Rate the Tenets - part III: Order Tenets

[GhostSalsa]

That's not the entire story though, because Freedom allows you to get far bigger top cities than Order does. With the 50% food specialists and almost constant golden ages, Freedom will allow you to get a lot of additional food and production in your top cities than order does

Comparing a Freedom city and Order city working only scientists, Civil Society gives the freedom city 4 apples. Party Leadership gives the Order city one apple. So Freedom is a nice boost but, for cities only working scientist slots, not a game-changer with regard to n+1 growth after population 20 when it takes over 300 surplus apples to reach the next citizen.

Working Engineers as well, Civil Society "gives" the freedom city 8 apples total, but those engineer slots are still only lumber mill yield (1 3 with SoL). With science and happy bonuses tacked on, of course - but lumber mills don't grow your city. Two Freedom citizens working engineer slots with SoL is 2 / 6. Meanwhile in an Order city with 5-year-plan, the same two citizens can work a plains farm and a regular mine for 3 / 6 which shows that the Order civ can devote less citizens to mines to easily improve growth. Order creates more 5-yield tiles in all cities which is better for growth than Civil Society, unless you were absurdly blessed with bonus-resource tiles.

Freedom either gives you 4 food per satellite city or lets satellite cities work engineers at less of a cost, but doesn't dramatically boost growth outside of the guild city, and Order has an indirect food bonus as well if you micro-manage your citizens.

 

[kaspergm]

Really interesting discussion going on here, keep it up by all means, but just want to throw in that people can still vote if they want, the vote is still open.

Disagree. Order is supposed to be one of the scientific ideologies, competitive with Freedom. Freedom already has Civil Society (more population = more science) and New Deal, (not too hard to have ~5 Academies down by the time it pops) and the generally superior level 3 science victory tenet. Order has Worker's Facilities, Party Leadership (lol), the lesser level 3 tenet, and arguably Double Agents. (since it helps you keep your tech lead)

Still need to acquire coal, still need to build the factories.

I'm not saying the idea of a science bonus from factories is bad. But I do think what is effectively +25 % per major city in all but the most rare cases is too much. Like others have pointed out, the policies in Rationalism offer you no more than about half that amount each. The factory requirement is not really a problem, because would you ever not build a factory, given the opportunity, even without the science bonus? And the coal requirement, while coal distribution is notoriously skewed in most of my games, is rarely a serious problem, because you can almost always buy gold from an AI at almost no cost (bad AI programming) or in worst case from a city state, and even if you later lose that coal supply, your factories will still be working (bad game design).

 

[joncnunn]

For the Tradition / Order debate science: It's important to consider on the Freedom side that:

1. This will be stacked with Rationalism's science boost to specialists and Tradition's growth bonuses.
2. Probably stacked with Statue of Liberty (little competition from AI for it)
3. If the capital was founded on the coast it going to very quickly be running all possible specialist slots of all types due to Food Cargo ships.

(It's not only all guild & science slots the capital will work after the policy; it's also the engineer and even all merchant slots as well)

As to the non capital cities: While they probably won't be working merchant slots after this policy (food tends to be focused on the capital); there are very likely to add engineer slots.

 

[GoStu]

Level 1
4 - Hero of the People: +25% Great Person generation. Order may work fewer specialists than Freedom, but realistically they still work a similar amount of Scientists, Engineers, and Culture Guilds. Good effect.
5 - Socialist Realism: +2 Local Happiness from each Monument. Build Monuments in half the usual time. Goodbye, any problems my wide empire was having with Happiness.
3 - Skyscrapers: Gold cost of purchasing buildings reduced by 33%. Nice bonus, only really helps me bring late cities online quicker though.
1 - Patriotic War: +15% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory. I don't want to be getting any use out of this tenet. Also, this game has enough defender's advantage that I don't need this tenet. Spared a zero for not being absolutely worthless, but I'm no fan.
2 - Double Agents: Spies have double the chance to capture an enemy spy attempting to steal a technology. Can help cement a lead, but honestly: spies work really damn slow. I'm not afraid of them stealing techs: I hate having them coup city-states and such far more.
4 - Young Pioneers: +1 Local Happiness per Workshop, Factory and Solar/Nuclear/Hydro Plant. Very nice Happiness tenet.
0 - Universal Healthcare: +1 Local Happiness from each National Wonder. Very weak for Wide Order. I have maybe 3-4 National Wonders in my empire if I'm Wide: why burn a tenet for 2 Zoos? Big fat zero here.

