Ideology Questtion

To all of you experts out there when you chose an ideology, do you finish your current policy tree, say rationalism, or do you start your ideology and never spend another point on social policies? I have two spots left in rationalism, the bottom left two, should I finish te fate I found an ideology.

thanks

Well it depends on what you need at that time. Ideally, you'll have at least one free policy for ideology. If you're a bit behind in science or need a key tech, I'd try to finish Rationalism. I would say most of the time (assuming you get 2 free ideology picks for being first), take those two and then a second tier before finishing an open tree. Because ideological choices are more specific to your empire, there's a chance that the second tier policy may be better than holding off to try and finish a tree.

In short: it's circumstantial, but usually select my first tier 2 and then finish the tree.

It depends what you need. Spending a social policy in an ideology is the same as spending an ordinary social policy. In my games I generally take a level 2 ideology policy very quickly, and possibly another lvl 2 policy pretty quickly if I can. If I'm working on rationalism while I get an ideology, I do often find it beneficial to finish rationalism, or just to take ordinary policies instead of ideology policies. There's no real right or wrong answer here.

Basically, policies in ideologies are usually very strong, but not always/strictly better than policies outside of it. What you pick is still a judgement call based on the situation you are in.

You don't always have to get the free social policies that you get from being the first person to the ideology. You can wait and be last to join the ideology that has influenced your civilization the most.

blinky501 said:

To all of you experts out there when you chose an ideology, do you finish your current policy tree, say rationalism, or do you start your ideology and never spend another point on social policies? I have two spots left in rationalism, the bottom left two, should I finish te fate I found an ideology.

thanks

Click to expand...

Since Rationalism is always my current policy tree at the time (science is King) I always finish it first to max out the science bonuses; then I reach level 3 ideology.

At that point I sometimes choose more of the filler policies from the tree I started while waiting for Rationalism, in other cases I'll choose more tenets.

joncnunn said:

Since Rationalism is always my current policy tree at the time (science is King) I always finish it first to max out the science bonuses; then I reach level 3 ideology.

At that point I sometimes choose more of the filler policies from the tree I started while waiting for Rationalism, in other cases I'll choose more tenets.

Click to expand...

What about the finisher? Like Oxford, wouldn't it be better to leave the finisher for later in game, unless you have lots of faith to purchase GS'?

well it seems like the general belief or tactic is that it is situational, which I understand is just that the first times I have played with the all the add-ons and expansion that as soon as I get ideaology I just fill it out, still haven't filled it out completely, but I just forget about the social policy trees, I was wondering what everyone else did, but it seems like I just haven't encountered the right situation for me to go back and fill out either rationalism or commerce. thanks for the input

sendos said:

What about the finisher? Like Oxford, wouldn't it be better to leave the finisher for later in game, unless you have lots of faith to purchase GS'?

Click to expand...

I use oxford to bulb plastics.

sendos said:

What about the finisher? Like Oxford, wouldn't it be better to leave the finisher for later in game, unless you have lots of faith to purchase GS'?

Click to expand...

No, Rationalism shouldn't wait for the space race parts for two reasons.
1. The soonest you can possibly finish Raionalism is late enough for most civs *where science then >>> science later after you've already effectively won the game.
*PIf playing Poland it may be possible to finish Rationalism so early it is better off waiting a bit.

2. Delaying the completion of Rationalism either delays getting max benefit for RAs or max internal science bonuses.

Now you do want to unblock an expensive tech for the finisher just like Oxford.
Using Oxford for Radio and Rationalism finisher for Plastics works really well.