v2.1 - Ideology Review

from GalCiv4 Forums

Time to take a look at Ideologies (version 2.1). I am going to use a simple scale for the various ones.

S - Too good, its extremely strong.
A - Solid, I like where its at.
C - Has its moments, not the best one but its got a niche.
F - Underpowered, needs a tune up.
NA - I don't have enough experience with this to make an assessment.

General

  • Too many ideologies rely on your citizens having specific traits, and those traits are both very random and often very rare. If this is going to remain as a mechanic, there should be a way to give citizens ideologies (maybe like divine empaths make it money or something with some kind of propaganda tech).
  • A lot of ideologies give wonders, I should be able to highlight over the tech and see the wonder, else its difficult for new players to know how good something is.

Individualism

  • Independence - A
  • Self-Determinism - C
  • Private Property Rights - A
  • Self-Reliance - A
  • Autonomy - C, the benefit is good but a bit late in the game for it.
  • Privacy - F, very random and often at this point I have my approval fixed up already.
  • Competitiveness - F, very late for this bonus, doesn't move the needle nearly as much as you might think.
  • Self-Governess - C
  • Sovereign Identity - NA, this ideology is horribly vague, needs to actually note the mechanics.

Totalitarianism

  • Iron Fist - C, it has uses but doesn't provide a continuous OOMPH like a lot of other tiers do.
  • Prestige - C
  • Purges - NA
  • Obedience - F, lowering expectations is generally worse than a straight approval bonus, and the rest is pretty random.
  • Secret Police - NA
  • Censorship - A
  • Conscription - F, this late in the game, I can easily crank out 5 transports with minimal difficulty, its never worth a precious culture selection.
  • Oppression - A
  • Big Brother - NA

Egalitarianism

  • Fairness - A/S, I think on some starts this is the strongest first pick ideology, 3 colony ships can lock up a huge amount of real estate early. that would be good enough, but then a permanent 10% approval is awesome.
  • Representation/Tolerance - C, which one you want depends on your core world to colony ratio. Its a decent boost to influence.
  • Inclusivity - C
  • Universal Rights - C/F, depends on the amount of people, but since you tend to centralize one super influence planet you can bring all the people to this one planet for a big payout.
  • Labor Rights - NA
  • Empowerment - A
  • Diversity - A
  • Utopia - A, Dream of Utopia is very hard to research but if you can bag a "complete 1 research benefit" you are off to the races, and its very hard to stop you from taking over the entire sector.

Traditionalism

  • Sacred History - C
  • Social Ties - A, I think this one is bugged right now, but in theory if your a racial pure play this is a massive reduction in crime.
  • Code of Law - A
  • Family Values - C, growth is always good but it takes a while to really pay out versus other benefits that immediately start going.
  • Cultural Pride - F, too random.
  • Preferred Culture - C/F, if you really need approval this late than its got a use, but its a tough sell.
  • Devotion - C, still very random but this deep in the tree you normally know if your going to have a good selection of these people and if you have a decent amount its a pretty solid bonus.
  • Dogma - F, planet resistance seems worthless at the moment, not worth a culture point.
  • Legacy - NA

Progressivism

  • Eureka - S, I agree with some others that the stacking approval bonus is too good, its too easy to get a massive bonus here.
  • Deep Investigation - C
  • Innovation - A, the citizen bonus again is very random but the building is a per colony building that is quite a big boost to research.
  • Early Adoption - C, more science is more science but this more like a 5% research boost as your not always going to pick breakthroughs.
  • Breakthrough - A, again hyperion shrinker really solid wonder.
  • Risk Taking - C, shark tank is a pretty solid wonder though a bit of an oddity in this research focused tree.
  • Futurist - NA
  • Quantum Leap - C, if I'm pushing the research tree I'm normally already got a lot of research brewing, so 1000 research while seemingly very impressive isn't always that big a deal.
  • Singularity - NA

Pacifism

  • Kindness - A
  • Charity - A
  • Peacekeeping - A
  • Altruism - A, this might even be S on very large maps with a lot of civs, but don't have any experience with that.
  • Empathy - F, very weird thematically as your not usually conquering a lot with this hyper diplomacy focus.
  • Forgiveness - C, again weird them and the bonus is often situational.
  • Serenity - A/S, the sheer power of this trait makes it good even when you don't have a lot of people with this trait. And if you do....wow!
  • Peacefulness - NA
  • Sanctuary - NA

Nihilism

  • Detached - A
  • Realism - S, honestly you can get a stupid amount of value from this over the long term, and its a weird tree for this to be in.
  • Criminal Ties - F, the executive order is "ok", but it consumes your control for other things, and it doesn't happen enough to be worth it.
  • Moral Relativism - SS, strongest single ideology in the game, stupidly OP.
  • Exploitation - NA
  • Flexibility - A
  • Attrition - A
  • Fatalism - C
  • Terror Stars - NA

