Tuning Autocracy

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Jun 10, 2013
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I like the idea of containing all ideologies into their own threads more than into tiers.

Basically, in general, because Gazebo likes letters:

A - all's fine.
C - underwhelming
F - really bad

T1

Autarky Internal trade routes grant +10 :c5gold:, and city connections provide +3 :c5production:
F - it's a joke at this point in the game. It's worse than some ancient era policies and it's impact is non-existent this late. My suggestionis heavy yield improvement or rework.

Elite Forces Newly created military units receive +15 Experience. Military units gain 50% more Experience from combat.
A - does it's job. I don't favour it too much, but I typically pick it in the end.

Futurism Amount of Empire-wide :c5culture: used for :tourism: bonus from Palace increased by 20%.
C- - I'd much rather take other ones, but it has one very favourable trait - it's not Autarky.

Lebensraum Receive :c5culture: and :c5goldenage: points when your borders expand. Citadel tile-acquisition radius doubled.
A - great. It sucks that expending GGs can steal potential culture/GAP points, but it's great anyway.


Military-Industrial Complex
-33%:c5gold: cost of purchasing or upgrading units. +3 :c5science: from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements.
A - Great yields if you have UIs, only decent otherwise, but adding upgrading/purchasing cost ensures it's always ultimately a great pick. It might be too good and moving the UI bonus or the upgrade cost decrease to some other autocracy policy could be a way to make it less so, but anything more would probably turn it into a bad choice.

New World Order Reduces Crime in all cities by 20%. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:
A- - I pick it to lower unhappiness while getting a small amount of yields, but it probably needs to be thrown a small bone. Something like build Constabularies/Police Stations faster, or a small touch somewhere. Might be unneeded.

United Front Militaristic City-States grant units 200% more quickly while at war with a common foe. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
C
if you've got Authority for free bad units to gift. Otherwise, I imagine it'd be an easy F. It doesn't seem worth it to make a unit over a diplomat for gifting and that's probably good as it'd make no sense. Either way, not too good.

T2
Lightning Warfare +3 movement for Great Generals. Armor and Gun units gain +15% attack, +1 movement, and ignore enemy Zone of Control.
A - helpful for conquest.

Martial Spirit +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. War Weariness rate reduced by 25%, and razing speed doubled.
A - helpful for conquest. War weariness reduction nerf was probably unneeded though.


Nationalism
Reduces unit :c5gold: maintenance costs by 33%. (I always thought maintenance of all but its only for units?)
F - super boring and not good at all. It'd not look good on an ancient era tree, let alone on T2 of an ideology. I suggest a rework.

Police State +3 local :c5happy: from every Courthouse, and +1 :c5happy: from Police Stations. Build Courthouses in half the usual time.
A - great for a conqueror. It's a warmongerer tree, so it fits.

Syndicalism Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least Popular with. Does not count against Global Franchise maximum.
? - Never took it because I don't understand it. Does it mean I double the corporate benefit someone else gets?

Third Alternative Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10% to all yields in the Capital.
F/C - only worth taking if you want strategic monopolies. I think it'd be better to pick LW/MS to conquer more to get them, but maybe sometimes it's okay. I never found a reason to pick it. I'd rather take other T2s even without monopolies, but in that case it's a C because if I was desperate for more, I'd consider it.

Total War +25% :c5production: when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
F - worse than a Progress policy in t2 of an ideology, not much else needs to be said.

T3s
Air Supremacy
Receive a free Airport in every city. +25% :c5production: when building air units. Can build Zeros.

A- - I find airports overrated, but overall the policy is okay. T2s are still the main reason to go Autocracy though.

Cult of Personality +50% :tourism: to civilizations fighting a common enemy. A :c5greatperson: Great Person of your choice appears near your capital.
Warscores with Civilizations count as :tourism: Modifiers against them.
C - not the worst. One GP of your choice can be found in medieval and this late in the game it's going to be a Scientist anyway so the choice is an illusion (okay, maybe Musician instead). Both tourism additions are situational. Most of those who like you enough to fight alongside you against anyone this late in the game as a warmonger are your vassals and other weaklings, and you probably have their capitals and/or influenced them anyway. The warscore only matters if it's high, and if it's very high you can take the capital no problem. Not useless, not that bad, but it leaves something to be desired.

Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with :c5citystate: City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
F - Truly awful and the worst T3 out of all by far. Why do you need easier intimidation super late in the game on any tree, let alone one focused on warmongering? Influence only works up to friends unless it was ninja-changed, but even then it'd be bad. It requires too much effort and micromanagement while giving you close to nothing. Even having it remove the -1000 Friend tribute penalty would still keep it as requiring too much effort and resources to be worth it. It's better to a late era tree than bother with this.
 
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My take:
T1

Autarky Internal trade routes grant +10 :c5gold:, and city connections provide +3 :c5production:
F - Worthless. It needs a yield increase.
Autarky: Internal trade routes grant +10 :c5gold:, and city connections provide +5 :c5food:/:c5production:/:c5gold:.

Elite Forces Newly created military units receive +15 Experience. Military units gain 50% more Experience from combat.
A - I love it.

Futurism Amount of Empire-wide :c5culture: used for :tourism: bonus from Palace increased by 20%.
A- Arabia can use this well, as can other GP strategies. (Korea, etc.) If you're going for culture wins and want to choose Autocracy for the shared ideology bonus for your last enemy, it works well apparently. I mean culture victories are largely event-based, so this is probably pretty good.

Lebensraum Receive :c5culture: and :c5goldenage: points when your borders expand. Citadel tile-acquisition radius doubled.
A - Amazing. Slingshots you through policies and allows you to dominate hard-to-kill enemies with citadels.

Military-Industrial Complex
-33%:c5gold: cost of purchasing or upgrading units. +3 :c5science: from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements.
A - Money makes the world go round.

New World Order Reduces Crime in all cities by 20%. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production: and are built twice as fast.
C- Happiness isn't that tight at this point, and the yields are terrible because you never want the horribly overpriced police stations. I'd allow them built at double speed.

United Front Militaristic City-States grant units 200% more quickly while at war with a common foe. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
F -
Just not worth it, especially with unit gifts being nerfed. (Making them even worse compared to ambassadors.)
I'd say:
United Front
+30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States. +2 spies (based on # of city states) and chance of couping city states doubled.


T2
Lightning Warfare +3 movement for Great Generals. Armor and Gun units gain +15% attack, +1 movement, and ignore enemy Zone of Control.
A+ - This is my favorite policy in the game, and maybe the best. My armies go from great to unstoppable and I suddenly can take armies apart instantly. My tanks demolish entire armies in a turn, drop cities instantly, and destroy the entire world so perfectly. I cannot overstate my love for this policy. I pick it and say "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Martial Spirit +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. War Weariness rate reduced by 25%, and razing speed doubled.
A - It was perfect, but I'd rather move the war weariness to Total War.
Martial Spirit +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. Puppet cities provide +2 supply, and razing speed doubled.

Nationalism
Reduces unit :c5gold: maintenance costs by 33%. (I always thought maintenance of all but its only for units?)
A - I don't think you'd call it an F if it said "+200-300 GPT in capital." It's a lot of money.

Police State +3 local :c5happy: from every Courthouse, and +1 :c5happy: from Police Stations. Build Courthouses in half the usual time.
A - great for a conqueror. It's a warmongerer tree, so it fits.

Syndicalism Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least Popular with. Does not count against Global Franchise maximum.
A - Trading with your vassals just got better.

Third Alternative Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10% to all yields in the Capital.
A - Sometimes there's just not enough coal or iron or w/e. Especially with ships requiring more now. Also it's amazing for tall culture Autocracy that Futurism is for.

Total War +25% :c5production: when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
F - I almost never build units with production at this point. This is a worse ancient policy, I agree. I'd say:
Total War: War Weariness rate reduced by 25% & Enemy War Weariness increased by 25%. Workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.

T3s
Air Supremacy
Receive a free Airport in every city. +25% :c5production: when building air units. Can build Zeros.

A- The airports are the only reason to choose this, but god are they good. Allowing you to airlift to cities the turn after you take them is AMAZING. This is Lightning Warfare 2: Electric Bungaloo.

Cult of Personality +50% :tourism: to civilizations fighting a common enemy. A :c5greatperson: Great Person of your choice appears near your capital.
Warscores with Civilizations count as :tourism: Modifiers against them.
C - I've been mostly convinced on this. I'd make one change to get it to A.
Cult of Personality +50% :tourism: to civilizations fighting a common enemy. A :c5greatperson: Great Person of your choice appears near your capital.
Warscores with Civilizations count as :tourism: Modifiers against all civilizations.

Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with :c5citystate: City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
F - The worst T3 by far. Completely garbage. Air supremacy is actually better for allowing you to airlift diplomats to the closest town.
My take:
Gunboat Diplomacy Demanding Tribute GAINS influence instead of reducing it. Friends/Ally tribute penalty removed. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.

