Order and Autocracy

[zaku_zelo]

Looking to play a world domination game. The map will be grey with Germans. Having trouble deciding on an ideology, though.
I've heard it said a lot that Order has more happiness boosts than Autocracy. Makes sense, it's the big empire ideology, but I'm not seeing it; add them up and Autocracy's got a bit more per city, quite a bit more if you're being realistic and don't expect all the research buildings and a solar/nuclear/hydro plant in every one of your little cities. Your thoughts?

[samthecoy]

Autocrcy 's also good for warmongering, I'd pick that if domination's your thing.
Order tends to have more benefits that assist wide empires, but that's not stricly speaking true just in terms of happiness.
Also, build Prora. For obvious reasons :D

[Matthew]

They are both great for domination, but since you are Germany I'd go with Autocracy. Reason: The tier 3 Order policy gives +50% on internal trade, which is great for domination. After a few puppets to boost your GPT, you can move external trade to hammer routes, which not only keeps them protected when you declare war on the world, but also lets you pump out military much quicker.

However, if you do something similar with Germany, you lose out on the Hanse bonus. Probably better to go with gunboat diplomacy to boost CS rep, and keep external trade-routes going to CS's to get both a production and gold boost.

Just be careful not to declare war on someone who has alliances with any CS's you are trading with. Hence, gunboat diplomacy to try and secure the alliance yourself without needing to throw too much gold at CS gifts.

[zxcvbob]

Don't overlook the happiness boost from finishing Commerce ("Protectionism", I think) If you get that, you can warmonger your little heart out without running into too many happiness problems -- remember you'll be capturing the occasional capital with happy world wonders like Notre Dame.

I like Freedom for any victory type, but to actually answer your question, I'd take Autocracy for the +3 happiness per courthouse. If you have a warchest of gold, that's better than Order's "Iron Curtain" free courthouse.

[zaku_zelo]

How good is gunboat diplomacy? Never used it. Is it strong enough to just plop down a unit next to a CS and get an endless font of influence?

Also, courthouses. That policy you're talking about also gives free courthouses everywhere, something I found insanely useful with Saladin in the Renaissance scenario...but there's an autocracy policy that gives 3 happiness per courthouse, which is also really good. Torn on that too.

[Octavia]

Order is great for Happiness due to the +2 Happiness from Monuments(Which you should have in every city) and +1 Happiness from Workshops, Factories and Solar, Hydro and Nuclear Plants(Which you probably have a fair bit of). Add in the obligatory +1 Happiness per University, Observatory, Public School and Research Lab, if you even need it, and you're doing well; combine it with Skyscrapers for rapid purchasing of Happiness buildings, and Worker's Factories for more Science, and you can essentially keep up with the burden of conquering easily.

Looking at similar policies for Autocracy, you have +1 Happiness from Castles, Arsenals and Military Bases(Which you may not have in anything but frontier cities), +3 Happiness from Courthouses(Not particularly great unless you Annex heavily), and the best Happiness policy, +2 Happiness from Barracks, Armories and Military Academies, which essentially allows you to turn your cities into unit producing powerhouses with the side-effect of +6 Happiness, nothing to scoff at, and makes them essentially desirable for just the Happiness boost.

As for the Ideological Wonders, Order gives +50% Production for Armor units(Which would include Panzers). Autocracy gives Happiness based on Social Policies, but depending on how many cities you Annex or build, assuming Puppets don't increase Culture requirements, then it can vary significantly; I suppose that you'd probably be close to having to trees filled out, so that's ten policies(Assuming the opener doesn't count), arguably less or more depending on how much Culture you can get.

Finally, in terms of ending policies, Clausewitz's Legacy is generally a nail in the coffin for the rest of the world, and I'd almost argue it's not needed if your Warmongering is going well. Gunboat Diplomacy can be good to get partial control of the World Congress and prevent heavily damaging proposals from passing, while assisting you with United Front(Two times the unit gifts from Militaristic City-States), since you can stuff a military unit or two there for Influence; you don't need too many of them, and it more than pays for itself from the Influence gained. Iron Curtain is good if you're running Internal Trade Routes, or if you Annex heavily, but otherwise it falls short.

So yeah, Order is much less focused on conquest, but will provide more instant Happiness, and for Germany it has good synergy with Panzers, assuming you can grab the Kremlin. Autocracy is more focused on conquest, at the cost of lacking Science and no boost to Great People, while the Happiness policies will require you to go slightly out of your way to obtain them, unless you sacrifice other aspects to get Castles and Barracks up in every city; Lightning Warfare is also a good choice for Germany as well, since Panzers will receive a higher combat boost than Tanks(Since it's percent based), and ignoring Zones of Control with superior movement will allow you to take great control of any battlefield.

In short, Order is best if you might not be able to conquer the world and need to fall back on another victory, Autocracy is by far the better late game Warmonger policy, but it can suffer from Happiness issues early on. Order fixes those almost instantly, without the need for more maintenance costs, and the added benefit of faster building construction for some of them. I imagine that people prefer Order due to how you can shift gears and it has a much stronger early tennet system, that allows you to continue warring, instead of Autocracy, which forces you to either prepare beforehand with maintenance costs and 'useless' buildings, in exchange for a much more powerful late game.

[JVteam]

If going for World domination, definetly choose Autocracy. Practically every tenet encourages warmongering, building military buildings and keeping a large standing army, only exception is futurism. Order only has Iron curtain, everything else encourages keeping put and constructing civilian buildings.
To prove my point:

Autocracy Military-promoting tenets:

Level one:
Elite Forces: Wounded Military Units inflict 25% more damage than they would normally.
Fortified Borders: +1 Local Happiness per Castle, Arsenal and Military Base.
Mobilization: Gold cost of purchasing units reduced by 33%.
United Front: Militaristic City-States gift units twice as often when at war with a common foe.

