How balanced are the ideologies?
I've been wondering about this for a while, and I always either seem to go for Freedom or Autocracy, but I know that Order can be powerful. Not all tenets are created equal, but chances are you usually won't take more than 7, maybe 8 or 9 tenets in any given ideology so it can be safe to ignore the weaker ones. Regardless, I want to talk about them just to see if I'm underestimating their effects.
Across all ideologies, I always feel like Universal Healthcare seems underpowered considering the kind of hammers that need to go into producing them, especially if you go wide. Not all National Wonders are created equal though (looking at you, National Intelligence Agency). Realistically, you're probably looking at 6 or 7 happiness, from the Circus Maximus, Hermitage, Ironworks, National College, National Epic, the Palace and Oxford. Obviously it'll be more if you alsobuild the Heroic Epic, East India Company, Grand Temple and National Visitor Center, but it's pretty game dependant. Maybe I'm alone on neglecting building all the national wonders, but the hammers for some of them are just too bad to justify when you could be building/buying units or science/culture/production buildings.
Autocracy has Elite Forces which sounds underwhelming, but can be situationally useful, unless you're Japan.
United front seems a bit underpowerd considering the timeframe that ideologies come into play. It seems like it might be a total of 5 or 6 more units before the game's settled, but not all at once like Volunteer Army, and they might be crap like Lancers or Anti-Tank guns (yuck). I'm not sure if Siam benefits from Militaristic city states more or not, but if they do, this would be a better tenet for them to take.
For Freedom, there seem to be some very weak tenets. Creative Expression is worthless, unless you've already snatched a lot of great works by warmongering - but if you've wamrongered that much by this point, why are you going Freedom?
Covert Action seems even more worthless. How often do you actually fail to rig elections? It'd be much better if it doubled the frequency at which elections are rigged, or if it increased the chance of a coup succeeding.
Economic Union is also really weak considering you need to count on other civs going for Freedom, and then also considering that you want to be using some of your trade routes internally. +3 gold for a trade route at this stage of the game seems like a really bad joke.
Urbanization looks bad compared to other happiness tenets, unless you've managed to found all your cities on rivers (or lakes if you're the Aztecs, and freedom can be pretty interesting for them). It'd be a lot better if Aqueducts were included in this to help even the field.
Their Finest Hour is bad simply because you don't want to be on the defense that much, and it doesn't really give you much in the way of actually improving your science, culture, military or furthering your victory by any means other than helping you to not lose. I'd only take this if it was one of the last policies available to me in the post-game.
For Order, Double Agents is a bit weak, but then again I do get irritated when another Civ steals a nice tech, especially a key military one, so I can see its utility. Otherwise it kind of feels like Their Finest Hour to me, too defensive in nature.
Resettlement seems kind of poor. I rarely want to expand by founding new cities at this point of the game, other than to secure coal or aluminum, but since this is a level two tenet it just seems to come way too late.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat seems kind of bad for single player at higher levels since the AI gets those crazy happiness benefits, but I feel like I could definitely be wrong on this one since I've played so few Order games.
Iron Curtain comes a bit too late for the internal trade routes to be especially useful, The free courthouse also seems like a bit of a joke since at this point of the game it shouldn't be too bad to either outright buy a courthouse or take the happiness penalty to buy them. It feels like an oddball for a 3rd level tenet. Again, I could be wrong about this one.
The Good Level One Tenets
Now, as for actually winning the game, this is where I want to see if the ideologies are balanced.
First, the first two level one ideologies that you'll want to take from each ideology, since regardless of if you get early adopter tenets or not, you'll need at least two before you can take a level two tenet or a third level one tenet.
This seems to be the weakest part of Autocracy, since only one thing in particular screams "take me" like the ones for Freedom and Order, Futurism.
Futurism is absolutely crazy. If you can time your guilds right and get to ideologies early, Futurism almost seems game-breakingly good, since early on it each great person's birth can be worth 10 or more turns of tourism, all up front, and those early boosts of tourism can be powerful, maybe even enough
to put you up at exotic when it really counts.
