Fighting Ideology Pressure

I have recently moved up to Immortal, and won my first two games (yay!). However, I am having a problem in my current game, which is science focused as opposed to conquest or culture focused.

I am playing as the Inca, and am fairly far ahead in science - so far ahead that I adopted an ideology (freedom) about 20 turns prior to any other nation. However, the other nations have slowly adopted ideologies and are evenly split between order and autocracy. I assume that nobody adopted freedom because I have no tourism.

I have been paying some attention to culture - my core cities have all of the culture buildings, and I built the writer's guild in my capital as soon as it was available, fully occupying it. I am about in the middle for culture generation, but have no tourism. As other nations adopted ideologies, I have received severe happiness penalties which I have been completely unable to alleviate. Once this started occurring, I build the artists and musicians guilds, occupied them, and started generating great works and archeologists, along with building the Eiffel Tower. I now have the second highest tourism (Autocratic Poland has the highest, but my people's preferred ideology is Order). This has made no difference in the 'public opinion', which has continued to generate more and more unhappiness.

After adopting all happiness policies in freedom, my total happiness hovers around 0 (I am able to generally keep it positive for the science boost, but it is a constant struggle). China, my closest ally for most of the game, managed to get order voted through the world congress as the world ideology (the autocratic nations were too busy voting to ban sugar, and I didn't have enough votes by myself to overcome all four order civs). This has given me 41 unhappiness due to public opinion.

How can you combat this situation? I thought that by generating more culture I would receive less pressure, and then maybe that generating tourism would help. But unhappiness due to public opinion has only increased. What could I have done from the beginning of the game to avoid landing in this situation in the first place?

Thanks!

I don't suffer from this problem at all, so have always suspected that people running into this problem are doing something fundamentally wrong.

Assuming you have a 3-5 city Tradition empire, there is so much happiness on offer that even with extreme ideological pressure I've never gone unhappy.

Have you:

-Filled Tradition, which has a fair amount of Happiness?
-Dipped into Commerce/Patronage, both of which have a lot of Happiness?
-Taken all the Freedom Happiness bonuses, and maximized them?
-Used religious bonuses, like Pagodas?
-Traded for all the unique lux you can get your hands on?

???

Post a save file if you like. I will see what I think

[EDIT: I see now that you let Order get voted as World Ideology. I've never seen that happen. I suspect you've not put enough effort into allying city states and taking control of the WC. Definitely send that save file]

Your current culture doesnt help with pressure. It is lifetime culture and tourism that helps.

However you shouldnt concentrate on generating tourism. Main think to fight pressure is culture(lifetime culture).

You build artist guild way to late..You should build it almost as soon as it is available and fill it. You can also build musician guild if you have time and population. Also remember to ally cultural city states.

Best use for great artis and writers is following: Use artist to start golden age and bulb writer at end of golden age. Even better if you do it after winning worlds fair.

You shouldnt use single artist or writer for great works in science game

A save is attached. China & Russia have both declared war on me for reasons that I'm not entirely clear on (though ideology was one of them, I'm sure. I have beat back their initial attack and am counterattacking, with the goal of liberating my former city state allies.

Happiness is still around 0, and Poland - the powerhouse of the world congress - apparently feels no need to repeal Order as the world ideology.

I'd appreciate any general advice as well; having just moved up to immortal, I know there is a lot I can improve on.

Thanks!

Even in science games I try and generate at least a little bit of tourism early, say 6-10, and pay for open borders with everyone as I meet them, and set up a trade route as well if there are trade caravans I can spare and the target has a high culture/tourism. This means by the time I pick an ideology I should be at at 'Exotic' influence with everybody if not higher.

This gives a bit of a buffer period if the AI picks a differing ideology to me before I get hit by unhappiness as they not only have to break through my culture 'defence' but also have to reach an influence with me higher than 'Exotic'. Sounds to me like you left it far too late to start generating tourism. Interesting to read BlackWizards reply though, where he says he doesn't bother creating great works at all in a science game - I always get swamped by AI tourism problems if I try that myself, like you are having. I do tend to neglect culture though.