I'm aware this will probably violate @Gazebo's no new code rule, but I think it's so cool and fitting that it would be worth it. (Although it's much easier for me to say that than him, who would need to do the code. :lol:)

I would also be in favor of a general removal of the "allies can't tribute" rule. Why not? Is that a basic game restriction? Because I see no reason that you can backstab your friends but not your city states.
 
Nationalism Reduces unit :c5gold: maintenance costs by 33%. (I always thought maintenance of all but its only for units?)
A - I don't think you'd call it an F if it said "+200-300 GPT in capital." It's a lot of money.
Yes I would, in this particular situation. At this point whenever I am Autocracy I have a huge empire with tons of cities, each inflating building/etc costs. +200/300 Gold per turn at this point speeds stuff up, but it ultimately doesn't matter. Sure, I might get 50% of a building or an unit every 5/10 turns thanks to that (epic speed), but I have 30/40 cities if not more on a standard map, who cares about one building in one city being built faster (unless it's the capital I guess)? If it was in a tall-focused tree, it'd be better in comparison. Here, it'd look strong on paper, but in practice a wide warmongerer should realise it's not too hot. At 40 cities, that 300 is the same as +7.5 Gold per city, except this one doesn't even counter poverty - and you might even have 50 cities or more, who knows. It's nothing impressive at all. Meanwhile, for a Tall guy with 4 cities, that imaginary Nationalism would be a crazy 75 Gold per city. With the real Nationalism, he'd maybe get -20 or -40 at most, 200-400 is for 20-50 cities guys. It's a clear F.

Your Autarky far outclasses the Nationalism and not only can potentially outgold it, it also can lower the poverty unhappiness and adds some nutritious food/production to the bundle.

Total War +25% :c5production: when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
F - I almost never build units with production at this point. This is a worse ancient policy, I agree. I'd say:
Total War: War Weariness rate reduced by 25% & Enemy War Weariness increased by 25%. Workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.

You said that Happiness isn't that tight at this point (I don't agree completely, going wide, weary and fighty enough means happiness matters anyway, though police state usually fixes the problems), what will the weariness effect accomplish? I think the policy's just as bad after the change.
 
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I'll give you my professional take on it.

Autarky Internal trade routes grant +10 :c5gold:, and city connections provide +3 :c5production:
F - it's a joke at this point in the game. It's worse than some ancient era policies and it's impact is non-existent this late. My suggestionis heavy yield improvement or rework.

People forgot that this was one of the best autocratic policy you could take during the time of Vox Populi when AIs were easily triggered over their friends' capitals being taken and trade routes weren't being reworked to grant Culture and Science bonus. The City Connection production bonus should always be one of the best tenet for warmongering since conquering a city may have lost cities that you need replacing FAST. Overall, if there was a way to balance out internal trade routes and external trade routes. Autarky would probably be extremely strong.

Syndicalism Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least Popular with. Does not count against Global Franchise maximum.
? - Never took it because I don't understand it. Does it mean I double the corporate benefit someone else gets?

Since people never understand corporation. Swear someone need to make a corporation guide, but it's pretty simple.
Example: Polynesia builds a Corporation Office that provides +3 Food per foreign franchise. Polynesia has 6 franchises(that's his max because he only has a maximum of 6 trade routes apparently). An office in his city gets +18 Food. Polynesia is an autocratic nation with Syndicalism and now his office gets +36 Food(so office gets double-franchise bonuses basically). It's one of the by far the best tenet if you are culturally fluent and have a corporation.

Third Alternative
Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10% to all yields in the Capital.
F/C - only worth taking if you want strategic monopolies. I think it'd be better to pick LW/MS to conquer more to get them, but maybe sometimes it's okay. I never found a reason to pick it. I'd rather take other T2s even without monopolies, but in that case it's a C because if I was desperate for more, I'd consider it.

Fairly powerful considering that strategic monopolies(25%) are extremely nice. If this said a potential chance to get for your units +10% Combat Strength when defending, +20% Combat Strength when attacking, +1 Movement, etc along with giving you much more strategic resources to build your agribusiness and mien fields. I would take it in a heart beat. This one is an A+. +10% to all yields in the capital is essentially the Tradition Finisher and all modifiers are king in Vox Populi.