Level 2
5 - Academy of Sciences: +1 Local Happiness per University, Observatory, Public School and Research Lab. You will build all these buildings where possible. You will receive Happiness. While I think this effect belongs in Rationalism, it's still very nice.
2 - Party Leadership: +1 Culture, Food, Gold, Production and Science per City. See Resettlement
2 - Resettlement: New Cities start with an extra 3 Population. I've played with both this and Party Leadership combined for a late-game expansion strategy. There was a lot of war and razing, and all those free resources plus free citizens helped me re-settle devastated areas. Combined, they're of some use in a tough situation. Internal trade routes were not a great option as I didn't want to commit that many routes. Also fun with Five-Year plan and Liberty, as cities start with a bunch of free production.
3 - Cultural Revolution: +34% Tourism to other Order Civilizations. Meh. It's useful, but only because of the AI's fetish for Order. Frankly, it's the civs with different ideologies who you need help with, not your fellow proletariat.
5 - Worker's Faculties: +25% Science output from Cities with a Factory. Build Factories in half the usual time. The single strongest tenet in the game. This is ridiculously good any way you look at it.
5 - Five-Year Plan: +2 Production per City. +1 Production per Mine and Quarry. I love this tenet. SO much production!

Level 3
3 - Dictatorship of the Proletariat: +34% Tourism to Civilizations with less Happiness. Quite strong, if you can get a culture lead anyways. Double whammy when you're crippling rivals with ideology unhappiness, AND getting more tourism to them. Worthless if you're not the leader though.
2 - Iron Curtain: Free Courthouse when capturing a City. +50% Food or Production from domestic trade routes. Yay? It's okay, but not as murderously strong as, say, Clausewitz's Legacy or any real combat boost. The Production boosts in level 2 are better for combat than this.
4 - Spaceflight Pioneers: May finish Spaceship Parts with Great Engineers. A Great Engineer and a Great Scientist appear near the Capital. Winner by default? A free scientist and engineer are really nice for other uses, and this might tip a space race your way. I'd rather grab more T2 tenets though than this first.

 

[kaspergm]

Ok, so after 21 votes, I will do the first count now. People can continue voting. Later this week, I'll make a thread with the final results of all three votes. The first results for Order are:

Level 1
4.2 - Socialist Realism: +2 Local Happiness from each Monument. Build Monuments in half the usual time.
4.0 - Hero of the People: +25% Great Person generation.
3.6 - Skyscrapers: Gold cost of purchasing buildings reduced by 33%.
3.6 - Young Pioneers: +1 Local Happiness per Workshop, Factory and Solar/Nuclear/Hydro Plant.
2.2 - Double Agents: Spies have double the chance to capture an enemy spy attempting to steal a technology.
1.9 - Universal Healthcare: +1 Local Happiness from each National Wonder.
1.8 - Patriotic War: +15% attack bonus when fighting in friendly territory.

Level 2
5.0 - Worker's Faculties: +25% Science output from Cities with a Factory. Build Factories in half the usual time.
4.6 - Five-Year Plan: +2 Production per City. +1 Production per Mine and Quarry.
3.8 - Academy of Sciences: +1 Local Happiness per University, Observatory, Public School and Research Lab.
2.8 - Cultural Revolution: +34% Tourism to other Order Civilizations.
2.2 - Party Leadership: +1 Culture, Food, Gold, Production and Science per City.
1.0 - Resettlement: New Cities start with an extra 3 Population.

Level 3
3.7 - Iron Curtain: Free Courthouse when capturing a City. +50% Food or Production from domestic trade routes.
3.6 - Spaceflight Pioneers: May finish Spaceship Parts with Great Engineers. A Great Engineer and a Great Scientist appear near the Capital.
3.4 - Dictatorship of the Proletariat: +34% Tourism to Civilizations with less Happiness.


