TSG 280 After Actions

[vadalaz]

In this thread you can post the results of your game. Please attach your final savefile, state your victory/loss date (preferably in the post title) and describe your path to glory in this post! Players are encouraged to provide feedback on the game.

Quick links: Announcement thread | Opening actions

- Did you use a navy or a land army in your conquests, or a combination of the two?
- Were Songhai unique abilities useful to you?
- Which ideology did you pick?
- How many cities did you have in the end and where did you settle them?

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Turn 223 domination victory, out of competition.
With Songhai receiving triple gold from city captures, and a burial tomb giving triple gold to anyone conquering a city, I was wondering how high the profits would go, and I was not disappointed. I only captured my first city on T180, but it netted me a very useful 1.3k gold.

My approach for this game was to go straight into dynamite, and not bother with public schools. However when I could steal Economics from Venice, I did make a detour for Industrialization, to get three factories up and pick Autocracy, in the first place for the cheaper unit purchasing, but I ended up picking most of the war-like tenets: Elite Forces, Total War, Clausewitz, and Lightning Warfare. The latter was a mistake. I would have liked to blitz around the map using landships, but first of all my tech was not particularly fast, and second I did not have any oil to upgrade my cavalries. Instead, I should have picked the policy for double strategic resources, so I could have purchased some more units.

For this game I ended up using air, sea, and land units. I started warring with land units, in the crossbow era, but it was actually 'Venice' that attacked me. I thought I would keep the war going to farm some XP, but nothing too much came of it. The production in my cities was too poor to churn out units and make a real push, and not having captured any cities yet, I did not have gold to buy an army either. So even though I kept the war open, I did not make any real progress until artillery, but after that (and aided by the sudden influx of gold) I could steadily march onto Memphis, which had built many of the good wonders, and had five (!) manufactory tiles.

After Dynamite, I went public schools and then to flight, to engineer Prora. I'm usually not a great fan of Great War Bombers; in my normal science-based games, it's usually only a short trip from Flight to Radar (especially if you go labs first), so then it's better just to wait for real bombers. In this game, I did not research Plastics at all, so then the distance between Flight and Radar was more considerable, so I did buy a stack of Great War Bombers, and used them to attack Assyria (I did manage to upgrade them later).

Finally, my navy consisted of a moderate fleet of Battleships. I had not done anything with frigates this game; I had only my capital on the coast, and my timing was not particularly quick, so I wasn't sure how well that was going to work. Plus, I wanted to be able to raze all those lovely inland cities to line my coffers. I do believe that with a quicker start, and two coastal cities, frigates will be the way to the quickest victory. In any case, my fleet captured Shoshone and the 'real' Egypt.

One final remark about my game: a big boon was being able to stay friends with at least a couple AI all the time. That meant I could get open borders with the AI and sell off the cities I conquered, sometimes for only a few hundred gold, sometimes for considerably more. The funniest instance was that I captured a city, then sold it for a good price, then on the next turn it was recaptured (I had ensured that the AI I was warring was at war with everyone else too), then when I took it again, it was only 1-pop, but I managed to sell it again:

I found that offer quite generours. And I accepted.
Btw, my highest city capture was Elephantine (Petra, but not much else) for 2040 gold.

 

[ForkOfSpite]

Turn 248 - Give Up
I didn't retire, but it's probably hopeless for me and only have a few hours left to devote to this game. I've attached the save in case any experts want to try to recover - you have some gold and an okay economy to work with. I'd certainly read any attempts to continue from this point. In case someone actually does this, Jenne has already put some hammers into Oxford - was going to use that for combustion when I decided I had fallen too far behind in science and switched my tech path. New plan is to use Oxford for Plastics - research agreement matures in 2 turns which will help get there.

For submission, should I "officially" retire? Is there a "One More Turn" option after retiring?