Otherwise, Mobilization is pretty nice. Fortified borders is okay, but its power doesn't really come to the
fore until a bit later. However, it stacks really nicely with Neuschwanstein. It kind of sucks that there isn't a great person boost like Freedom or Order, but the later tenets really seem to make up for it.
Freedom has two of my favorite level 1 tenets - Avant Garde (which is identical to Order's Hero of the People), and Civil Society. Civil Society has really great synergy with Universal Suffrage, and is particularly wonderful for Korea (but they were OP to begin with). However, the downside to this is that you aren't getting anything to boost your happiness, and if you do take something to boost your happiness, you're potentially losing out on a lot of turns of either increased GP generation or faster city growth, and chances are you're going to face a lot of ideology pressure from the AI by picking Freedom. On Emperor this isn't really a problem for me though, but certainly something to consider on Immortal or Deity.
Order's level 1 tenets seem pretty strong. You've got Hero of the People, and Socialist Realism, which are both excellent first picks. If you're already wide and have a good amount of workshops and got to ideology by having three factories, then Young Pioneers is also an excellent first choice, but it might be better for a third choice since you're pretty much guaranteed to already have your monuments up and running, and you can build them so quickly.
Picking up the Pace with Level Two Tenets
So far when it comes to initial level one tenets, if you ignore the rest, Order seems to be the strongest, with Freedom being situationally better and Autocracy falling kind of short. But level one tenets don't make the game, they just set the field for level two tenets, which is where the game's pace seems to accelerate quite a bit. IMO, the level two tenets are more important to the game than the level three tenets, which mostly cement the victory you'll pursue.
Autocracy seems to be at its strongest in relation to the other ideologies here, since you have so many good ones to pick from. Militarism is just insane, since barracks are so cheap and I usually find myself with at least a couple armories by this point, so this really drives happiness in Autocratic empires.
Then you also have Lightning Warfare, which is crazy good. +3 mov for GGs and Armor ignore's ZOC? Sign me up.
Police State is almost broken in how good it is - you can annex to your cold, rotten heart's content.
Nationalism is pretty good, but I prefer to take other tenets if my gold is already solid. I might just be underestimating how much I can save here, however.
Third Alternative is also strong, and Total war is pretty damn spiffy too. I would take both of these above Nationalism, but I'm not sure if I'd take either above Militarism or Police State.
Freedom's level twos seem a lot more situational than Autocracy's. Volunteer Army doesn't seem that great, but it actually saved my bacon in my first Immortal game, and if you get it pretty early you can warmonger very well with it. If you're not warmongering or in a defensive war, you can just ignore it.
Universal Suffrage is just too good to ignore. 50% longer golden ages, and 1/2 unhappiness from specialists. What's not to love if you're running a specialist Empire? Again, Korea strongly benefits from this, and if you combine it with Civil Society and you have good growth tiles, this is amazing. It's even better if you get Chichen Itza (regardless of if you build it or capture it).
New Deal is very situational. If you get a couple landmarks, plant a few acadamies, and/or have some holy sites or manufactories, then it's a no brainer. If you only have a couple acadamies you can safely skip it. Again, Korea benefits disproportionately from this one since they also get science from GP tile improvements.
Arsenal of Democracy isn't too shabby, but kind of pales in comparison to the military benefits Autocracy gets and the production that Order can get.
Order's second level tenets are much less situational than Freedom's.
Five Year Plan is great, +2 hammers per city and +1 hammer for every mine and quarry is amazing if you have a decent number of these in your cities - which you should. Factor in +10% for a workshop and +10% for a factory, and it's even better.
Worker's Faculties is incredible. Half-hammer cost factories which raise science by 25% is enough to make me want to get enough coal to build factories in every city I own. Percent modifiers on science is always a good thing, no matter what.
Academy of Sciences is another good happiness boost since you always want science buildings.
