Autocracy Buff

[Marathoner]

I was thinking of a way to buff what seems to be regarded as the weakest of the three ideologies, autocracy. Add an ability, that when a civ in autocracy is running due to ideological pressures from freedom and order civs, every say 10 turns, their spy can destroy a building in a freedom or order civ. this would last as long as they are running unhappiness due to pressures. If they are happy they couldn't do it and if their citizens revolt and make them switch ideologies they would obviously lose the ability.

My reasoning is that the governments of autocratic nations would see the influence from other ideologies as a threat and have the ability to sort of bunker down and lash out with almost state sponsored terrorism. Not that any freedom civs do this but I think it would make for an interesting dynamic in the game.

Any thoughts?

 

[Talcove]

The problem that Autocracy has is the same problem that Honour has - it's a side concern. Whether it's Honour or Autocracy, the other two social policy trees provide much larger, more general bonuses. Tradition/Freedom provides bonuses to empires going tall, while Liberty/Order provides bonuses to empires going wide. Honour/Autocracy, on the other hand, provides bonuses to warfare. The problem with this is that it works better as a side dish, since every warmongerer is going to either go tall (Raze enemy cities), or wide (Puppet/Annex enemy cities). Why take some bonuses that, really, only help your military, when you can take bonuses that help your whole empire. After all, a good empire can have a good army, but just because you have a good army doesn't mean that you're have a good empire.

 

[Vidszhite]

Autocracy doesn't need a buff, and this suggestion not only does nothing for you if you are playing right, it is very unfun to play against. What new strategies does it add, excepting ability to let others join your misery when you fail the culture game? It is also very narrow banded and not worth it's own tenet.

Why do you think Autocracy needs a buff? Is it because there's a thread with a title that says it does? There is a great discussion going on in there, and it basically all comes down to the fact that people don't like it on paper when compared to Freedom, when the two ideologies are meant to be nothing alike, and people really over-value some of freedom's tenets and don't even realize some of the unique things autocracy lets you do.

 

[steveg700]

I was thinking of a way to buff what seems to be regarded as the weakest of the three ideologies, autocracy.

Regarded by whom? I'll tell you who: armchair emperors who sum up strength and weakness by how often they see a , , , , , or symbol. Bonuses to warfare are harder to assess, because they require players to not be passive, defesnive accumulators and instead be active, aggressive implementers. Those little symbols are there, they're just locked up inside somebody's castle.

Why take some bonuses that, really, only help your military, when you can take bonuses that help your whole empire. After all, a good empire can have a good army, but just because you have a good army doesn't mean that you're have a good empire.

This is a builder's sentiment. "Give me bonus yields."

If you have a good army, you can have a good empire. Better yet, you can have someone else's good empire.

 

[kaspergm]

We have another very live thread talking about Autocracy already? (link)

 

[Vidszhite]

The problem that Autocracy has is the same problem that Honour has - it's a side concern. Whether it's Honour or Autocracy, the other two social policy trees provide much larger, more general bonuses. Tradition/Freedom provides bonuses to empires going tall, while Liberty/Order provides bonuses to empires going wide. Honour/Autocracy, on the other hand, provides bonuses to warfare. The problem with this is that it works better as a side dish, since every warmongerer is going to either go tall (Raze enemy cities), or wide (Puppet/Annex enemy cities). Why take some bonuses that, really, only help your military, when you can take bonuses that help your whole empire. After all, a good empire can have a good army, but just because you have a good army doesn't mean that you're have a good empire.

Honor has this problem more than Autocracy. Autocracy does focus on army, but unlike with Honor, it lets you do things with with that army other than go to war for personal gain. With freedom and order, having an army you don't need is a liability that costs you gold, but autocracy gives you good reason to get a huge army, gives you the means to have the best units, and new ways to use those units. Freedom is the best ideology for an eyes shut victory, but can be stopped by a warmonger, and is most vulnerable to denouncement. Their culture game is very passive, and isn't as potent as the other two by a wide margin. Order gives bonuses to wide empires but has no means to influence city states other than gold, and is the most vulnerable to ideology pressure, because if they are already behind, they have no means to get ahead. Autocracy by contrast gives you very potent tourism when you enter wars of benevolence, and it is by far the most powerful influencer in the game, and when peace breaks out, park those spare units next to city states who haven't had the opportunity to be dazzled by the impressiveness of your guns. They'll see the light soon enough.

 

[steveg700]

Well-said, Vitszhite.

 

[Vidszhite]

Regarded by whom? I'll tell you who: those who sum up strength and weakness by how often they see a , , , , , or symbol. Bonuses to warfare are harder to assess, because they require players to not be passive, defesnive accumulators and instead be active, aggressive implementers, which is what autocracy is all about. Those little symbols are there, they're just locked up inside somebody's castle.



