How to deal with Ideology Unhappiness

Cant you just capture the capitol of the guy that's giving you pressure? I'm pretty sure I did that in the Venice game.
 
consentient said:
Freedom works just great. If a person picks Freedom and ends up losing, it won't be because they picked Freedom but because they did something else wrong. For example, allow Sejong to tech unmolested and have him launch first: always a bad idea.

A few months ago when I sucked at peaceful play, I wondered how it was I could take the tech lead and lose it again. Then I found the answer: RAs. Even 5 or 6 RAs in your game can make the difference between comfortably winning and losing. And with Freedom, you don't really need to do anything special. If you're go for a CV you just need to maximise tourism, and with SV you just need to buy the parts. I can't even believe there is a debate about Freedom vs. Order. Freedom absolutely owns Order. Even a part-time SVer like me can see that.

If you want a peaceful DiploV, CV or SV, go Freedom.

If you want a DomV and reach the Modern Era or build 3 factories, go Autocracy.

I can't really think of a reason to go Order. Even its special wonder is the worst.
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I also used to be married with Freedom and not even batting an eye to anything else. But when I tried it, I feel Order might actually the better tree for SV, even when only going Tradition 3 cities. The special wonder is crap, sure, but on the whole, I regard each individual policies in Order to be better than Freedom (almost like to compensate for the crap wonder). And AIs LOVE Order so that's one less happiness problem to worry about.

That said, I'm still married to Freedom, lol. SoL is just too good a wonder and it's right there on the path Plastics.
 
I think the point about not relying on your ideology to fix a happiness issue is the most relevant. If you are playing a culture game then pressure is a non-issue, and in a diplo game passing your ideology is a strong play. For science, you want to get off the planet ASAP, and hopefully avoid the worst of the pressure (aside: once I adopted Acken's strategy of going harder for culture so you can put 3 picks into commerce too, I haven't had many issues with happiness). For domination, you just kill everyone, and once you start your policies may slow when you annex but your total culture produced will balloon from all of those cities/wonders. The only time I have trouble with happiness and Freedom is when I was already having happiness trouble before Ideologies and grew into the happiness in Freedom. And actually, it's mostly science games where I don't plant any GWAMs and pick Freedom way ahead of everyone else that no one else goes Freedom. If you have even a little pressure out there, anyone going for a diplo, culture, or space will have a good shot at picking Freedom once the 2 free policies are gone from the other Ideologies, unless the next two to Ideologies are both culture runaways. If even only one is a culture runaway, you have a decent shot at having a lot of AIs follow you into Freedom. The AI seems to favor culture and domination (which blocks Freedom), and since all three Ideologies are considered culture viable by the AI you can see some strange choices.

Off-topic: Freedom's Tier 1 tenets are very strong. I would describe most of Freedom's tenets as elegant. That food from specialists is a top-shelf buff, and you can turn that into hammers or gold by altering your tile selections if you need to. I think financial buildings are crucial for any tall game. If I can get up my markets before Education, I can usually buy all of my universities. Same with banks and schools, stock exchanges and research labs. They often survive conquest too, and puppets prioritize financial buildings. Creative Expression is stronger than it looks, because hotels/airports/NVC act on the culture a great work produces, not its tourism. The universal GPP buff is strong as well, and 100% of the time I grab that and the food first. After that it thins out, but that's 4 strong policies.

I agree that Liberty-Commerce-Order seems designed as a production-based economy that is supposed to be balanced with Honor-Commerce-Autocracy's gold-based economy. Work 6 mines and you've added an ironworks to the city. LCO also feels easier to get going and I like to play it, but HCA is stronger for the same reasons a Freedom SV is stronger than an Order one: gold is relatively easy to come by when you build it into your strategy and the value of just-in-time production can't be underestimated. The conversation rates on gold to hammers for late units are 85%-88% with Big Ben and all of the relevant policies in place, and a TP hill is 2H3G, the same as a 5H Order mine. More importantantly, your production is decentralized across all of your cities and can all be focused in a city near front-lines. Order has to run it's units all over the map. With Autocracy, the first city you capture on another continent can start feeding a unit every turn as soon as it comes out of resistance. With Order you'd have to tech Radar and rush in a few airports to compete.

Order's happiness is more front-loaded than the others, but it has the least happiness available. I never have more happiness than the culture leader, and they will go Freedom/Autocracy if there are two tenets left, so its culture buffs often get nulified. Founding a lot of late cities is generally a bad idea, so all of Order's buffs to late expansion and getting a new city up and running are throwing good after bad. It's much better to just take what the AI has at that point. In my Freedom and Order games I usually get my factories built before I pick my first level 2 tenet, or rush buy them if I can, so that factory tenet amounts to a smaller than advertised science buff. That said, for the AI's style of play Order actually is very strong, so I don't mind them taking it so much. They don't make effective use of specialists or rush-buy units in any noticeable quantity.