Cultural Revolution is mostly solid considering how frequently the AI goes for Order, but if you find yourself in that strange game where everyone else has gone for Freedom or Autocracy then it's kind of a stinker.
Party Leadership is a nice boost, but again, I don't find myself playing that wide. The other tenets seem to be a lot better than this, except of course resettlement.
The Level Two tenets honestly all seem very balanced to me. They all offer strong benefits to growth, science, happiness and military. However, Freedom is just too situational here. You've either been planning all game to go Freedom, or you're playing Korea, a tall Persia, or a very tall Aztecs.
Wrapping up the Victory
Level three sets the final stages for your victory, but I think they're usually more about speeding up your victory than anything else. But hey, my time is valuable and it's this point of the game where I really just want to wrap it up, so I'm not complaining.
Autocracy's Cult of Personality can be extremely potent, if you can set up the wars well and you have strong tourism at that point. Even without having particularly strong Tourism, it's still a signicant boost, since it stacks. Not so useful if you find yourself the pariah amongst peacemongers.
Gunboat Diplomacy is awesome when you utilize it yourself, and nightmarish if you find yourself facing it, as I found when I had a game where Greece took it. I wouldn't ever underestimate this one, and I think it's much less situational than Freedom's Treaty Organization which can be thwarted by a city state embargo. This one is better where more CS's have coastal tiles that you can park your naval forces.
Clausewitz's Legacy is always good, unless for some bizarre reason you haven't built your military up after taking Autocracy. Why would you do that? The only other situation I can see where it wouldn't be good is if you've let yourself fall too far behind in tech (why would you do this?). IMO, even if you don't win in the 50 turns you have this, you can parlay it into your victory by getting that momentum for it.
Freedom's Media Culture is very powerful, and something fun to do here if you can warmonger effectively is to build the CN Tower and start capturing the tourism leader's cities. They'll all get a free broadcast tower, and any of them with a decent number of great works or artefacts will help you even more.
Treaty Organization is nice, but it doesn't give as much influence per turn as Gunboat Diplomacy, and can be neutered by a city state embargo. Additionally your cargo ships and caravans are vulnerable to being plundered, and some CSs will be well behind enemy lines. It's pretty frustrating to find a coastal CS which has been locked by ice behind an enemy on another continent with hundreds of influence in their favor. One other thing to factor in here is if you're playing as Germany, enjoy getting even more value out of those Hanse.
Space Procurements is probably more reliable than Spaceflight Pioneers when it comes to actually getting the parts, and if you're feeling cheesy and are friends with someone who has a lot of money, you can pretty much instantly win the game by trading an arm and a leg for enough gold to rush all the parts instantly. You can also prepare to get the parts at a great discount by going commerce, and combining Mercantilism with Big Ben. Even just having one of these is a big deal considering how expensive the parts are to rush purchase.
Order's 3rd tier tenets are a bit weaker than Autocracy or Freedom, imo. Consider Dictatorship of the Proletariat again - it's dependant on having more happiness than other civs, so if you have a few super-happy autocracy AIs, it's not especially appealing. If, on the other hand, most everyone has gone order and/or the autocracy and freedom Civs have been crippled or eliminated, I could potentially see it being useful. Again, it stinks that the AI gets as many happiness bonuses as they do.
Iron Curtain just doesn't seem like a good way to win to me, compared to everything else. Getting a free courthouse doesn't make you dominate quicker, and more effective internal trade routes at this stage is pretty weak. The extra hammers could be the difference between winning and losing the Space Race though, I suppose.
Edit: I've found out that 50% actually only applies to the base rate of the trade route, which for a caravan is 3, so you'll get another 1.5 food on top of that. This is complete garbage.
Spaceflight Pioneers is excellent, even if it's less reliable than Space Procurements. If you've decided to save up all your faith for this moment to rush GEs for the non-booster parts, it can significantly speed up victory. If you also have a city with wonders that have GE points (like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Chichen Itza and some others), it gets easier to time the GEs for this. However, I generally dislike removing my Science specialists to not pop a GS before getting a GE, and idling GEs just for the spaceship parts feels like a big waste compared to rushing a good wonder.