Some highlights:

Spoiler :

Pushing back against the first double DOW against me ("Venice" and "Indonesia") was fun, but it took way too long and ended short of the goal due to AI planes. Pushing back the swarm of gatling guns and muskets was satisfying. Pushing back the even larger carpet of rifles (successfully protecting a CS I liberated in the process) was even more exhilarating. Venice was the real threat (received 100+ gold per turn from Indonesia in the peace deal) and the war against Venice lasted from Turns 164-228 (lost an arty to planes so I had to end the war). Venice gave me a different AI city (probably "Morocco" but could be anyone) in the peace deal which I took because it gave access to Morocco. Eventually, I noticed the odd mountain and saw that it had Machu Picchu - so pretty good score. Unfortunately, I'm way behind in tech and my gpt economy was starting to hurt due to military maintenance - was buying two fleets to hopefully win the game with destroyers and battleships). The very next turn, "Assyria" denounces me with 2 turns left on our DoF - combination of warmongering and different ideologies.

Assyria has become the run-away even though Venice still has a bit of a tech lead. Earlier, I sent Assyria after "Ethiopia", and he never stopped (Ethiopia no longer exists). When I switched my tech path towards Plastics, I sent a spy there - 80+ turns to steal, but picked up intel that "Ramesses" was marching an army against Gao. I also had a spy in Indonesia (only about 20-25 turns there), so I guess, technically, it might have been that version of Ram. But, when the rifles showed up on Turn 239, I bribed him to fight Morocco instead. He really insisted on open borders as part of that deal though (he wouldn't take an additional 4gpt rather than the open borders). Later, I had to switch to Order (from Autocracy) because ideology pressure jumped putting me to -19 happiness when I'm trying to fight the second Venice/Indonesia war. Was very bad timing - was close to a new social policy and didn't realize that you lose the culture accumulated towards the next policy.

Probably a coincidence, but the very next turn, Venice and Indonesia double DOW me again. Trying to push back - not nearly as much fun this time. My land isn't threatened yet, but it's about to be. Venice is going to take a CS ally this turn and then I still can't fight back against planes.

Earlier (i.e., after Turn 100 but before the first double DOW against me) - I setup Florence to capture and raze the expansion and successfully conquered the "Shoshone" capital via crossbows, but it took too long (Turn 123). Lost some units unexpectedly along the way. I continued to Egypt and eventually conquered that capital on Turn 165 (one turn after the double DOW) via two well-promoted crossbows. A few units had to stay behind to handle the weak Indonesian push and the others had to fight their way through a Venetian exploration that had resettled the exact spot that Florence razed earlier.

That's about it. My science sucked for way too long. I didn't setup food trade routes fast enough (I finally got all five routes when I hit schools - might have already had my original ideology by then). Only put a single policy into Rationalism, and that was a filler because I didn't have Autocracy yet.

First screenshot: Turn 228 (end of the first Venice war)

Spoiler :

Second Screenshot: Turn 239 (second bribe to Assyria)

Spoiler :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I've attached the save in case any experts want to try to recover

I'll load the save, to assess the situation.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

I resumed @ForkOfSpite 's game, for a turn 287 domination victory. When I loaded the save, Assyria looked like they could be a problem. Fortunately, by this stage of the game many of the AI were all too happy to be bribed into war, so I was able to declare only when I was ready. Initially, I did not make a lot of progress. Without anti-air, I could not push into Venice, so we ended up trading Kahun and M'Banza-Kongo. When he was ready to peace he actually offered me some gold, and it was a good time for me to snipe Morocco's capital (and what turned out to be his final city).

I moved on Indonesia as soon as I had battleships. However, this time it was Venice sniping cities from under my nose (denying me my burial tomb 'bonus'!), and I had to wait a turn until I could declare again. The fleet then hurried to try to assist with Giza, although the ships just arrived too late. The front-most battleship could fire a single shot before the army of rocket arties, machine guns, landships and bombers cleaned up the final Assyrian cities.

 

[ForkOfSpite]

Thanks for taking a look. My turns were taking too long and couldn’t devote more time to it. Don’t think I could have caught up that much science in less than 40 turns though.

 

[raider980]

T258 Loss - Defeat is inevitable. After I took Ramses city from the Opening Actions, he came back with a vengeance. He was always a little ahead of me in tech and would get the upgraded units before me and he also had way more production capability so I was outgunned and outmanned. He pushed into my territory aiming for my border city of Jenne. I was able to hold him off but then he allied Zanzibar near my Mt. Kili city and I had no defense up there. Ramses wouldn't peace out for anything less than Jenne and I was about to lose Tombouctou to Zanzibar so I accepted the deal to try and bide some time to catch up in science.