Collectivism

  • Unification - C/A, it can be a nice bonus in the right circumstances, you put babylon on your homeworld and your off to the races. But for a first pick you don't always know if your homeworld is going to be the mainstay influence planet, so its more of a gamble on how good this will be.
  • Shared Belief - F, .2 pop per housing district is peanuts, and the increased chance is still too random to commit to.
  • Consensus - A, its got enough in here that its pretty good.
  • Cooperation - NA
  • Unified Coordination - A, could be considered the best military policy in the game.
  • Mass Mobilization - NA
  • Interdependency - NA
  • Solidarity - NA
  • Hive Mind - NA

 

galactic civilizations iv
10,926 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

Thanks for taking the time to write this up, Im looking forward to seeing how others opinions compare

Reply #2 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

I also think this is great addition to the knowledge base. Gives some room for thought about what will best fit the current needs. Strange thing happened, though. Choosing Fairness in the Egalitarian culture tree no longer gives me colony ships. It was working fine yesterday, but today, zilch. Nothing has changed with my setup, including mods, so I'm stumped.  EDIT: I figured this out. I was obsoleting the Colony Ship in favor of a different one. Once I stopped doing that until after getting my 3 ships it worked perfectly again. 

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from GalCiv4 Forums Top

This reads like sometimes the ideologies are being evaluated based on their descriptions. Unfortunately the game doesn't have reliable descriptions and it requires both parsing the XML files and ingame experimentation to find out what everything does.

I'll discuss the Progressivism tree since I've recently finished a game where I completed it.

T1:
- Eureka: I agree about the stackable bonus being great. Personally I like the first option being this good and potentially worth splashing so I wouldn't change it too much. Perhaps the 6th stack should remove the oldest one so there's a maximum of 5 stacks at once. (Duration is 10 turns btw.)
 
T2:
- Deep Investigation: Relies too much on early "new anomalies" being good when actually your flagships are probably still busy with old ones for quite a while, and tech tree offers them multiple times later.
- Innovation: Innovation Complex is good for boosting other research improvements.
 
T3:
- Early Adoption: very random benefit based on which techs you get offered at discount
- Breakthrough: Hyperion Shrinker is nice. Somewhat high build cost of 600 manufacturing and 5 prom. For anyone who doesn't know, building it helps fit more stuff on your ships and you can get it relatively early.
 
T4:
- Risk Taking: The description mostly fails here. Most importantly this unlocks the Think Tank improvement (civ achi) which gives raw +1 Research per level. It is a centerpiece of your research world. The Shark Tank is also a good econ building with adjacency bonuses to both wealth and research, so it helps tie those improvement groups together. This is the best reason to go beyond first step into the tree.
 
T5:
- Futurist: Possibility Engine is a massive 50%+5%/lvl research bonus but you probably have a bonus in the hundreds on the planet already and the 2400 build cost may not always feel worth it.
- Quantum Leap: Game tends to hide research costs too much but if you compare to core world production, 1000 research probably won't excite anyone at this point.
 
T6:
- Singularity: Bugged? The description oversells it in the first place. From XML file I would expect +1 intelligence for all citizens and leaders but I didn't see the modifier appear. (And it wouldn't be amazing compared to Genetic Manipulation policy.) For some reason I saw a super minimal +2.60% to +2.80% effect appear per core world, instead. The expensive tech option showed up but haven't tried it.


I won't try to make this comprehensive since I need more practical experimentation and the XML files are so annoying too. Couple other things I want to mention.

Traditionalism T1, Sacred History

Hall of Tradition gives +1 Culture per turn, +1 raw research, and a minor +1% gross income per level. Original post valued it at C. But any ideology tree path will quickly catch up by taking this first, compared to not taking it. If you can get Hall of Tradition built immediately, reaching your 4th ideology trait can be faster than reaching 3rd without it. From there the advantage keeps growing. The last T6 trait of a non-traditionalism tree can be reached up to 31% faster by taking this first. Calculation ignores one-time Culture rewards and ideology discounts, but the latter doesn't change things much. Other sources of culture per turn would reduce the relative advantage.
 
The reason to not take this first is simply because we value something other than Ideology traits. For example, getting those early colony ships, approval bonuses or constructors from other trees ASAP. Or rushing some slightly deeper trait without having the 1 promethion for the Hall. After taking multiple other traits due to their urgency, detour into Sacred History is only a very long term play.

Traditionalism T5, Devotion

This takes the cake for most misleading description I've spotted.

Description: "Every citizen with the traditional trait produces +1 raw minerals per turn for their core world."

From the XML, actual effect appears to be +2 Control per turn, and all current and future Leaders get traditionalism trait. I still need to find an opportunity to try this in practice.