Wonders and Overview
Finally, the wonders, which are all nice to have but not critical for the overall strategy.
Prora gives +2 Happiness, and +1 for every 2 social policies you've taken, and another free social policy. I'd be happy to take the city which built this.
The Statue of Liberty makes every specialist yield an (additional) hammer, making those freedom specialists that much better. Also +1 culture and a free social policy. If a city on my border built this I'd probably go to war with that civ for this wonder, but that'd take an AI going Freedom and not getting wiped out to happen in the first place.
The Kremlin boosts production of armored units by 50%, yields 3 culture and gives a free social policy. It's... pretty underwhelming.
So, for the endgame, it looks like Autocracy's 3rd level tenets are all dependable and solid, Freedom has 2 very solid choices, and Order has Spaceflight Pioneers. You can win under any of these conditions, but Order's 3rd level tenets just feel like you're being boxed in a bit.
As I said earlier, however, it's the 2nd level tenets which really set you up to win, not the 3rd level. Having written all of this out, I do actually think the ideologies are very well balanced, but I think Autocracy edges out the other two in more situations. Freedom seems to be an all or nothing kind of deal, and if you don't have particular reasons for picking it, you'd probably be better off with Order or Autocracy.
I feel like I've ragged on Order more than it deserves, and it does have excellent first level and second level tenets, but that endgame situation really annoys me. The thing is though, it seems like some of its tenets don't synergize as well as Freedom's or Autocracy's. The devs have punished going wide a lot, and it just doesn't seem like settling new cities is worth it at all in the last third of the game. You could take Resettlement, sure, but what about finishing the Rationalism tree? However, Order does provide science and production boosts, and a 25% science modifier is a 25% science modifier. Maybe the wide players out there can tell me why I'm wrong and how Order is actually the best
Moderator Action: 5 posts by same user in rapid succession merged.
I've been wondering about this for a while, and I always either seem to go for Freedom or Autocracy, but I know that Order can be powerful. Not all tenets are created equal, but chances are you usually won't take more than 7, maybe 8 or 9 tenets in any given ideology so it can be safe to ignore the weaker ones. Regardless, I want to talk about them just to see if I'm underestimating their effects.
Across all ideologies, I always feel like Universal Healthcare seems underpowered considering the kind of hammers that need to go into producing them, especially if you go wide. Not all National Wonders are created equal though (looking at you, National Intelligence Agency). Realistically, you're probably looking at 6 or 7 happiness, from the Circus Maximus, Hermitage, Ironworks, National College, National Epic, the Palace and Oxford. Obviously it'll be more if you alsobuild the Heroic Epic, East India Company, Grand Temple and National Visitor Center, but it's pretty game dependant. Maybe I'm alone on neglecting building all the national wonders, but the hammers for some of them are just too bad to justify when you could be building/buying units or science/culture/production buildings.
Autocracy has Elite Forces which sounds underwhelming, but can be situationally useful, unless you're Japan.
United front seems a bit underpowerd considering the timeframe that ideologies come into play. It seems like it might be a total of 5 or 6 more units before the game's settled, but not all at once like Volunteer Army, and they might be crap like Lancers or Anti-Tank guns (yuck). I'm not sure if Siam benefits from Militaristic city states more or not, but if they do, this would be a better tenet for them to take.
For Freedom, there seem to be some very weak tenets. Creative Expression is worthless, unless you've already snatched a lot of great works by warmongering - but if you've wamrongered that much by this point, why are you going Freedom?
Covert Action seems even more worthless. How often do you actually fail to rig elections? It'd be much better if it doubled the frequency at which elections are rigged, or if it increased the chance of a coup succeeding.
Economic Union is also really weak considering you need to count on other civs going for Freedom, and then also considering that you want to be using some of your trade routes internally. +3 gold for a trade route at this stage of the game seems like a really bad joke.