Total War +25% :c5production: when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
F - worse than a Progress policy in t2 of an ideology, not much else needs to be said.
People forget that pillaging is a viable strategy, but prefer not to do because workers can't repair the improvements fast enough. People also forget that production cost scales really hard after war weariness hits you and this policy deserves a C grade not an F.[/quote]

Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with :c5citystate: City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
F - The worst T3 by far. Completely garbage. Air supremacy is actually better for allowing you to airlift diplomats to the closest town.
My take:
Gunboat Diplomacy Demanding Tribute GAINS influence instead of reducing it. Friends/Ally tribute penalty removed. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
Did people forget how strong this tenet was in vanilla? It went unchanged because the bullying mechanic was unchanged for a while and then buffed greatly. The +50% more effective is extremely insane allowing you to even get your allies to fear you. (that -1000 becomes no concern with this policy).
 
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Nationalism : All melee units are free for maintenance and for upgrading. So, if you lack resources but have enough population you can swarm your enemies with infantry. Like Russia in WWI.

Steps on Military-Industrial Complex territory a bit and free maintenance for melee only might be impossible.

I'll give you my professional take on it.

People forgot that this was one of the best autocratic policy you could take during the time of Vox Populi when AIs were easily triggered over their friends' capitals being taken and trade routes weren't being reworked to grant Culture and Science bonus. The City Connection production bonus should always be one of the best tenet for warmongering since conquering a city may have lost cities that you need replacing FAST. Overall, if there was a way to balance out internal trade routes and external trade routes. Autarky would probably be extremely strong.

It doesn't matter what it used to be, present and the future are the most important. Even if we assume it used to be strong, it doesn't matter at all at this point. I know I've been complaining about this one for (what feels like?) over a year now, so for at least that period of time it wasn't good. Since it's at the very least industrial era or later, so that +3 Production is not really worth much. It won't change much how fast you replace buildings in conquered cities because they not only get stuff from tiles, they also might get +Prod from earlier era policies. It's just a drop in the ocean unless you get a city so bad, so devoid of populace and buildings, it'd be better to burn it and get a pioneer/colonist to settle a new one instead, in which case it doesn't help. Even if the +10 Gold per internal trade route worked for all trade route types, it'd still be a bad policy for all excluding Venice I guess. +60/100 Gold so late is a drop in the ocean, barely worth 5 GPT per city for a typical wide empire of 20 cities, let alone one that wants to win through conquest.

Since people never understand corporation. Swear someone need to make a corporation guide, but it's pretty simple.
Example: Polynesia builds a Corporation Office that provides +3 Food per foreign franchise. Polynesia has 6 franchises(that's his max because he only has a maximum of 6 trade routes apparently). An office in his city gets +18 Food. Polynesia is an autocratic nation with Syndicalism and now his office gets +36 Food(so office gets double-franchise bonuses basically). It's one of the by far the best tenet if you are culturally fluent and have a corporation.

Ahhh, that explains it. I finally understand, thanks for posting.

Fairly powerful considering that strategic monopolies(25%) are extremely nice. If this said a potential chance to get for your units +10% Combat Strength when defending, +20% Combat Strength when attacking, +1 Movement, etc along with giving you much more strategic resources to build your agribusiness and mien fields. I would take it in a heart beat. This one is an A+. +10% to all yields in the capital is essentially the Tradition Finisher and all modifiers are king in Vox Populi.

In theory, yes. In practice, however, by this time I usually have most of the monopolies I want because I am likely huge. I never found a reason to take that one yet. In other words in theory it can be strong, but in practice I didn't find any reason to really pick it.

People forget that pillaging is a viable strategy, but prefer not to do because workers can't repair the improvements fast enough. People also forget that production cost scales really hard after war weariness hits you and this policy deserves a C grade not an F.

At this point Gold from pillaging is completely irrelevant and not worth bothering the workers over, so it only is viable for Health, which everyone will do to save their veterans anyway. Production cost doesn't matter for me, I barely produce units at this point anyway, I'm mostly depending on my veterans and money to buy new ones as buildings scale much worse from city count when it comes to Gold. Worker speed at this point is not very relevant as the game is slowly ending, and the repair improvement argument works assuming you don't have any other worker improvement speed bonuses, like Pyramids/Progress/etc in which case it won't change the turn number. Even if you don't, it's still far from what one should expect from a T2 tenet.

Did people forget how strong this tenet was in vanilla? It went unchanged because the bullying mechanic was unchanged for a while and then buffed greatly. The +50% more effective is extremely insane allowing you to even get your allies to fear you. (that -1000 becomes no concern with this policy).

