Is Freedom usually the most important post-Medieval policy tree?

[The Tollan]

Is it useful to almost always head straight into Freedom upon entering the Renaissance era or are there cases to head into Rationalism before Freedom? Also, does the need to get Freedom (or perhaps Rationalism) basically make it good to place Patronage or Commerce on hold until later on after entering the Renassiance era?

Freedom has the halving of specialists unhappiness (though specialists are not always needed the puppet states, if one has many, will have hordes of specialists). Unhappiness seems to be one of the greater problems that can place limitations on one's power. The Civil Society SP seems fairly useful too (if happiness can be brought under control).

Another question is whether it is good to go down Constitution and Free Speech always or whether they can sometimes be ignored in favor of going Civil Society and then Rationalism.

Also, would Autocracy sometimes be worth choosing even though it locks out Freedom?

 

[ShaqFu]

I always quickly enter Freedom, but I'm also big on running 2+ Scientists in each city. Getting that many beakers out of 2 citizens, plus the huge boost from Great Scientists, makes Freedom/Civil Society/Democracy obscenely useful. Half-angry, half-food Scientists that provide 50% more free techs? Sure, I'll beeline into that.

The only time I really deviate from that is when I want to pick up Rationalism->Secularism. A 50% increase in the raw science from Scientists (+4->+6) is indeed awesome, and sets up for a late-game slingshot via Scientific Revolution.

 

[bluedevil99]

Rationalism is often far more important in my conquest heavy games where many of my cities are puppets. Because I can't trust my puppet governors to manage specialists, and I'm often spamming trading posts, rationalism is a powerful tool to maximize the benefits of puppet cities.

For science games when I'm controlling my own cities, I usually pick up rationalism's +2 science bonus/specialist together with Freedom's happy and food bonuses for specialists- a powerful synergy. Freedom's constitution and free speech are essential for cultural wins (when I'm usually running piety and don't care about rationalism anyway) but I generally avoid them in other games.

I've been playing around with order, and specifically the -50% reduction in # of cities unhappiness and its stacking with the Forbidden Palace, after reading pir8 and alpaca's threads on ICS, but can't really comment on its benefits vis-a-vis the other branches in general games just yet. I honestly have never run autocracy in any game yet.

 

[R3dKnight]

I like Rationalism in my Domination games. I never went for culture victory, so that's probably why. Awesome tech gains every turn, plus 2 free techs to leap an era? Bigger, shinier guns than the rest.

 

[alpaca]

I would say if you can run a large number of specialists, yes. I think Freedom & Civil Society is stronger than Rationalism & Secularism, but nothing prevents you from picking that up later, too, with your cheap artists generating culture for you. Plus, I find I sometimes like to pick up Theocracy so Rationalism is out of the question there.

Autocracy seems incredibly underwhelming considering that it locks you out of both an early expansion SP tree and a strong later tree. The only really useful bonus is the cheaper unit upkeep with the cheaper buying of units being good but not great (I find I don't usually have to buy so many units once I have an army set up that I can upgrade).

The -50% unhappiness from occupied cities can be gained through Planned Economy, the second policy in the order tree, which incidentally also halves unhappiness from your own number of cities as well (or does militarism decrease the unhappiness from pop as well?). Total War seems pretty useless, 33% for 20 turns is not enough of a bonus to even pick it in my opinion, unless you're struggling for your life. Becoming Russia is ok but probably not needed if you're warmongering anyways.

The #1 reason why taking Autocracy doesn't make a lot of sense at the moment is, however, that the AI is so weak at waging war that you simply don't need any bonuses for it. I would almost always take Order over it given the choice. In fact, I think Order should lock you out of Liberty and Freedom, too, so you have to descide to go the fascist or communist route or the democratic and libertarian route.

 

[The Tollan]

It appears that the early Autocracy choices are the main ones a player would ever need if for some reason Autocracy were useful to unlock.

Populism and Militarism are the probably the most useful Autocratic SPs. Still, it would require one to pay a high price to not get Freedom and get these (I haven't actually used Autocracy though so this is speculation). If one got Big Ben, Militarism, and Mercantalism then Militarism has a large effect but whether this is worth the effort would need to be tested. Police State seems much weaker than most late game policies and I haven't seen many cases where Fascism would do too much.

I agree that the Order choices are quite useful. It seems that Forbidden Palace plus Planned Economy eliminates unhappiness from city number (not sure if this holds for India).

 

[Ahriman]

If you're running a military game, why would you really need specialists or culture?

Just trading post spam and buy a huge army and roll over the world. Their specialists and culture bonuses won't save them.

