Do you have to warmonger with autocracy?

[reddishrecue]

Since autocracy has all these bonuses for military and is a lot easier for autocracies to make military, is it necessary for autocracies to achieve a domination victory? Can autocracies also achieve a science victory? Same question with the other ideologies that have come out and have the missing trait. (I.e. warmongering freedom)

 

[Calouste]

An autocracy can achieve a science victory, it just doesn't get any large direct bonuses for it. But taking over the capital of your largest rival, or expanding your empire via conquest in general, will usually be a good boost to your prospects of a science (or cultural) victory. You don't have to win via conquest as an autocracy, you can use conquest to create a dominant position and win from there in a different way.

 

[joncnunn]

Autocracy has very little to offer players not fighting any wars. But it does have some bonuses for cultural & diplomatic:

For diplomatic, it offers gunboat diplomacy (send some of your military near city states to gain influence per turn). But you are also supposed to use your military to liberate any city states conquered by other players going this route.

For cultural, there is a tourism bonus with AIs fighting a common ally. So the ideal is to join a war everyone else hates. You may want the war to become phony if the target has no great works left to maintain the bonuses.

 

[reddishrecue]

I know what you both are talking about, but what I am asking is if you don't have to warmonger or make diplomacy with city states with autocracy. We all know that autocracy is more suited for both of these victory conditions along with the cultural condition. Have you tried out the science victory with an autocracy? I'm guessing it should be possible to achieve science with autocracy as well.

 

[sendos]

Autocracy also has arguably the best happiness boost using military buildings. +2 happiness for each military building can help negate unhappiness from annexing and ideological pressure. Police state can also help alleviate unhappiness whilst expanding.

Order ideology is good for consolidating your empire and expanding steadily without too many unhappiness penalties in doing so, thanks to iron curtain.

Freedom ideology is good for getting an instant 6-unit army to push back your opponents in either attack or defence.

 

[GoStu]

You never HAVE to do anything with a particular ideology. However, if you're not planning on doing any warring, there's not much of a reason to prefer Autocracy. The only reason I could think of is if you're the Culture leader and wanted to stick a thumb in the eye of anyone going Order or Freedom.

EDIT: Or you're trying for the "Different Ideologies" penalty against another Culture threat, or would like early adopter tenets.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Freedom is great for warmongering if you get there early. You can gs+oxford sling into radio and take volunteer army for suped up gw infantry while your target still has muskets.

 

[joncnunn]

I know what you both are talking about, but what I am asking is if you don't have to warmonger or make diplomacy with city states with autocracy. We all know that autocracy is more suited for both of these victory conditions along with the cultural condition. Have you tried out the science victory with an autocracy? I'm guessing it should be possible to achieve science with autocracy as well.

Freedom & Order tenets both represent saving at least 5 turns but no more than 25 turns off a Science Victory. So if you are at the limits of your ability to win, it could cause a defeat, but if you should play one difficulty level higher than you are, it will be easy to overcome the handicap.

 

[joncnunn]

Autocracy also has arguably the best happiness boost using military buildings. +2 happiness for each military building can help negate unhappiness from annexing and ideological pressure. Police state can also help alleviate unhappiness whilst expanding.

Order ideology is good for consolidating your empire and expanding steadily without too many unhappiness penalties in doing so, thanks to iron curtain.

Freedom ideology is good for getting an instant 6-unit army to push back your opponents in either attack or defence.

The Autocracy world wonder is much more powerful for happiness than the happiness from military production building tenet. Autocracy comes so late you don't really need more than 1 city producing additional military units even for domination victory. (Your small, but concentrated taskforce easy defeats the widely spread out AI military in detail.)

 

[DBuckner21]

Just out of curiousity, does anyone else ever feel the desire to take Autocracy for the military benefits just to keep the AI military a little less strong? I think Order has the best all around bonuses but then two thirds of the AI's will take Autocracy and I will end up fighting them anyway. So my thoughts are maybe its better to take Autocracy, prepare for the inevitable wars and benefit from the extra unit production and damage bonuses. Plus it means then that the AI has chosen Order or Freedom instead so at least my military should be slightly superior in a stand up fight.

In my current game I think I'm still going to try for the science or diplomatic victory even with Autocracy. I'm on a the Huge version of Pangea and Poland is spreading like wildfire. Due to the geography of the map and his expansion he has me surrounded. Eventually, I'm sure we are going to come to blows, especially if the ideologies are different. I find it unlikely I could take over all the other capitals before I could win a science of diplo victory anyway.

 

[Wodan]

Think bigger picture rather than simply the bonuses of the available policies under each ideology.