Again, what used to be doesn't really matter now. I could post "did people forget X was OP/UP sometime ago" in many threads, but it contributes little to the matter at hand. Tradition was OP in vanilla, but I didn't post so in threads asking for it to be buffed in VP. I also didn't counter guys who wanted nerfing Authority with "did you forget it was awful in vanilla?". I don't even know if it really was strong in vanilla because from what I remember it never felt good, I can't even remember if the friends/allies penalty against bullying existed then.
It's not "no concern", and even if it's breakable if combined with a similar bonus from Imperialism (it'd be like +100% then?), it'd be pretty unwise to waste so much Gold maintenance on holding enough of an army to overcome 1000 influence + IIRC 150 to 200 base resistance (it was increased some time ago iirc). All that purely to get a mere 6 Influence per turn with one city state, maybe two if they're close. At this point, gifting the units with United Front while using the money saved from GPT to build diplomats seems far more effective, and United Front is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed anyway. Bullying yields are not worth losing friends/allies over this late and wide in the game, so the only benefit is +6 influence which you require insane amount of actions to do. Unlike Freedom which just clicks twice or thrice to send a trade route, you must use heaven knows how many units to get anything, moving them around to get anything.
 
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Even if the +10 Gold per internal trade route worked for all trade route types, it'd still be a bad policy for all excluding Venice I guess
Meanwhile, if you added that. It's still a better and even a good policy when comparing it to Economic Union. +100 GPT is definitely better than +30 GPT with only trade going to freedom.
At this point Gold from pillaging is completely irrelevant and not worth bothering the workers over, so it only is viable for Health, which everyone will do to save their veterans anyway. Production cost doesn't matter for me, I barely produce units at this point anyway, I'm mostly depending on my veterans and money to buy new ones as buildings scale much worse from city count when it comes to Gold. Worker speed at this point is not very relevant as the game is slowly ending, and the repair improvement argument works assuming you don't have any other worker improvement speed bonuses, like Pyramids/Progress/etc in which case it won't change the turn number. Even if you don't, it's still far from what one should expect from a T2 tenet.
You forget about the part where people would exploit pillaging to create war weariness for the other team, yet ironically if you capture these cities, you get the unhappiness. Not to mention that people play Vox Populi in different game speed such as Marathon and often repairing these pillaged improvements are very critical considering a longer game.

Again, what used to be doesn't really matter now. I could post "did people forget X was OP/UP sometime ago" in many threads, but it contributes little to the matter at hand. Tradition was OP in vanilla, but I didn't post so in threads asking for it to be buffed in VP. I also didn't counter guys who wanted nerfing Authority with "did you forget it was awful in vanilla?". I don't even know if it really was strong in vanilla because from what I remember it never felt good, I can't even remember if the friends/allies penalty against bullying existed then.
It's not "no concern", and even if it's breakable if combined with a similar bonus from Imperialism (it'd be like +100% then?), it'd be pretty unwise to waste so much Gold maintenance on holding enough of an army to overcome 1000 influence + IIRC 150 to 200 base resistance (it was increased some time ago iirc). All that purely to get a mere 6 Influence per turn with one city state, maybe two if they're close. At this point, gifting the units with United Front while using the money saved from GPT to build diplomats seems far more effective, and United Front is not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed anyway. Bullying yields are not worth losing friends/allies over this late and wide in the game, so the only benefit is +6 influence which you require insane amount of actions to do. Unlike Freedom which just clicks twice or thrice to send a trade route, you must use heaven knows how many units to get anything, moving them around to get anything.
This policy is dependent upon the # of city-states. In a game with 12 city-states and 6 civilizations. It's useless. In a game with 41 city-states and 22 civilizations. It is a god tier policy. Even in the late atomic eras, city-states don't become allied to someone just because they are a little too far and AIs can't consider wasting paper on them. With this policy and a strong military might, you can easily scare city-states in 10 turns into aligning with you. Just because the human player can't perform well with it doesn't mean the AI does. I saw a lot of alliances created easily just because the AI took Gunboat Diplomacy which made the F rating a little awkward.
 
In theory, yes. In practice, however, by this time I usually have most of the monopolies I want because I am likely huge. I never found a reason to take that one yet. In other words in theory it can be strong, but in practice I didn't find any reason to really pick it.
I can see this view coming from standard size games, sure. For me even taking over my continent isn't always enough to get any strategic monopolies, so it's a consistent A+ from my perspective. It can also be pretty fun to turtle for most of the game and suddenly explode into blitzkrieg. My favorite way to play is using Germany to focus on infrastructure and only conquering one or two civs until ideologies hit, so strategics can even be one of my largest concerns at such times. There's other civs that can turtle their way to Autocracy and extra resources is always nice no matter the case, so I'd give Third Alternative an A, even on standard games.

