Rationalism vs ideology

[mathfreq]

Emperor player here, looking to improve my science game. I consistently have a hard time finishing SV faster than late 200's or so, even with OP civs like Korea or Babylon.

Maybe I'm bad at timing my culture, but I always seem to hit ideology (typically through Radio beeline) before I've had a chance to flesh out the Rationalism policies. I understand that Secularism and Free Thought are important for getting my bpt up, but are they important enough that I should be prioritizing them over ideology policies? What's the optimal policy order, and on a related note, is the optimal order different between Freedom and Order?

Any tips are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[joncnunn]

This has more to do with are you after science victory, diplomatic victory, or cultural victory and weather or not you still have pending RA agreements

Science Victory:

Freedom: Assuming you got 2 free ones, then unless you are currently in a GA, it's worth delaying Rationalism by choosing Universal Suffrage. But then go back to Rationalism at least until the only thing left is the bonus from RAs to close.
If you actually have active RAs when you can complete Rationalism, you should do so to get full value from the RAs, (And unblocked an expensive tech before hand). Otherwise if you aren't getting any more RAs anyway you may want to delay for a more expensive free tech.

Order: The science boosting tenet there rates behind top left, ahead of top right, about equal with bottom right, and way ahead of center and bottom left.

Diplomatic victory:
If you went Order, complete Rationalism first as there are no direct bonuses towards diplomatic victory within order.
If you went Freedom but the World Council embargoed city states, see above.
Otherwise, you probably do want to get the Freedom level 3 tenet ASAP to max out your city state boosts and then go back to Rationalism.

Cultural:
For Sacred Sites gambit, definately the tenets.
For more standard cultural, then for Freedom:
Universal Suffrage first (unless currently in a GA). Then top left and two right Rationalism. At that point the Freedom level 3 tenet and completing Aesthetics would both take precedence.

Order: I think both Order tourism tenets ,the science tenet, and completing aesthetics would all take precedence over Rationalism.

 

[phillipwyllie]

I'm going to assume you lock your tiles down and send food trade routes first and the like. My first suggestion is to build 1 more city than you normally would, in a good location. On Emperor RAs should never signed, rather the gold used to rush buy the science buildings. Start with your capital then buy in cities that would yield the most science. Plan ahead and take out loans from your friends to give you the right amount of gold, just don't make your gpt to low.

One strategy I use is to try and make my capital as strong as possible as quick as possible by sending all available trade routes to it. Then when the time comes I build all the guilds and the Iron Works. When the WC is founded I propose the World's Fair and my goal is to have the Hermitage built by the vote. with a strong capital you can get away with only "building" the World's Fair in your capital if needed. When you reach around 1200 hammers you can say you have won it. Winning the WF will ensure you will have little/no ideological pressure later on.

t200 Plastics is a target you want to be aiming for. Achieve this and you have effectively won and many "problems" will go away when you train a few plastic infantry.

 

[Sessy]

always try to keep cultural friends/allies. remember to build the wonder to get a free policy in your ideology, preferably SoL. Get at least second place in world's fair. You should have enough to work with. by late 200's do you mean 180-190? That's insanely fast even for science civs....

 

[sun8119]

Late 200 is actually not that bad. You can sometimes win even on deity in the late 200's.

First I always use 3 tenets (2 from being the first) and 1 as soon as it is available. Then finish rationalism (time free tech, and GW bulbs with your tech tree).

For Freedom: 25% GP generation, specialists consume half food, and half unhappiness.
For Order: 25% GP generation, cheaper building, and 25% science from factories (if you are about to build factories in the next few turns).

If you struggle with happiness then you probably have to choose appropriate tenets.

After this you finish rationalism, usually you get at least 2-3 policies from winning WF. And you must be winning WF on emperor, it is just it takes ages to complete on Emperor Bulb GWs (2-3 at least) 8 turns after your max culture output after winning WF. Ally at least 1 cultural CS.