Urbanization looks bad compared to other happiness tenets, unless you've managed to found all your cities on rivers (or lakes if you're the Aztecs, and freedom can be pretty interesting for them). It'd be a lot better if Aqueducts were included in this to help even the field.
Their Finest Hour is bad simply because you don't want to be on the defense that much, and it doesn't really give you much in the way of actually improving your science, culture, military or furthering your victory by any means other than helping you to not lose. I'd only take this if it was one of the last policies available to me in the post-game.
For Order, Double Agents is a bit weak, but then again I do get irritated when another Civ steals a nice tech, especially a key military one, so I can see its utility. Otherwise it kind of feels like Their Finest Hour to me, too defensive in nature.
Resettlement seems kind of poor. I rarely want to expand by founding new cities at this point of the game, other than to secure coal or aluminum, but since this is a level two tenet it just seems to come way too late.
Dictatorship of the Proletariat seems kind of bad for single player at higher levels since the AI gets those crazy happiness benefits, but I feel like I could definitely be wrong on this one since I've played so few Order games.
Iron Curtain comes a bit too late for the internal trade routes to be especially useful, The free courthouse also seems like a bit of a joke since at this point of the game it shouldn't be too bad to either outright buy a courthouse or take the happiness penalty to buy them. It feels like an oddball for a 3rd level tenet. Again, I could be wrong about this one.
The Good Level One Tenets
Now, as for actually winning the game, this is where I want to see if the ideologies are balanced.
First, the first two level one ideologies that you'll want to take from each ideology, since regardless of if you get early adopter tenets or not, you'll need at least two before you can take a level two tenet or a third level one tenet.
This seems to be the weakest part of Autocracy, since only one thing in particular screams "take me" like the ones for Freedom and Order, Futurism.
Futurism is absolutely crazy. If you can time your guilds right and get to ideologies early, Futurism almost seems game-breakingly good, since early on it each great person's birth can be worth 10 or more turns of tourism, all up front, and those early boosts of tourism can be powerful, maybe even enough
to put you up at exotic when it really counts.
Otherwise, Mobilization is pretty nice. Fortified borders is okay, but its power doesn't really come to the
fore until a bit later. However, it stacks really nicely with Neuschwanstein. It kind of sucks that there isn't a great person boost like Freedom or Order, but the later tenets really seem to make up for it.
Freedom has two of my favorite level 1 tenets - Avant Garde (which is identical to Order's Hero of the People), and Civil Society. Civil Society has really great synergy with Universal Suffrage, and is particularly wonderful for Korea (but they were OP to begin with). However, the downside to this is that you aren't getting anything to boost your happiness, and if you do take something to boost your happiness, you're potentially losing out on a lot of turns of either increased GP generation or faster city growth, and chances are you're going to face a lot of ideology pressure from the AI by picking Freedom. On Emperor this isn't really a problem for me though, but certainly something to consider on Immortal or Deity.
Order's level 1 tenets seem pretty strong. You've got Hero of the People, and Socialist Realism, which are both excellent first picks. If you're already wide and have a good amount of workshops and got to ideology by having three factories, then Young Pioneers is also an excellent first choice, but it might be better for a third choice since you're pretty much guaranteed to already have your monuments up and running, and you can build them so quickly.
Picking up the Pace with Level Two Tenets
So far when it comes to initial level one tenets, if you ignore the rest, Order seems to be the strongest, with Freedom being situationally better and Autocracy falling kind of short. But level one tenets don't make the game, they just set the field for level two tenets, which is where the game's pace seems to accelerate quite a bit. IMO, the level two tenets are more important to the game than the level three tenets, which mostly cement the victory you'll pursue.
Autocracy seems to be at its strongest in relation to the other ideologies here, since you have so many good ones to pick from. Militarism is just insane, since barracks are so cheap and I usually find myself with at least a couple armories by this point, so this really drives happiness in Autocratic empires.
Then you also have Lightning Warfare, which is crazy good. +3 mov for GGs and Armor ignore's ZOC? Sign me up.