Calyxx said:

I'd appreciate any general advice as well; having just moved up to immortal, I know there is a lot I can improve on.

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I'll make a video analyzing your position and playing out the game a bit. May take a day to fully record and upload.

Easiest way to avoid ideological pressure is to (a) ally Culture CS, and (b) win worlds fair. Post industrial they give 26CPT, which can then be multiplied by WF. After that you can stack on a golden age and GW bulbs for even for culture! I couldn't tell if you did that when I opened the file, but only having 20k ish lifetime culture seems to tell indicate otherwise.

Ofc the bigger issue is why the game is at turn 313 and still no spaceship... Running trade routes and microing citizens would help since the save game seemed to indicate neither were abused to the degree that they should be.

For an idea on the impact of WF on lifetime culture:

Note: obviously you have to win WF for the below. This also assumes you've planned Great Artists/golden ages, allied Cultural CS, and saved Great Writers appropriately.

I've played 2 science games recently where there was only 1 Cultural CS on the map, and I was still able to complete Tradition, Rationalism, and Freedom before T215 without building the Oracle, even opening Commerce the 2nd time this happened. I was Mayan, so extra great people, but this is before T215 so those great people would come before T250 with other civs anyway.

With just 1 Cultural CS on the map, the 20 turns after winning WF can give you, as a low estimate:
Capital: 3 from tradition opener, 2 from monument, estimate 2 from wonders and 1 from weaker religious building = 8
Guilds: keeping with the low estimates, I'll assume Writers and Artists, but not Musicians guild = 12
Expos x 4: 2 from monument, 1 from weaker religious building = 3 x 4 = 12
(total of 32 from cities)
+26 from 1 city state = 58 total
Doubled for winning WF = 116
Golden Age: 116 x 1.2 = 139 per turn
20 turns = 2,780
Bulb 3 Great Writers after 8 turns of peak culture output = 24 more turns, so equivalent of 44 turns x 139 per turn = just over 6,000 culture

Now, that's specifically a low estimate.

With 3 GW, you can get 44 turns worth of WF culture during which each Cultural CS is worth (26 x 2 x 1.2 = 62 culture per turn) x 44 turns = 2,728 culture during those 20 turns

Edit: missed culture from Palace, I guess this really is a low estimate

Worlds Fair helps tremendously, as previously mentioned, especially if you can bulb a great writer 8 turns later.

But the other thing you can do is boost your tourism so you are at least "exotic" with the culture leader. Eiffel Tower is one of my favorite wonders; I rush it after beelining electricity and then Oxford (or rationalism finisher) radio. Then run across the top of the tech tree so you can build hotels and national visitor center. You can go from zero tourism to over 100 pretty quickly.

But if you're working the guilds already, why is your tourism zero? Should be at least 6 or 8 by now...

One more thing you can do (and I've done this before, in a similar situation) is use "Arsenal of Democracy" to seize control of the world congress. (The AI's embargoed the CS's before I could make my move with Treaty Organization) Then repeal the world ideology and ram Freedom through and let the Order AI's choke on it.

If the goal is to produce culture for the policies and/or to combat ideology pressure, I'd advise against using any artists or writers for tourism and put full focus on winning World's Fair and maximizing the value. You'll need 2-3 artists to ensure golden age for the full 20 turns, and perhaps another while 'building' WF. You want as many Writers as possible to bulb between turns 8-20 of WF. And you want to Ally as many Cultural CS as possible for as many of these 20 turns as possible, keeping in mind gold you may need to spend on something else like Research Labs.

A Great Writer gives you 8 turns worth of culture. During a post-WF win GA, this is worth 19.2 turns worth of culture, at what should be your highest culture per turn (so far) in the game. Feel free to look further into the #s involved; I personally think using a GW for tourism is a terrible waste (unless pursuing CV). If you have lots of Cultural allies, a GW can be worth a full policy, so similar value to Oracle or 1 instance of Poland UA (except not free, so culture keeps increasing).

