Problem with Ideologies

[Micadi]

In my last 5 campaigns that I played during last two months I've encountered serious problem with Ideologies. Every civ (aside from China) would always pick freedom (no matter the circumstances - if I was the first one to pick freedom or different ideology or if I was behind in culture). Almost every game was on different vox populi version (staring with latest stable version, my current campaign on latest beta patch). Since I didn't notice anyone else reporting this issue, I've come to believe that there must be an issue on my end.

I'm playing mega campaigns on giant earth map (ynaemp) usually with around 40 civs (including custom ones that are supposed to be compatible with Vox Populi). No bad events, no vasalization and no diplomatic victory as settings. Is one of above setting choices affecting that badly ideology system?

As a side note, great work with the stability of the mod. When I first tried out Community Patch (3-4 years ago) I couldn't get past turn 250 on ynaemp map, while now I can easily finish campaigns (no crashes till the game end on turn 430 in my last finished game)

 

[Stalker0]

I can definitely say that is not happening to me. Last few games have had a fine mix of ideologies.

 

[Enginseer]

I'm playing mega campaigns on giant earth map (ynaemp) usually with around 40 civs (including custom ones that are supposed to be compatible with Vox Populi). No bad events, no vasalization and no diplomatic victory as settings. Is one of above setting choices affecting that badly ideology system?

A victory condition can greatly change one choose its ideology. Even eliminating the victory that other ideologies don't favor can cause other civs to not lean toward a diplo victory and affect its flavoring.

Mainly in a nutshell the AI choose its ideology like..

(gee how many victory types are there)
(what am i more likely to pursue a type of victory?)
(which ideology favor my likelihood to pursue that victory?)
(what do i have to lose for choosing this ideology?)

These 4 main factors affecting how an ideology is chosen by the AI. And I've seen worlds with multiple autocracies against a small few bastions of Freedom.

 

[bigcat88]

To see if problem exist we need "PolicyAILog.csv" file, after ideologies was adopted.
There will be lines that describes why AI choose it. Without it we can only read fortune

 

[Micadi]

snip

I might be wrong here, but isn't Freedom favouring the diplomatic victory? It wouldn't make sense at all if it was true.

To see if problem exist we need "PolicyAILog.csv" file, after ideologies was adopted.
There will be lines that describes why AI choose it. Without it we can only read fortune

How do I get this file? I have logging enabled, but I don't see a file like this in the Log folder.

 

[Enginseer]

I might be wrong here, but isn't Freedom favouring the diplomatic victory? It wouldn't make sense at all if it was true.

No, Diplomatic Victories discourage Order which would make Order less evident, however encouraging Diplomatic Victory as a condition will make players more viable to choose Autocracy than Freedom(if they feel like they can pursue either a diplomatic victory or a conquest victory).

Then you don't have an imbalance of ideologies. The strongest civilizations may choose a mix of autocracy and freedom which then results in the chance of some civs getting Order as they are not overwhelmed by a mass amount of freedom in their country.

 

[Micadi]

No, Diplomatic Victories discourage Order which would make Order less evident, however encouraging Diplomatic Victory as a condition will make players more viable to choose Autocracy than Freedom(if they feel like they can pursue either a diplomatic victory or a conquest victory).

Then you don't have an imbalance of ideologies. The strongest civilizations may choose a mix of autocracy and freedom which then results in the chance of some civs getting Order as they are not overwhelmed by a mass amount of freedom in their country.

I'm sorry, but I think I'm misunderstanding you here. By saying "diplomatic victories discourage order" do you mean not having diplo victory enabled (as in my campaigns) or having it enabled? Because if it is the later one it would be complete opposite to what is happening for me (I don't have diplo victory enabled at all and I didn't see order ideology in at least 5 last campaigns coming from AI). Only China sometimes picks Autocracy, literally everyone else every time goes freedom.

 

[matlajs]

From an amateur perspective, i would say that ideology choice is also based on ideological(tourism) pressure. If there is strong tourism civ and culture runaway at all, then other civs, which are already influenced before ideology choice, often pick rather culture leader ideology, rather than the opposite, what makes a little to no sense to me, because they should want to get -50% from different ideologies .

 

[Enginseer]

From an amateur perspective, i would say that ideology choice is also based on ideological(tourism) pressure. If there is strong tourism civ and culture runaway at all, then other civs, which are already influenced before ideology choice, often pick rather culture leader ideology, rather than the opposite, what makes a little to no sense to me, because they should want to get -50% from different ideologies .

