Ideology: Freedom (BNW)

Introduction

Freedom is one of three ideologies in the game. Each ideology includes 16 tenets, divided into three levels, that operate in the same manner as social policies and generally are acquired with culture, as with social policies. Two tenets of a given level must be adopted before a tenet from the next highest level can be adopted.

The array of available tenets can support one or more victory conditions, but Freedom's Level 3 tenets are specifically designed to help with Culture, Science and Diplomatic Victories.

The Freedom Tenets

• Level 1 Tenets
• Level 2 Tenets
• Level 3 Tenets

Unique World Wonder

General Freedom Strategies

The Freedom Tenets

Level 1 Tenets

• Avant Garde - The rate at which Great People are born is increased by 25%.
  
  In many Freedom strategies, this will be one of the first two tenets you take (usually after taking Civil Society). This tenet is useful for any Great Person-oriented strategy, whether focused on Science, Culture or Diplomatic Victory. Its +25% increase stacks additively with other Great-Person-generation boosts, like the +25% boosts from the Garden, National Epic, and Leaning Tower of Pisa, boosts from social policies, like Humanism and the Aesthetics opener, and the World Congress resolutions Science Funding and Arts Funding.
  
  
• Capitalism - +1 Local Happiness from every Mint, Bank and Stock Exchange.
  
  This is a helpful happiness tenet, but these gold buildings usually come later in most players' build orders, so this tenet is often taken after other happiness and growth tenets have been taken.
  
  
• Civil Society - Specialists consume only half the normal amount of Food.
  
  This is arguably Freedom's best Level 1 tenet and is usually taken first. The food savings, and associated growth boost, reward any strategy that relies on use of large numbers of specialists.
  
  
• Covert Action - Chance of rigging election in City-States doubled.
  
  This is a useful, but not critical, tenet, but should be taken at some point by those pursuing a Diplomatic Victory. When combined with Arsenal of Democracy and Treaty Organization, a Freedom civ can pursue City-State alliances on three fronts -- with military unit gifts using Arsenal of Democracy, with trade routes using Treaty Organization and with spies using Covert Action.
  
  
• Creative Expression - +1 Culture from each Great Work (but Tourism is unchanged).
  
  This tenet does little to aid a Culture Victory, but can be useful to generate culture to defend against other civilizations' tourism.
  
  
• Economic Union - +3 Gold from all your trade routes with other civilizations following the Freedom Ideology.
  
  Unless several other civilizations have taken Freedom, this tenet may be worthless.
  
  
• Universal Healthcare - +1 Local Happiness from every National Wonder.
  
  This happiness tenet is usually more useful for civilizations that have a smaller number of cities, since they are more likely to build a larger number of National Wonders. Since Freedom civs tend to be taller empires, they are more likely to benefit from this tenet than those taking other ideologies.

Level 2 Tenets

• Arsenal of Democracy - +15% Production when building Military Units. +15 Influence from Military Unit gifts to City-States.
  
  This tenet is very useful for a Diplomatic Victory -- spit out many low-production-cost units in cities with buildings that provide production boosts for units (e.g., Forge or Stable) and gift those units to City-States for +15 influence per unit. Assuming you have taken the Patronage opener and/or your religion is majority in the City-State, you should be able to build large levels of influence much faster than it decays. When combined with Covert Action and Treaty Organization, a Freedom civ can pursue City-State alliances on three fronts -- with spies using Covert Action, with trade routes using Treaty Organization, and with military unit gifts using Arsenal of Democracy.
  
  
• New Deal - Landmarks and Great Person improvements produce +4 of the appropriate yield.
  
  The value of this tenet is highly situational. If you have planted a large number of academies and/or Holy Sites or built numerous Landmarks (for example, if playing as Korea), this tenet can provide great value. However, most Great Person strategies revolve around using Great Persons for their other benefits (e.g., bulbing GSs for science, using Great Engineers to hurry wonders, etc.), so you may have too few GP improvements to benefit from this tenet. Since GWAMs cannot be used to create tile improvements, they enjoy no benefit from this tenet.
  
  
• Their Finest Hour - Combat Strength of Cities increased by 33%.
  
  This tenet is of little value on lower difficulty levels, as the AI tends to be more passive. However, on higher difficulty levels, where the AI may be more likely to take advantage of any neglect of military, this tenet (together with Volunteer Army) can provide a quick defensive benefit, allowing you to continue to focus on buildings, rather than rushing military units.
  
  
• Universal Suffrage - Specialists in Cities produce half the normal amount of Unhappiness. Golden Ages are 50% longer.
  
  This is Freedom's best happiness tenet and is almost invariably the first Level 2 tenet taken by Freedom players. If you have built all specialist buildings and are working all available specialist slots (12 slots for scientists, engineers and merchants), this tenet can provide +6 happiness in every city, and guilds will provide +1 happiness per guild.
  
  Note that the Golden Age increase only impacts future Golden Ages, e.g. if already within a Golden age it won't extend it. Combined with if you are in a golden age the happiness counter doesn't increase, this basically means then only time going Freedom not to pick this ASAP is if you are already in a Golden Age.
  
  
• Urbanization - +1 Local Happiness from every Water Mill, Hospital, and Medical Lab.
  
  Of these buildings, only Water Mills will be built before the late game, and even they may not be able to be built in all cities. This is likely to be the least valuable happiness tenet going Freedom, and accordingly is normally only chosen after all other happiness tenets have been chosen and only then if the happiness is still useful for either ideological unhappiness reasons or negating the effect of an opponent who has gone Order.
  
