is that Freedom gets the Statue of Liberty, which is a much more versatile wonder than the Kremlin. And Freedom's T3 is versatile too. There's nothing bad or difficult about going Freedom 9 and picking two T3 tenets. People take Consulates for a reason too, even when they aren't going Diplo. If you're embargoed, then just use Arsenal of Democracy until you break hold. Going Order 9 and, say, picking Space Pioneers and Iron Curtain? Nah. I'll take Mercantilism or Scholasticism or a Golden Age from Aesthetics or something. Order practically stops at 5, while Freedom gives me eight allies and a means to an early space victory that's actually worth taking.

Freedom even lets you race through itself faster, with a suite of tenets that actually speed your culture game. Not just Creative Expression, but longer Golden Ages, more Cultural City States, and easier-to-run Guilds.

Economic Union is crap, but since there are so many Tier 1 tenets to take, it's easy to skip.

Kintara said:

What's so great about Order Tier 1? I'll take Civil Society over Skyscrapers. There are too many places where you could be spending gold (RAs, unit upgrades, CSs, diplo bribes), and even if you do devote yourself to buying all your buildings, you can only do so once per city. At least Mobilization never goes out of style. Socialist Realism is okay, but I can wait until Universal Suffrage to get my happiness boost, and get something other than happiness in the deal. Worker's Faculties and Five Year Plan are what make Order good. The problem with Order's vaunted production advantage is that Freedom gets the Statue of Liberty, which is a much more versatile wonder than the Kremlin. And Freedom's T3 is versatile too. There's nothing bad or difficult about going Freedom 9 and picking two T3 tenets. People take Consulates for a reason too, even when they aren't going Diplo. If you're embargoed, then just use Arsenal of Democracy until you break hold. Going Order 9 and, say, picking Space Pioneers and Iron Curtain? Nah. I'll take Mercantilism or Scholasticism or a Golden Age from Aesthetics or something. Order practically stops at 5, while Freedom gives me eight allies and a means to an early space victory that's actually worth taking.

Freedom even lets you race through itself faster, with a suite of tenets that actually speed your culture game. Not just Creative Expression, but longer Golden Ages, more Cultural City States, and easier-to-run Guilds.

Economic Union is crap, but since there are so many Tier 1 tenets to take, it's easy to skip.

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Young Pioneers is awesome. Hero of the People +25% GP generation? Cool. Socialism Realism (+1 happiness per most production buildings) and Skycrapers too, mostly because production is very important and I always get a workshop/factory if I can. Other two are more situational, while the third can't really be "counted", because all 3 have universal healthcare. Patriotic war is as I said very situational and is not a good tenet now, but once the fall patch adds some more warmongering to the AI, it'll become much better. I doubt it'll become "great" or maybe even good, but better? For sure.

Compare it to Freedom.

Freedom has Hero of the Avant Garde, Civil Society are good... And what else is worth picking there in T1? Creative Expression's +1 culture from each great work? Unnoticeable at this point, doesn't really help at anything. It's a bad policy. Capitalism's +1 happy per mint, bank, stock exchange is much inferior to one per plant, factory and workshop. Chance of rigging elections doubled? I'd rather take double agents to ensure pesky Wu/Ash don't steal 9 technologies in a row, but I'll admit - preferably I'd get neither, but if your spies catch more enemies - well! They level up faster. When they have higher level, they have higher odds of beating other, unexperienced spies at everything, including couping/electing city states.


T2 I may've slightly overrated, because it's pretty much carried by Worker's Faculties, which is one of the best policies in the game, if not the best.
Party Leadership is good. Bonuses may not be great or something and alone they'd be unnoticeable, but it still helps in all areas, but won't help a lot in any.
Academy of Sciences in my opinion doesn't really fit communism, but it's okay. You always want science buildings no matter what.
Five Year Plan is going to be between okay and awesome. If you have a reasonable ammount of quarries and mines, your production will skyrocket. Younger cities will have much easier time constructing stuff.

Resettlement is bad. If it was an early tradition/liberty/honor/something policy, it'd be overpowered, but at this point you're around Modern Era. You're not going to get more than 2-3 cities settled. It'll be improved if the stupid +x% technology cost per city is removed/reduced, but still I doubt I'd ever take it. Add +2 food to every city on top of that, maybe double it in the capital, and it'll be fine.

Cultural Revolution is between useless and great. At best it'll give you +tourism with all the cultural powerhouses. At worst? Either nobody else takes it (unlikely, strongest AI's typically take Order) or you're not going for Cultural Victory... In which case why are you picking it in the first place? You don't even need T3 policies in Order, they're mostly bad.

And yeah, T3 in Order sucks, which I said. Kremlin is also very, very underwhelming compared to Prora/Statue (unless horse/tank line gets improved it'll remain the worst of the tree, as it should, then it'll kick ass), especially since Order is often most popular with AI and therefore most likely to be stolen, and it also is unfitting. Kremlin was not raised by the communists if I remember correctly (but I could be wrong).

Order gets Socialist Realism in tier 1 in exchange for losing Universal Suffrage. The difference between Capitalism and Young Pioneers or Academy of Sciences and Urbanization isn't that significant by comparison. And Civil Society is far better than anything else on the Tier 1 lists, except maybe Industrial Espionage (and Hero/Avant Garde). But I largely agree with you. Worker's Faculties pretty much carries the tree.

I like Order and Freedom about equally, but voted Order because I tend to adopt it more. I love Freedom's Tier 3 tenets, but Order has much better first and second tier-tenets (in my opinion, anyway.)
Autocracy just sucks, though...

Orders my favourite. I get nice amounts of production and some happiness, and its just fun to pretend your part of a communist league once others join it with you

< = Emperor: Order.
> Emperor: Depends on the situation and who got an ideology first.
if i'm winning anyway/got ideology first: Freedom.

Depends on type of victory, but with my overall experience, I've chosen Freedom 4 times, autocracy 2 times and Order 1 time. So I guess I'll vote freedom.

There was another thread about favourite ideology and apparently freedom was considered by far the most popular ideology. It's good to see that the vote for Order and Freedom is quite close.

Voting freedom between happiness bonus for specialists & reduced food cost for specialists and two really good tier 3:

1. Become free allies with several city states via forming a trade route with them. (Mostly for diplomatic)

2. Cash rush space ship parts (science)

There's actually no need to complete the entire ideology no matter what you choose. In fact while it's possible to finish all level 1 & level 3 tiers if you want to, you are only allowed to pick 4 of the level 2 choices.

I like to go wide and dominate so Order is the obvious choice for me.