Around the time I got Frigates, the same Ramses decided to attack again so I planned on taking my navy to his capital and capturing it then demanding Jenne back. Well that was working ok until he got planes and my Frigates were toast so I had to retreat. There was a long war of attrition while I got an ideology and took Autocracy because it was the one that Enrico Ramses took and he was my neighbor to the east, and he was an all-powerful juggernaut; first in most categories. He joined my in my war and was helping me take Jenne back until they mysteriously made peace. I was still holding Ramses off although losing ground, I got Battleships and planes so might have been able to make a comeback. Except out of the blue, my friend, ally and ideological brother in Autocracy backstabbed me and declared war. No way I can defeat Enrico Ramses so its game over. The Songhai uniques weren't that helpful, hence why I don't really like the Civ; the Pyramid is nice but not super, the UA is nigh worthless except for a little cash and the UU is a horse unit so also useless. It was fun while it lasted and I thought I had a chance but didn't tech up fast enough.

 

[catwhoorg]

Resigned turn 131, defeat is inevitable within a couple of turns. Purple Rameses is running rampant and will take my remaining two cities.


Going to wait a couple of weeks and read others AARs and then try again.

Still a diety victory eludes me.

 

[Rhodro]

Turn 205 dom victory, mind you it's my 2nd game, so I won't submit.

1st game i abandoned because i went full in on religion with piety policies, then found all the AI's were egypt that were very religious fanatics, i didn't even get a religion. Being so invested in religion, it was not gonna result in a good domination game so i threw it.

See below screenshot for my 3 own city placements.

Focus was on land army. Policies I opened tradition, went honor till extra xp, back to tradition for 3 free temples.
Religion was god king, initiation rites, feed the world, religious community, messiah. I didn't spread it till very late game with some prophets, because the other religions were very dominant and i got like 2 pagoda's and 2 cathedrals from it.

I used the free honor general to place citadel to the egypt to the south. He was the first capital i got. Other egypts started to hate me, the one south east and the one west north attacked me, i held them off long enough so that my 5 crossbows eventually got so many promotions they started tearing trough them. I complimented them with about 4-5 horsemen that later upgraded all the way to heavy promoted cavalry. I prebuilt some cannons, but i didnt get to shoot much with the cannons themselves, because the cities with 2 range were already getting too dangerous to them. When upgraded to artillery they became very useful of course.

Order of capitals captured was egypt to the south (soshone colour), west (assyria colour) and i kept 3 extra puppets to keep the road to -> north west (ethiopia colour?). The ethiopia was a bit slower because he sent a big army for my capital, which i had to reroute my units for. Around the time i got gunpowder.
Then actual egypt to the east, took long to get trough the jungle, maybe should have prebuilt roads. I brought 2 cannons but 3 high promoted crossbow + mandekalu cavalry did the job before cannons arrived. My other army captured morocco colour, he only had like 3 cities but it took a bit getting trough the CS to my north.
Cannons upgraded to artillery and moved 1st army north to indonesia colour. It took a bit to get trough because he had quite a lot of units.
Then my 2 armies did a pincir movement on the last purple venice colour capital. He had great wall and lots of units. I lost 1 of my high promoted gatling gun with a general under it that i wanted to citadel the next turn, that was a bit of a setback. Later i got 1 more natural general and 1 from brandenburger gate but they took time to arrive. I also had 1 general still from the south to put a citadel south of his capital.
At the end 4 artilleries, 2 gatling guns and 2 cavalry sacked his city.

Remaining policies was full commerce for happiness, so i could keep some puppets. Monarchy in tradition. A bunch of order policies, because autocracy was already taken and i wanted 2 free policies instead of 1. lastly patronage opener to keep city state a bit longer.

The biggest problem this game in my experience was the city states in a circle around our starting area, they were being bought up by my enemies i was at war with. This put pressure on keeping some units around my own cities to prevent them from being captured. It also makes me reluctant to declare war on an enemy AI if they have a lot of CS.

