Wondering about this strategy.
There are a lot of nice policies on the ideological tree, BUT they lock you into a ideology. Unless you know what ideology is going to prevail... maybe it is best to be a flip flopper.
What I mean is intentionally avoid picking policies on the ideology tree, preferring the main social policies instead, to minimize the cost of flip flopping so that you can side with whoever you like.
Thoughts?
That would certainly minimize the effects, though consider this:
- You only lose the "early adopter tenets" when you switch. Those two free tenets you can't replace with SP, you're forced to pick tenets.
- The other tenets you've taken, you replace with the same amount in your new ideology. Many of the early tenets are roughly equivalent, or even identical. It doesn't matter much if you lose Hero of the People when you can replace it with Avant-Garde or Healthcare for... Healthcare, and both Order/Freedom have happiness tenets that can end up having very similar effects. Losing your ideology starts to count for more when you get to Level 2 tenets, as being forced to switch might force you in turn to alter your strategy, or make you lose bonuses you put efforts in (getting factories up, or re assigning your TR to city-states etc.)
It think in the end it might be a better strategy to plan to increase your culture and tourism, refusing OB and buying OB, spreading your religion etc. if you plan to go grab an ideology early. It's also a good strategy when you wish an ideology early to do it by beelining to Radio and grabbing it with your Oxford free tech. Then, you can propose your ideology for WI at the next Congress, and the rest is making sure you can outlast the pressure until then. This tactic also greatly increases the odds the Civs without an ideology will pick the WI one.
When you foresee an influence problem, the best is to delay picking your ideology until the cultural leaders pick one, then go with them.
I miscalculated a few times (eg: expecting an all Order game and finding myself alone against a bunch of Autocrats etc) and in such cases I found it better to cut my losses and switch ideology while I had only dissidents instead of waiting to be forced to switch. I lost two tenets, but I preserved my happiness, my DoF and avoided wars with powerful immediate neighbors. The two turns of anarchy aren't so crucial in the late game, usually.
I even did something a little crazy in one game that turned out to be very good: I had picked Freedom, then two civs that still had a level of influence over me picked Autocracy. I foresaw trouble and switched. In the meantime I had started to buy delegates to pass Freedom as WI... I ended up voting myself to pass it. Results: all the Autocrats got unhappy (dissidents or civil resistance), not enough to switch, but enough to slow their growth and units... Myself? Their influence over me protected me. I was the only content Autocrat...
