Ideologies: Three Factories or Modern Era?

[Talcove]

So, simple question: When you go for an ideology in Brave New World, do you prefer to go the three factories route, or do you get one by hitting the Modern Era?

I ask because in my recent game I was doing the One City Challenge, and couldn't get enough factories to build it. So instead I rushed into the Modern Era; Scientific Theory -> Electricity -> Radio. With the use of a Great Scientist and Oxford University, I was in the Industrial Era for a grand total of 7 whole turns. I finished the Industrial Era without ever industrializing.

Though, under normal circumstances (Non-OCC) I prefer to go with the factories. After all, coal, factories, and gatling guns are pretty powerful, so there is some major incentive to use Industrialization as the intro tech for the Industrial Era.

 

[GoStu]

Often depends on if I have Coal or not. If I do, it's factories for me. I'll want them anyway, especially for Order.

One downside of rushing to the modern era like that is it might cause an inopportune World Congress election. Also, I may or may not have hoarded Oxford, or be able to build Oxford if I've gone wide.

 

[Talcove]

Often depends on if I have Coal or not. If I do, it's factories for me. I'll want them anyway, especially for Order.

One downside of rushing to the modern era like that is it might cause an inopportune World Congress election. Also, I may or may not have hoarded Oxford, or be able to build Oxford if I've gone wide.

Well if you've gone wide then having coal for factories won't be much of an issue. As for the World Congress, there's the benefit of knowing when the election will be coming, so you'll be able to save up gold and buy out a bunch of city states just the turn before. Still, though, factories are pretty awesome.

 

[CaptainPatch]

It wasn't until the Industrial Era in the Real World before ideologies even started to gel. Pretty much EVERY Society was some form of Monarchy. It was probably a side-effect of educating across a much wider base -- on the theory that better-educated workers are more productive -- that made it possible for enough people to create theories other than Monarchy being the "natural way" to run a Society. Plus the greater wage level -- as pitiful as that was -- coupled with the Printing Press made it easier for ideas to disseminate and germinate.

 

[redwings1340]

I've done both, it honestly depends on my situation. I'm probably about 50/50 actually.

 

[GKShaman]

Factories are easier to get an ideology with. Most of the time its factories. Once I somehow teched into it.

 

[Arachnofiend]

I generally get in by using Oxford on Radio. The exception is when I go domination since I want to take the bottom part of the tech tree for that.

 

[SemperFi2382]

I've done both, it honestly depends on my situation. I'm probably about 50/50 actually.

Same here. I've had games with zip for coal, even on most of the continent so taking it wasn't worth it, so going Modern was the best option. In other games, I've got coal coming out of my ears, so Factories were the way to go.

 

[GoStu]

Well if you've gone wide then having coal for factories won't be much of an issue. As for the World Congress, there's the benefit of knowing when the election will be coming, so you'll be able to save up gold and buy out a bunch of city states just the turn before. Still, though, factories are pretty awesome.

In theory, there should be coal. I'm sure we've both played this enough to know that sometimes, there's just squat for a strategic resource or two. I've had entire continents seemingly free of Iron, Coal, or Aluminum. I never seem to lack oil, or feel hard done by without horses or uranium though.

 

[bbbt]

With some exceptions, I'm usually rushing to radio anyway in the majority of my non-dom games.

 

[joshua43214]

Radio is faster and works better with Order in 95% of the games.
Rush buying factories is very awkward at that point in the game because you have other science buildings that also need to be rush bought.
Going order is better in most games, so radio is better for because hard building factories is much easier.
Even on Deity, you can get stuck for 20 turns waiting for the AI to connect coal.

If you are playing any kind of tech based game, and you are playing well, then it is a very rare game that going industrialization first is optimal

 

[Jampine]

I'd say factories is always the best option, unless you are out of coal. This is because you don't need to rush certain techs (unless you aimed to anyways), and you're likely to build factories in at least 3 cities anyways

 

[CaptainPatch]

I could see the factories approach being problematic for Venice. He can't buy a City State until his first Gt Merchant of Venice from researching Optics. Thereafter, it takes a llllloooooonnnnnnggggg time to get that second CS purchase (to allow for the possibility of building three factories). I recently played an Emperor game and gaining Great Prophets and Gt Scientists kept driving up the Gt Merchant price just before a GM would have triggered. If I recall correctly, I didn't get that 2nd Gt Merchant until just prior to the Industrial era. Allowing for the additional time to research Industrialization, building up the newly acquired CS (which always seem to be about an era behind in city development when purchased), Venice will be waaaaayyyyy behind nearly every other civ in acquiring its first Ideology.

 

[SemperFi2382]

I could see the factories approach being problematic for Venice. He can't buy a City State until his first Gt Merchant of Venice from researching Optics. Thereafter, it takes a llllloooooonnnnnnggggg time to get that second CS purchase (to allow for the possibility of building three factories). I recently played an Emperor game and gaining Great Prophets and Gt Scientists kept driving up the Gt Merchant price just before a GM would have triggered. If I recall correctly, I didn't get that 2nd Gt Merchant until just prior to the Industrial era. Allowing for the additional time to research Industrialization, building up the newly acquired CS (which always seem to be about an era behind in city development when purchased), Venice will be waaaaayyyyy behind nearly every other civ in acquiring its first Ideology.

Venice is best just gunning for Modern in my experience. Although, with the low culture cost, you can also max out the commerce tree pretty fast and theoretically get enough GMs to the the City States needed to have 3 factories.

I had the misfortune of having Austria in one game, so I had to get GMs out quickly before Austria gobbled the City-States up. Unfortunately, it slowed my progress in Rationalism, but with the obscene GPT, RAs with the civs that posed no threat in tech made up for it.

 

[Jboy2000000]

I prefer three factories, because I take the time to finish all the techs in each era before advancing to the next.

 

[reddishrecue]

I usually go through the modern era first because there isn't always coal available to build factories. I haven't really thought about this topic really since most of the time I skip right into plastics first.

 

[tommynt]

Radio is faster and works better with Order in 95% of the games.
Rush buying factories is very awkward at that point in the game because you have other science buildings that also need to be rush bought.
Going order is better in most games, so radio is better for because hard building factories is much easier.
Even on Deity, you can get stuck for 20 turns waiting for the AI to connect coal.

If you are playing any kind of tech based game, and you are playing well, then it is a very rare game that going industrialization first is optimal

this if u want play good.

Everything else is just bad gameplay or "roleplay"

 

[CaptainPatch]

Venice is best just gunning for Modern in my experience.

For every civ EXCEPT Venice, I go for the three factories. Invariably, any other civ can have at least three cities by the end of Classical. That gives all of Medieval and Renaissance to flesh out the cities enough so that once Industrialization has been researched, the player can start building three factories almost immediately. (If you don't have Coal immediately available, Ally a City State with Coal in sight and gift it 200 gold to develop the Coal resource. Voila! Instant Coal!)

 

[Arachnofiend]

this if u want play good.

Everything else is just bad gameplay or "roleplay"

What if you're going domination and have little reason to head directly to Radio? I can see it being significantly faster to just build three factories in some secondary cities if you happen to be making an Autocracy push.

 

[Bad Wolf]

I always get factories out ASAP, so yeah, 3 factories.