Autocracy + Order rush for Songhai?

[Dreadnought]

Hello there!

I was doing some brainstorming for a potential Industrial Autocracy + Order rush. I play with a group of friends, with some AI on a reasonably easy difficulty.

I play on using my Social Policies as follows: 3 into Commerce for decreased rush costs; 3 into Autocracy for -50% unhappiness, and the rest into Order, going back into Autocracy after that.

Is this a viable strategy, knowing I won't have to contend with an early rush? And who would be the best Civilization for such a strategy? I was thinking Songhai.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Slowpoke]

Industrial isn't exactly a rush, you need to get all the way to artillery O.O But yeah that's too many policies to pull off really, and autocracy is pretty bad, since you're better off just puppeting then getting that -unhappy in occupied.

 

[Martin Alvito]

But yeah that's too many policies to pull off really, and autocracy is pretty bad, since you're better off just puppeting then getting that -unhappy in occupied.

This is inaccurate. Cities you annex give you -5 per city and -1.34 per citizen rather than the standard -2 and -1 per citizen. Police State reduces the per citizen hit to -0.67. Planned really does give -50% now, yielding cities with -2.5 base and -0.67 per citizen (as opposed to the -1 and -1 per that you would be getting). The result is that cities you annex become superior to the ones you founded for moderate populations and larger.

The strategy works best on Deity, where you can found two cities and let the AIs found the rest for you. It also works best if you cripple them early by rushing (leave them a city or two), leave them a direction to expand into, let them fill that space, then bulldoze them all once your Happiness can take it. The SPs that you want are Communism and Police State, which requires 7 SPs and about 1,760 Culture altogether if you stay at two cities. Secularism is very helpful if you have the SPs left over.

In my experience, the French and Babs are the best civs for the approach. The Babs can get the research done the fastest, but acquiring the Culture is a pain. The French can pick up a couple of extra SPs when the bomb goes off, which can be very helpful. Either way, you want to speed things up as much as possible by getting Writing, building Libraries in your capital and Iron city and filling both with Scientists, keeping them full until you have three Great Scientists, and bulbing the last three techs (Fertilizer, Rifling, Dynamite).

You can pull off the mass annex as early as the 120s with the French, possibly earlier with the Babs if you can get enough early cash and Cultural allies.

 

[Slowpoke]

Well I said too many policies since he said commerce, which would've meant 10 policies.

But wow I would've thought police state wouldn't low per citizen below one. That's pretty interesting.

 

[Martin Alvito]

But wow I would've thought police state wouldn't low per citizen below one. That's pretty interesting.

I was just as surprised as you when it was pointed out to me. It's so overpowered that it's by far the best way to warmonger right now.

 

[Nunya]

Actually Police State only reduces the unhapiness from occupied population. The base unhapiness from occupied cities stays 5. However, Planned Economy or Forbidden Palace will reduce it to 2.5 and both together will completely eliminate it.

With just Police State by itself an occupied city needs to be size 9 for the reduces unhapiness from population to make up for the icnreased unhapiness from the occupied city itself. With Police State + Planned Economy however, a size 5 occupied city already produces less unhapiness than a non-occupied city.

So Autocracy and Order make for a great combination. Stalin would approve.

 

[Martin Alvito]

You're correct about the mechanics; just opened a save and verified. Above post edited accordingly.