Is this a troll??? Any country with a lot of states NEEDS political thought for NFs (which are absolutely necessary)
b) the 'right' tech choices are both subjective and contextual, so there's no definite 'right' choice which everyone would always agree with. What you think the 'right' techs are for a given set of circumstances will be precisely the wrong ones from someone else's point of view.
Even the political techs for NFs are subject to this rule. You might think that it is 100% vital that you get those NF techs up to your limit for population. That's not always true, for the following reasons:
1) If you plan your economy right, you won't need NFs to encourage industrialization anyway. I can get plenty of craftsmen without ever using a craftsman NF.
2) After Nationalism and Imperialism, those political techs start to look really bad in their inventions. Yes, you get an additional NF, but at the cost of lots of rebel organization gain, which only gets worse as you go further into the line. Depending on your game, two extra NFs might be pointless in the face of hordes of communist and fascist rebels, since you end up killing so many people. And since you will never solve unemployment, you will never stop having POPs with high militancy and radical ideologies. The problem just never goes away.
3) NFs are useful for spamming colonization, but if you aren't going to do that, then they become less vital.
4) While I can speed up clergy creation in the early game using NFs, tech rushing political techs for NFs still isn't as helpful for literacy as grabbing those literacy techs. Getting Darwinism really early solidifies efficient literacy increases in ways that NFing for additional clergy just can't compete with. After all, you can't really expect to get much out of more than 4% clergy in a state, and clever players will note that high literacy techs mean that even 2% clergy in a state will get it close to 100% literacy long before the end of the game.
5) If I need soldiers, NFs will get some quickly, but high military spending will do it over time regardless.
6) Ditto for officers.
7) Ditto for crats, although the efficiency advantages to POP promotion mean that you want better efficiency sooner, rather than later. It's not like you can even get 7 NFs early enough in the game to get tons of crats and get that admin efficiency up. You might as well NF as best you can in the 50s and let it go with high spending.
8) You can achieve 100% literacy, 100% admin efficiency, and maximum effective leadership gain without ever going past Nationalism and Imperialism.
In other words, in several games as Russia, I have dominated the planet without going too deep into the political line. In fact, I find it
easier to do so when I am working towards certain goals. (Not all the time, though.) I can watch AI nations with lots of political techs burn in the fires of revolution while I sit back as the Tsar, sip a refreshing beverage, and laugh at them while my own people line in prosperity and contentment.
I wouldn't program the AI in AHD to focus too much on political techs. Past Nationalism and Imperialism, the AI is setting itself up for revolutionary failure.