This is a builder's sentiment. "Give me bonus yields."

If you have a good army, you can have a good empire. Better yet, you can have someone else's good empire.

Too right you are.

Autocracy's game is totally the opposite of a builder's game. You have to want an army and want to use that army, and when you use that army, nobody else's army even compares. Cult of Personality and Gunboat Diplomacy are the keys to its alternate victory types, where you choose to park your army around the far corners of the world in times of peace to get the CS to love you, and when a war does break out, you make sure you're in on it too. You choose the victor, and the victor's people will love you for it, and if one of your other rivals starts to get a little... too strong... you can "remind" him who's in charge.

 

[Vidszhite]

Well-said, Vitszhite.

To be totally fair to him, Autocracy did used to have this problem. All it was good for was pure domination. With how different the Diplomacy and Culture game are now, though, it has been given the most powerful tools in the game on both fronts. The only thing is, they aren't always-on bonuses. You have to go out of your way to switch them on, and they can be blocked if the AI isn't cooperating.

However, imagine that you're a freedom Civ, but another freedom Civ is beating you so soundly in culture that you have no way to catch up, what do you do? You can switch victory types, but it might be too late for that. Your only choice might be to go wipe out your rival, but freedom is very good on Defense, not so much on offense. You may get a whole six units for free, and they may have a foreign lands bonus, but six units aren't enough to win a war, and those Foreign Legions are irreplaceable once they die. A freedom civ will have a lot of trouble taking out another freedom civ. Similarly, Order's army bonuses are only active inside your own borders, and their "real" army bonus all comes from the fact that they are a wide empire with a lot of build queues, which makes building an army quite easy. Autocracy's army bonuses are active no matter what, so the option, "I guess I just have to kill you now," is the natural domain of the Autocrat. Even better if that rival has enemies willing to join you.

 

[Mercurio]

Autocracy is fine... mostly. The only thing that works against it is if tourism heavy players go order and freedom and you want to focus on warmongering instead of culture, you get hammered with 20+ unhapiness really fast which either puts you into unhapiness (which is now damning) or limiting the speed of expansion. You're often better off just switching to freedom and go Arsenal of Democracy: no/lower unhapiness by tourism and still have fast unit production. Sure tourism will spread faster to your cities from other freedom civs, but you can immediately attack the tourism heavy players.

Although that's more a general problem of warmongering, than autocracy I guess.

 

[Yzman]

Autocracy is good for happiness bonuses for warmongers as well. I think autocracy is underrated by people who don't actually try it for its purpose, world conquest and power through military.

 

[Vidszhite]

Autocracy is fine... mostly. The only thing that works against it is if tourism heavy players go order and freedom and you want to focus on warmongering instead of culture, you get hammered with 20+ unhapiness really fast which either puts you into unhapiness (which is now damning) or limiting the speed of expansion. You're often better off just switching to freedom and go Arsenal of Democracy: no/lower unhapiness by tourism and still have fast unit production. Sure tourism will spread faster to your cities from other freedom civs, but you can immediately attack the tourism heavy players.

Although that's more a general problem of warmongering, than autocracy I guess.

Never focus on warmongering "instead" of culture. Even Hitler knew the importance of dazzling the world with Culture before he tried to conquer it. You could also pick Montezuma, who gets culture through warmongering.

That said, Autocracy has Prora, which is a massive Happiness booster that can easily bring you out of an ideology deficit, as long as it's only one level. If you let your culture slide so much that it's in two levels of unhappy, you did something very wrong.

 

[steveg700]

Never focus on warmongering "instead" of culture.

Bingo bango bongo. That's it right there. Culture is not as all-important as science, but it's a great help for any strategy. Heck, if you're not producing culture, no ideology is going to help since you're not getting tenets in the first place.

 

[Matthew.]

For war-mongering, it is worth it just for the -33% purchase cost. Throw on Big Ben and Mercantilism and you can churn out non-stop military instantly. Now with the ability to get and keep CS's (former Auto didn't have), that is even more gold available to rush-buy units.

I haven't had the time yet to give Autocracy a full-go, but there are certainly a few tenets I would consider quite strong.

 

[Pythakoreas]

For war-mongering, it is worth it just for the -33% purchase cost. Throw on Big Ben and Mercantilism and you can churn out non-stop military instantly. Now with the ability to get and keep CS's (former Auto didn't have), that is even more gold available to rush-buy units.

I haven't had the time yet to give Autocracy a full-go, but there are certainly a few tenets I would consider quite strong.

I still remember my game as Sweden when I was buying Hakkas for 250