Level two:
Lightning Warfare: Great Generals receive +3 Movement. Armored units receive +1 Movement and +15% attack bonus, and ignore enemy ZOC.
Militarism: +2 Local Happiness per Barracks, Armory and Military Academy.
Police State: +3 Local Happiness from each Courthouse. Build Courthouses in half the usual time.
Nationalism: Unit Maintenance cost reduced by 33%.
Third Alternative: Strategic Resources provide double quantity. +5 Food and Science in Capital.
Total War: +25% Production towards Military Units. New Units receive +15 XP.

Level three:
Clausewitz's Legacy:All units recieve a +20% Combat Bonus for the next 50 turns.
Cult of Personality:+50% tourism to any civ with whom you are fighting a war against a common enemy.
Gunboat diplomacy: + 6 influence per turn from city-states you could demand tribute from.

[zaku_zelo]

Feel I should clarify this: I'm not going for domination, I'm talking WORLD domination. Gotta take an empire that spans the entire planet and actually maintain it, not just capturing the capitals and calling it a day. Think I'm still leaning towards Autocracy, though.

[naur]

Order is more production/science based, Autocracy is more military based. I normally go with Order, because I find production most helpful during a war.

[zxcvbob]

"Nationalism: Unit Maintenance cost reduced by 33%." I forgot about that one. It can be gamechanging all by itself, as maintaining a huge military can eat up all your GPT.

[JVteam]

Ursprungligen skrivet av zaku_zelo:

Feel I should clarify this: I'm not going for domination, I'm talking WORLD domination. Gotta take an empire that spans the entire planet and actually maintain it, not just capturing the capitals and calling it a day.

Still Autocracy. Take over the world and get all the funds you need from bullying city-states.

Or trading with them if you really prefer.

[Matthew]

Ursprungligen skrivet av zaku_zelo:

How good is gunboat diplomacy? Never used it. Is it strong enough to just plop down a unit next to a CS and get an endless font of influence?

Very good, with one minor drawback. To ensure the "demand tribute" option, you will generally need a few units permanently parked near the CS borders.

I say minor for two reasons. 1. Many CS's are often clustered, so one group of military can cover that entire group. 2. There is a point ~modern era where city queues begin to open up and churning out military is a non-issue.

Freedom can also be decent for warmongering. It gets a few combat perks. The major drawback is to get the maximum amount of bonuses from Freedom, you really want to abuse specialists. Which is difficult to do in newly captured cities, or smaller cities. So for the purpose of covering the map in grey German cities, the happiness from Order/Auto will work much better.

[Matthew]

Ursprungligen skrivet av jrocker314:

Order only has Iron curtain, everything else encourages keeping put and constructing civilian buildings.

To be fair, many of the bonuses overlap.

All happiness tenets basically equal out. Sure, Autocracy's are on military buildings, but it isn't like you are going to be skimping on science and production buildings, so you will still have both.

Production and gold bonuses apply to both infrastructure and military. An Order city can easily get 8+ hammers at the base, which then gets multiplied by the modifiers. Throw on the 50% hammer routes (which does come at the opportunity cost of no gold/food trade), and what Order lacks in quality it makes up for in quantity.

No doubt Auto is the better warmongering tree, as that is the purpose. But Order definitely has enough perks to hold its own. Put all cities on non-stop military production, purchase any needed buildings with Skyscrapers, Mercantilism, and Big Ben.

[zaku_zelo]

Ursprungligen skrivet av matthewameluxen:

Ursprungligen skrivet av jrocker314:

Order only has Iron curtain, everything else encourages keeping put and constructing civilian buildings.

All happiness tenets basically equal out. Sure, Autocracy's are on military buildings, but it isn't like you are going to be skimping on science and production buildings, so you will still have both.

I've been wondering about that. Should I have all the science buildings in all those tiny, 8 pop or less cities? Research Labs and Public Schools are expensive and wouldn't do much with so few people.

[zxcvbob]

Another thing to take into account is what ideologies the AI's have picked already -- or are likely to pick. If your culture and tourism is low, you should go with the flow and jsut make it work for you. If you are a tourism powerhouse with museums and hotels and airports everywhere, go against the flow and export unhappiness to your neighbors :D

(another reason I like Freedom; the AI's mostly go Order and Autocracy, and I start with the most vulnerable one and send trade routes and diplomats until they are forced to switch or have a revolution, then move up to the next one...)

[Matthew]

Ursprungligen skrivet av zaku_zelo:

I've been wondering about that. Should I have all the science buildings in all those tiny, 8 pop or less cities? Research Labs and Public Schools are expensive and wouldn't do much with so few people.

Pre-BNW I'd say not as big of a deal. With BNW each city now increases global tech cost by 5%. Which is fine if each additional city is contributing science, but if you have a large empire full of small crap cities with no science buildings, then it could be a drain on your tech pace.

Schools give +3 science and labs +4 before population is even considered, which is quite a bit if it is a low pop. city.

On the other hand, for a full aggression game you only really need to cap out at WW2 bombers, so tech pace could permantenly freeze and it wouldn't be a big deal.

Also consider that those small cities would also need to get a military base, arsenal, and military academy to get Auto's happiness perks, which isn't cheap either. And those don't help counter the 5% per city science penalty.