Autocracy Level 3 Useless

This is the first time I've gone Autocracy, and I have to say, it's pretty bad. The only nice thing about it is there are a good number of useful happiness bonuses. But the Level 3 bonuses are terribad. Cult of Personality doesn't fit at all with what Autocratic civs want to do. Gunboat diplomacy is laughably bad - I have pretty much the best military in the world and that's not enough to scare pretty much a single city-state. And Clausewitz is ok I guess, but a one time 50 turn bonus isn't really what I'm looking for there.

I think Cult of Personality is meant to insulate you from those pesky culture-players trying to influence you with their ideology while you try to dominate the world. Clausewitz can be useful for that final push to the domination victory. Agree that Gunboat Diplomacy is essentially useless.

50 turns is longer than it seems - more than enough to take out a civ or two. You can check the tooltip when unable to bully a city-state, and it will tell you why not (usually you won't have a big enough military near the CS itself).

I have to say I'm not sure why this is level 3 - I love the theme of Autocracy (and of Gunboat Diplomacy), but it doesn't seem terribly strong. As for CoP fitting "what autocratic civs want to do", each of the level 3 tenets ties into one of the three victory types the ideology is tailored for - which for Autocracy are Culture, Diplomacy and Domination. CoP makes a lot of sense for a culture victory: at that point in the game a 50% tourism bonus that lasts as long as your war can be pretty significant.

To intimidate CS into supporting you with gunboat diplomacy, you have to actually put units on or near the border of the CS in question. It's pretty darn powerful.

I disagree. Just completed a Domination victory as Assyria, and I found that Autocracy consistently gave me exactly the boosts I needed at each moment I needed them. The happiness boosts were all crucial towards managing a world-spanning puppet empire, Total War and financial tenets helped me keep army production going, and Clausewitz's Legacy was a nice way to break through the wall that all late-game Domination wins hit. I'm not sure when I'd use Cult of Personality or Gunboat Diplomacy, but I feel that's more an issue of still learning the tenets. Besides, Clausewitz is more than enough to make Autocracy level 3 worth it.

I agree. Third alternative and 33% maintenance savings and a few other tenets others are pretty good, but level 3 is just terrible compared to freedom and order.

Bad Wolf said:

Clausewitz can be useful for that final push to the domination victory.

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One of my favorite strategies has been is to go for a small/tall civilization with a focus on tech, and then take over the world when I reach tanks. Just did this in BNW with Korea. When I hit Clausewitz I started by domination, and took out my three major competitors before it was completed. It's a fun way to do domination and makes the late game domination victory more dynamic since you don't already control half the map by the time it starts.

Gunboat diplomacy is rather difficulty based. Higher difficulties means you effectively have to over produce units and kill the major civs units to be able to have it triggered. The tooltip is pretty good at letting you know what to do re: bullying.

Freedom is still leagues ahead though, wrt diplo VC.

the final push tenet is strong, but 50 turns is actually limited unless you are ready to win already. You'll get further ahead, but since it's time limited, there's nothing left to give you a benefit after it's done - unlike the rest of the tenets.

Cult of Personality is very useful though. Just find someone else's war, jump in and boom, tourism booster. It's more than enough to both overcome the different Ideology penalty and so gives you a bit extra.

Order's free courthouse has to be the weakest of all level 3 tenets.

I like the Autocracy tree myself too. Although I have noticed with the "militarism" tenant. It gives you +2 for each Barracks, Armory, and Military academy. Yet, I rush purchased a few armories and academies but it didn't add to my happiness. Is it bugged?

MadDjinn said:

Gunboat diplomacy is rather difficulty based. Higher difficulties means you effectively have to over produce units and kill the major civs units to be able to have it triggered. The tooltip is pretty good at letting you know what to do re: bullying.

Freedom is still leagues ahead though, wrt diplo VC.

the final push tenet is strong, but 50 turns is actually limited unless you are ready to win already. You'll get further ahead, but since it's time limited, there's nothing left to give you a benefit after it's done - unlike the rest of the tenets.

Cult of Personality is very useful though. Just find someone else's war, jump in and boom, tourism booster. It's more than enough to both overcome the different Ideology penalty and so gives you a bit extra.

Order's free courthouse has to be the weakest of all level 3 tenets.

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Right. Freedom is really really powerful. The level 3 tenet for boosting influence with CS through trade is very useful. The hard counter to it is to ban CS trade routes through World Congress.

I think 50 turns is enough to steamroll 2-4 small to medium opponents. Happiness can be a problem but piling up some before starting a war can really help.

Theruss said:

I like the Autocracy tree myself too. Although I have noticed with the "militarism" tenant. It gives you +2 for each Barracks, Armory, and Military academy. Yet, I rush purchased a few armories and academies but it didn't add to my happiness. Is it bugged?

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Maybe your cities were not big enough for all that local happiness?

