Order
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
-- Karl Marx
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
-- Karl Marx
Introduction
Order 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 Order's Level 3 tenets are specifically designed to help with Culture, Science and Domination victories.
The Order Tenets
Unique World Wonder
General Order Strategies
The Order Tenets
Level 1 Tenets
- Double Agents - Spies twice as likely to capture enemy spies attempting to steal a technology.
If you are not the tech leader, this tenet is nearly worthless to you. Even if you are the tech leader, this tenet is a low priority. Often it is never taken.
- Hero of the People - The rate at which
Great People are born is increased by 25%.
Although not every Order civ will be pursuing a specialist-heavy strategy, it is always useful to generate faster Great Writers, Artists and Musicians (GWAMs) and Great Scientists, so this will often be one of the first three tenets an Order civ takes (usually after taking Skyscrapers and Socialist Realism). This tenet's +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.
- Patriotic War - +15% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory.
This tenet replicates (and stacks additively with) Himeji Castle's friendly-territory combat bonus. Since this tenet only applies when fighting in friendly territory, it is helpful for defensive purposes. When pursuing domination, this tenet encourages a "sandbag" strategy -- let the enemy come to you, destroy their army in your territory and then take the fight to them.
- Skyscrapers -
Gold cost of purchasing buildings reduced by 33%.
This is one of the best Order tenets. Its purchase cost discount stacks multiplicatively with Big Ben (-15% purchase cost) and the Commerce policy Mercantilism (-25% purchase cost), which are additive. The gold purchase discount formula is Base Gold Cost * (1 - (sum of Big Ben + Mercantilism discounts) * (1 - Skyscraper discount), or Base Gold Cost * 0.396 (rounded down to the nearest 5 gold). For a building with a base 1,000 gold cost, this translates to a discounted purchase price of 395 gold.
- Socialist Realism - +2
Local Happiness from Monuments. Build Monuments in half the usual time.
This is the best Order happiness tenet, particularly for a domination-oriented civ. Whether conquered cities are puppeted or annexed, the ability to build quick monuments for +2 culture and +2 happiness cannot be matched.
- 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. Accordingly, this will often be the last happiness tenet taken by an Order civ that has pursued a wider strategy.
- Young Pioneers - +1 Local Happiness from every Workshop, Factory, and Solar/Nuclear/Hydro Plant.
This is a solid happiness tenet, since you will be building these buildings in every available city, but the happiness bonus has less immediate impact than Socialist Realism, so it usually will be taken after your first Level 2 tenet.
Level 2 Tenets
- Academy of Sciences - +1 Local Happiness from every Observatory, Public School, and Research Lab.
This is a solid happiness tenet, since you will be building Public Schools and Research Labs in every city, and Observatories in every eligible city. However, unless happiness is in short supply, other Level 2 tenets (such as Worker's Faculties and either Cultural Revolution or Five-Year Plan) are often taken before this tenet.
- Cultural Revolution - +34%
Tourism to other Order civilizations.
The value of this tenet is situational. Order is the only ideology that offers two +34% tourism bonuses, and it can be useful to take both. The Level 3 tenet Dictatorship of the Protetariat provides +34% tourism to civilizations with less happiness, which can be quite powerful for an Order civ, given its many happiness tenets. Since other Order civs are also likely to take the same Order happiness tenets, Cultural Revolution can provide an important edge. Of course, if the other Order civs also take Cultural Revolution, tourism parity is maintained. In addition, ideologies already taken is a factor when the AI makes its own decision as to what ideology to pick, and so if you are first to the world to ideology and choose Order for this tenet, you've made the AI somewhat less likely to choose Order.
- Five-Year Plan - +2
Production per City and +1 Production for every Mine and Quarry.
This is probably the best production tenet in the game. Since most cities will have several mines and quarries, this tenet can provide 4-5+ production in every city, before production multipliers (like the +10% production bonuses from Workshops and Factories).
- Party Leadership - +1
Food, Production, 
Science, Gold, and 
Culture per city.
This is a solid tenet, but is usually overshadowed by other, more focused tenets.
- Resettlement - New Cities start with an extra 3
Population.
