Arsenal of Democracy vs Gunboat Diplomacy

[KillingMeSoftly]

Here are the relevant tenets:

Arsenal of Democracy (Freedom, tier 2): +25% towards Military Units. +20 from Military Units gifts to City-States.

Gunboat Diplomacy (Autocracy, tier 3): +6 per turn with City-States you could demand tribute from.

I've played both a Freedom and Autocracy diplomacy game now. Both of these tenets occupy the same design space, and fulfill similar goals. On paper, Gunboat Diplomacy appears superior but in practice I've found otherwise.

Playing on Emperor, most city-states produced a large amount of troops. This raises their reluctance threshold and makes it very difficult to bully these states. Some states possessed so many units I could fill every available space in and around their borders and still not pass this threshold. Note that I had a massive army playing as Autocratic Germany, much larger than I would normally build. Despite the huge size of my military, I could only make use of Gunboat Diplomacy on a handful of city-states at a time. Number of units is not the only factor, either. The total combat strength of your units compared to the city-state's military is part of the calculation. I was not the tech leader, so this meant city-states often had a few more advanced units than me. This makes it even more difficult to make them Afraid. I feel like Gunboat Diplomacy was tested on lower difficulties where city-states produce less units overall.

Arsenal of Democracy is simply more practical. Not only is it a tier lower than Gunboat Diplomacy, you also receive a substantial bonus to military production. It's almost Total War + Gunboat Diplomacy tenets wrapped into one! 20 Influence per unit doesn't seem like much compared to +6 Influence per turn, yet in practice it is more effective. A guaranteed 20 Influence when you need it, no strings attached, is very strong. There is only one major difference between the two: Gunboat Diplomacy allows you to keep your super-massive military. Personally I felt, with all the units I needed to build, I could have achieved a Domination victory before a Diplomacy victory.

Of course, this isn't the total picture when it comes to the Freedom vs Autocracy diplomacy effectiveness. Both Ideologies are supposed to be good at Diplomacy victory, yet Autocracy only has Gunboat Diplomacy when it comes to increasing Influence with city-states. Freedom has Covert Action (2x rigged election chance) at Tier 1, Arsenal of Democracy at Tier 2, and then Treaty Organization at Tier 3 (+4 Influence per turn with City-States you have a trade route with). The differences in power between tenets should be obvious!

To me, Arsenal of Democracy is at least on par if not superior to Gunboat Diplomacy. Combined with other tenets, Freedom is much stronger than Autocracy when it comes to Diplomatic Victory.

 

[VainoValkea]

I found AoD superior, particularly when paired with Treaty Organization (+4 influence per turn with each CS you have a trade route with).

Each unit gift with AoD makes 25 influence (30 if the CS is at war) which makes about 8 influence per turn. More than Gunboat diplomacy, that is!

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

Gunboat diplomacy of course also costs quite a bit of money in maintenance. AoD wins on that count too.

It's odd that they clearly had a design philosophy wherein each ideology is good at three victory types but then made freedom the best at everything and autocracy good at domination alone.

I can't think of a reason to do it outside of a weird patriotism thing.

 

[VainoValkea]

They just had a poor grasp at balance, I guess. Autocracy and Order were both decent in G&K.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

It's odd that they clearly had a design philosophy wherein each ideology is good at three victory types but then made freedom the best at everything and autocracy good at domination alone.

This is my thoughts as well. Autocracy is amazing for Domination victory, but isn't exactly stellar when it comes to its other supposed strengths: Culture and Diplomacy. Freedom, on the other hand, is amazing at Science, Culture, and Diplomacy. It is even passable at Domination due to tenets like Volunteer Army and Arsenal of Democracy.

I was really surprised how difficult it was to "bully" city-states in the late eras.