Yeah, I'm actually impressed by all the lower autocracy ones, just not the level 3. Maybe I don't understand how tourism works though - does more tourism for you help defensively?

I love Clausewitz. Typically when I get it, I still have about half the civs left on the map to conquer. I'll pick that, spam tanks and bombers, then just ball everyone over long before the bonus ends. I mean we're talking 3-4 cities per turn here. I even end up selling my pre-existing Infantry and Artillery because they just can't keep up with how fast the front's moving.

Huh, gunboat diplomacy seemed fun for me. I just move my battleships and rocket artillery near CSes and suddenly I start making friends and allies without having to spend a dime.

Actually I have little gripes with any of the ideology tenets. If I do really want to nitpick.
I'd say the free courthouse for Order should be given regardless of whether you annex or puppet a captured city. If I am not mistaken, right now you must annex immediately for it to take effect... But why would I want to annex any captured state immediately when there's gonna be turns where the city can't do anything? Though I guess the boost to internal trade routes does make up for it significantly.

And the plus happiness for National Wonders is kinda weak to me. I mean, how many National Wonders are there anyway? In comparison to having a monument in every city, or a courthouse in every captured city, or happiness from military buildings in every city, or happiness from gold producing buildings? Plus, isn't one of those happiness for national wonders policies called "universal healthcare"? Sounds like a misnomer. If you are talking about healthcare, you should be giving a boost to Medical Labs and Hospitals.

I have to agree with the OP, I got to 3rd level autocracy over the weekend and thought to myself "this is it?" I spent the rest of the game filling in Aesthetics & Patronage.

sffrrrom said:

Gunboat diplomacy is laughably bad - I have pretty much the best military in the world and that's not enough to scare pretty much a single city-state.

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I've never had Gunboat Diplomacy fail to save me 1000s of gold in City State gifts...it generally guarantees me friendship with all City States and alliance with most (eventually).

When you say 'pretty much the best military' do you mean that you are #1 in soldiers on the demographics screen? Or do you mean you have a small, elite force that can take on anything? The former counts for MUCH MUCH more than the latter...

Proximity also matters a lot...if you have the biggest military, but its all on the other side of the world, it isn't going to have much effect on a City State. You need to have units in range to produce a 'credible threat'...

That said, City States are often clustered together in clumps, and you can often send a force to intimidate several at the same time. I find that the Navy I build to protect my shipping routes is also quite useful for intimidating City States...

Crus8r

sffrrrom said:

This is the first time I've gone Autocracy, and I have to say, it's pretty bad. The only nice thing about it is there are a good number of useful happiness bonuses. But the Level 3 bonuses are terribad. Cult of Personality doesn't fit at all with what Autocratic civs want to do. Gunboat diplomacy is laughably bad - I have pretty much the best military in the world and that's not enough to scare pretty much a single city-state. And Clausewitz is ok I guess, but a one time 50 turn bonus isn't really what I'm looking for there.

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Cult of Personality? Have a bunch of friends and bring them into wars and then declare war on their enemies. If you have like 5+ wars going on the boost will be insane. I had over 1.5k tourism to all my friends thanks to cult of personality and my friends becoming war happy because of me. I also had my armies supporting their wars everywhere for fun.

Gunboat Diplomacy? I assume you're trying to intimidate a citystate on other side of world with a single warrior? You will need more than that, at minimum 3 destroyers is more than enough. But why send a ship over there to intimidate a city state when you can propel up a port city over there to gain a new base for your ships to repair and rest in and then benefit from gunboat diplomacy while gaining even more gpt thanks to founding of a new city. And even after your boats left, your city garrisons will be more than enough to terrify the city states into being your allies. Because they know you can immediately punish them.

Clausewitz, ummm, this boost is so godlike to the point where I only used it once ever. Was during gods n kings when Hiawatha and Catherine runaways managed to invade me at same time and I fought them off and counter invaded both at same time. 50 turns was just right. Its there as your big red button to push in your hour of need and if you still got wiped out by invading ais, nothing else will save you.

Autocracy level 3 tenets is darn amazing when compared to other ideologies.

Most Clauswitz that I got to use was usually at the latest turns of a play. 50 turns is enough to finally get to complete a domination victory using autocracy during the last turns of a play. The level 3 tenet gunboat diplomacy on the other hand, could be useful in bullying and when city states ask you to bully a rival city state that's already too difficult to intimidate particularly when their ally is really powerful.

Callonia said:

Clausewitz, ummm, this boost is so godlike to the point where I only used it once ever. Was during gods n kings when Hiawatha and Catherine runaways managed to invade me at same time and I fought them off and counter invaded both at same time.

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Sorry, but you must be miss-remembering something here, as GnK did not have ideologies! I agree that 50 turns should be enough to cap off a Domination run, but I have not made it work quite yet.

From GnK: Autocracy is for militaristic civilizations, dreaming of world conquest. Adopting all Policies in the Autocracy tree will grant a 20% attack bonus to all Military Units for 30 turns.