Why so much unhappiness for the Freedom ideology?

AlextheGr8 said:

This is just ridiculous. I find it laughable that just beacuse I'm the only freedom ideology, my citizens would "want" to have an oppressive ideology instead? Cmon now, this is just dumb. I get hit suddenly with -50 or more unhappiness when I am outnumbered. Give me a break! What a horrible design choice. There was not a majority opinion in America that they should turn to Communism like the USSR. This has ruined the game for me.

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Did you read what the others posted? I think it makes perfect sense. If you are going domination, you can't ignore culture which is am important aspect of the game. If you are going space, you can't ignore culture, which is an important aspect of the game. Same with diplo.

Did I mention that culture is an important part of the game?

If you are at -60 unhappiness, then you severely ignored your culture and thus aren't playing the game the right way.

Well you can ignore it, you just going to have to adapt to the world ideology or not even adapt one then. But really you don't need a whole lot of tourism to get to exotic with at least everyone and lower all pressures by 1. For civs not even going for a culture victory, its really not hard to get to familar with them either with just a small amount of tourism. You only need a decent amount of culture as well.

I actually find that a cultural victory is easier with Order because of their tourism tenets.

ellgieff said:

Wait, what? If the USSR ideology had won the cold war (Not a Communist country, never was), US citizens would _clearly_ have asked for the same thing that the people of that union had.

Freedom doesn't necessarily bring happiness. And what the USA has isn't Freedom (or democracy).

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We know now the USSR wasn't truly Communist, but back then there were not so many stories in the public about the dictatorship of Stalin, his massive purges, etc.

America is a republic, or more specifically representative democracy.

Xichael said:

I think it's more that you've been overtaken by their tourism which is telling you how much better their ideology is compared to yours, and if you don't have the culture to back your system up then the people will yearn for the more popular ideology.

When the tourism of an Order civ overtakes your Freedom civ, your citizens are starting to buy the idea of a glorious paradise of the working class. Not that unrealistic at all.

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I have more tourism than them, I kept getting messages about how my tourism was causing their countries to persuade their citizens.

But they have more culture than me, because I'm competing against 6 civs.

I don't know how they can have more culture though. I kept bringing artifacts back to museums, great writers, etc. Built Broadway, the CN Tower, etc.

Gehennas said:

You will not believe me, but in post-soviet Russia there is a lot of people dreaming about a new Stalin. Even while this country is "following freedom" de jure only.

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Key word there is Russia. I'm talking about a country like England or America. Tell me was there an overwhelming desire to adopt the same ideology as the USSR?

AlextheGr8 said:

We know now the USSR wasn't truly Communist, but back then there were not so many stories in the public about the dictatorship of Stalin, his massive purges, etc.

America is a republic, or more specifically representative democracy.

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America is a republic, yes. But the electoral college system means it's not even close to being a democracy, and is certainly not a representative democracy.

On topic, I recently enjoyed a game as Poland where I was aiming for a culture victory, got to an ideology first (I really like the free SPs!) and chose Freedom. I was astonished when most of the Civs that were doing well chose order, and almost immediately went into Civil Disorder.

Seriously guys, my tourism is crushing you. Freedom was literally the only choice, what were you thinking?

freedom isn't free

Ive got a similar issue. Playing as poland, i was the first to build 3 factories, so i chose the freedom ideology for the spaceparts buying. Assyria, my direct neighbour went order 10 tuns later. Now they have the highest tourism output, so i understand i have the negative unhappines from it. (especially cause morocco took order too)

The strange thing is, assyria has -11 unhappines in total (i still have around 40). So basicly my people go "we wanna be like that miserable and unhappy bunch over there". Where is the logic in that?

Hmmm...I went freedom on my first game and am planning to on my second. Does EVERYONE pick freedom? I haven't seen anyone here talk about choosing order or autocracy.

ellgieff said:

America is a republic, yes. But the electoral college system means it's not even close to being a democracy, and is certainly not a representative democracy.

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You're just playing semantics with words that have more than one meaning. You vote for representatives who represent you and write bills/pass laws. America is certainly a democracy, a representative democracy.

MantaRevan said:

Hmmm...I went freedom on my first game and am planning to on my second. Does EVERYONE pick freedom? I haven't seen anyone here talk about choosing order or autocracy.

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I played order the last game, and wanted to try something new. I have a large successful economy going and freedom was the best option. I was far and away the most successful civ with the largest tourism number. But The AI spams the map better and had better culture.

AlextheGr8 said:

Key word there is Russia. I'm talking about a country like England or America. Tell me was there an overwhelming desire to adopt the same ideology as the USSR?

