What ideology does the AI choose most often?

[Iry]

I've seen the AI be smart and be stupid about it. In one game, almost everyone on the biggest continent picked the same ideology as the person with the highest culture (Freedom). In the same game, my biggest trading partner picked the same ideology as me because we were such good friends.

And in the same game? Babylon picked Autocracy.

 

[klokwerk]

They choose order a bit more, then it's freedom a bit more than autocracy.

Can't blame them, autocracy seems a bit less strong right now.

 

[Createk]

I feel like Autocracy is more picked than Freedom atleast in my games.

 

[Bad Wolf]

I played a game where Alex, Atilla and Ahmed all went Autocracy.

But in general the AI seems to prefer Order. This was the case in G&K/Vanilla as well.

 

[slightlymarxist]

In my around five games on BNW, Order is definitely the most frequent. Once someone has taken Order, the remaining civs pick from Freedom or Autocracy (I've even seen Egypt pick autocracy fwiw).

I guess Order therefore needs a nerf? If even the AI thinks +2 happiness from Monuments is way better than anything else.

 

[steveg700]

They choose order a bit more, then it's freedom a bit more than autocracy.

Can't blame them, autocracy seems a bit less strong right now.

If you're just looking to net more yield bonuses from tiles, specialists, and buildings, then yes.

If you're looking to take a more...assertive role in the world, then heck no it's insanely powerful.

 

[steveg700]

In my around five games on BNW, Order is definitely the most frequent. Once someone has taken Order, the remaining civs pick from Freedom or Autocracy (I've even seen Egypt pick autocracy fwiw).

I guess Order therefore needs a nerf? If even the AI thinks +2 happiness from Monuments is way better than anything else.

I don't see a preference for any particular ideology in my games. Like I said before, if I reload a game from 1 turn ago, a civ will choose a completely different ideology. It's obviously just calculating odds and then rolling percentile dice.

Not sure why +2 happiness from monuments would be considered better than so many other happienss bonuses that are available.

 

[adwcta]

steve, I've done the same experiment and the AI would choose the same ideology every time.

it has situational awareness and picks the best one for its situation, between existing influence levels and the victory condition it is pursuing.

your situation was probably fairly unique in that all three ideologies were exhibiting the same influence on the AI (or that no other ideologies existed, or that the influence exactly cancelled out the bonus tenants for picking other ideologies, etc), and the AI was a non-peaceful Civ that was pursuing a cultural victory.

........

i'm convinced AI is picking order so often because the human player dominates the AI at city states (the diplomacy victory condition), so it eliminates freedom from the equation. try to play a lower-difficulty setting culture game, being the first to ideology, not give open borders and be exotic-familiar with all other civs (while they are unknown to you) by the time they pick ideology, have the largest army, and not hold more than 1-2 city states. i'm convinced everyone who is not bent on world domination will follow you into freedom at that point.

order is picked because the human player often has the lowest soldier count (hence AI wants to keep military option available) and most city states (hence AI doesn't want to compete for that), and order > autocracy for science and culture. its' thus much easier to get the AI to follow you into Order than either Freedom or Autocracy. Actually, Freedom should be the hardest to get followers in, since you have to have the dominant army (whereas you having dominant science leans AI toward autocracy and you having dominant CS control leans AI toward order).

 

[Byzantine Bomb]

The Poll results

Autocracy 1 1.45%
Freedom 3 4.35%
Order 58 84.06%
All chosen equally often 7 10.14%

Generally the AI in my experience picks order but I've seen my share of autocracies and freedoms.

 

[Maniac]

The Poll results

Let's hope Firaxis notices this thread and does something about it. So keep on voting I'd say, despite the result already being rather clear.

 

[Pythakoreas]

I find that the AI chooses the Ideology of the civ that has the biggest amount of Tourism before they adopt the Ideology.

And I shove Freedom down the throats of warmongers.

 

[Arachnofiend]

If you're just looking to net more yield bonuses from tiles, specialists, and buildings, then yes.

If you're looking to take a more...assertive role in the world, then heck no it's insanely powerful.