With turtles in mind, I also find Total War to be pretty great, given that city count can easily double in the span of a few turns.
I'd give it an A, but for the most part Autocracy is still used by already massive empires, so I'll give Total War a C. The production can be great, but it could do with something extra to be consistently useful.
 
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I'm aware this will probably violate @Gazebo's no new code rule, but I think it's so cool and fitting that it would be worth it. (Although it's much easier for me to say that than him, who would need to do the code. :lol:)
It's because Vox Populi is projected to be done soon. Meaning no more developmental builds. Just a final and stable build with the occasional bugfix updates and a few number tweaking for balance. Besides, if we added anymore we'll be hitting that cap soon like Civ 4's Caveman2Cosmos and Rise to Mankind did when users played in the late game where their saves become too big and free memory becomes hard to find.
 
You said that Happiness isn't that tight at this point (I don't agree completely, going wide, weary and fighty enough means happiness matters anyway, though police state usually fixes the problems), what will the weariness effect accomplish? I think the policy's just as bad after the change.
War weariness affects more than happiness.

People forgot that this was one of the best autocratic policy you could take during the time of Vox Populi when AIs were easily triggered over their friends' capitals being taken and trade routes weren't being reworked to grant Culture and Science bonus. The City Connection production bonus should always be one of the best tenet for warmongering since conquering a city may have lost cities that you need replacing FAST. Overall, if there was a way to balance out internal trade routes and external trade routes. Autarky would probably be extremely strong.
It's really bad now though.

People forget that pillaging is a viable strategy, but prefer not to do because workers can't repair the improvements fast enough. People also forget that production cost scales really hard after war weariness hits you and this policy deserves a C grade not an F.
[/QUOTE]
This isn't a triple speed buff. 25% doesn't change your strategy when it comes to pillaging. There's no way you're building units more than 20% of the time, so the 25% production is more like 5% AT BEST. This policy is really bad.

Did people forget how strong this tenet was in vanilla? It went unchanged because the bullying mechanic was unchanged for a while and then buffed greatly. The +50% more effective is extremely insane allowing you to even get your allies to fear you. (that -1000 becomes no concern with this policy).
Vanilla strength doesn't matter. I agree with Enrico on this.
 
I'll believe that when j see it:) we just had a major naval change in this last patch alone.
And new units the patch before.

Some day we may accept that the perfect game simply does not exist. Do the final tweaks, and start new ideas in Vox Populi II.

Things that I'm still missing: A complete ideological tenets worth picking (so I'm not so tempted to go finish other trees instead), a slighty longer late game with top tech units fighting (maybe scoring extra points for launching spaceship, influencing the world or being the world leader, instead of just winning), not just nuking, and an AI aware that it's losing against a peaceful tall civ, joining forces to remove the threat of Brazil being the cultural leader, for example. If I were in a MP and suddenly Korea gets 10 techs ahead of everyone, I'll surely ask other players to help me put Korea on the ground again. This is only happening when a civ is too aggressive, but peaceful civs with large armies are safe bets, at least in normal difficulties.
 
Meanwhile, if you added that. It's still a better and even a good policy when comparing it to Economic Union. +100 GPT is definitely better than +30 GPT with only trade going to freedom.

Except Freedom's T1s are meant to be the worst of the ideological T1s as according to Gazebo, and it also provides a free trade route. If you stack the tr bonuses up, the thing can give 50 GPT, some culture and science by itself, and more franchise stuff. It definitely is a weak, bad policy though even among Freedom's T1 though, which is why I also suggested buffing that. It also got an F from me. It's better than creative expression, but that's worse than all ancient era policies I can think of so that's a bad example.

You forget about the part where people would exploit pillaging to create war weariness for the other team, yet ironically if you capture these cities, you get the unhappiness. Not to mention that people play Vox Populi in different game speed such as Marathon and often repairing these pillaged improvements are very critical considering a longer game.

This is a 25% faster improvement bonus super late, not something major. I only play on Epic and what you say is only partially correct. IIRC getting the first 25% reduction reduces road/repair time to 3 turns from 4, but the second 25% does nothing, though I might be mistaken as I rarely look at turn number - it's what I recall. Even longer games might be, well, longer, but that also means the period of time the tile is unrepaired doesn't really matter that much, especially since it's just a conquered city. The tile being repaired is yet again just a minor drop in the ocean, barely influencing anything, and that's assuming you even have workers nearby to fix it. Too little, too late.