Police State is almost broken in how good it is - you can annex to your cold, rotten heart's content.
Nationalism is pretty good, but I prefer to take other tenets if my gold is already solid. I might just be underestimating how much I can save here, however.
Third Alternative is also strong, and Total war is pretty damn spiffy too. I would take both of these above Nationalism, but I'm not sure if I'd take either above Militarism or Police State.
Freedom's level twos seem a lot more situational than Autocracy's. Volunteer Army doesn't seem that great, but it actually saved my bacon in my first Immortal game, and if you get it pretty early you can warmonger very well with it. If you're not warmongering or in a defensive war, you can just ignore it.
Universal Suffrage is just too good to ignore. 50% longer golden ages, and 1/2 unhappiness from specialists. What's not to love if you're running a specialist Empire? Again, Korea strongly benefits from this, and if you combine it with Civil Society and you have good growth tiles, this is amazing. It's even better if you get Chichen Itza (regardless of if you build it or capture it).
New Deal is very situational. If you get a couple landmarks, plant a few acadamies, and/or have some holy sites or manufactories, then it's a no brainer. If you only have a couple acadamies you can safely skip it. Again, Korea benefits disproportionately from this one since they also get science from GP tile improvements.
Arsenal of Democracy isn't too shabby, but kind of pales in comparison to the military benefits Autocracy gets and the production that Order can get.
Order's second level tenets are much less situational than Freedom's.
Five Year Plan is great, +2 hammers per city and +1 hammer for every mine and quarry is amazing if you have a decent number of these in your cities - which you should. Factor in +10% for a workshop and +10% for a factory, and it's even better.
Worker's Faculties is incredible. Half-hammer cost factories which raise science by 25% is enough to make me want to get enough coal to build factories in every city I own. Percent modifiers on science is always a good thing, no matter what.
Academy of Sciences is another good happiness boost since you always want science buildings.
Cultural Revolution is mostly solid considering how frequently the AI goes for Order, but if you find yourself in that strange game where everyone else has gone for Freedom or Autocracy then it's kind of a stinker.
Party Leadership is a nice boost, but again, I don't find myself playing that wide. The other tenets seem to be a lot better than this, except of course resettlement.
The Level Two tenets honestly all seem very balanced to me. They all offer strong benefits to growth, science, happiness and military. However, Freedom is just too situational here. You've either been planning all game to go Freedom, or you're playing Korea, a tall Persia, or a very tall Aztecs.
Wrapping up the Victory
Level three sets the final stages for your victory, but I think they're usually more about speeding up your victory than anything else. But hey, my time is valuable and it's this point of the game where I really just want to wrap it up, so I'm not complaining.
Autocracy's Cult of Personality can be extremely potent, if you can set up the wars well and you have strong tourism at that point. Even without having particularly strong Tourism, it's still a signicant boost, since it stacks. Not so useful if you find yourself the pariah amongst peacemongers.
Gunboat Diplomacy is awesome when you utilize it yourself, and nightmarish if you find yourself facing it, as I found when I had a game where Greece took it. I wouldn't ever underestimate this one, and I think it's much less situational than Freedom's Treaty Organization which can be thwarted by a city state embargo. This one is better where more CS's have coastal tiles that you can park your naval forces.
Clausewitz's Legacy is always good, unless for some bizarre reason you haven't built your military up after taking Autocracy. Why would you do that? The only other situation I can see where it wouldn't be good is if you've let yourself fall too far behind in tech (why would you do this?). IMO, even if you don't win in the 50 turns you have this, you can parlay it into your victory by getting that momentum for it.
Freedom's Media Culture is very powerful, and something fun to do here if you can warmonger effectively is to build the CN Tower and start capturing the tourism leader's cities. They'll all get a free broadcast tower, and any of them with a decent number of great works or artefacts will help you even more.