  
• Volunteer Army - 6 units are maintenance free. Receive 6 Foreign Legion infantry units immediately.
  
  Foreign Legions are 42 combat strength gunpowder units that have a 20% bonus in foreign lands (topping them up to 50.4 combat strength, comparable to 50 combat strength Great War Infantry), and their bonus is retained when upgraded to 70 combat strength Infantry. Given that Freedom is not optimized for domination, it is curious that this unit has a foreign lands bonus, rather than a friendly-territory defense bonus. This may place a premium on building Himeji Castle, which provides a +15% combat strength bonus to units fighting in friendly territory.
  
  As with Their Finest Hour, this tenet has less value on lower difficulty levels, as the AI tends to be more passive. However, on higher difficulty levels, where the AI may be more likely to take advantage of any neglect of military, this tenet (together with Their Finest Hour) can provide a quick defensive benefit, allowing you to continue to focus on buildings, rather than rushing military units.

Level 3 Tenets

• Media Culture - +34% Tourism generated by cities with a Broadcast Tower.
  
  This is the best Culture Victory tenet in the game, as you have complete control over whether you can obtain its benefits -- just build or buy Broadcast Towers in all cities, which you should have done well before taking this tenet. (Broadcast Towers are unlocked by researching Radio, which is also the most common entry point to the Modern Era, allowing you to select an Ideology.)
  
  While Autocracy's Level 3 culture tenet (Cult of Personality) has a higher tourism boost (+50%), it applies only to civilizations that are at war with a common enemy. And Order's Level 3 culture tenet (Dictatorship of the Proletariat) only applies to civilizations with less happiness, which can be hit or miss.
  
  Like the other two level 3 tenets, in a given game, this is victory type specific. If you want to win via Culture, pick this. Otherwise skip.
  
  
• Space Procurements - May buy Spaceship parts with Gold.
  
  This is the most flexible Level 3 science tenet in the game. Accumulate enough gold and you can finish all spaceship parts in just a few turns.
  
  In contrast, Order's Level 3 tenet provides a free Great Scientist and Great Engineer, and allows Great Engineers to rush spaceship parts, which are all potentially useful, but much of its utility depends on your ability to generate or faith-purchase enough Great Engineers to rush enough spaceship parts. And Autocracy has no Level 3 science tenet.
  
  Like the other two level 3 tenets, in a given game, this is victory type specific. If you want to win via Spaceship, pick this. Otherwise skip.
  
  
• Treaty Organization - Gain 4 more Influence per turn (at Standard speed) with City-States you have a trade route with.
  
  Although this tenet provides relatively modest amounts of influence per turn, the influence quickly mounts up. Combining this tenet with Covert Action and Arsenal of Democracy -- using spies to rig elections in some CSs, gifting military units to other CSs, and sending trade routes to the remaining CSs -- you should be able to ally all CSs on the map and sprint to a Diplomatic Victory. This extra influence more than offsets the fact that CS give less GPT for each trade route than major AIs.
  
  Like the other two level 3 tenets, in a given game, this is victory type specific. If you want to win via UN, pick this. Otherwise skip.

Unique World Wonder

Adopting Freedom allows you to build a unique world wonder, The Statue of Liberty (unlocked with Replaceable Parts), which provides:

• +1 Production from Specialists in every city
  
  
• +1 culture
  
  
• 1 free social policy

Note that the specialist production bonus only applies to true specialists; it does not apply to unemployed citizens.

Of the three Ideology-specific world wonders, Statue of Liberty is commonly viewed as stronger than The Kremlin (Order -- +50% production of armor units), but weaker than Prora (Autocracy -- +2 happiness and +1 happiness for every social policy adopted).

General Freedom Strategies

Spaceship

In Civ V, more population in each city with 100% of your cities having all science buildings and running all scientist slots equals more science. Adopting Civil Service allows all cities to experience a final wave of pop growth (around the same time as Hospitals) while allowing synergy with Rationalism's policies that provide science from all specialists. If you can build Statue of Liberty, so much the better. If earlier in the game you manged to host the Worlds Fair for extra policies, you can add right side of Commerce (and if possible Big Ben) to cut the costs down for buying space ship parts.

Cultural

Freedom is popular for Culture victories because it doesn't relay upon having much happiness than the AI (difficult to do on Immortal+ due to AI happiness bonuses) OR the AI having gone the same ideology as the human (the one way to ensure the AI does NOT go Order is to pick it yourself). Note that for this purpose the CN Tower is a trap (it's too late), however almost all of your tourism is going to be coming from your capital, so it's only the capital that needs the Broadcast Tower before you reach Media Center. Going this route, its usually a good idea to take New Deal for the extra culture from landmarks.

Diplomatic

Freedom is popular for pursuing the peaceful form of Diplomatic victory because unlike Autocracy it doesn't require large forces throughout the world. Instead just use the power of trade routes to become free allies with several. (Or if playing Venice, then every city state that you didn't buy)

Domination.

Although Freedom has no Level 3 tenet to aid a Domination Victory, Freedom can be a decent ideology for warmongering. It gets a few combat perks, including most notably Volunteer Army. The major drawback is to get the maximum amount of bonuses from Freedom, you really want to abuse specialists, which is difficult to do (other than with merchant specialists) in newly captured puppets, or in smaller cities generally.