Yeah I'm still wondering about World's Fair vs Sciences Funding. If Sciences Funding is done correctly, it does typically result in one extra Great Scientist (and speeds up the others by 2-4 turns which can matter.) World's Fair can also result in one extra GSci but only if the free policy makes the difference between finishing Order or not. World's Fair also requires the production investment which I don't always have available, and there isn't time to do just the 350h and wait for the AIs to finish it. World's Fair is better if I *know* it will work and make the difference on finishing the ideology, but that seems to be too hard to judge that far ahead of time so I go with Sciences Funding as more reliable. Finally, it's even possible to get both, for which your proposal has to be Sciences Funding and hope an AI picks World's Fair.
I'm still convinced on Order over Freedom, because Workers' Faculties and Skyscrapers. I don't care about saving food with Freedom because I don't care about growing the cities that late. The 100+ food costs aren't worth paying less than 30 turns from the end. I just set the cities on zero growth to support all the specialists. Happy crunches come earlier than that and Order has enough with the monument happy policy if I need it. I didn't have problems with spaceship parts, just misjudged the cost and how soon to get to Apollo.
As for Poland, I hadn't thought of that, use the extra policies to fill both Tradition and Liberty. I'd been trying to put them into Commerce or Patronage or Piety. I'm not sold on the idea but might try it out. But the problem is still that any dip into Liberty delays the Tradition finisher, which is where so much of Tradition's power is concentrated. Poland can finish Tradition even earlier than anyone else (~t60 with 5 normal policies plus the classical era freebie) but a three-deep diversion into Liberty will push that out around t100 (the 7th normal policy plus classic and medieval.) If the Tradition finisher accounts for 1 food for 8 cities for those 40 turns, just that time difference accounts for more than Collective Rule will ever produce (free settler plus 33 hammers times 6 more.)
Emperor difficulty, which seems about the sweet spot with some challenge from the AIs and decent money available from them but minimal risk of losing wonders and carpet-of-units invasion.
I'm still convinced on Order over Freedom, because Workers' Faculties and Skyscrapers. I don't care about saving food with Freedom because I don't care about growing the cities that late. The 100+ food costs aren't worth paying less than 30 turns from the end. I just set the cities on zero growth to support all the specialists. Happy crunches come earlier than that and Order has enough with the monument happy policy if I need it. I didn't have problems with spaceship parts, just misjudged the cost and how soon to get to Apollo.
As for Poland, I hadn't thought of that, use the extra policies to fill both Tradition and Liberty. I'd been trying to put them into Commerce or Patronage or Piety. I'm not sold on the idea but might try it out. But the problem is still that any dip into Liberty delays the Tradition finisher, which is where so much of Tradition's power is concentrated. Poland can finish Tradition even earlier than anyone else (~t60 with 5 normal policies plus the classical era freebie) but a three-deep diversion into Liberty will push that out around t100 (the 7th normal policy plus classic and medieval.) If the Tradition finisher accounts for 1 food for 8 cities for those 40 turns, just that time difference accounts for more than Collective Rule will ever produce (free settler plus 33 hammers times 6 more.)
Emperor difficulty, which seems about the sweet spot with some challenge from the AIs and decent money available from them but minimal risk of losing wonders and carpet-of-units invasion.