I always build the writers' guild early, and I use my first writer for a great work because my culture output is usually still pitiful. Same with the first great artist, but I'm in less of a hurry to build that guild. After the first one or two, I start bulbing them for culture and golden ages. I'm not very good at timing when to bulb them immediately and when to save them for later.

I seldom even build the music guild until the modern era.

I've gotten into the habit of just NOT building the Musician's Guild, winning without it or Musicians at all. It's more of a challenge, but still very doable.

One approach is to build Musician Guild and staff it, but just delete GMs as you go. It's a nice bit of culture. For a science game, I always build all 3 guilds ASAP, and save all GA and GW for WF bonuses. You can really rip through the policies!

fimbul said:

Easiest way to avoid ideological pressure is to (a) ally Culture CS, and (b) win worlds fair. Post industrial they give 26CPT, which can then be multiplied by WF. After that you can stack on a golden age and GW bulbs for even for culture! I couldn't tell if you did that when I opened the file, but only having 20k ish lifetime culture seems to tell indicate otherwise.

Ofc the bigger issue is why the game is at turn 313 and still no spaceship... Running trade routes and microing citizens would help since the save game seemed to indicate neither were abused to the degree that they should be.

Click to expand...

As I said, this is only my third game on immortal, and I'm fairly terrible (though at least winning, so far). I have seen games where people win over 100 turns earlier on Deity, but I have absolutely no idea how they accomplish this.

You mention abusing trade routes and microing citizens - can you elaborate? Generally I just put all of my cities on growth focus unless my happiness is negative or there is something I need to build very quickly, in which case I put them on production focus. I try to keep all scientist specialist slots occupied.

As I have continued the game from the position seen in that save, I've managed to keep mostly positive happiness and I am confident of winning a science victory. Despite my greater culture / tourism output, the unhappiness from public opinion is still climbing.

Calyxx said:

You mention abusing trade routes and microing citizens - can you elaborate?

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Run Food Ships (or Food Caravans) to your cities, especially to your capital.

Calyxx said:

Generally I just put all of my cities on growth focus unless my happiness is negative or there is something I need to build very quickly, in which case I put them on production focus. I try to keep all scientist specialist slots occupied.

Click to expand...

This is a bad idea, the default governor is bad enough as is -- growth focus is even worse. Ideally you want to use Production focus and manually lock in the best tiles. The reason for Production focus is that a new citizen is born AFTER food is calculated for the turn -- so they can't contribute any food that turn but they CAN contribute for other resources. It's a small but nice optimization.

Calyxx said:

As I have continued the game from the position seen in that save, I've managed to keep mostly positive happiness and I am confident of winning a science victory. Despite my greater culture / tourism output, the unhappiness from public opinion is still climbing.

Click to expand...

Due to me being stupid, I had to scrap my video (recorded the voiceover at half volume and the game at full volume rather than the other way around). Is there any advice/tips/etc you'd still like at this point?

Do you know how to read the Tourism vs Culture tab?

Calyxx said:

I have seen games where people win over 100 turns earlier on Deity, but I have absolutely no idea how they accomplish this.

Click to expand...

Fast peaceful victories are made by very close micromanagement of cities, precise build orders, and above all, fast technological progress driven by growth.

If you have a 4 city Tradition empire, and run all the trade routes as internal to carry food, and ally several Maritime and Cultural CS, you will quickly see the difference, even without Wonders or strong religion.

The 3 key things to do to get peaceful victories under T260 are:

- Growth and micromanagement
- Better use of CS
- Skilful diplomacy and control of the WC

Maybe watch Acken's LP of the Byzantine Deity Challenge?

LordBalkoth said:

Run Food Ships (or Food Caravans) to your cities, especially to your capital.

Click to expand...