This policy is dependent upon the # of city-states. In a game with 12 city-states and 6 civilizations. It's useless. In a game with 41 city-states and 22 civilizations. It is a god tier policy. Even in the late atomic eras, city-states don't become allied to someone just because they are a little too far and AIs can't consider wasting paper on them. With this policy and a strong military might, you can easily scare city-states in 10 turns into aligning with you. Just because the human player can't perform well with it doesn't mean the AI does. I saw a lot of alliances created easily just because the AI took Gunboat Diplomacy which made the F rating a little awkward.

So the AI can't send a diplomat to a CS, but it has tons of soldiers 10 tiles away from it, enough to overcome a 1000 penalty + innate 150-200 strength of the CS? I find that weird and a sign the AI is clearly doing something wrong, unless of course it's a warzone nearby. How many CSs can be near a warzone, though, two? I can believe it, but it's strange. If it went Imperialism and then got Gunboat to get +100% for scaring CSs. Instead of taking GD, it'd do better just opening Industry (since it obviously went Imperialism before) and using the dosh to buy diplomats or even regular units to gift with United Front if it really can't get the diplomats there.
 
Lightning Warfare +3 movement for Great Generals. Armor and Gun units gain +15% attack, +1 movement, and ignore enemy Zone of Control

Don't you guys find this one terribly OP? I remove the "ignore the zones of control" in my games. It removes an important game mechanics and it makes us hoomans too powerful - as ElliotS says, your armies become unstoppable.
 
T1

Autarky Internal trade routes grant +10 :c5gold:, and city connections provide +3 :c5production:
C - The gold from trade routes combined with having is ok when taken, but quickly becomes miniscule. Perhaps +10% gold in city instead and replace the static production with a % modifier as well

Elite Forces Newly created military units receive +15 Experience. Military units gain 50% more Experience from combat.
A - Works well, nuff said

Futurism Amount of Empire-wide :c5culture: used for :tourism: bonus from Palace increased by 20%.
? - Unclear on the impact but helps prevent being overrun by tourism, but nothing truly great

Lebensraum Receive :c5culture: and :c5goldenage: points when your borders expand. Citadel tile-acquisition radius doubled.
A - A specific amount would be nice to have here to make a more informative decision, but having Authority already giving food and gold with border growth makes this just better. Double citadel range always makes me wanna go snipe strategic or luxury resources from city states


Military-Industrial Complex
-33%:c5gold: cost of purchasing or upgrading units. +3 :c5science: from defense buildings, citadels, and unique improvements.
A - Cheaper upgrade and loads of science. I like a lot

New World Order Reduces Crime in all cities by 20%. Police Stations and Constabularies provide +3 :c5culture: and +5 :c5production:
A - Crime is rarely too hard to control while doing conquest, but it is nice anyway. I rarely build police stations and constabs anyway, so more incentive is nice.

United Front Militaristic City-States grant units 200% more quickly while at war with a common foe. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
A - This along with Gunboat Dip is changing the strategy from always demanding tribute to actually being allied with city states. Ally a few militaristic states first and use those units to bribe the rest

T2

Lightning Warfare +3 movement for Great Generals. Armor and Gun units gain +15% attack, +1 movement, and ignore enemy Zone of Control.
A - Speeds up conquest victory

Martial Spirit +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. War Weariness rate reduced by 25%, and razing speed doubled.
A - I rarely take mostly due to limited usage on Marathon speed, since the 50 turns does not scale (I only play on Marathon), but it can be a great finisher


Nationalism
Reduces unit :c5gold: maintenance costs by 33%
A - I agree it being boring, but very useful. Could perhaps be changed to gold per kill, just to make it a little more interesting

Police State +3 local :c5happy: from every Courthouse, and +1 :c5happy: from Police Stations. Build Courthouses in half the usual time.
A - This makes those puppets more worth converting to annexed cities

Syndicalism Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least Popular with. Does not count against Global Franchise maximum.
C - This requires you to either be popular with everyone or focus all your trade with one civ. It becomes quite hard late game to avoid war with everyone if you are close to victory, so perhaps it could also apply for allied city states ?

Third Alternative Quantity of Strategic Resources produced is increased by 100%. +10% to all yields in the Capital.
A - Having monopolies on strategic resources are very nice and getting to 50% is achievable with this policy. Being low on them which can happen will also be mitigated. It is however a little situational, but still nice

Total War +25% :c5production: when building military units, and workers construct improvements 25% more quickly.
C - As mentioned actually building units late game is not worth it compared to just buying them. Perhaps make them cheaper to buy.