 

[qyll]

I've never gone Freedom unless I was going for culture. I almost always go down Rationalism or continue down Patronage. Autocracy's initial bonus (33% off unit maintenance) is the only one I get.

 

[vendur]

I usually mostly hold puppet empires in deity/immortal, so rationalism seems to be a better policy tree. Sometimes I even purposely go into -5 ot lower happiness so my puppets all send their workes to the trading posts.

 

[Khaim]

No love for Piety? The -20% from pop is huge, and the +2 doesn't hurt either. Is it always better to hold off for Rationalism?

 

[stii]

No love for Piety? The -20% from pop is huge, and the +2 doesn't hurt either. Is it always better to hold off for Rationalism?

I think it roughly depends on how many policies you plan on getting and when.

If you don't want anty of the first three or patronage it is a very long wait for rationalism. If you taken honour or pantronage you are probably better off waiting for rationalism as the two free techs will acclerate whatever your end game plan is, even if the plan is just mech infantry>attack.

 

[Double A]

No love for Piety? The -20% from pop is huge, and the +2 doesn't hurt either. Is it always better to hold off for Rationalism?

Piety is freaking awesome. I love the 50% of excess happiness = free culture policy.
And that one where you get 2 for free ain't half bad either.

 

[Nunya]

I've used Autocracy in my advance start Russian game. Fascism and Siberian Riches seem to multiply each other instead of simply adding up so you get about 4x resources. I had over 20 Uranium so I could build lots of Nuclear Plants and still have more than enough left to field a small army of Giant Death Robots. It was a fun game even though I must agree that autoracy is underwhelming considering how late it comes and what you have to give up to get it.

As for Police State, it's main purpose seems to be to allow you conquering a large number of cities in a short time without crashing your happiness. It's supposed to provide stability while you're busy building those Courthouses. And yes, you are probably still better off with Planned Economy.

 

[Ahriman]

As for Police State, it's main purpose seems to be to allow you conquering a large number of cities in a short time without crashing your happiness. It's supposed to provide stability while you're busy building those Courthouses

I haven't tested it, but with Police state, why do you need to build courthouses? If you have -50% unhappy in all occupied cities, and being occupied (ie annexed without a courthouse) doubles unhappiness, then doesn't police state mean that annexed cities are just like normal cities?

 

[Meanness]

Don't you get more happiness from piety + order, not to mention the +5 production bonus per city? With the higher happiness, you can have more/bigger cities, which is like getting a science bonus anyway.

 

[ShaqFu]

Don't you get more happiness from piety + order, not to mention the +5 production bonus per city? With the higher happiness, you can have more/bigger cities, which is like getting a science bonus anyway.

Not really, since it becomes increasingly hard to grow cities after a point, until you hit what's functionally a food cap (usually in the low/mid teens - there's a reason so few cities get over 12-13 pop).

 

[malitano]

any thoughts on Honor?

Is there any synergy in honor + patronage for domination (elite units, cheap upgrade + slightly more CS food, more science, resource and happiness)

what do you guys think has the best synergy with honor in general

 

[alpaca]

any thoughts on Honor?

Is there any synergy in honor + patronage for domination (elite units, cheap upgrade + slightly more CS food, more science, resource and happiness)

what do you guys think has the best synergy with honor in general

Military Tradition is pretty awesome but the rest is crap. Upgrading is pretty cheap already so the Professional Army SP is better spent elsewhere, the basic policy itself is really bad, Warrior Code is ok if you get it very early but otherwise meh, Military Caste is utterly useless and the worst of all happiness policies. Discipline is ok but nothing very special because the bonus doesn't stack afaik

I never picked up any of the Honor policies I didn't need for Military Tradition

 

[Lyoncet]

I haven't tested it, but with Police state, why do you need to build courthouses? If you have -50% unhappy in all occupied cities, and being occupied (ie annexed without a courthouse) doubles unhappiness, then doesn't police state mean that annexed cities are just like normal cities?

That depends on how they handle the -50% unhappiness. It's plausible that they won't interact as we would expect, given the weirdness inherent in things like Gandhi + Planned Economy + Forbidden Palace only giving half of the effect the descriptions indicate.

 

[pi-r8]

any thoughts on Honor?

Is there any synergy in honor + patronage for domination (elite units, cheap upgrade + slightly more CS food, more science, resource and happiness)

what do you guys think has the best synergy with honor in general

honor is extremely powerful if you're doing any sort of early rush strategy. You don't really need to combine it with anything, you can just steamroll everybody with your ultra elite army.