 

[VainoValkea]

The thing is, CS diplomacy is a game where nothing can counter AoD + TO spam and Gunboat Diplomacy except more of the same. If there's more than one player going for the diplomatic victory, Autocrats and Democrats have the best picks while Order can only hope to hold on to at least a few allies. Gold, spies and CS quests become mere tiebreakers when compared with the awesome amounts of influence gained from those tenets.

It doesn't work that way for domination. Wars are a more complex system - an Autocrat isn't anything near guaranteed to win a war against Freedom. Domination victory bonuses are just bonuses, not "here's your domination victory!" -tenets. In fact, the roles are reversed - ideological tenets are the tie-breakers, not the troops.

 

[simonthesinner]

With gunboat diplomacy, all 6 CS bordering me started to get influenced, another 3 nearby could be swayed with a total of 7 units, and my pretty large fleet could get another 3 to get influenced. That's 13 soon to be permanent (it just cntinues to rise, it's pretty diffucult to dislodge you as an ally when you have influence 400) allies without building anything else. Of course you'd have to have an enormous military for it to work, but provided you have that, gunboat diplomacy is amazing.

I also tried AoD and while the bonus was lower over time, the reach was greater, even CSs deep in another civs territory could be affected, the strategic payoffs were greater since your CS allies are likely to kick some serious ass. Mine had at least two Caroleans with three promotions + assorted camel archers and other gifted units.

It's also great for giving away good but unesscessary units. Maybe the foreign legion + the airforce + garrisonned gatling guns + fleet is al you need and your old musketman + cannon army can be given away, rather than spending the gold to upgrade and keep on the payroll?

So in most games if you had to choose one, AoD wold be better, with the caviat that when you go for Autocarcy you usually have an enormous military and in those cases gunboat diploacy is automatic permanent control over world congress, more or less.

 

[VainoValkea]

Don't forget that you can pair AoD with Treaty Organization (+4 influence from City-State trade routes). Trade routes also easy to reach to City-States. Freedom is very flexible and very powerful for gaining allies in the CS front.

 

[Arachnofiend]

This is my thoughts as well. Autocracy is amazing for Domination victory, but isn't exactly stellar when it comes to its other supposed strengths: Culture and Diplomacy. Freedom, on the other hand, is amazing at Science, Culture, and Diplomacy. It is even passable at Domination due to tenets like Volunteer Army and Arsenal of Democracy.

I was really surprised how difficult it was to "bully" city-states in the late eras.

Cult of Personality is a lot better than what it looks like. Cultural runaways are usually the late game powerhouses that are likely to start wars; it's pretty easy to just jump in on a war that is otherwise irrelevant to your interests and grab that 50% bonus. Had a culture game as Morocco recently where the only reason I was able to win against a communist Rome that refused to open their borders to my musicians was by jumping into his war with the Zulu. 99% of the reason to go Autocracy when you aren't taking capitals is still Industrial Espionage though.

I do agree that the design on Freedom is poor considering their philosophy. Volunteer Army should be changed to "8 units are maintenance free and you can build Foreign Legions at Replaceable Parts".

 

[steveg700]

Gunboat diplomacy works fine if you have a bunch of CS's adjacent or within the boundaries of your empire.

Having said that, it seems to me that arsenal of democracy is clearly the one that AI doesn't know how to use, otherwise it would actually be able to compete aggressively in diplo victory and this wouldn't be a largely moot discussion.

The main thing I got out of autocracy is just plain old happiness. People keep crowing about Order giving +2 for monuments. Big deal. You can get +2 per military building, and +1 for a whole range of defensive buildings that cost nothing to maintain.

Freedom, OTOH, is the worst at generating happiness, which is of course sensible. Instead of happiness policies, they get more stuff that's actively useful.

 

[Tiggurix]

They just had a poor grasp at balance, I guess. Autocracy and Order were both decent in G&K.

Autocracy was still only good for Domination victories, as it is today, but at least they didn't claim that it should be good at Culture and Diplomacy victories too.

 

[VainoValkea]

Autocracy was still only good for Domination victories, as it is today, but at least they didn't claim that it should be good at Culture and Diplomacy victories too.

