What ideology do you pick LEAST?

In the spirit of my previous ideology thread, let's gather some quantitative data. Can be useful to see which one could use a boost.

I tried picking autocracy once as the Zulu. My happiness crashed and burned because of everyone else picking something else, so I joined the crowd and picked order. That seemed to work well enough for my warmongering and I was satisfied with it.

Order, as strange as it may sound. I typically play tall so Freedom is the best option when I'm doing well and I will champion the potency of Industrial Espionage to the grave so I go Autocracy when I'm losing.

Autocracy is just bad. It's decent only for a warmonger, which I never am, and useful for absolutely nothing else. Order might actually be better for warmongers anyway, plus it has other uses. My choice is always between Freedom (tall) or Order (wide), to be honest. Gunboat Diplomacy is about the only really good policy Autocracy has that I can think of.

I pick Order most games, so Freedom or Autocracy are my least-pick, depending on how my recent games have been going.

If a neighbor with a large military goes Autocracy or I think they're going to, there's a good chance I'll go Autocracy. Warmongers dislike you the least for warmongering, so if you start taking out your other neighbors, an Autocratic neighbor may well forgive you, although that goes for all ideologies.

My favorite strategy with Autocracy is to get the largest military possible with reduced maintenance and use it to constantly demand tribute from city states, then use that tribute to buy the alliance of other city states and thereby secure a diplomatic victory. Toss in some gunboat diplomacy between turns of demanding tribute, and you get a strong city state bloc that's constantly feeding you cash.

KevinJK said:

Autocracy is just bad. It's decent only for a warmonger, which I never am, and useful for absolutely nothing else. Order might actually be better for warmongers anyway, plus it has other uses. My choice is always between Freedom (tall) or Order (wide), to be honest. Gunboat Diplomacy is about the only really good policy Autocracy has that I can think of.

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Hahahaha okay lemme lay it down for ya

Just gonna go down the list in the civilopedia and pick out the ones I think are particularly strong

Cult of Personality: This and Dictatorship of the Proletariat are probably the two best tourism tenants in the game, and personally I'd give the edge to CoP (Autocracy even kinda counters DotP due to the ridiculous amounts of happiness you get). 50% is an enormous bonus, and its one that you can definitely expect to get against that culture runaway that I can guarantee you at least one other civ hates. I've had three separate culture games so far that by my guess would have been unwinnable if I had not picked up this tenant.

Fortified Borders: Maintenance free and puppets prioritize it. One of the reasons why Autocracy gets more happiness than anyone else, even during conquest, though Militarism is so incredible that even this is weak by comparison.

Industrial Espionage: I want to marry this tenant. It is just so damn beautiful. With Industrial Espionage you can keep stealing far into the Atomic Era with the same speed you expect from your Renaissance spies. You WILL catch up to an opponent with this tenant. If you never find yourself in a position where IE would be useful, you need to move up a difficulty.

Militarism: Let me put it this way: A Military Academy costs 300 hammers. A Stadium costs 500. Now, which one is the more efficient build/rush buy?

Mobilization: Since you can generally expect the world to go to hell in the Atomic Era, being able to cheaply buy new units without having to waste the turns to produce them is incredibly useful regardless of your victory condition. Combine it with Big Ben and you can have yourself a Most Serene Venetian Domination Victory.

Third Alternative: Even if getting twice as many planes as normal doesn't appeal to you, just do the Russian thing and sell those resources for a pretty penny. A free hospital in the capital ain't too shabby either.

Total War: Planes that start with Air Repair. Planes that start with Air Repair.

Total War: Planes that start with Air Repair. Planes that start with Air Repair.[/QUOTE]

Changing subject a bit, I know the zulu are supposed to be strong in the beginning of the game, but this was the most useful bonus I found from them. A military academy gives you air repair bombers with no other bonuses in your city. It really is fantastic.

Autocracy, although Arachnofiend's post is making me give it a second look.

I pick whatever suits my situation best. Tend to favour Order over Freedom over Autocracy, but that's because of how I play rather than any of them being inherently superior (at least as far as I can tell).

Autocracy, because I'm not a pure warmonger.

Order.

If I play Tall and somewhat peaceful then I go Freedom. Autocracy is my most picked ideology though since I usually conquer my entire continent and start razing cities on the other. It provides tons of happiness via the barracks/armory/military academies and you get very strong units with a greater capacity to produce, support and train them. Double resources is also very nice when nukes come rolling along.

If I can get the Alhambra and Brandenburg gate then I can produce some absolutely ridiculous Cavalry/Winged Hussars as Poland. Barracks + Armory + Military Academy + Alhambra + Brandenburg Gate + Ducal Stables + Total War + Heroic Epic + Elite Forces = Cavalry of Doom. Then when you thought it couldn't get better you upgrade all your Cav into Tanks and then you use Lightning Warfare for "Armored units receive +1 Movement and +15% attack bonus, and ignore enemy ZOC."

I NEVER pick banana. That anti-jungle policy wrecks University science.

On a more serious note, I always seem to pick freedom. Even in wide empires, I usually take secularism which seems to go very well with freedom and its respective statue of liberty.

Arachnofiend said:

Total War: Planes that start with Air Repair. Planes that start with Air Repair.

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what's this you say. That easiest and most efficient way to dominate the world has units with air repair so you can get logistics faster. Air repair logistics stealth bombers....it's just not fair to the ai. Oh and air repair double interception fighters for defense as well.....nice

I dont think the ideologies are that awesome. They could have been more fun. At that point (playing immortal) id rather go for rationalism because you want to have good research when the ais start zerging bombers and Gandhi miraculously makes his insane tech jump and starts manhattan project while i have just recently passed into the industrial era. I know our game experiences are very much individual but at least in all my games the AI is overwhelmingly keen on Order.

I only go autocracy when I want to warmonger, but haven't yet. Chances are, I've probably done quite a bit of mongering by the time industrialism comes about though so I go order.

I'm not a warmonger, it doesn't matter how much you would boost autocracy, I still wouldn't pick it for a normal game.

Autocracy needs some tourism and diplomacy!

Banana.

I mean c'mon.. +1 Happiness per Bananas? Seriously.. what is this fudge!?

I have never picked banana yet

The problem with Autocracy is that as a warmonger you're going to be having happiness problems, and you'll probably also be weak on culture/tourism. So you're basically forced into whatever the tourism giants pick (rarely autocracy), because you can't afford to wage a war with 20+ unhappiness from unrest.

Order is great for warmongers anyway. +2 happiness per Monument? Yes please.