Social Policy: Freedom (G&K)

Introduction

Freedom, available in the Industrial Era, contains three policies devoted to specialists, one devoted to Great People, one devoted to culture, one providing gold, and a city strength increasing policy. Though the game claims this branch is best for small empires, Freedom has beneficial policies for empires of any size. However, like the game claims, it is best for a focused empire. The branch opener is useful for any game where Great People are being produced, and the specialist happiness cost reduction is one of the most effective happiness providers in the game. The culture and specialist policies together with the branch finisher, which doubles the effectiveness of settled great people, make Freedom one of the best policies and the key branch for a Culture Victory. However, adopting Freedom brings a diplomatic hit to those who believe in Order or Autocracy.

The Policies

• Freedom
• Constitution
• Free Speech
• Universal Suffrage
• Civil Society
• Democracy
• Finisher

General Use

The Policies

Freedom

Upon adopting Freedom, the rate at which Great People are born is increased by 25%. May purchase Great Artists with Faith. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Autocracy or Order.

Increases base great person generation by 25%, stacking additively with Garden, National Epic, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Nobel Prize and Ingenuity. Each of these reduce the relative worth of this policy a bit. Getting great people more often can be beneficial in any game and the opener could be useful as long as your cities are running specialists. This policy is very useful for diplomatic and science victories where the later part of the tree is preferably being completed mostly by great scientist bulbing. Note that although the great person counter lists only integer increments, fractional parts are saved, so one specialist with just this policy will go from +3 great person points to +3.75 each turn.

Since Freedom is actually built for a Culture Victory due to the following policies, faith-buying Great Artists could help a lot and it has synergy with the Freedom finisher.

Constitution

+2 Culture from each World Wonder.

This policy is generally only worthwhile for cultural victories. Policies with the main purpose of speeding up future policies generally fail due to exponentially increasing costs, so in any other game you're better off going directly for whatever policy gets you closer to your end goal.

Free Speech

8 units are maintenance free.
Requires: Constitution

This effectively provides an amount of gold per turn that goes up as unit maintenance increases. Around turn 150 this will provide about 16 gpt, and around turn 225 about 24 gpt.

Universal Suffrage

Combat Strength of Cities increased by 33%.

This makes cities take less and deal more damage in combat. While this can be useful, it is better to guard cities with units than to rely on this policy to prevent a city from being taken.

Civil Society

Specialists consume only half the normal amount of Food.

Reduces food consumption from two to one for specialists and unemployed citizens. Depending on how many specialists are being worked, this can provide huge amounts of food per city (1 per specialist), or allow the use of specialists in situations where the city would starve without, such as putting two scientists to work in a newly founded city.

Democracy

Specialist population in cities produce half the normal amount of unhappiness.
Requires: Civil Society

This provides one happiness per two specialists (including unemployed citizens) per city, rounded up. In each individual city one or two specialists provide one happiness, three or four provide two happiness, etc. This policy is capable of providing the largest happiness boost of any policy. Puppets will generally choose to put specialists in the market and bank if they can, providing one or two happiness per puppet with those buildings. Additionally manual specialist control provides manual happiness control which can be extremely useful, such as by decreasing unhappiness beyond the very unhappy threshold. Note that this effect, Tradition's Monarchy and other percent happiness reducers all multiply together, potentially making it relatively less valuable. For example, combined with Gandhi's 50% reduction and Monarchy's 50% reduction, it may take up to 8 specialists to gain one point of happiness in Delhi.

Finisher

Adopting all Policies in the Freedom tree will increase the base yield from Great Tile Improvements by 100% and length of Golden Ages increased by 50%.

This provides +6 to Holy Sites, +6 to Landmarks, +8 to Academies, +4 to Manufactories, +4 to Customs Houses, and a +50% of base duration increase in Golden Age length. (Note that the +100% bonus is only added up to original yields, so for example, the bonus of Piety's finisher could NOT be doubled. However, the extra science to Academies from Scientific Theory and Atomic Theory could be doubled) The boosts to Landmarks, Academies and Manufactories make this extremely valuable for Culture Victories and also Science Victories. The golden age duration increase stacks additively with Chichen Itza, Taj Mahal and Darius's duration boosts.

General Use

For its base policy alone freedom can be worth diving into in many games, potentially providing the boost necessary to spawn an extra critical Great Engineer or other Great Person. The right side of the tree, as well as the opener and finisher, can be very useful for any empire with a specialist focus. The picture in the right shows the progress towards a Great Merchant in a city that has National Epic, Garden, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Freedom opener, each adding a 25% bonus.

The specialist policies have synergy with the Statue of Liberty for +1 per specialist and Rationalism's Secularism for +2 . All together, these can make even unemployed citizens (actually unemployed citizens can't enjoy bonuses from Freedom) become equivalent to working a +1 , +2 , +2 , +0.5 tile. Real specialists exceed most standard workable tiles.

• Culture
  Freedom is a key branch for Culture Victories. The opener and other specialist policies provide an indirect boost by increasing artist generation. Constitution provides a direct minor boost to output, while the finisher adds +6 per Landmark, which should provide a significant boost. Additionally, Free Speech and Universal Suffrage helps you defend your territory well even with reduced cost of building/maintaining an army.
  
  
• Science
  Freedom is also worthy of some attention if you are pursuing a Science Victory (after Rationalism). Freedom will help you to get more GSs to bulb techs in the last sprint toward victory, and an additional GE to rush the Hubble Telescope earlier, which is key in Science Victories.

Note:Amended from vanilla Freedom by vexing, this article is in G&K version.