So in summary, I agree with Consentient. Freedom for SV, CV, and DiploV; Autocracy for DomV. I would also say Freedom is viable for late domination, although obviously suboptimal for anything sooner than an XCOM rush (which I would argue is just a variation of a science win). But the human advantage over the AI in late-game warfare is stark, and you don't need any buffs if you start your war with a commanding tech lead. They just can't handle artilery or bombers if you have them up fast enough.
 
Erneiz Hyde said:
AIs LOVE Order so that's one less happiness problem to worry about.
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If you get to Order first, then the next 2 AIs, who are likely to be the culture/tourism leaders that will put pressure on you, will go for other choices 75% of the time, so they can take free tenets, right?

If you get to Ideologies later than first, you're missing out on tenets, right?

Can anyone confirm from the code whether AIs love Order more than other Ideologies, or whether they just pick it cuz the player usually goes for the other, better Ideologies, and they want to have the early founder tenets. Has this been confirmed before?
 
Someone who looks at the code can confirm, but the AI will only choose an Ideology that matches their intended VC. So no domination AI will pick Freedom. Alex and any other diplo civ will go Freedom or Autocracy, which is why he never seems to pick Order. If Sejong picks Autocracy, you don't have to worry about him launching on turn 250 because he's going culture. The AI seems to choose domination and culture most often. I've been the only one to choose Order by getting there first with no tourism, but that is rare. Otherwise, I've noticed any AI with 3 or less cities will go Freedom far more often than one with 20.

Edit: I know the AI has a strong weighting towards 2 free tenets, less so for 1 free tenet.
 
consentient said:
If you get to Order first, then the next 2 AIs, who are likely to be the culture/tourism leaders that will put pressure on you, will go for other choices 75% of the time, so they can take free tenets, right?

If you get to Ideologies later than first, you're missing out on tenets, right?

Can anyone confirm from the code whether AIs love Order more than other Ideologies, or whether they just pick it cuz the player usually goes for the other, better Ideologies, and they want to have the early founder tenets. Has this been confirmed before?
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I'm not sure about the code, but I have seen AIs adopt Order even when I was there first and nobody has picked Freedom yet. And even if the next two Civs followed different Ideology, chances are the rest of the world would go Order anyway.
 
nmp0098 said:
Freedom's Tier 1 tenets are very strong. I would describe most of Freedom's tenets as elegant. That food from specialists is a top-shelf buff, and you can turn that into hammers or gold by altering your tile selections if you need to. I think financial buildings are crucial for any tall game. If I can get up my markets before Education, I can usually buy all of my universities. Same with banks and schools, stock exchanges and research labs. They often survive conquest too, and puppets prioritize financial buildings. Creative Expression is stronger than it looks, because hotels/airports/NVC act on the culture a great work produces, not its tourism. The universal GPP buff is strong as well, and 100% of the time I grab that and the food first. After that it thins out, but that's 4 strong policies.
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I agree that the Freedom tenets are elegant the way they complement each other, with the Statute of Liberty, and the specialist bonus from Rationalism. Freedom is my preferred Ideology most games. That said, I think it is fair to characterize Freedom’s tier 1 tenets as relatively weak on their face, but especially when compared to Tier 1 tenets of Order and Autocracy.

  • Avant Garde, +25% Great Person generation, is good -- but exactly the same as Order’s Hero of the People -- so by definition an average Tier 1 tenet.
  • Creative Expression, +1 Culture from each Great Work, is very weak (almost useless really) until you have hotels/airports/NVC.
  • Civil Society, specialists consume only half the normal amount, is the only above average Tier 1 tenet in Freedom. Even so, it is not so useful when you first unlock Ideologies because your cities are yet not tall enough, you have not built SoL, nor have you finished Rationalism for the specialist bonus there.
  • Covert Action, spies have double the chance to successfully rig City-State elections, is of no value unless you somehow manage to get all your spies killed. You should be able to use Level 3 spies for CS, and they already win almost every election.
  • Capitalism, +1 Local Happiness per Mint, Bank and Stock Exchange, is okay -- but weaker than Socialist Realism from Order or Fortified Borders from Autocracy. Mints are hit-or-miss, and Stock Exchanges are latter game. Not a bad tenet, but below average as compared to the closest analog from the other Ideologies.
  • Economic Union, +3 Gold from each Trade Route with other Freedom Civilizations, is weak because (generally speaking) the AIs hate Freedom. Late game, if you have forced the World Ideology vote, this can be quite profitable, but it is not useful early when you most could use more gold.
  • Universal Healthcare, +1 Local Happiness from each National Wonder, is weak since it only help the cap. Also, the same as is available in Order, and therefore average at best.
So out of seven teir 1 tenets, only one is objectively better than the most comparable tenet available to Order and Autocracy. There are a couple ties, but then three that are weak or useless, especially as early picks. By comparison, every Tier 1 tenet in Order and Autocracy is of value!
 
beetle said:
[*]Civil Society, specialists consume only half the normal amount, is the only above average Tier 1 tenet in Freedom. Even so, it is not so useful when you first unlock Ideologies because your cities are yet not tall enough, you have not built SoL, nor have you finished Rationalism for the specialist bonus there.
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If your cities aren't big enough by Ideologies, you're not doing it right, I'd argue. They should balloon every 3-7 turns from Civil Service, for at least 60 turns. I'd say a minimum of 10 growth from what they were, probably 8-15. That's big enough for a quick Freedom victory. Yes, you can win on T300ish and have humongous cities but Freedom allows faster peaceful VCs than any other ideology.