A few comments: For the first time in all the votes I've managed, a subject gets a perfect 5.0 in average with no votes deviating. As many people have noted, Worker's Faculties may be the reason to pick Order ... I guess whether it's balanced is a subjective matter. Among the level 1 tenets, four tenets get very good scores, forming a solid base to build upon. Apart from Worker's Faculties in level 2, Five-Year Plan also score one of the highest averages of all the tenets. The level 3 tenet scores are pretty comparable to the other ideologies.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think Worker's Faculties is by far the best tenet/policy in the game, but - and this is a big but - Order itself is more or less balanced. If you nerfed WF in the wrong way with Wide already being heavily underwhelming compared to Tall, Order would pretty much become pointless.

Yeah, it'd be fine if other Order policies and/or Wide empires were also rebalanced (maybe change Resettlement to 5 population AND free tier 1 buildings in every city?), but with probably only one patch remaining I don't think we can really expect big social policy changes.

 

[Laurwin]

we voted, our voice was heard

Order is made really strong by the combos of good policies.

-You have strong lvl1 policies in socialist realism and hero of the people
-strongest lvl2 policies in the entire game.

you can work with that, even without any lvl3 policies. Extra hammers from 5-year, is frequently the needed edge that you receive for the final push for victory (either hard-build space parts at fast rate, or crank out the tanks from the factories to carry on the revolution abroad)

 

[redwings1340]

I think order would definitely be viable with a weaker workers faculties. For a wide empire in the lead, order is certainly far better than freedom, and still would be with like a 10% science boost. Still, while I think order is probably the most viable option for the most empires, freedom really shines in tall 3 cities or less empires (and is arguably better in 4 main city empires), while autocracy is better at higher difficulties when you're behind, or just want to steamroll everyone with domination.

Ideologies are definitely balanced and well implemented in my opinion. While there are universally good and bad social policies in each ideology, the fact that we can ignore the bad ones while still having a choice between the good and great ones makes this never be frustrating. I kind of wish the other social trees had this kind of system. Imagine if you could complete piety without taking religious tolerance, or get mercantilism while getting something other than the ability to purchase those pikemen things. It's useless policies that restrict choice the most when choosing between social policies, not strong policies, so the design of ideologies works really well by making it so you almost never need to take a useless policy.

 

[kaspergm]

Ideologies are definitely balanced and well implemented in my opinion. While there are universally good and bad social policies in each ideology, the fact that we can ignore the bad ones while still having a choice between the good and great ones makes this never be frustrating. I kind of wish the other social trees had this kind of system. Imagine if you could complete piety without taking religious tolerance, or get mercantilism while getting something other than the ability to purchase those pikemen things. It's useless policies that restrict choice the most when choosing between social policies, not strong policies, so the design of ideologies works really well by making it so you almost never need to take a useless policy.

I *really* hope that if CiVI has anything remotely resembling the current policy system that it will take the idea from ideologies and make it so that you can customize your policy tree from a larger pool. Even if there are some policies I never pick (which should perhaps get a boost) and some policies I always pick (which should perhaps get a nerf) I do feel that there is an actual variation from game to game with how I build my ideology, so if that was transferred to the other policy trees, the game would have a lot of more variation. I have a vague hope that someday someone will make a mod that does this for CiV, but I haven't gotten around to looking into that myself yet.

 

[GhostSalsa]

I *really* hope that if CiVI has anything remotely resembling the current policy system that it will take the idea from ideologies and make it so that you can customize your policy tree from a larger pool. Even if there are some policies I never pick (which should perhaps get a boost) and some policies I always pick (which should perhaps get a nerf) I do feel that there is an actual variation from game to game with how I build my ideology, so if that was transferred to the other policy trees, the game would have a lot of more variation. I have a vague hope that someday someone will make a mod that does this for CiV, but I haven't gotten around to looking into that myself yet.

It was NiGHTS. I never got to try it, being on a Mac.

BNW Ideologies seems to co-opt the a-la-carte tree format of NiGHTS or rather reflect that the devs realized it is what should have been in place all along (gross Vanilla culture victory, no tree customization, no synergy between trees, tree-finishing-for-tree-finishing's sake, vomit vomit vomit). Open trees are always best.

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