Should Ideologies unlock automatically?

[Yzman]

Maybe it is just me, but I have found that the AI is very late to adopt these in general and if I am not going for a Military path victory, it is best if I avoid them all together. They put political ideology civic in the way so you need to research it, but then they allowed you to avoid it by locking them behind more civics that are on a separate path. I think either making them unlock at political science or forcing you to research one of the civics next would be the best course. It would extend out civic tree, which people already say it needs and it would also make ideologies matter more. I currently rarely if ever get these going because even if I have them, AI doesn't.

 

[Stringer1313]

Thank you for posting this! I was just thinking about this. I agree 100% that at some point, everyone should be forced to pick something. I've also been annoyed at how long it takes for AI to pick one. In my games, they don't pick an ideology until 50% or more has passed -- and that's only some but not all of the AI.

The other problem with late ideology picking is that it does not provoke the inevitable conflict they are trying to provoke. It has been very easy for me to manipulate the AI into not declaring war on me, but it shouldn't be so easy in the modern age (or, frankly, in any other age).

 

[Morgawr]

100% agree, I just finished my Deity game at T49 culture victory, despite last patch changes (and using RHQ AI mod) it’s still way too quick if you focus all gold on on explorers and ignore rest of the game. Zero ideologies picked by AI or me, and zero wars.

Because modern age is designed rn to be just a “victory sprint” , agree unlock ideology from beginning. Or they really need to re-re-work CV again.

 

[evonannoredars]

They should incentivise the AI towards picking an ideology behind the scenes rather than making it a forced choice imo, it can be useful to hold off from picking one as a player to see what others pick first.

Although some sort of increasing universal relationship penalty per leader that has picked an ideology (ie peer pressure to choose an ideological side) would be ideal to go with that to discourage remaining neutral.

 

[ydejin]

Historically a lot of countries did try to stay on the sidelines. For the Cold War, for example, there was the non-alignment movement which deliberately set themselves up to not pick a side and while there wasn’t a multi-country movement during WW2, some countries acted similarly in that period as well. So I think not taking a side is a reasonable choice. It makes perfect sense for a player to decide not to engage and to try to stay neutral.

Arguing that the AI players should be more likely to pick a side and choose one earlier to make more interesting gameplay is a reasonable argument though. Although some of them should still potentially remain neutral.

 

[jsurpless]

Honestly, it's sometimes almost better to not pick an ideology yourself if you want to stay at peace with the world...

 

[pjotroos]

Either that, or the incentives need to be better. Most of my Modern games have 0 ideologies picked - AI doesn't go for them, and I rarely feel like the benefits justify the culture cost. It's not that they are bad, but if I research those, I am not working towards Hegemony or unlocking the civ-specific bonuses. I think if the first person to pick an ideology got the first two civics researched for free (and the 2nd first one), it would work better.

It also doesn't help that in terms of the policies Fascism is the strongest and Democracy is the weakest, and I'm really not all that keen at participating in the fascist renaissance right this moment.

Also-also, it would be nice if at least some of the leaders had their preferred ideologies, and gravitated towards those. It would avoid the thematic yuck of "Harriet Tubman joins Fascism", but it would also mean we can join one without risking all your alliances collapsing, if we could make an educated guess which way your allies will go.

 

[Stringer1313]

They should incentivise the AI towards picking an ideology behind the scenes rather than making it a forced choice imo, it can be useful to hold off from picking one as a player to see what others pick first.

Although some sort of increasing universal relationship penalty per leader that has picked an ideology (ie peer pressure to choose an ideological side) would be ideal to go with that to discourage remaining neutral.

yeah I like that idea. Maybe your tech/civics start slowing down the more people start picking ideologies, to reflect the backwards nature of your country or.. something something. And of course AI would have to take that into account.

And then on the flip side, you should get a reward for being the first to pick X ideology. That not only incentivizes you to be the first one to stick your neck out, it also encourages you to pick a different ideology than something already picked, sparking conflict but getting the first time reward

 

[Krikkit1]

yeah I like that idea. Maybe your tech/civics start slowing down the more people start picking ideologies, to reflect the backwards nature of your country or.. something something. And of course AI would have to take that into account.

And then on the flip side, you should get a reward for being the first to pick X ideology. That not only incentivizes you to be the first one to stick your neck out, it also encourages you to pick a different ideology than something already picked, sparking conflict but getting the first time reward

So say..
First player to pick a specific ideology gets a bonus
and
If you don’t have any ideology, you get a penalty based on the number of civs that Do have any ideology. (I like the idea of a+% to tech+civic costs)

 

[The_goggles_do_nothing]

Perhaps each time a civ picked an ideology pushes back the thresholds. Anyone having already reached a threshold would keep the reward.

 

[Nigel_Tufnel2]

It should be a somewhat simple matter to make a preferred Ideology some kind of Diplomatic Proposal for a low cost, or no cost. I'm not sure how the behind the scenes coding would work, but set up an expectation with rewards, and some form of punishment that could be muted by spending Diplo if one or the other parties doesn't follow through. I assume moving Ideology as suggested earlier would be required to make the proposals fairly current affairs.

 

[JNR13]

I think ideologies should be chosen through revolution events. Have each ideology connected to a hidden power level. For example, building more industrial buildings will increase Communism's power in your empire. At a certain threshold, you get the event and can either adopt the ideology or try to suppress it, which will spawn a bunch of rebel units to be defeated. Spy actions could be used to lower the threshold for your own ideology in other civs. Global age progress would also lower the threshold for all civs.

 

[UWHabs]

I do think the specialist yield bonuses for ideologies are worth rushing. Especially since a lot of the modern civ abilities aren't as game-breaking, I've gone down the ideology path at least one or two civics before completing my civ bonuses in most games so far.