First off, I wouldn't pick it if I was going for a cultural victory, so remaining comments are with that assumption

If you're not going to be warring, you might pick Autocracy for several other reasons (than already mentioned)

• if you aren't an early adopter for Liberty or Order (so you miss out on the free policies)
• if others have Autocracy (and you don't want the huge penalties for not having the same ideology)
• if you aren't getting much culture anyway, so you're not going to be getting many more policies in any event... in fact you may well want to spend most/all of your remaining policies on Rationalism or Patronage
• for military bonuses intended on the defensive (again, particularly if others have Autocracy / warmonger neighbors)

 

[Memoryjar]

I like Autocracy for cultural victory.

 

[Wodan]

I like Autocracy for cultural victory.

why?

 

[Gustavus Rex]

I like war because It's fun and often pick autocracy.

In many games I reach a point were I have conqured half civs and the map somehow makes war slow and boring. Then I go for another VC, often science and keep harrasaing my enemies.


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[4N4C0ND4]

why?

I guess it's with Futurism and not building any guilds before ideologies.

 

[KmDubya]

why?

Autocracy is great for a culture victory, especially one where your start was not good, you don't have many wonders and have your factories up before your artist guilds.

Furturism and staffing your guilds can pop out the first few pretty quickly and get you a few thousand tourism. Enough to make up for neglecting tourism until the industrial age. The 250 tourism loses its appeal later in the game but when your completion is getting 10 or less tourism you can make up for a lot of lost time.

The double speed spy stealing can get you techs quickly and get you back into the lead if you fell behind due to poor starting location.

The cult of personality is a stacking 50% boost to tourism, two wars is as good as internet. Wars due to ideology are easy to start and can boost your tourism to levels that the rest can't match.

Finally the best way to win culture is to burn down the leader and take his stuff. Autocracy does this better than the rest.

If you had a desert faith, Petra fueled wonder spammer of a capitol then you don't need autocracy, you are already winning better to go freedom. But when you tough out a tundra start and need to come back from behind autocracy is your friend.

 

[Wodan]

Furturism and staffing your guilds can pop out the first few pretty quickly and get you a few thousand tourism. Enough to make up for neglecting tourism until the industrial age. The 250 tourism loses its appeal later in the game but when your completion is getting 10 or less tourism you can make up for a lot of lost time.

The double speed spy stealing can get you techs quickly and get you back into the lead if you fell behind due to poor starting location.

The cult of personality is a stacking 50% boost to tourism, two wars is as good as internet. Wars due to ideology are easy to start and can boost your tourism to levels that the rest can't match.

Finally the best way to win culture is to burn down the leader and take his stuff. Autocracy does this better than the rest.

I guess I can see all that. But it still boils down to whether the benefit of Autocracy for a CV is better than from, say, Freedom. So, when considering benefits such as "the best way to win culture is to burn down the leader and take his stuff," we have to take it in context. The implied assumption with that benefit is that the military boost is better than the alternative, which would be Avant Garde (+25% to GP generation) or something like that. (I also presume that you don't mean to imply that it is ONLY possible to take down the leader with the benefit of Autocracy. It'll make it easier, sure, but how much easier / is it worth it?)

Edit: Doing this sounds like a fun game, so I think I"m changing my mind. it seems like a viable alternative . Optimal? Probably not, but sure, it'd be fun.

 

[Asklepios]

Autocracy for Culture Victory is entirely viable, and its all down to the stacking % bonuses to tourism for multiple shared wars. It certainly takes more thought and timing than a Freedom-based Culture Victory, but its potentially a lot faster.

So, optimal? Depends what you mean by optimal.

Is it the fastest way to Culture Victory? No, because you don't need ideologies for the fastest culture victories.
Is it the fastest Ideology-based way to Culture Victories? It has the potential for the fastest culture victories, but is less consistent in speed than Freedom and harder to execute.
Is it the most optimal Ideology for Culture Victories? Only in the sense that it can generate the highest tourism per turn.

Returning to the opening post the answer is as follows:

Since autocracy has all these bonuses for military and is a lot easier for autocracies to make military, is it necessary for autocracies to achieve a domination victory? Can autocracies also achieve a science victory? Same question with the other ideologies that have come out and have the missing trait. (I.e. warmongering freedom)

You don't have to do anything with any ideology.
You can achieve any victory type with any ideology.

It is, however, a good idea to use your military actively if you're playing Autocracy.
Using your military doesn't necessarily mean you have to go for a Domination Victory. Military action can play a strong part in all victory types.

 

[reddishrecue]

So is it important to continue to influence and not have a win by staying content? I know futurism does give tourism for every new great person that makes a great work of w/e. Do the public opinion on the ideology really matter?

 

[Memoryjar]

Optimal? Probably not, but sure, it'd be fun.

That's the point.