 

[stormtrooper412]

If you're on Emperor, then you *can* try and get the GL and beeline straight to Philosophy for a quick NC before you get your multiple cities up. The key is growth, and production comes in play later. You should try to get the most out of Rationalism as early as possible, get PT and start spamming RAs. Around the time you get to ideology, you may not be able to choose what's best for your finishing time, but what's best for your survival because if you're going for a SV you're likely not be able to churn out much tourism and your own culture will defend you only for so long. In G&K it was almost mandatory to burn a GE to get PT just in case, but in BNW I use the GE to rush Hubble, which if you did get, pretty much secures you the SV. Be warned, you *may* not need to burn GE for that but you never know.

If you're going Freedom, there's no need to rush the level 3 Tenet, especially if you're having happiness issues. Focus on that and growth. If you're going Order, the science bonus from factories is really good to have but again, no need to rush past that. Either way, you need to time your free techs/spies to get the ones you need as soon as available and then use your own science/RAs to level out the tree. You get free techs from Oxford, Rationality finisher and whatever your spy can get. But that last part is meaningless if you run away with your technology.

Don't plant your GSs either, maybe one or two, but save the rest (you should have at least 5), to get the last part of the tech tree

As for the culture strat, here's what I did:

Settle cities quickly, get those guys out while there's land to be grabbed. Then try and grow them as much as your happiness allows, and make sure you get NC early. Getting a religion up is also good but more often that not, you'll be late for that party, unless you hit two religious CSs and a pantheon just appears out of nowhere. Around that time you should max your GP modifiers and have both the Writers and Artists generated. Naturally, save them for when you align yourself with the era you want to make the most of. However you need to plan ahead with your Wonders, because if you get Uffizi, Sistine, Louvre AND Hermitage, good luck getting the bonus out of all of them I also had 2 GEs saved up, one from Liberty finisher and other from Pisa, naturally I used both to steal the wonders my spies saw were being built :]

Policy-wise, you need Secularism from Rationalism and then try and finish Aesthetics. With a culture game going, policies will come out more quickly and if you have Globe Theater and Oxford both filled out, the only need for GWs is to burn them for more culture. In one game I finished Exploration for hidden sites which I used for free GWs, I burned through the tree so fast, I had to pick useless freedom tenets because I already finished all policies I needed. Make sure to win World Fair even if you're not a religious civ. Around the same time I had national visitors center, International games and Internet finished and that blew my tourism off the charts. The rest was just faith bought GMs bombing all over the place

 

[consentient]

My advice is to get used to getting good win times without rationalism before they nerd it. Ideologies are way better anyhow.

 

[Acken]

For pure science
Secularism > Ideology 3 (2 free + 1tier 2) > Free Thought

Getting secularism before ideology should be easy anyway. Then, the tier 2 from ideology is usually better than slowly going for free thought with either massive happiness (freedom) or better science from fatory (order)

 

[beetle]

I consistently have a hard time finishing SV faster than late 200's or so, even with OP civs like Korea or Babylon.

I think you are fine, and ready to move up a difficulty level. It is somewhat counter intuitive, but SV actually take fewer turns as you move up difficulty levels. That’s because trade routes, RAs, and tech stealing are all significantly more effective at getting the player science.

 

[59saintdane]

Not to mention early worker steals and being able to get more gold and luxuries from the AI.

 

[mathfreq]

Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful responses. I finished another game just now, following some of the tips I read in this thread and some other threads around here.

It was an Emperor Pangaea game as Korea, standard size and speed. I achieved turn 283 SV, one of my fastest. I rerolled until I found a good map, ending up with a decent coastal mountain start. Second city was coastal mountain desert Petra. Ended up with 5 cities total, all coastal, and abused internal trade routes for almost the entire game.

No research agreements were signed. All science buildings besides library were bought in capital, usually hardbuilt elsewhere.

Great scientists were 2 GS planted, 5 GS saved, plus 2 GS from HST, plus 2 GS faith bought. Additionally, 1 GE (from Pisa) was used to rush SoL, 1 GE (natural born) rushed HST, and 1 GE (faith bought) for Sydney --> Rationalism closer --> Particle Physics. Writers were burned 8 turns after WF. Artists were bulbed for a semi-perma golden age as soon as I hit Universal Suffrage (GA finally ended around the time I researched Satellites). Musicians were deleted (lol).

Final social policies were 6 Tradition, 3 Patronage (to Scholasticism), 3 Commerce (to Mercantilism), 6 Rationalism, 6 Freedom. I followed Jon's and Acken's advice on policy order for Rationalism vs Ideology. Patronage was picked up only because WF came relatively late, and I had 4 writers saved up by then.