I did use mandekalu cavalry quite a bit, not really to do damage to cities, but to kill a lot of crossbows and trebuchets. They are very good at that job, get a lot of xp, don't receive too much dmg back. With blitz and march they become quite a menace. This also gives my crossbows more turns to shoot heavy melee units or cities.

Spoiler :

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Turn 205 dom victory, mind you it's my 2nd game, so I won't submit.

Which means unfortunately that no-one managed a submittable victory yet, as far as I can tell.

I did play the map again, btw, because I was not satisfied with my start in the first game. I planted a second coastal as I saw some other players do in the Opening Actions thread, and was about 10 turns ahead of my first game. The screenshot shows the T100 overview. I am again researching Education, but this time I already have metal casting, and all workshops were up. On top of that, I was making a lot of gold, so this time the frigate rush was definitely on.

I won that game T184, by going clockwise (but starting with Shoshone who had Great Lighthouse) with a single fleet along all capitals. For Assyria and Ethiopia I had a land army to support the naval push. I think a considerably quicker time is possible. The things that slowed me down or I should have done differently:
- Build a second fleet to go counter clockwise, rather than building writer's guild, bank, etc.
- I did not manage AI happiness as well as the first game (which is more difficult when going to war early). Everyone hated me, and eventually declared war on me, which meant I needed to deal with warring city states (which always means city state caravels pillage all of my cargo ships and fishing boats).
- I took each capital in two or three turns at the most, but then I had to stick around, possibly recapture the city a couple of times, as the AI land army kept trying to re-take the city. Also, the AI did not want to accept peace, I think this sometimes happens if they agree to "shall we declare war against...". I'm not sure what the optimal play is. Simply take all capitals once, let them be re-captured, and return later to capture the weakened city? In any case, frigates are much worse at dealing with the AI land armies than battleships are.

 

[Megalou]

Domination t229

- Did you use a navy or a land army in your conquests, or a combination of the two?

Good question. Either land forces or naval forces could have saved time, but I got both Navigation and Dynamite. I hit Navigation first thanks to tech steals in "Ethiopia" and "Real Egypt". Then I Oxforded Dynamite to save 15 turns on that.

"Shoshone" fell first, to composite bowmen on turn 111:


I used the momentum to eliminate "Shoshone" and to capture the "Real Egyptian" city of Tanis. This took me close enough to wage a long siege against "Real Egypt" which slowly depleted their army. The long war of atrition before artillery can without hesitation be called "Seven against Thebes", or in a 2025 version "6-7 against Thebes":


Actually, the fleet of mostly frigates made it to the Theban area well before Dynamite. Thebes was too powerful to take with frigates without heavy losses, so the fleet sailed on to fight another day, capturing the "Indonesian" and "Venetian" capitals. I held off capturing the "Venetian" capital Memphis until they were ready for a white peace around turn 225, since I had almost no land units nearby to defend Memphis.


"Morocco" to the north was an entirely different story. When they declared on me somewhere around ~turn 170, I engaged with them in order to defend Kiev, a very valuable ally who at the height of its greatness consisted of three cities.


I did not have troops to spare for an invasion of "Morocco", just a few healvily decorated crossbowmen. But when "Ethiopia" ground "Morocco" to dust I sneakily followed them to the capital, Elephantine.

Earlier, "Ethiopia" and I had chewed up "Assyria" and shockingly, "Ethiopia" suddenly became Friendly with me thanks to this joint war effort. I slowly built up a ground force and a small fleet in Pi-Ramesses, confident that the powerful "Ethiopians" would not attack me while busy with "Morocco". Defeating "Ethiopia" would be the big, exciting challenge. First, on t223 I took Elephantine, which was still weak (yellow) from the "Ethiopia-Morocco" war,...


...and then my artillery units and the small western fleet invaded the "Ethiopian" heartland. "Ethiopia" was a big tech and military leader so I ended up having to sink two battleships. But apart from that their forces seemed woefully scattered and feebly attacking La Venta and Ife.

I'm a bit proud of the privateer at the very top of this picture, who had sailed all around the world in order to, well, at least annoy an Ethiopian battleship.