When I do this, I often find myself very poor - unless I have undertaken extensive conquest. What level of income would you call reasonable, and how do you make up for the lack of external trade routes?

LordBalkoth said:

This is a bad idea, the default governor is bad enough as is -- growth focus is even worse. Ideally you want to use Production focus and manually lock in the best tiles. The reason for Production focus is that a new citizen is born AFTER food is calculated for the turn -- so they can't contribute any food that turn but they CAN contribute for other resources. It's a small but nice optimization.

Click to expand...

Thanks, this is great to know! I will definitely start taking advantage of this.

LordBalkoth said:

Due to me being stupid, I had to scrap my video (recorded the voiceover at half volume and the game at full volume rather than the other way around). Is there any advice/tips/etc you'd still like at this point?

Do you know how to read the Tourism vs Culture tab?

Click to expand...

I thought I knew how to read tourism vs culture, but your question implies it might be more complicated than I thought. Would you mind explaining just in case?

While I do feel that I will win this game, I wouldn't say it will be pretty or comfortable... I'd appreciate any general advice about things like optimization or decision making. How did you play the game out from the point the save is at? What turn did you finish?

Thanks for all your help!

consentient said:

Fast peaceful victories are made by very close micromanagement of cities, precise build orders, and above all, fast technological progress driven by growth.

If you have a 4 city Tradition empire, and run all the trade routes as internal to carry food, and ally several Maritime and Cultural CS, you will quickly see the difference, even without Wonders or strong religion.

The 3 key things to do to get peaceful victories under T260 are:

- Growth and micromanagement
- Better use of CS
- Skilful diplomacy and control of the WC

Maybe watch Acken's LP of the Byzantine Deity Challenge?

Click to expand...

How do you manage city state alliances? I can generally get a few nearby due to quests, and then have enough gold for 1 or 2. How do you maintain more? And how do you approach 'skillful diplomacy'?

I'll watch the LP you suggest when I have time, which should be in about two weeks... I hope.

Thanks!

Maximize your GPT and invest a decent proportion of it into gifts to CS. I would say that you want to have a few Cultural, Maritime and Mercantile each by T150. Militaristic are a bonus, far more important for Domination, but a reasonable source of extra influence on peaceful. Just donate the units they give you to other CS.

Calyxx said:

When I do this, I often find myself very poor - unless I have undertaken extensive conquest. What level of income would you call reasonable, and how do you make up for the lack of external trade routes?

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City Connections (roads) with high population cities, for one. A city of 10 population (1 gpt per citizen) plus a capital of 18 (1 gpt per six citizens) yields 13 gpt from the city connection.

Selling luxuries/strategics is also valuable -- 2 gpt for strategics (sell individually) and 7 gpt for extra luxuries.

Calyxx said:

I thought I knew how to read tourism vs culture, but your question implies it might be more complicated than I thought. Would you mind explaining just in case?

Click to expand...

It has to do with being able to see the influence of your tourism over every other civ's culture and the influence of the other civs' tourism over your culture. Does that ring a bell? Will make a quick video about that if not, easier to show than tell.

Calyxx said:

While I do feel that I will win this game, I wouldn't say it will be pretty or comfortable... I'd appreciate any general advice about things like optimization or decision making. How did you play the game out from the point the save is at? What turn did you finish?

Click to expand...

I didn't finish the game, played out maybe 20-30 turns? Was about to start conquering the southeastern cities while fending off enemies from threeish directions if I recall correctly. Had to reroute units and all.

Speaking of units -- more Rocket Artillery, more Mobile SAMs, less everything else. You can literally win with just those two units (though adding on some Bombers/Fighters for aerial support is helpful).

Optimization/decision making wise...DON'T...SPLIT...YOUR...GUILDS. Stuff like Hermitage and National Epic means you want to have them all in one city. For Tradition that's usually the capital but you COULD plop them all in a secondary city if you really wanted (if that secondary city will be your "culture" city while the capital focuses on units or something -- though usually I'd do the reverse and have a secondary city with really good production to build units).