I built science for the 8 turns leading up to Satellites, reaching a peak bpt of ~1828. Bulbed one GS per turn starting on the turn Satellites was researched. All spaceship parts were purchased.

A few milestones:
* T88 NC with 3 cities
* ~T110 (I forget exactly) final city founded
* T120 Education
* T141 Astronomy
* T185 ST
* T197 Freedom (via Oxford into Radio)
* T215 Plastics
* T272 Satellites
* T276 Completed Apollo Project
* T283 SV


So after all that, I guess my question is how do I win faster? I'm sure that there's a lot of room for improvement. In particular, Education, ST, Plastics milestones feel late, and the span between ideology and victory seems longer than it should be as well (I remember reading somewhere a post that it should only be ~50 turns between ideology and victory). Is there anything that seems like I'm doing just glaringly wrong? As always, thanks in advance.

Also, the suggestions to jump up a difficulty are appreciated. I may give immortal a whirl one of these days, but lately I've been focused more on trying to reduce my win time on emperor first.

 

[consentient]

First of all, congratulations on a decent SV

Secondly, looking at your benchmarks, I think that there are a few places where you can speed up:

1. T120 education is way too slow. Try for T105. After Philosophy, beeline it. You don't need construction. If you can't bribe the warmonger to look elsewhere, they are gonna kill you most likely, and if you have to fight defensive wars, you're not gonna get fast finish times. So something went a bit wrong (sub-optimal between NC (which was fine) and Education. Maybe not enough growth? Too many unnecessary buildings? Using specialists too early?

2. Another place is Industrial. Personally, I would use everything at your disposal to make sure that Industrial doesn't last very long at all. Assuming you enter through Scientific Theory, use a GS/tech steal/free tech to take Electricity ASAP and then time the construction of Oxford University so you can take Freedom earlier. Timing all these things together is really difficult while trying to accelerate, but the way I did it with my earliest SV was to play really slowly and perform the necessary calculations every time I had to make a build decision etc.

Also, if you play on Immortal and Deity, you will probably find you finish quicker. Like you, for a while I tried to 'perfect' Emperor, but found it much more enjoyable and instructive to watch Deity LPs and get used to the game at that level. Playing along with a VidLP and doing what they do, then trying a new map and trying to replicate what you learned, is a good method for learning, IMO.

 

[Sessy]

I think you have the science maxed out as korea, but towards the end before you bulb, you can squeeze a bit more beakers by setting all specialists on, and each generates 4 science. I'm guessing the end turn discrepancy is mainly because of lack of RAs, but they're not worth a ton anyways on emperor.

 

[consentient]

Cultural:
For Sacred Sites gambit, definately the tenets.

If you want to use SS, you should win LONG before Ideologies. Probably before Renaissance.

 

[Strickl3r]

First of all, congratulations on a decent SV

Secondly, looking at your benchmarks, I think that there are a few places where you can speed up:

1. T120 education is way too slow. Try for T105. After Philosophy, beeline it. You don't need construction. If you can't bribe the warmonger to look elsewhere, they are gonna kill you most likely, and if you have to fight defensive wars, you're not gonna get fast finish times. So something went a bit wrong ....

I think this sounds very lame. Play the map, don't just start a game and say, i want a turn 250 science victory. If you happen to have a dangerous neighbourhood, go for construction. Otherwise you miss all the fun the game has to offer and waste your time with rerolling and reloading/replaying tons of maps.(just my personal opinion btw, there seems to be a lot of relaoding/replaying going on, which used to be considered very lame in these forums, but it seems like the majority of users has changed a bit^^)

Regarding rationalism finisher, i like to time it so that i can pick sattelites with it, if that is within reason.

 

[klaskeren]

if you are not finishing before turn 250 you should be able to fill ratio and get a tier 3 ideology before that turn, in which case its best to get: secularism, tier 2 idelogy, free thought, tier 3 ideology, finish ratio.

 

[Johnpecan]

Also to note, you can get a much faster SV on deity compared to emperor because you will get much more from your research agreements/trade routes/espionage .