- Were Songhai unique abilities useful to you?

Yes, the triple gold was great. On several occasions, plunder from cities exceeded 2000 gold. Even the relatively early capture of Pi-Ramesses yielded more than 1000 gold. Most of all, this made allying City States a lot easier, and I do think city state power really started to tip the balance in this game, once the critical building phase was over and the conquest phase started. Kiev's grip on the north is a good example, and I don't think the AI realized that being allied to Kiev was a particularly good idea.

The Mandekalu cavalry was not much more useful than a knight, but I got 3 winged hussars from CSs, whose 5 movement points was neat.

- Which ideology did you pick?

Since I didn't write an opening spoiler, let med first tell you about the social policies. I went roughly the same route as Rhodro did in his second attempt, Tradition opener and then the left side of Honour. Later, the honour tree was completed, which was cool because the endless kills boosted the economy.


"Ethiopia" had chosen Order when it was time for me to choose, never reaching the modern era but painstakingly erecting 3 factories. I chose Order too, to avoid happiness problems. At least I was granted 1 free tenet.


This was a tough game and a bit confusing with Egyptians everywhere, but of course, the games that you aren't 100% sure you'll win are the most fun ones. Thanks, TBW!

 

[lerrocco]

Resignation T224

First time into naval warfare for me, and I think an early compbow rush would have been a better strategy. But I enjoyed learning

Played over 2 calendar years IRL, days between sessions.
Session 1.To Turn 120
played as 3 city science game, Got Navigation with Oxford. 2 observatories. 2 coastal cities for fleet and inland city for units.
Priorities were construction, compass, machinery, astronomy, gunpowder.

With hindsight, the wrong start. I was way behind in science anyway.

Session 2. T120- 160 War
Science towards Battleships with detours for unit upgrades.
A big purple army came to play, wave after wave. Interrupted my science. I tried to keep the shipyards occupied and build land units inland. I managed to ally Zanzibar and Ram was throwing his entire force at Zanzibar and my xbows are promoted to range and logistics with no challenge. time is ticking and I am WAY behind in tech and everything. I cannot make headway against the purple hoards, but I can defend. After a marathon session IRL, but 40 game turns, I have to move to the naval wars. Make peace with purple to allow naval attack on yellow.

Session 3. Naval war T160 -192.
12 ships start the campaign. beyond unit cap. I could have made a decent job with an earlier naval start, 4 or 5 frigates is plenty, but they will get damaged, etc, so I decided to build a fleet that could overwhelm defences.
I forgot to send land units with the fleet, (thats the problem with days between sessions) so I have 2 horses, only, playing catch up with a naval escort. Lost all trade routes after war started.
Took the city to the north of Pi Rameses , Gained an admiral. and then the capital on T190 with 1 ship loss after an admiral fleet repair. Made early peace for 60gpt,

Session 4. T192 -T208
Giza was tough, with large defensive bonuses. Took it at the cost of 2 lancers and a few ships. I was only a turn or two away from losing the game in this session. I also got lucky as his army was occupied to the south.
My cities are undefended. I need some turns to provide riflemen garrisons.
I was going to make peace, use the money for a land assault to Memphis, with Naval support, but I don’t have naval access in the north, I have to take another city with the frigates! And defend Giza while I do it.

Session 5. T208-T224

Fleet got easy promotions defending Giza and capturing Armant. Frigates with logistics are a different ball game.

Plan was to capture Memphis with land and fleet pincer. But I didn’t know akhetaten was there. Then I started losing my heavily promoted units to random bomber attacks. Had to make a 10 turn truce, but will take Memphis and probably Elephantine.. but then disaster.. I don’t understand ideologies and my happiness just crashed, I tried changing it and am in anarchy.. anyway.. I was too late to win the game. But had a wild ride..

I genuinely broke my mouse with so many clicks, had to buy a new one. But clicks for xp and not cities it too profligate.

The altitude training, amphibious training and Songhai gold were all useful. I realised half way through the game I was wrong to think it only a naval game. And other posts above proved as much.

I need to learn the ideologies or win before they arrive.

Also, I think the bombers would have been difficult going forward, I was 40 turns away from battleships, and way behind the civs I hadnt attacked.