[*]Covert Action, spies have double the chance to successfully rig City-State elections, is of no value unless you somehow manage to get all your spies killed. You should be able to use Level 3 spies for CS, and they already win almost every election.
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Even then, a non-Covert Action Level 3 spy has an 85% chance of winning, and with CA I think he has 95%, right?

[*]Universal Healthcare, +1 Local Happiness from each National Wonder, is weak since it only help the cap. Also, the same as is available in Order, and therefore average at best.
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I can usually get 15 happiness out of this.

Anyway, judging an Ideology on its Level 1 Tenets seems unfair, since the aim is to use the Finisher. Freedom's finisher is miles better than the others. As much as I love Clausewitz, it's only actually made much difference a handful of times.
 
consentient said:
Anyway, judging an Ideology on its Level 1 Tenets seems unfair, since the aim is to use the Finisher. Freedom's finisher is miles better than the others.
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Absolutely, and the Level 2 Tenets are great as well. It is just the Level 1 ones that I find lacking, but I three of them are good enough, and that is all one really needs.
 
I'm pretty sure unless you are playing Babs or Sejong Order will still have better SV finishing times than Freedom, as proven by tommynt. Order also scales really well if you already have high beakers, if your capital or one of your early expos is jungle or next to a mountain. The science boost will come in way earlier than 8 turns before you mass bulb your GSs and if you do have the right amount of GEs that will shave off a few turns. The only way Freedom increases beaker output straight up is through improving Academy output, which you should never have more than two or three of, anyway. Order, if you think about it, is +33% Science in your entire empire, which is absolutely huge.

That said I prefer Acken's Freedom approach, because I usually get 2 tenets and tend to be really weak at my religion game unless I am going for a CV or DV. Also SoL probably is my favorite wonder, the free 6 GWI are absolutely insane and can really clutch a game if you're getting DoWed from multiple opponents and can't defend. I'd say Freedom in general has more room for different opportunities and approaches than Order does.

If you do have a really strong religion and coal I honestly do not see how Freedom could in any way be faster than Order, but maybe that's just me.

tl;dr: Order is highly game-dependant, but if the conditions are fulfilled will usually finish five to ten turns earlier than Freedom (numbers pulled out of my buttocks)
 
yung.carl.jung said:
Order, if you think about it, is +33% Science in your entire empire, which is absolutely huge.
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It's 25% more science from factories, but in reality due to other modifiers it's only about 10%.


yung.carl.jung said:
If you do have a really strong religion and coal I honestly do not see how Freedom could in any way be faster than Order, but maybe that's just me.
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Freedom = more growth, more pops, later bulbs = more science
 
I have to disagree, you should definitely consider the cumulative effects of your ideology
 
consentient said:
Even then, a non-Covert Action Level 3 spy has an 85% chance of winning, and with CA I think he has 95%, right?
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Are you thinking about coupes? My understanding is that an uncontested Level 1 spy has 100% of swinging the election. So Covert Action is only helpful when the AI has a spy in the same city. I routinely use Level 3 spies in CS and have lost a CS election exactly once.

I can usually get 15 happiness out of this [Universal Healthcare].
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How does what looks to be +8 Local Happiness result in +15 Global Happiness? Maybe I need to pay closer attention!
 
beetle said:
Are you thinking about coupes? My understanding is that an uncontested Level 1 spy has 100% of swinging the election. So Covert Action is only helpful when the AI has a spy in the same city. I routinely use Level 3 spies in CS and have lost a CS election exactly once.
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You know what, I'll admit I'm hazy on this. I just think it's good that my spy has less of a chance of dying, which sucks. But it's OT for this thread.

How does what looks to be +8 Local Happiness result in +15 Global Happiness? Maybe I need to pay closer attention!
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Circus Maximus 1
East India Company 2
Hermitage 3
National Epic 4
National College 5
Ironworks 6
National Visitor Centre 7
Oxford University 8
Artist's Guild 9
Writer's Guild 10
Musician's Guild 11
Palace 12

Those are always builds for Freedom games.

Optionals are:

Heroic Epic 13
Grand Temple 14 (I am more likely to go for a peaceful VC if I can found a really good religion)
National Intelligence Agency 15
 
What's so bad about Order? Your factories become super awesome and all of your cities get +2 happiness from the monuments you have anyway. Also you can buy tons of buildings. Rush building spaceship parts might not be as awesome as buying parts but there's always plenty of great engineers at the end game because there's no more wonders to rush except Hubble.

Also Kremlin is better than Statue of Liberty (though the Autocracy one gives stupid amounts of happiness. All the best for stealing it from an autocracy civ).
 
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