Autocracy Either Needs Buff or Remake

[Vidszhite]

To be fair, this one actually isn't good. The reason is that it doesn't give you +25%, it mitigates the loss in combat due to damage up to 25%. If the unit is so weak that it needs the complete 25%, it probably shouldn't be fighting anyway and should heal.

Context is everything, my friend. Sometimes, healing a unit is totally useless when it is guaranteed to die whether it acts or not, and in such a case, a little extra damage can save the day.

That's fine when you're the defender and have the luxury of swapping someone into a city garrison or pulling them into the back ranks where they can heal behind the city. However, when you're commited aggressor, you may well need to do-or-die (or do-and-die if need be).

Exactly. Heck, maybe the unit is even IN the city and is close to earning March. Maybe it shouldn't heal now, maybe it should keep on fighting and get experience towards the upgrade.

 

[pwnerer]

To be fair, this one actually isn't good. The reason is that it doesn't give you +25%, it mitigates the loss in combat due to damage up to 25%. If the unit is so weak that it needs the complete 25%, it probably shouldn't be fighting anyway and should heal.

I just thought of this but havent tried it. Does this perk actually REWARD you for being at 99% health? It reads like ideally you want all your troops to heal to 99% and then attack.

If you are 100 health you do 34 damage. At 99 health you do 33 damage + 25%? Seems like if you super-micro healing, you can improve your army by being SLIGHTLY damaged all the time.

 

[CommunistCookie]

I just thought of this but havent tried it. Does this perk actually REWARD you for being at 99% health? It reads like ideally you want all your troops to heal to 99% and then attack.

If you are 100 health you do 34 damage. At 99 health you do 33 damage + 25%? Seems like if you super-micro healing, you can improve your army by being SLIGHTLY damaged all the time.

No, they can't go above their full normal damage afaik.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I just thought of this but havent tried it. Does this perk actually REWARD you for being at 99% health? It reads like ideally you want all your troops to heal to 99% and then attack.

If you are 100 health you do 34 damage. At 99 health you do 33 damage + 25%? Seems like if you super-micro healing, you can improve your army by being SLIGHTLY damaged all the time.

No, that's why I wrote "mitigates the loss in combat strength due to damage." You can't get stronger than full strength. However, if you are weakened to the point where you lose more than 25% combat strength, you'll only get the 25% back.

I don't remember the exact percentage decline, but suppose a half strong unit has 25% less combat strength. That unit would fight as if at full health. However, a unit with -50% strength would fight at -25% strength. A unit at -10% strength would fight at full strength, but never more.

It's a lesser form of Bushido - good for dealing extra damage if you're going to die anyway or, in some cases, actually surviving when you shouldn't have otherwise.

 

[livsbrand]

I love CoP and Gunboat Diplomacy from a fun/role-playing perspective. I've also used them to great success in standard settings Immortal games. Tier 2 has good stuff all around. Tier 1 is uninspired but I don't have a huge problem with that. In my experience Autocracy is about as likely to be picked by the AI as Freedom is. I would have to be a Deity player to start talking balancing issues.

 

[budweiser]

I'd say Autocracy has what it takes to make the other civs stop producing culture which in itself is half the battle.

As far as 25% more damage when injured goes, your units will be highly promoted and likely to have auto heal promos like march etc. So, they fight every turn at 80% to 90%, do more damage, heal that turn, earn more XP and never stop.

 

[wigwam]

I agree. It's quite a good civ. But, tragically, it doesn't offer bonus yields, and is thus resigned to the "sux" bin.

Almost no UAs offer bonus yields, and the ones that do (Russia, the Huns, Spain, and sort of the Celts) are not well regarded.

 

[Gucumatz]

The Huns and Spain are considered among the top civs in any competitive format (see MP), mostly because of their yields. Russia is considered decent and the Celts can be leveraged too - but by no means are poor civs in most people's opinions whereas the Huns and Spain are considered among the top civs

 

[OmniPotent42]

Almost no UAs offer bonus yields, and the ones that do (Russia, the Huns, Spain, and sort of the Celts) are not well regarded.

What about Korea? And we're not just talking UA's, must UB's give bonus yields to faith, science, culture, etc.

 

[Gucumatz]

Yea Wig's is a pretty poor counterpoint.

