[vanilla] Social Policy: Order (vanilla)

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Social Policy: Order - Social Policy: Order

Order
A closer look at the social policy branch​

Introduction

Order, available in the industrial era, contains policies that boost a wide empire strategy. Order is best for large, sprawling empires, increasing the strength of the empire based on the number of cities it contains. Order cannot...

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I find the Order policies to be underwhelming with limited use especially since its mutually exclusive with Freedom and Autocracy. Also, since it favors having many cities in your control and more specifically cities settled by your civ (otherwise I think autocracy is more useful), it makes it nearly impossible to finish order since social policies would begin to cost too much.

I was wondering if you had a LP where you might favor order as opposed to the other two policy trees and shed some light on how to maximize a social policy tree that most likely would get the benefit of a finisher.

ezbutton said:

I find the Order policies to be underwhelming with limited use especially since its mutually exclusive with Freedom and Autocracy. Also, since it favors having many cities in your control and more specifically cities settled by your civ (otherwise I think autocracy is more useful), it makes it nearly impossible to finish order since social policies would begin to cost too much.

I was wondering if you had a LP where you might favor order as opposed to the other two policy trees and shed some light on how to maximize a social policy tree that most likely would get the benefit of a finisher.

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Any city counts for the bonuses, including puppets.

All you need is a large empire for this to be worth it. Of course, when compared to Freedom (as is), it's not that great. It really depends on the type of game/empire you're looking to build. For a warmongering game, Order works better than Freedom (more bonuses towards Domination style play).

Personally, I end up using Order in my current LP (Spain). The boosts I get there go quite well with my massive puppet empire (combined with Piety/Patronage/Liberty).

What about going Order just for the Militaristic unit spam and playing a scorch-and-burn game? That looks like it would work out very well. You don't need the entire Order tree for that--only 2 policies. And the first two are both very good.

I may try this out my next game and post what I find out. Play as Japs or Chinese (Chinese because you can multiply the Great General bonus * all those units. Japs because your play style would involve units constantly committing hari-kari, fighting until they're dead).

Just need to find something creative to do with all those cities, because I don't think I want them all. Probably pillage them for gold, then sell them...for more gold. Then gift the gold to more city-states.

Just tried out this strategy with relying on United Front. Short story is, it doesn't work. It is a nice bonus, though; just not game-changing or anything. The problem is that Order comes too late in the game, in Industrial. You can't plan around something that comes that late. Then it takes more time for your Militaristic client-states to donate a bunch of land units, even at double speed. By then, planes and then nukes are starting to come out. In my game, I had Heroic Epic and Brandenberg Gate, and it was spitting out whatever I needed with 60xp out of the starting blocks (3 promos). Meanwhile the CS's put out some nice random, green land units that I didn't mind getting killed. It helped. I was just hoping to get more out of it than just "helping"--I was hoping to build virtually zero units, focus entirely on buildings, and spend nothing upgrading units (thus skipping Pentagon). That did not turn out to be the case.

If Greece had access to United Front in the Ancient Age, this would be a different story. I would probably revolve the game around those CS's had it been so. But Industrial Age is simply too late to do much with it.

tetley said:

Just tried out this strategy with relying on United Front. Short story is, it doesn't work. It is a nice bonus, though; just not game-changing or anything. The problem is that Order comes too late in the game, in Industrial. You can't plan around something that comes that late. Then it takes more time for your Militaristic client-states to donate a bunch of land units, even at double speed. By then, planes and then nukes are starting to come out. In my game, I had Heroic Epic and Brandenberg Gate, and it was spitting out whatever I needed with 60xp out of the starting blocks (3 promos). Meanwhile the CS's put out some nice random, green land units that I didn't mind getting killed. It helped. I was just hoping to get more out of it than just "helping"--I was hoping to build virtually zero units, focus entirely on buildings, and spend nothing upgrading units (thus skipping Pentagon). That did not turn out to be the case.

If Greece had access to United Front in the Ancient Age, this would be a different story. I would probably revolve the game around those CS's had it been so. But Industrial Age is simply too late to do much with it.

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Out of curiosity, what difficulty level was this at? I played a Prince game where I relied entirely on units gifted to me by City States, but it started getting really hairy around the Industrial era. Wondering if going order may have helped in that case.

In any event, seems like it's more of a nice bonus you get if you're going for Order, but not compelling enough to make Order worth going into if you weren't already headed that direction.

I was on King. On Prince, I most definitely rely entirely on gifted units, and that's without Order. That's why I was thinking United Front might be a big deal, doubling what was already a big number. I have no doubt United Front will help in your situation--it is a helpful SP. Just not game-changing. Its absence until Industrial is what kills it.

tetley said:

I was on King. On Prince, I most definitely rely entirely on gifted units, and that's without Order. That's why I was thinking United Front might be a big deal, doubling what was already a big number. I have no doubt United Front will help in your situation--it is a helpful SP. Just not game-changing. Its absence until Industrial is what kills it.

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Get to Industrial Faster

seriously though, the CS gifting cycle is pretty long for units, so cutting that in half 'when you're at war' is not a bad thing. But it's never something to base a strategy on (unless there's 6+ Militaristic CSs that you are allied with - then it could be fast enough spamming).

Otherwise, it's a bonus SP to take after you've gotten the other Order SPs, unless you really need more units faster.

Actually, getting an earlier Industrial is a real and viable strategy. Dynamite is a hot technology anyway, and it just so happens to vault you into Industrial. Bulb an early Dynamite, pick Order starter SP, get the emergency happiness to keep you above 0. And if you go this route you're not going to have Factories yet anyway so no point picking the 25% science bonus first.

Whether you pick United Front first or last, though, I think is more a function of how many Militaristic CS's you are allied with than anything else. If you only have 1-2 allies, there's very little point (other than to get the Order finisher). But if you have 3 or more, get it first. Militaristic CS's give a lot of units over time, and you are doubling what is basically a large number. But you have to make it more a long-term investment--they don't gift very good units, and it usually takes them several turns to station them where you want them (especially on island maps). You don't get United Front for emergency units--you do it to build up a lot of units. If you're allied with 6+ CS's, that's basically 1 free unit a turn. That's insane. But they're scattered all over the map and you have to organize them. That's why I'm saying this SP isn't a game-changer: because it's a long-term investment, but you're already in Industrial. Not a lot of time left to be making long-term investments in Industrial.

Being at war continuously is not an issue. It's easy to be in a perpetual war at that stage of the game.

I found that Order combined with Forbidden Palace and Courthouses can give me +36 net happiness while having tons of cities (40 or so? I was playing on large with Arabia on continents)

ezbutton said:

I find the Order policies to be underwhelming with limited use especially since its mutually exclusive with Freedom and Autocracy. Also, since it favors having many cities in your control and more specifically cities settled by your civ (otherwise I think autocracy is more useful), it makes it nearly impossible to finish order since social policies would begin to cost too much.

I was wondering if you had a LP where you might favor order as opposed to the other two policy trees and shed some light on how to maximize a social policy tree that most likely would get the benefit of a finisher.

Click to expand...

But, Order bonuses mesh perfectly with Liberty (Which is for expansive civs) and Honor (For militaristic civs.) I find that the Order and Nationalism bonuses are the most useful, however.