This tenet is rarely used, as most players are done settling new cities well before the time this tenet can be taken. However, there are occasions when a late city is founded to claim a late-game strategic resource, such as aluminum or uranium, and this tenet will get that city off to a fast start. But even acknowledging that possibility, this tenet is not frequently taken.
- Worker's Faculties - Factories increase a City's Science output by 25%. Build Factories in half the usual time.
This is usually the first Level 2 tenet taken by an Order civ. It is hard to match the benefits of faster Factories and a strong science boost (half the bonus of each of the National College, a Research Lab, Observatory or (with Free Thought) University). Note that, like other production boosts, this tenet does not reduce the gold cost of purchasing Factories. For that, you need Skyscrapers.
Level 3 Tenets
- Dictatorship of the Proletariat - +34% Tourism to civilizations that have less Happiness.
This is a powerful Level 3 Culture victory tenet, but its utility depends on your citizens being happier than those in other civs. Accordingly, it is potentially less useful than Freedom's Level 3 tenet, which merely requires that you build Broadcast Towers in your cities. Although Order provides a large number of useful happiness tenets, it also encourages wider play, where excess happiness is quickly used. To find utility in this tenet, you should restrain the impulse to spam cities across the map. On high difficulty levels, the AI's happiness bonus can make this much more difficult to exploit than on mid difficulty levels.
- Iron Curtain - Free Courthouse upon city capture. Internal trade routes provide 50% more Food or Production.
This is an extremely useful tenet, particularly in light of the recent changes to the puppet/annex/unrest mechanics, which now penalize the puppet-and-later-annex strategy that had become common. Iron Curtain encourages you to immediately annex, rather than puppet, conquered cities; if you choose puppet, the free Courthouse is eliminated and does not return when you later annex the city. Consequently, if you are only a few turns away from choosing this tenet, you may want to hold off on taking any more cities until you pick this tenet. In addition, unlike every other level 3 tenet, this tenet has significant use outside of its chosen victory path. All you need is a single internal trade route to get some use out of this, but if you have a lot of internal routes, your food and/or hammer production will significantly increase to the target cities.
- Spaceflight Pioneers - May finish Spaceship parts with Great Engineers. A Great Engineer and a Great Scientist appear outside the
Capital.
This is a useful, but not overwhelming, tenet for Science Victories. Unlike Freedom's Level 3 Science Victory tenet, which allows spaceship parts to be purchased with gold, this tenet's benefits are narrower. The Great Scientist will help you bulb a needed tech and the Great Engineer can be used either to hurry production of the Hubble Space Telescope (for more GSs) or saved to finish the last spaceship part needed for victory (shaving anywhere from 4 to 10 turns off your victory time, depending on your production rate). It is unlikely that you will need to use Great Engineers for every spaceship part, since the limiter on completing a Science Victory is usually the time required to research the final techs, not production of early parts. However, if you have finished Tradition (or have taken the reformation belief To the Glory of God), you can faith purchase Great Engineers to hurry production of additional spaceship parts.
Note that both the Great Engineer and the Great Scientist provided by this tenet increase the Great Person Point counter for both types of Great Persons (and for Great Merchants), so you should defer taking this tenet until after you have generated the last "natural" GE or GS that you expect to generate. (The same approach should be taken when timing the building of the Hubble Space Telescope, which generates 2 GSs.) Keep a Great Writer in reserve, so you can bulb a political treatise for enough culture to take this tenet when you need it.
Adopting Order allows you to build a unique world wonder, The Kremlin (unlocked with Railroads), which provides:
- +50% Production when building Armor Units
- +1 culture
- 1 free social policy
General Order Strategies
Regardless of what victory condition you are pursuing, the most commonly taken early Level 1 Order tenets are Skyscrapers (for discounted purchase costs for buildings) and Socialist Realism (+2 happiness from Monuments), followed by Young Pioneers (happiness from production buildings) and Hero of the People (+25% generation of Great Persons), and the most popular Level 2 tenet is Worker's Faculties (faster production of Factories, with science boost from Factories). Order also encourages a choice between gold discounts and production: either go for the Mercantilism/Big Ben/Skyscrapers combination and buy everything at a large discount, or go for Worker's Faculties/Five-Year Plan/Party Leadership (and possibly Maritime Infrastructure if you have a large number of coastal cities) and build everything more quickly.