There are various civs that improve yields, whether through UIs/UBs/or traits and most of them are among the top civs or are at least midtable civs. Korea/Inca/Babylon IE fit into this category - The Huns and Spain are considered among the strongest too [But normally not top 5 IE], etc.

And the problems with Civs like Russia and Celts come less so from their yield bonuses (which are the best parts of their civ) but their other components and even then they aren't terrible civs simply because of the yield bonuses

 

[kaspergm]

No, they can't go above their full normal damage afaik.

Oh that sucks, I thought they could.

 

[wigwam]

The Huns and Spain are considered among the top civs in any competitive format (see MP), mostly because of their yields. Russia is considered decent and the Celts can be leveraged too - but by no means are poor civs in most people's opinions whereas the Huns and Spain are considered among the top civs

The Huns are strong because of their units, not because they get +1 per Pasture. Spain is a gimmicky slot machine unfit for competitive play. Russia's UA is strong because it grants extra resources more than because it grants bonus production. The Celts "can be leveraged," sure—so can any civ—but they're definitely in the bottom half of civs.

Korea does grant tile and specialist yields, and they're obviously a top civ. So that's one. Babylon, the other monster science civ, has no bonus yields of any kind. It's true that some of the top-tier civs (most crucially Maya and Ethiopia) are strong because of UBs with extra yields, but others are not. There's not much of a pattern here.

What about Korea? And we're not just talking UA's, must UB's give bonus yields to faith, science, culture, etc.

Oh, and we were talking UAs. "America's UA is FAR from useless" is what Steve was responding to.

 

[pilot00]

But then you are back to tier 1 which is like looking directly into the sun while hitting your testicles with a hammer. And setting yourself on fire. With cancer.

That my friend I need to copy to place it in my speech in two weeks!

On topic: I found the arsenal of democracy to be a very worthwhile tenent for my warmongering needs, and in fact me thinks I can supplant Autocracy for freedom even in dom games....However horrible it may sound it works.

I might well be wrong, but the whole Autocracy + Cultural just seems a bit contrived to me. If you go heavy cultural, I would assume you'd favour Freedom. If you do a conquest cultural, it sounds more or less like a de-facto conquest. The cases where I see myself going Autocracy is when I'm the one making the wars, but I guess as time goes by we might change our views, as we get more games under the belt. And of course we also have to keep in mind the odd cases where you plan for cultural-Freedom but then gets forced into picking Autocracy in order to avoid ideological unhappiness problems. In that case, I guess you might use to simply DoW someone who's in war with a third party just to get the Tourism bonus over the third party.

I used it as a short of preemptive strike in a MP game. I convinced my fellows that I picked auto because I wanted the happiness polices for free (Freedom and order were taped) then I continued to play my semi-isolated cultural/faithgame.
Where I reached a point where pure tourism was not gaining enough ground to net me a victory fast, I expended faith to purchase tanks and artillery and I simultaneously launched three wars. Yes three. I didn't won them in a sense but they were enough to caught the others off guard and take over a number of cities housing slotted works that were shipped back to my empire and left the cities in cinders.
Long story short by the time they recovered from the blows, I used their works for a CV effectively depriving their tourist output and adding it to my pool I think had I not acted like that I might have lost to the influence of the Freedom player.

So it can happen but you have to have a lot of luck.

When people say Autocracy is weak or bad, that's more a reflection on that player than Autocracy.

Let me help you all to understand the way a lot of folks approach their evaluation of social policies, ideology tenets, civilization uniques, religious beliefs, and pretty much any other benefit in the game.

To put it succinctly:

If they don't see a bonus to or or or or or , then it's crap.

So, a tenet that gives +25% combat strength to wounded units? Crap.

But a tenet providing +2 for monuments? Wow, that's amazing!

Likewise, what civ's are the ones we hear people complaining about all the time? Germany, Japan, America. And what's the solution? Replace one of the UU's with a UB that gratns some extra clture, faith, science, and so on.

So much true here.

So I want to destroy the world. How does autocracy tier one help me?