The AI are less flavored by ideological pressure since you get a influential immunity over a short period of time before encountering sudden tourism pressure. This allows the top 20% to start picking their ideologies on what they want. However, you do have rare scenarios where the top 20% pick the same ideology which means you as a human must defy the "Freedom" of this world just as Communism and Fascism has done it.

 

[matlajs]

you get a influential immunity over a short period of time before encountering sudden tourism pressure

I am aware of this being in game. However, i could swear, that i have also seen in one of my ,,not to long before'' games a Denmark picking autocracy and few turns later, he switched to Freedom due to Iroques pressure( But Harald also had a lot of natural unhappiness which, if i do understand it correctly, should not be taken into account for ideology pressure)

 

[bigcat88]

Truly I liked the old ideologies system more(with free tenet for first adopter). Then almost in all games first three policies leaders will pick different ideologies.

 

[matlajs]

I would be greatfull, if there was a way to make an ideologies more independant from tourism pressure. Because right now it is just mostly 1 tourism dominant civ with a herd of culturaly weak civs vs one ideology(which is often just a human player). But i would lie if i say, that there are no variable, rich games. they are just so few.

 

[Zanteogo]

I find the AI will often pick all three fairy equally, but it doesn't take long for the AI to all the fall in line with what every civ has the highest influence.

As a player I will try to work past this to try to win, while the AI is quick to change.

 

[Micadi]

Playing new campaign, this time all victory types allowed, everyone still chooses freedom. There is definitely something wrong in my game, something is definitely interfering with ideology selection.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Playing new campaign, this time all victory types allowed, everyone still chooses freedom. There is definitely something wrong in my game, something is definitely interfering with ideology selection.

I didn't have any numbers to proof, but by my observations, the freedom ideology is picked more often than the other 2. Freedom is definitely the strongest of the 3. Cause it's so universal to everything and it have some tenets which are definitely wrong in freedom ideology.
Why does freedom have a tenet like "no XP penalty at purchase of units and 50% more supply cap from population", that's definitely an authority thing.
But I think, theres another reason why freedom makes often the majority. Its the best option for culture victory, and all those culture and tourismn giants picking it, creating pressure to all non freedom picks, which end in pressure and revolt.

 

[ttmtgtg]

in my current game, everyone choice Freedom till now, 100% rate ( 14/22 civs, other died or haven't adopt ideology yet), making the game so boring. Think of have a new game to test again now. I'm playing v 10-10

 

[neo_arcadia]

Report it to github please, for Gazebo's sake.

 

[Micadi]

I am not sure this is reportable though. Most people does not have this problem or it happens very rarely to them. I thought that this is somewhat specific to my choice of settings and mods

 

[YukiN]

I am not sure this is reportable though. Most people does not have this problem or it happens very rarely to them. I thought that this is somewhat specific to my choice of settings and mods

You can still report it. Let someone familiar with the code look through the log files and say for sure if this is a compatibility issue or a deeper problem.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Ive walked through the ideologies and wanted to summarize, how many of their tenets are universally useful or only useful for one victory condition.
This is the result:

Freedom
Small general advantage - 3
Big universal advantage - 10
Domination related
Tourismn related -1
Science related - 1
Diplomatic - 1
Espionage - 1

Order
Small general advantage - 2
Big universal advantage - 9
Domination related - 1
Tourismn related - 2
Science related - 1
Diplomatic
Espionage - 2

Autocracy
Small general advantage - 2
Big universal advantage - 3
Domination related - 5
Tourismn related - 3
Science related -
Diplomatic - 4
Espionage

(Please note, this is a subjective opinion and some may see the separation differently)
The freedom ideology has the most universal tenets, helping in so many aspects of the game, and only a few are specific related to the victory conditions.
Order has also wide offer of universal tenets, but not as much as freedom, making it a valiable choice for diverent victory types
Autocraty splits all their tenets very wide to domination, tourismn and diplomatic, but the amount of tenets which helps your empire in general is only as half as big as in the other ideologies.

In my last 4 games, freedom was always the dominant ideology, in most cases +75% of the world had picked it. Its obviosly why, cause it offers so much non specific bonuses which improve your nation in general, even a domination orientated civ could pick it and get a lot of use out of it.