Diplomatic Victory: While you can win a diplomatic victory going Order, you are generally better off to have either picked Autocracy or Freedom for it.
Spaceship Victory Choose the general Order strategies for level 1 and 2 tenets for the science and happiness boosts and follow it up with Spaceflight Pioneers to rush the last spaceship part or Hubble.
Culture Victory - Order's Level 3 tenet for Culture Victory provides +34% tourism to other civilizations with less happiness. Order has very strong happiness policies, including +2 happiness from Monuments (which you should have in every city), +1 Happiness from Workshops, Factories and Solar, Hydro and Nuclear Plants (the first two of which you will probably have in every city), +1 Happiness per Observatory, Public School and Research Lab (which, again, you should have in every eligible city), and +1 happiness from National Wonders (this one is, admittedly, a bit more of a challenge for wider civilizations), and you're doing well. Combine it with Skyscrapers for rapid purchasing of Happiness buildings, and Cultural Revolution, for +34% tourism to other Order civilizations, and you should be in solid shape. Hero of the People will help you generate more GWAMs for Great Works, Golden Ages, Political Treatises and Concert Tours to put you over the top.
Domination Victory - Order can be an effective ideology for a domination victory, but arguably pales in comparison to Autocracy in some important respects. Perhaps most important to a domination victory is happiness management, and Order fares quite well in that regard. As noted above, Order has very strong happiness policies, including +2 happiness from Monuments (which you should have in every city), +1 Happiness from Workshops, Factories and Solar, Hydro and Nuclear Plants (the first two of which you will probably have in every city), +1 Happiness per Observatory, Public School and Research Lab (which, again, you should have in every eligible city), and +1 happiness from National Wonders (this one is, admittedly, a bit more of a challenge for wider civilizations). In comparison, Autocracy will provide +1 Happiness from Castles, Arsenals and Military Bases (which you may not have in anything but frontier cities and puppets), +3 Happiness from Courthouses (not particularly great unless you annex heavily), +2 Happiness from Barracks, Armories and Military Academies (which essentially allows you to turn your cities into unit producing powerhouses with the side-effect of +6 Happiness), and best of all, Prora, which can produce ample extra Happiness.
However, Order offers little else for a domination victory. The Kremlin will provide a production boost for armor units, which is nice, and Iron Curtain is good if you're running Internal Trade Routes, or if you Annex heavily, but otherwise it falls short. Production and gold bonuses apply to both infrastructure and military. An Order city can easily get 8+ hammers at the base, which then gets multiplied by the modifiers. Throw on the 50% hammer routes (which does come at the opportunity cost of no gold/food trade), and what Order lacks in quality it makes up for in quantity.
In comparison, Autocracy has much more to offer that directly benefits a domination victory. Clausewitz's Legacy is generally a nail in the coffin for the rest of the world, but arguably isn't needed if your warmongering is going well. Gunboat Diplomacy can be good to get partial control of the World Congress and prevent heavily damaging proposals from passing, while assisting you with United Front (two times the unit gifts from Militaristic City-States), since you can stuff a military unit or two there for influence; you don't need too many of them, and it more than pays for itself from the influence gained.
So yeah, Order is much less focused on conquest, but will provide more instant Happiness, and for Germany in particular it has good synergy with Panzers, assuming you can grab the Kremlin. Autocracy is more focused on conquest, at the cost of lacking Science and no boost to Great People, while the Happiness policies will require you to go slightly out of your way to obtain them, unless you sacrifice other aspects to get Castles and Barracks up in every city.
In short, Order is best if you might not be able to conquer the world and need to fall back on another victory, Autocracy is by far the better late game Warmonger policy, but it can suffer from Happiness issues early on. Order fixes those almost instantly, without the need for more maintenance costs, and the added benefit of faster building construction for some of them. More players may prefer Order due to how you can shift gears and it has a much stronger early tenets, that allows you to continue warring, instead of Autocracy, which forces you to either prepare beforehand with maintenance costs and 'useless' buildings, in exchange for a much more powerful late game.