I enjoyed the game, thanks for making that. All the same name was another level of difficulty for me on my small laptop. I got a new mouse though.

I am in anarchy on the last turn.

 

[Megalou]

Resigned turn 131, defeat is inevitable within a couple of turns. Purple Rameses is running rampant and will take my remaining two cities.


Going to wait a couple of weeks and read others AARs and then try again.

Still a diety victory eludes me.

I checked the save, and it seems like you have held them off long enough to sign for a "white" peace, no? I find that one of the key factors in the game mechanics is that once the AI are ready to talk peace they are likely to accept the simple peace for peace deal.

Seeing how you've lost Tombouctu I imagine it feels tough to move on, though.

One tip for the future is never to build walls. Once they are put to use it is almost always too late, anyway. The best defence on deity is to have enough ranged units around your city so that they can kill an enemy each turn. (Leave them red-lined and there is a big risk that they will heal 50% on the interturn.) Unlike the walls, ranged units can be used offensively once a defensive crisis has been dealt with.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

One tip for the future is never to build walls

I think walls can be useful on Deity. The AI tends to swarm you with units, and slam your city with melee units, so a high city strength will mean you can hold out much longer. Also, it can be difficult to keep your ranged units outside the city alive, when the AI has knights/impis/etc. running around your lands.

So, in general, if you are placing a city close to the AI where you anticipate an attack, building it on a hill and getting walls up can be advisable. Of course, you need to find the hammers for it, and ideally you will not delay crucial infrastructure for it.

 

[lerrocco]

I tend to build Walls and Castles in the late game, often for happiness bonuses.

While there is discussion here, can I ask someone for a quick and dirty explanation of why I went from 6 happiness to -12 in one turn. I looked and it said my ideology was the problem, and I should change it. I did so, it dropped me into anarchy and then told me I couldnt change the ideology as my empire was happy..

How do I avoid the negative hit in the first place? Crazy thing is I rushed Factories for the policies. I would be better off without them.

 

[Megalou]

I think walls can be useful on Deity. The AI tends to swarm you with units, and slam your city with melee units, so a high city strength will mean you can hold out much longer. Also, it can be difficult to keep your ranged units outside the city alive, when the AI has knights/impis/etc. running around your lands.

So, in general, if you are placing a city close to the AI where you anticipate an attack, building it on a hill and getting walls up can be advisable. Of course, you need to find the hammers for it, and ideally you will not delay crucial infrastructure for it.

Alright, I may have exaggerated a little. But I noticed that several peace-time buildings had been built in Gao too: water mill, circus, granary, library. From that perspective, walls can be counted among a set of builds that together will make my prophesy come true: that it's usually too late to be saved by walls if you have too few units. I would have gone only for library and granary but even that is pushing it.

Also, let's think about the fact that the city that has walls is Gao. We are likely to have 3 or 4 cities by the time the AIs start to run out of Lebensraum and go on the warpath. Will it then be the capital that they will go after? No, it is much more likely that they will go for one of our expos, which...
...will be more vulnerable, eg weaker city defence/bombardment. (Palace gives +2 defence)
...are much closer to AI civs.
...will have little border expansion and be easier to sneak up on.
And most importantly, the expos function as defensive territory that prevents enemy units from getting close to my capital at all. So you have to ask yourself: If one or two of my expos have fallen, will I thank my lucky star that I have walls in my capital so that maybe the capital doesn't fall too? I think not. In fact, I believe losing Tombouctu was the biggest problem for @catwhoorg .

 

[Megalou]

I think walls can be useful on Deity. The AI tends to swarm you with units, and slam your city with melee units, so a high city strength will mean you can hold out much longer. Also, it can be difficult to keep your ranged units outside the city alive, when the AI has knights/impis/etc. running around your lands.

Yes, a spearman or two at the front can be useful to absorb the punches and use their zone of control to prevent attacks on ranged units. They can also be important in that they occupy tiles with strong terrain bonuses, which we want to deny enemy units.

 

[The_Black_Vegetable]

Also, let's think about the fact that the city that has walls is Gao

Ah I missed that. I had not loaded the save yet. Indeed, I will very rarely build walls in the capital.