But if Ideologies are strong, and it's worth going down, but you want to avoid angering anyone, I don't hate the notion of holding off on that as a risk/reward decision. My last game I went military, and captured a few cities before ideologies unlocked, and that was the hard part of the war. And then by the time i was taking their 4th or 5th cities, i got the ideology bonuses, and could finish off the age fairly quickly for those last few points needed.

 

[reddishrecue]

When I went in the modern game, I also chose no ideology. I just kept digging for archaeology throughout the world and got satellites. No wonder I didnt go to war with anyone and I was ready.

 

[stealth_nsk]

When I went in the modern game, I also chose no ideology. I just kept digging for archaeology throughout the world and got satellites. No wonder I didnt go to war with anyone and I was ready.

What difficulty level you're playing on? I sometimes could get away without wars on Immortal, but it's not often. And on Deity if you don't pick ideology, you just get attacked by everyone.

 

[HelloIAmW]

I don't think it needs to be very complicated at least for the current version of the game: Research political theory (or whatever the tech is) and then select the ideology from a menu to align with it, just like with governments. Depending on which you select then you can get the tab in the civic tree for the additional benefits should you want them, but your alignment for the sake of diplomacy is set. If I'm being honest though, would like to see a rework of ideologies, maybe closer to what they were in Civ 5. The current symmetrical design around specialists just feels like a really boring and unimpactful decision.

 

[tman2000]

Maybe it is just me, but I have found that the AI is very late to adopt these in general and if I am not going for a Military path victory, it is best if I avoid them all together. They put political ideology civic in the way so you need to research it, but then they allowed you to avoid it by locking them behind more civics that are on a separate path. I think either making them unlock at political science or forcing you to research one of the civics next would be the best course. It would extend out civic tree, which people already say it needs and it would also make ideologies matter more. I currently rarely if ever get these going because even if I have them, AI doesn't.

This is my core concept for a fix to the Modern Age. I would like it to be scenario driven and more of a "permanent" crisis.

What I'd do is have it so that once at least two ideologies are unlocked, an option is opened for anyone to join them. Generally, unhappiness spikes until you do. You ought to be able to join an ideology without researching, if the ideological crisis is triggered. So you shouldn't research communism/democracy/fascism, it should just be "political ideology" then you choose. This node should have benefits that are not available to those who haven't researched it, but if the crisis allows you to join an ideology early, you ought to be able to start researching the ideology trees. Maybe you receive the first node for free.

I know ideology affects agenda, but it should affect war weariness heavily. Warring against same ideology should induce more war weariness, and allying with same ideology should reduce war weariness. Without you being forced to ally with same ideology.

My cadence for the Modern Age is:

• Opening "Franco-Prussian War" with your legacy units at tier 1.
• Researching rail not ONLY opens railroads, but it should allow cities to now stretch to a 5-tile radius AND increase the farming town food bonus AND boost military production bonuses; this is meant to induce an arms race. Therefore, once half the players have unlocked rail everyone will get it for free. This is analogous to WWI.
• Once two civs choose at least two different ideologies, the ideological crisis unlocks and anyone can choose any ideology immediately.
• Science should be boosted and science leaning civs balanced accordingly. I think it should be reasonable for people to start unlocking future tech between turns 75-100. This is to enable tier 3 tech for the great ideological war (WWII). Science victory is delayed through the production burden (maybe you need to launch multiple rockets that "fail" to accrue "development experience" to unlock the successful rocket missions, making a need for multiple launch pads - higher rates nearer the equator). Future tech unlocks should unlock "wunderwaffen" in the same vein as Axis&Allies. So maxing out science means slowly developing tier 4 military units to win the ideological war (i.e.: jet airplanes, faster submarines).

These pace-keeping features will keep everyone together in "Franco-Prussian War", "WWI" rails and bigger populations tier 2 units, "WWII" ideology and tier 3 "cheap" science with huge military buffs if you go big into science.

 

[tman2000]

I think modern Age developed cities should start in the 30-40 pop range, reach up to 80 with rail and farming town support, and with late tier buildings or civics, hit 120.

I think production should be balanced to unit spam, and military buildings should provide combat bonuses instead of production. Something like "+1 combat bonus for each commander, per commander's level" for EACH military academy. Is that insane? If you had 5 commanders at something crazy like rank 10, and 10 military academies, then commanders are giving 100 combat bonus. Yeah that's insane. Let's try "+1 combat bonus for every 3 levels". That's 30 combat bonus. That seems fair because you've done well to have 5 10-rank commanders. Stuff like this. Actually, I want to make it much much easier for commanders to gain rank in the Modern Age. Maybe the military academy could do that.

Either way, I think it should be pretty easy for everyone to spam units if they keep up their infrastructure. Obviously some people will do better, but defensive structures should be pretty hard to bust until air power, which can be easily countered with good air power. Which is what nukes are for.

I also proposed faster science with each future tech giving a chosen/random "wunderwaffen". Ballistic missiles if you've researched rocketry seems reasonable. AKA nukes that ignore air defense.

 

[ProMeTheus112]

From my last game (on deity) I thought the pacing of ideologies seemed fine, I had prepared for military victory, me and AI got ideology around turn 50 or so? And then if you are in a strong position you could be getting the victory pretty swift so I don't think it would be better if ideologies would be picked earlier than they are now. They also give you pretty strong civics so worth going for.

 

[Taefin]

At higher difficulties, I suspect forcing ideology selection at researching political theory would feel good, and civs would only delay if very slow on civics or if completing their civ tree first.

I feel like democracy should get the economy bonus, maybe giving happiness to fascism. All three ideologies were ostensibly concerned with making their people happy.