T3

Air Supremacy
Receive a free Airport in every city. +25% :c5production: when building air units. Can build Zeros.
A - Airports are expensive and being free and instabuild is nice. Totally easy to move around units. I would take this for the free airports only

Cult of Personality +50% :tourism: to civilizations fighting a common enemy. A :c5greatperson: Great Person of your choice appears near your capital.
Warscores with Civilizations count as :tourism: Modifiers against them.
? - I do not truly understand how to use this, so I cant rate it

Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with :c5citystate: City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
A - This converts your "demand heavy tribute mini game" into permanent allied city states. If you have problems with them not being threatened, buy a tank or melee ship, and park it by them. This policy really does what the name says
 
Don't you guys find this one terribly OP? I remove the "ignore the zones of control" in my games. It removes an important game mechanics and it makes us hoomans too powerful - as ElliotS says, your armies become unstoppable.
It's definitely OP, though I wouldn't go as far as removing it with no replacement. It would be boring then. Tanks are the "I win" button with it, so maybe it shouldn't apply to armor? They're supposed to be what breaks through enemy lines, not majestic unicorns that prance around all obstacles, totally oblivious of reality. It could be a good way to push the end game to the Information Era further.
 
Martial Spirit +25% attack bonus for 50 turns. War Weariness rate reduced by 25%, and razing speed doubled.
A - I rarely take mostly due to limited usage on Marathon speed, since the 50 turns does not scale (I only play on Marathon), but it can be a great finisher
This is actually better on Marathon, because you're less likely to need to upgrade units and they can't produce as many replacements, allowing you to abuse the power peak even harder.
Futurism Amount of Empire-wide :c5culture: used for :tourism: bonus from Palace increased by 20%.
? - Unclear on the impact but helps prevent being overrun by tourism, but nothing truly great
The one thing this DOESN'T do is prevent you from being overrun by tourism... Raw culture is the only thing that stops enemy tourism, and this gives none.
United Front Militaristic City-States grant units 200% more quickly while at war with a common foe. +30 influence from military unit gifts to City-States.
A - This along with Gunboat Dip is changing the strategy from always demanding tribute to actually being allied with city states. Ally a few militaristic states first and use those units to bribe the rest
You'll receive a unit every ~8 turns with this policy. That's not enough to beat high-level AI's diplomat spam.
Syndicalism Corporate Franchises count double in the cities of civilizations you are at least Popular with. Does not count against Global Franchise maximum.
C - This requires you to either be popular with everyone or focus all your trade with one civ. It becomes quite hard late game to avoid war with everyone if you are close to victory, so perhaps it could also apply for allied city states ?
This is god-tier because your vassals are guaranteed trade partners and guaranteed to be influenced by you.

Gunboat Diplomacy Gain 6 more Influence (at Standard speed) per turn with :c5citystate: City-States you could demand tribute from. Your military forces are 50% more effective at intimidating :c5citystate: City-States.
A - This converts your "demand heavy tribute mini game" into permanent allied city states. If you have problems with them not being threatened, buy a tank or melee ship, and park it by them. This policy really does what the name says
Unless you've disabled the AI's ability to make diplo units I don't see how you could think this. You're almost certainly not getting past the -1000 modifier, and thus can't get more than 60 influence from this. (As it's nearly impossible to tribute allies.)

I disagree on a lot of the other stuff you said, but those are the most glaring inaccuracies imo. Nothing against you personally to be clear, I just heavily disagree with what you're saying.
 
Don't you guys find this one terribly OP? I remove the "ignore the zones of control" in my games. It removes an important game mechanics and it makes us hoomans too powerful - as ElliotS says, your armies become unstoppable.
It's definitely OP, though I wouldn't go as far as removing it with no replacement. It would be boring then. Tanks are the "I win" button with it, so maybe it shouldn't apply to armor? They're supposed to be what breaks through enemy lines, not majestic unicorns that prance around all obstacles, totally oblivious of reality. It could be a good way to push the end game to the Information Era further.
It's the big reason to choose Autocracy. There would be no point if your units don't get some serious buffs in the war tree, people would just use Order.

I think the fix would be teaching the AI to close it's lines against lightning warfare.

It wouldn't be nearly as OP if my tanks couldn't zip right through their infantry and annihilate their ranged units every time.
 
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