While there is discussion here, can I ask someone for a quick and dirty explanation of why I went from 6 happiness to -12 in one turn.

When you have different ideologies, you get a happiness penalty if the total amount of tourism an AI has on you exceeds a certain threshold compared to the amount of culture you have produced all game long. For example, if you have generated 1000 culture in the game so far, and the AI has generated 100 tourism towards you (i.e., >= 10%), their culture is 'Exotic' to you, and you get a happiness penalty. For other thresholds (I don't know the exact numbers, but probably there is another one around 50%), you get even more unhappiness.

There is a lot more to it than that (for example, if you are also generating tourism towards them, or if there is another AI with the same ideology as you that also produces tourism), but the takeaway message is that, on the higher difficulties, you have to be ready to incur a happiness penalty with ideologies - but usually there is enough happiness in the ideologies to more than make up for that. Another key issue is that culture therefore matters for your late-game happiness. A classic way of boosting your culture and reducing or even removing the ideology unhappiness is to win World's Fair, and once the effects expire pop all your Great Writers.

 

[lerrocco]

Thanks. I was trying to get an AI summary that didnt involve building hotels.

I might reload, if i can find the auto turn and try again, i have coin to buy courthouses if I go Autocracy and claim the first 2 free tenets. Just to see the mechanics, I am too late in the game, the air defences will make short work of my current army.

edit. No, that tenet has been taken. I will try and learn for future games.

 

[ForkOfSpite]

While there is discussion here, can I ask someone for a quick and dirty explanation of why I went from 6 happiness to -12 in one turn. I looked and it said my ideology was the problem, and I should change it. I did so, it dropped me into anarchy and then told me I couldnt change the ideology as my empire was happy..

Adding to the explanations already provided, once you select an ideology, you can view the overall ideological pressure on your civ via one of the tourism tabs (the one that shows which ideology each civ has selected). Your civ is in one of four Public Opinion states, each progressively worse for happiness: Content, Discontent, Civil Resistance, Revolutionary Wave. Content doesn't generate any unhappiness, but each of the others generate unhappiness based on either the total population or number of cities (whichever is worse based on the math). You might be able to hover over the state to see the actual math.

On that same page, you see markers for civs that have generate ideological pressure over you. The amount of pressure is based on the relative (Unknown, Exotic, Familiar, Popular, Influential) states of the two civs - a different tab shows those and includes a dropdown box to select each civ to see how they are viewed. Examples: Exotic both ways generates no pressure. Familiar one way and unknown the other generates two units of pressure. As already mentioned, the actual influence value is based on certain thresholds of tourism compared to total culture (10%=Exotic, 30%=Familiar, 60%=Popular, 100%=Influential, 200%=Dominant but I don't think that leads to extra ideological pressure beyond influential).

Civs that share the same ideology as you can help ease some of that pressure but only if they are more influential over you than you are over them - based on the same comparison but this time, each net unit of influence in the AIs increases pressure for their ideology. Since that's the same as yours, that helps. Following the world ideology can also help - it's two units of ideological pressure (of course, if you follow a different ideology, that hurts instead).

The preferred ideology is based on whichever has the most pressure on you. Public Opinion is based on how much excess pressure other ideologies have.

Methods to counteract:
* Select more happiness tenets (this is the easiest method - the others are all more long term and only affect things by crossing the Exotic/Familiar/Popular/Influential thresholds)
* Raze more cities (okay, this also helps immediately by lowering populations and/or number of cities - the rest are all long-term though)
* Generate more culture
* Generate more tourism
* Give open borders to civs that follow your ideology (do not get open borders from them)
* Get open borders to civs that follow other ideologies but don't give them borders.
* Diplomat in civs that follow other ideologies.

addendum
The sudden jumps occur when Public Opinion changes (i.e., moving from Discontent to Civil Resistance generates more unhappiness per city/population). Public Opinion can suddenly change when a new civ gains its ideology or if relative influence between you and one (or more) civs change. The good news is that if you're already at Revolutionary Wave, then additional pressure doesn't do anything (but growing or capturing more cities still generates more unhappiness).