Order
A closer look at the social policy branch
A closer look at the social policy branch
Introduction
The PoliciesGeneral Use
The Policies
Order
Adopting Order will increase
Happiness by 1 per CityThe Order opener is a strong global
Happiness policy for a massive empire. On huge maps, this policy will effectively allow you to add one 
in every city, or use the combined happiness boost to grow a few cities very tall for late game production.
Nationalism
25% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory.Defending your empire just got a lot easier with Nationalism. The 25% attack boost is a nice bonus to repel those late game attacks. It stacks additively with Himeji Castle to give you a nice +40% boost when attacking in your territory.
You can also use Nationalism on the offensive. When attacking another civilization, you can take their cities, before destroying their units, to convert their territory to yours and therefore gain the Nationalism bonus while cleaning up.
United Front
Militaristic City States grant units twice as often when you are at war with a common foe.As long as you are 'friends' or 'allies' with a Militaristic City State, and at war with someone whom they are also at war with, the time between unit spawns will be halved. This is a nice policy to boost your late game unit production as any Militaristic City State ally of yours will automatically be at war with the same civilizations you are at war with.
Planned Economy
Factories increase a cities
Science output by 25%.If you are constantly warring, and therefore can't sign Research Agreements, then this policy will give you a significant
Science boost in your factory cities. Planned Economy stacks additively with Universities, Observatories, the National College and Research Labs. 
Socialism
Gold maintenance costs of Buildings reduced by 15%.Requires: Planned Economy
When you are running a massive empire, your building maintenance costs rise dramatically as you keep adding new cities. Socialism reduces the global building maintenance costs enough to give you a nice gold/turn income boost.
Communism
+2
Production per City and +10% Production when constructing buildings.Requires: Socialism
A small boost to every cities production ability near the late game is always welcome. The
are added to the city tile, so they are boosted by all +% buildings, such as workshops and factories.
Finisher
Adopting all Policies in the Order tree will grant +1
Food, Production, Science, Gold, and 
Culture per city.The Order Finisher gives a small boost to everything you require in all cities. The larger your empire, the more you will gain out of the Order finisher.
General Use
The most obvious use for Order is when you are playing on a Large or Huge map. On those map sizes, city sprawl tends to be much easier due to the -40% unhappiness/city modifier. This will tend to lead to much larger empires (50-60 cities by the end) so Order will be a good policy branch to boost that large empire. Gaining 50+ global happiness in one policy is hard to beat.As well, for Technology Victories and Diplomacy Victories, there comes a point where you no longer need to produce specialists. So the benefits of Order can be used to help with finishing up those last few techs and parts/UN. With the straight happiness boost, you can gain enough global happiness to utilize that happiness within your core cities to add population, and therefore production for parts/etc.
So as long as you are continuing your expansion, by whatever means, Order will help you manage that empire more effectively and keep you going on all fronts (science, happiness, military, gold).
Finally, a late era start (post-Renaissance) game can definitely benefit from Order. As you already start with a number of settlers and workers, and larger cities, you will be able to get a lot out of Order.
Patch version of this article: 1.0.1.383