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They don't, because they actually works on their "culture" and "tourism", on the CiV term, contrary to you...

Well, I think you can relate if I put you in "Order" nation. You will be really mad. Which make me wonder why you can't relate to what happened to your game. It's just other way around.

AlextheGr8 said:

Key word there is Russia. I'm talking about a country like England or America. Tell me was there an overwhelming desire to adopt the same ideology as the USSR?

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Uh yes, there was. The whole containment doctrine was designed out of fear that the Red Menace would sweep over the world and remove precious allies from 'Murka's side. It didn't work as well as they would have hoped, actually. Even the United States had to accept a little Order in our system to prevent the proletariat from wrecking our precious suburbs: the Great Society is basically a capitalist's shoddy, rushed attempt at appealing to socialists.

AlextheGr8 said:

This is just ridiculous. I find it laughable that just beacuse I'm the only freedom ideology, my citizens would "want" to have an oppressive ideology instead? Cmon now, this is just dumb. I get hit suddenly with -50 or more unhappiness when I am outnumbered. Give me a break! What a horrible design choice. There was not a majority opinion in America that they should turn to Communism like the USSR.

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I don't see the problem. There are, have been and always will be people fed up with democracy. I don't blame them - if things went south in my country, I'd sure as heck put more trust in a smart autocrat than the stupid masses. Especially if that smart autocrat was a popular counterculture symbol and I was an easily influenced youth, which would be the case as they're clearly dominating your culture.

AlextheGr8 said:

This has ruined the game for me.

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Well cry me a river, but it sure did nothing like that to me. Go play something else if you dislike the possibility that Freedom won't automatically conquer all.

Okay, this thread derails a little bit into "Real World Politics" and terrible spam. This is sad, because I think it broaches an important issue:

Should happiness modifiers by opposing ideologies be applied as soon as an ideology is chosen?

Right now, if you are not the first to pick your ideology and (for example) two other Civs already did chose theirs, it is almost impossible to take a different one. Granted, there are countermeasures. As stated already in this thread, increasing your culture/tourism is the best of them. Searching for new happines sources works as well, but for a short time only.

The problem is: While new happiness sources might be accuired quite fast (if they are available at all), increasing your culture/tourism takes time. A lot of time! Time you don't have, as the tremendous unhappiness cripples your empire up to stalemate.

What could be done?

1. One possibility could be, that you get informed how the to be taken ideology will affect your global happiness. With this change, you would at least know what you are heading for.

2. The way supperior solution (and a solution I strongly advocate) would be that unhappiness due to stronger opposing ideologies built up slowly! The player would have time to actually take the necessary and possible countermeasures. This would be even more realistic, as people need time to change their mind about the ideology they (their leadership) follow(s) and acknowledge the other ideology's superiority.

Of course, if the opposing ideology proves to be too strong, flipping to it might very well be the final and only valide solution. But this solution should be only the very last act of desperation and not forced onto the player the turn after the initial ideology choice!

CivFanaticMan said:

freedom isn't free

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It's $1.05!

I agree that the pressure shouldn't build up "overnight". However, I also think the ideology game is designed to reward heavy investments in earlier subgames - for players who did well in the culture game, they shouldn't be pressured in the first place (beyond WC World Ideology, perhaps). For players who did well in diplomacy, there's the world ideology option. For players who are ahead in science, they can be the first to pick their ideology and have happiness-producing tenets unlocked before the culture high-rollers start landing unhappiness on them.

which of the tenets for order strike you as inherently oppressive?

VainoValkea said:

I agree that the pressure shouldn't build up "overnight". However, I also think the ideology game is designed to reward heavy investments in earlier subgames - for players who did well in the culture game, they shouldn't be pressured in the first place (beyond WC World Ideology, perhaps). For players who did well in diplomacy, there's the world ideology option. For players who are ahead in science, they can be the first to pick their ideology and have happiness-producing tenets unlocked before the culture high-rollers start landing unhappiness on them.

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I think, the key word is 'heavy investments' here! Agreed, heavy investements should be reward. And they will, even with a slower pressure increase.

The main problem I see is for domination players. Usually, they will not spend overly much in culture (of course it is a very bad idea to ignore it - but they will definitely not 'heavily invest' in it), they might fall back in science due to the new 5%/city-increase, they might have more enemies than friends due to their aggressive approach. And when they finally reach the point to chose their own ideology, the #### hits the fan...

Domination was already heavily hampered by other new game mechanics in BNW. I don't think, we need this stumbling block in addition to all the others.