Treaty Organization is nice, but it doesn't give as much influence per turn as Gunboat Diplomacy, and can be neutered by a city state embargo. Additionally your cargo ships and caravans are vulnerable to being plundered, and some CSs will be well behind enemy lines. It's pretty frustrating to find a coastal CS which has been locked by ice behind an enemy on another continent with hundreds of influence in their favor. One other thing to factor in here is if you're playing as Germany, enjoy getting even more value out of those Hanse.
Space Procurements is probably more reliable than Spaceflight Pioneers when it comes to actually getting the parts, and if you're feeling cheesy and are friends with someone who has a lot of money, you can pretty much instantly win the game by trading an arm and a leg for enough gold to rush all the parts instantly. You can also prepare to get the parts at a great discount by going commerce, and combining Mercantilism with Big Ben. Even just having one of these is a big deal considering how expensive the parts are to rush purchase.
Order's 3rd tier tenets are a bit weaker than Autocracy or Freedom, imo. Consider Dictatorship of the Proletariat again - it's dependant on having more happiness than other civs, so if you have a few super-happy autocracy AIs, it's not especially appealing. If, on the other hand, most everyone has gone order and/or the autocracy and freedom Civs have been crippled or eliminated, I could potentially see it being useful. Again, it stinks that the AI gets as many happiness bonuses as they do.
Iron Curtain just doesn't seem like a good way to win to me, compared to everything else. Getting a free courthouse doesn't make you dominate quicker, and more effective internal trade routes at this stage is pretty weak. The extra hammers could be the difference between winning and losing the Space Race though, I suppose.
Edit: I've found out that 50% actually only applies to the base rate of the trade route, which for a caravan is 3, so you'll get another 1.5 food on top of that. This is complete garbage.
Spaceflight Pioneers is excellent, even if it's less reliable than Space Procurements. If you've decided to save up all your faith for this moment to rush GEs for the non-booster parts, it can significantly speed up victory. If you also have a city with wonders that have GE points (like Stonehenge, the Pyramids, Chichen Itza and some others), it gets easier to time the GEs for this. However, I generally dislike removing my Science specialists to not pop a GS before getting a GE, and idling GEs just for the spaceship parts feels like a big waste compared to rushing a good wonder.
Wonders and Overview
Finally, the wonders, which are all nice to have but not critical for the overall strategy.
Prora gives +2 Happiness, and +1 for every 2 social policies you've taken, and another free social policy. I'd be happy to take the city which built this.
The Statue of Liberty makes every specialist yield an (additional) hammer, making those freedom specialists that much better. Also +1 culture and a free social policy. If a city on my border built this I'd probably go to war with that civ for this wonder, but that'd take an AI going Freedom and not getting wiped out to happen in the first place.
The Kremlin boosts production of armored units by 50%, yields 3 culture and gives a free social policy. It's... pretty underwhelming.
So, for the endgame, it looks like Autocracy's 3rd level tenets are all dependable and solid, Freedom has 2 very solid choices, and Order has Spaceflight Pioneers. You can win under any of these conditions, but Order's 3rd level tenets just feel like you're being boxed in a bit.
As I said earlier, however, it's the 2nd level tenets which really set you up to win, not the 3rd level. Having written all of this out, I do actually think the ideologies are very well balanced, but I think Autocracy edges out the other two in more situations. Freedom seems to be an all or nothing kind of deal, and if you don't have particular reasons for picking it, you'd probably be better off with Order or Autocracy.
I feel like I've ragged on Order more than it deserves, and it does have excellent first level and second level tenets, but that endgame situation really annoys me. The thing is though, it seems like some of its tenets don't synergize as well as Freedom's or Autocracy's. The devs have punished going wide a lot, and it just doesn't seem like settling new cities is worth it at all in the last third of the game. You could take Resettlement, sure, but what about finishing the Rationalism tree? However, Order does provide science and production boosts, and a 25% science modifier is a 25% science modifier. Maybe the wide players out there can tell me why I'm wrong and how Order is actually the best
Moderator Action: 5 posts by same user in rapid succession merged.