Honestly? Arsenal of Democracy is a better warmonger tenant than anything Autocracy has. The reason I take Autocracy is for Industrial Espionage: tech steals with it make Atomic Era techs as fast as the ones from the Renaissance, and that's beautiful. It's an extraordinary tenant when you're behind on techs, and let's you beeline military and just pick up the infrastructure techs from your rivals.

Way I see it, you take Freedom when going tall, Order when going wide, and Autocracy when you're losing.

 

[A Rabid Dopsis]

Way I see it, you take Freedom when going tall, Order when going wide, and Autocracy when you're losing.

I endorse this message.

 

[adwcta]

Honestly? Arsenal of Democracy is a better warmonger tenant than anything Autocracy has.

I think this is a strictly false statement. There is a +25% military production tennant in autocracy that also gives 15exp. Being able to gift CS units for more influence is not as good for warmongering as an extra 15exp.

Autocracy also, of course, has a couple other military-themed tenants, whereas Freedom only has that one.

 

[Merciorum]

On my 1st game, Poland got an ideology just before me, and picked Autocracy. Everyone else picked Freedom or Order (with Freedom clearly being dominant). That said, my general experience has been of Civs mostly picking Order, with some Freedom and one or two Autocracies around the edges.

 

[Hruberen]

I've seen the zulu and the mayans pick autocracy, and I think they were both in a war, the mayans were in the lead so that cancels out pick autocracy when losing. The only civ I've seen pick freedom was india, even tiny venice didn't pick it. Everyone else has chosen order, this definitely needs to be changed so that at least 2 civs pick every ideology, also city flipping should be more common.

 

[Bagi]

In my around five games on BNW, Order is definitely the most frequent. Once someone has taken Order, the remaining civs pick from Freedom or Autocracy (I've even seen Egypt pick autocracy fwiw).

I guess Order therefore needs a nerf? If even the AI thinks +2 happiness from Monuments is way better than anything else.

Egypt has picked autocracy in every single one of my games, if anything Ramesses has become more annoying with BNW. I've even had a game where Pedro was the only one to pick autocracy. Funnily enough he seemed to use it mostly for cultural purposes and remained friendly throughout the rest of the game.

Despite Order being so popular I'm finding it pretty easy to encourage freedom on my closest allies. Just stay friendly with them and try to maximize tourism before ideologies hit, usually you get 2-4 freedom buddies to help your endgame. Most likely to work with civs with fewer cities, but I've seen ICSing Indonesia adopt freedom with me as well.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

Just to contribute to the pool of experience we see here...

In my last game, AI Poland was the run-away civ that won the game (had 2x the score of 2nd place civ, which was me). Anyways, they were the first to pick an ideology, and Poland choose Autocracy. They were also conquering and expanding like crazy (took over 3 civs, no one denounced them or tried to stop them).

In previous games, I rarely see Freedom taken by AI. Priorities in my games (I've played about 6 games so far) seem to be Autocracy > Order > Freedom.

In my current game, I got the first ideology and picked Autocracy. Everyone else went Order, then Freedom. Probably because I'm warmongering and no one likes me (Embargo Me, Embargo City States...both passed =(

 

[Maniac]

In my last game, AI Poland was the run-away civ that won the game (had 2x the score of 2nd place civ, which was me). Anyways, they were the first to pick an ideology, and Poland choose Autocracy. They were also conquering and expanding like crazy (took over 3 civs, no one denounced them or tried to stop them).

In previous games, I rarely see Freedom taken by AI. Priorities in my games (I've played about 6 games so far) seem to be Autocracy > Order > Freedom.

Did everyone else after Poland take Autocracy too? Because that's what this thread is about. Not what ideology the first civ to pick picks, but what the majority picks.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

@Maniac - Poland took Autocracy first. They were on another continent with Sweden, who was friends with Poland. So Sweden also took Autocracy.

I was on a separate continent with two other civs. Since I was leading on that continent, both Civs followed me and took Freedom (I was playing Brazil). There was a third continent, with America and Zulu. They both took Order.

The AI definitely takes into account it's neighbors when picking their ideology.