It wont, as much as freedom or Order wont help you culture from tier one.
Now if you take the third alternative you can launch nuclear missiles to your black hearts content

And a personal remark: Autocracy for me was me was always a tree that depended on the old mercantilism and Honor trees to function 100%. Now that dependency has been lessened somewhat but I am still a firm believer. You need honor for the combat bonuses and gold and you need Big Ben. You need to produce an experienced army with vast resources to spend on it and have the cash to replace it on a single turn when...you know what hits the fan. Also with the nuclear proliferation 'yeah' button been cracked after so much pushing (you wanted your civ to make public that you build the Manhattan didn't you naughty boy?), your nuclear arsenal needs to be cranked ten turns after the wonder is complete lest those pathetic fools prevent you from building more.

 

[RealHuhn]

Tier 1 Autocracy useless? Whaaaaaaaaaaaat? No!!!

Mobilization: -33% Military Unit Gold cost.
Industrial Espionage: Spies steal technologies twice as fast.

Mobilization is insane coupled with commerce/mercantilism, Big Ben and massive gold from trade routes.
Industrial Espionage is absolutely amazing on Immortal+ difficulty.

Also
Fortified Borders: +2 Local Happiness per Walls, Castle, Arsenal and Military Base.
... is as good as +2 happiness from monuments, if not better.
Elite Forces: Wounded Military Units inflict 25% more damage than normal.
... is at least decent although the others are stronger I think.

Tier 2 is also really, really good. Tier 3 is ok but who cares. Tier 1 and 2 are both amazing.

 

[kaspergm]

Also
Fortified Borders: +2 Local Happiness per Walls, Castle, Arsenal and Military Base.
... is as good as +2 happiness from monuments, if not better.

I do think that was changed back to +1 Happiness, however. And I don't even think it applies to Walls, only Castles and later.

Anyway, I just won an Autocracy culture victory ... but it was sort of a staged one. I was Assyria, only two civs were left: Russia had one minor city just to the east of where my army was, Aztec had their capital right to the south of that same spot. I had culture dominance over Aztecs and captured Russias original capital (and all other capitals apart from Aztec). So basically I had the choice: Take Russias last city and win a diplomacy, or take Aztec capital and win domination.

 

[RealHuhn]

I do think that was changed back to +1 Happiness, however. And I don't even think it applies to Walls, only Castles and later.

Anyway, I just won an Autocracy culture victory ... but it was sort of a staged one. I was Assyria, only two civs were left: Russia had one minor city just to the east of where my army was, Aztec had their capital right to the south of that same spot. I had culture dominance over Aztecs and captured Russias original capital (and all other capitals apart from Aztec). So basically I had the choice: Take Russias last city and win a diplomacy, or take Aztec capital and win domination.

Ok, that's awful then indeed. +3 happiness per courthouse usually fixes my happiness problems anyway. And +1 happiness from barracks etc has good synergies with the Honor tree because you can build them with 50% discount.

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

I recently won an autocracy culture victory but got very little bonuses from my tenets. What I did get was a ton of great works from capturing cities. Perhaps the developers felt that war bonuses are indirect tourism bonuses so autocracy has enough? Unfortunately, that doesn't explain the lack of diplo tenets or the strength of order tourism tenets (the other domination ideology).

 

[Babri]

Ok, that's awful then indeed. +3 happiness per courthouse usually fixes my happiness problems anyway. And +1 happiness from barracks etc has good synergies with the Honor tree because you can build them with 50% discount.

It is + 2 happiness from XP buildings. And that tenet is really strong. Overall 6 happiness per city for 4 gold. This is much more cost efficient than happiness line buildings.

And another important point, Cult of Personality effect can stack multiple times with the same civ. For example if u & another civ are at war with 2 same other civs then you'll get 100% boost to tourism from Cult of Personality alone!

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

And another important point, Cult of Personality effect can stack multiple times with the same civ. For example if u & another civ are at war with 2 same other civs then you'll get 100% boost to tourism from Cult of Personality alone!

Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk 4 Beta

Theoretically, that's amazing. In reality, this situation will never arise and even if it does it will last all of ten turns.

 

[Babri]

Theoretically, that's amazing. In reality, this situation will never arise and even if it does it will last all of ten turns.

I have done this practically by bribing the world to attack the weaker civs & then joining those wars. The key is to not eliminate your foes completely & don't accept peace with them once CoP bonus kicks in. When a civ is down to 1 city with no military, everyone would love to declare war on them with a little bribe.