True, true.

And at least they didn't make Freedom super-awesome for CS alliances!

 

[simonthesinner]

I found AoD superior, particularly when paired with Treaty Organization (+4 influence per turn with each CS you have a trade route with).

Each unit gift with AoD makes 25 influence (30 if the CS is at war) which makes about 8 influence per turn. More than Gunboat diplomacy, that is!

Treaty organization can be stopped with one WC vote, though.

 

[Monthar]

GD works best when you're #1 in military strength. That doesn't mean just having a huge military, especially if those units aren't the latest tech. It's about having the highest total combat strength and a large sum of money.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

To boost Autocracies diplomacy game, United Front should give % influence bonuses for gifts & quests when sharing a war (perhaps with pledge to protect)

Threatening should be easier (either in general or with Gunboat Diplomacy)

 

[Roxlimn]

It would be more consistent to the spirit of Gunboat Diplomacy to be able to influence AI negotiations more favorably so long as you have more military power than they - that is, you benefit from a strong positive diplo modifier so long as have higher military power. This way, you can purchase votes cheaper, make more favorable trades, and get more for what you offer.

 

[Tiggurix]

It would be more consistent to the spirit of Gunboat Diplomacy to be able to influence AI negotiations more favorably so long as you have more military power than they - that is, you benefit from a strong positive diplo modifier so long as have higher military power. This way, you can purchase votes cheaper, make more favorable trades, and get more for what you offer.

True, but I think that could easily make the Tenet TOO powerful.

 

[steveg700]

Autocracy was still only good for Domination victories, as it is today, but at least they didn't claim that it should be good at Culture and Diplomacy victories too.

Used to get a stack of culture whenever an autocrat conquered a city. Would come in handy now.

 

[SolDelta]

I've not yet found a game where I felt Autocracy would have helped more than one of the other two ideologies. Order, while Socialist Realism doesn't have as much happiness potenial as the happiness for Auto, favours massive, sprawling empires by just giving you happiness for buildings you should really have anyway, while the hammers you dedicate to barracks, etc could often go towards much more important buildings, particularly in smaller cities.

Arsenal of Democracy, I've just started experimenting with in my current Portugal game. With a steady stream of two turn Naus coming from my capital, I can send them straight to China, offload their luxury goods and gift it, getting what equates to more than 100 extra gold a turn, plus a sizable hit of city state influence directly after, and that's not counting the other cities which produce Naus when they don't need to be doing anything else. The extra gold can quite happily be translated into city state gifts as well. It feels very powerful, and there's a lot more synergy with this style of play that I simply didn't plan for, like Patronage and charitable missions. I wasn't expecting a diplo game to be such an attractive option what with feitoras kind of doing a lot of the job for me, but next time I'm going to concentrate on it a hell of a lot more.

 

[Vidszhite]

Gunboat diplomacy works fine if you have a bunch of CS's adjacent or within the boundaries of your empire.

Having said that, it seems to me that arsenal of democracy is clearly the one that AI doesn't know how to use, otherwise it would actually be able to compete aggressively in diplo victory and this wouldn't be a largely moot discussion.

The main thing I got out of autocracy is just plain old happiness. People keep crowing about Order giving +2 for monuments. Big deal. You can get +2 per military building, and +1 for a whole range of defensive buildings that cost nothing to maintain.

Freedom, OTOH, is the worst at generating happiness, which is of course sensible. Instead of happiness policies, they get more stuff that's actively useful.

Freedom is bad at building happiness because they get halved specialist unhappiness. Great for a peace empire, terrible for warmongering. Autocracy swims in happiness. Unfortunately, I've found GD a bit lacking in one particular situation: the CS has a pledge of protection and an ally already. If you ARE the ally, it helps maintain those alliances nicely, but it is very difficult to scare a non ally CS late game.

That said, my most recent immortal autocracy win WAS diplo.