Order vs Freedom Questions

[ezbutton]

I rarely ever take order policies mainly because I usually play on standard sized maps, where freedom normally performs better. But I finally decided to try it out by playing a huge map and find it amazing to ease the burden of happiness.

I was wondering how many cities I would need for order to be useful and also how many pop per city I should have to make order worthwhile? Also, if I were playing a standard sized map and somehow manage to have 6 15pop cities but a total of 20 cities would freedom be better for happiness or order?

Mainly, I'm just wondering when and what circumstances would I need for order to out perform freedom in terms of happiness?

 

[joncnunn]

Base Order actually works nice even if your not planning on getting anything underneath it [as long as your not getting any of Freedom or Autocracy] and would like more happiness, similar to Rationalism [if your not getting any of Piety] and want to sign RAs.

Base Order is -1 unhappy per city.
It normally directly competes against the Freedom specialists which is a few sub-polices deep.
Also if you got big via conquering it competes against the Autocracy subpolicy that makes courthouses even more effective than normal.

 

[NotSure]

I only open order if I'm desperate for immediate happiness. I suppose there are two other policies in order that are good for wide empires (increase in production & university output), but the nerfs to this tree and the patronage tree have kept me from using them much at all. As far as happiness goes, my experience has been that the freedom policy provides the same happiness with only one specialist (puppets) and more happiness for my core cities.

Order might be good if you have many low-pop cities and you plan to turtle the rest of the way to a victory? Of course most of these low-pop cities should be under your control (founded or annexed), be production or gold focused (with only a very few using specialists) and have both factories and universities. As a full track, Order doesn't seem to address any victory condition better than the alternatives. If you're just looking for a quick happiness fix, and aren't looking for the best overall track, or will likely not get many more policies, then the order opener does seem like a good pick.

Under the second scenario you described, freedom is probably better. Higher pop cities will get more happiness benefit out of freedom because the specialist benefit rounds up (3 specialists = 2 happiness). If you've managed to get that many cities up around 12 pop with three scientist slots a piece, you can see why it would be better. Some puppets will even work multiple merchant slots due to the low food consumption and happiness benefit.

 

[Glassmage]

Order + Science = win!

 

[ezbutton]

As a full track, Order doesn't seem to address any victory condition better than the alternatives. If you're just looking for a quick happiness fix, and aren't looking for the best overall track, or will likely not get many more policies, then the order opener does seem like a good pick.

Yeah, I've always found Order to be underwhelming considering Freedom (specifically reformation) has more utility and better control over happiness rather than straight +1 happiness per city. In fact of the three mutually exclusive policies, I find order to be the weakest with freedom having the greatest flexibility of the three.

Even when I'm supposed to have favorable circumstances to pick up order (playing a Huge map w/ 30 odd cities in my pocket), I still find it very weak and more worthwhile to complete other policy trees than try pursue the deeper policies in order.

 

[joncnunn]

The main reason I rarely complete the whole Order tree is it doesn't open until Industrial era. This tends to result in for me by the time I'm done completing the tree game is already effectively over.
If it were available at beginning of Rennanance it would be an interesting alternative to the standard Rationalism as it would complete in time to do more good. I guess the downside of that would be choosing sub policies that require Factories before you have the tech to build them.

 

[chazzycat]

It's relatively straightforward IMO.

Freedom - any specialist heavy approach should go for Freedom. Usually this is more applicable for a smaller, taller empire, just due to the way those empires develop over time.
Order - An empire going for a population-heavy approach to science without much conquering should go for order, for the extra happiness and factory science boost. You need to have a wide empire for the population-heavy approach to work. I would recommend at least 8-9 cities at the minimum on standard size.
Autocracy - For domination wins only, or pseudo-domination science wins, where most of your population is coming from conquered cities.

The best choice is going to depend on the map most of the time. It's somewhat rare to be able to peacefully expand to the size needed for a population-heavy approach, so reserve order for those situations where the map gives you a lot of room for expansion. If you get a smaller area to naturally expand to, you can choose to go tall/specialist/freedom or warmonger/honor/autocracy.

I play on immortal where I find all three branches to be viable depending on the situation. The lower the difficulty level, the more likely you are going to be able to use Order, because the AI expands slower. On deity the chances of having a good Order game are pretty small.

 

[bhavv]

Freedom is usually better for tall empires, Order for wide.

Heres a video I previously made with some serious freedom + GP farming abuse:


Link to video.

 

[ezbutton]

Well my complaint is that order isn't worth it, especially if playing on a standard sized map. It might have one of the best openers since happiness policies are normally deeper in social policy trees but overall its a weak policy tree that most likely won't get the finisher. All the other policies in order are pretty weak aside from planned economy for the extra science modifier to factories. Even then I think freedom would be more beneficial cause of the ability to spam GS and bulb. Granted it does restrict you from getting other GPs you may want but chances are you don't even need the other GPs.

I think overall order needs an overhaul. Its a social policy tree that does everything but excels at nothing in terms of victory condition. Even in domination I think freedom could be more viable than order (but I would normally take autocracy for that vc).