 

[Muskie]

I think this sounds very lame. Play the map, don't just start a game and say, i want a turn 250 science victory. If you happen to have a dangerous neighbourhood, go for construction. Otherwise you miss all the fun the game has to offer and waste your time with rerolling and reloading/replaying tons of maps.(just my personal opinion btw, there seems to be a lot of relaoding/replaying going on, which used to be considered very lame in these forums, but it seems like the majority of users has changed a bit^^)

Regarding rationalism finisher, i like to time it so that i can pick sattelites with it, if that is within reason.

I always play the map I get and don't tweak things to get the map I need. I also try different strategies but my main victory fallback seems to be diplomacy. Science is easier than cultural. Cultural is probably the most difficult especially if there are lots of enemy civilizations who work on culture. I think playing just Babylon or Korea and going science every game would get boring. I try to experiment a bit but usually fall back on my buy off the city states and vote myself emperor for life strategy.

 

[Bleidraner]

Thanks for all the thoughtful and helpful responses. I finished another game just now, following some of the tips I read in this thread and some other threads around here.

It was an Emperor Pangaea game as Korea, standard size and speed. I achieved turn 283 SV, one of my fastest. I rerolled until I found a good map, ending up with a decent coastal mountain start. Second city was coastal mountain desert Petra. Ended up with 5 cities total, all coastal, and abused internal trade routes for almost the entire game.

No research agreements were signed. All science buildings besides library were bought in capital, usually hardbuilt elsewhere.

Great scientists were 2 GS planted, 5 GS saved, plus 2 GS from HST, plus 2 GS faith bought. Additionally, 1 GE (from Pisa) was used to rush SoL, 1 GE (natural born) rushed HST, and 1 GE (faith bought) for Sydney --> Rationalism closer --> Particle Physics. Writers were burned 8 turns after WF. Artists were bulbed for a semi-perma golden age as soon as I hit Universal Suffrage (GA finally ended around the time I researched Satellites). Musicians were deleted (lol).

Final social policies were 6 Tradition, 3 Patronage (to Scholasticism), 3 Commerce (to Mercantilism), 6 Rationalism, 6 Freedom. I followed Jon's and Acken's advice on policy order for Rationalism vs Ideology. Patronage was picked up only because WF came relatively late, and I had 4 writers saved up by then.

I built science for the 8 turns leading up to Satellites, reaching a peak bpt of ~1828. Bulbed one GS per turn starting on the turn Satellites was researched. All spaceship parts were purchased.

A few milestones:
* T88 NC with 3 cities
* ~T110 (I forget exactly) final city founded
* T120 Education
* T141 Astronomy
* T185 ST
* T197 Freedom (via Oxford into Radio)
* T215 Plastics
* T272 Satellites
* T276 Completed Apollo Project
* T283 SV


So after all that, I guess my question is how do I win faster? I'm sure that there's a lot of room for improvement. In particular, Education, ST, Plastics milestones feel late, and the span between ideology and victory seems longer than it should be as well (I remember reading somewhere a post that it should only be ~50 turns between ideology and victory). Is there anything that seems like I'm doing just glaringly wrong? As always, thanks in advance.

Also, the suggestions to jump up a difficulty are appreciated. I may give immortal a whirl one of these days, but lately I've been focused more on trying to reduce my win time on emperor first.

This is a good victory especially at emperor, no AI has enough money or techs fast enough for decent RAs. As mentioned before your Edu seems late, sometimes there are good reasons for it like no money to rush buy unis, but it is late. Also, and I think this is key, too many GEs, they up the counter for GSs so each of them is delaying your victory. If you post the initial autosave, happy to play the same map and offer some advice, if I get a significantly different result. But as I said that is a good victory already.

 

[qemist]

I think this sounds very lame. Play the map, don't just start a game and say, i want a turn 250 science victory. If you happen to have a dangerous neighbourhood, go for construction. Otherwise you miss all the fun the game has to offer and waste your time with rerolling and reloading/replaying tons of maps.(just my personal opinion btw, there seems to be a lot of relaoding/replaying going on, which used to be considered very lame in these forums, but it seems like the majority of users has changed a bit^^)

I've noticed that too. I avoid this sub-forum because it seems to be dominated by deity victory turn time e-peen waving. Much of the advice assumes you are either going to be very lucky or you reload.