Lately I've been trying to complete the GalCiv3 steam achievements when I have nothing better to do. There are three that are causing me trouble:
"We care for the least of us"
"Results outweigh ideals"
"Means to an end"
All of them require you to unlock all of the ideology traits for Benevolence, Pragmatism, and Malevolence, respectively. Apparently all traits must be unlocked in a single game, because I tried unlocking them all over multiple games and didn't get the achievement. Because unlocking one increases the cost of unlocking the next, you are required to obtain 2010 ideology points in one game, assuming you stick strictly to one ideology. I know of a few ways to earn ideology points:
+10: Colonization
+20: Galactic events
+1/turn: Player-unique major ideology-specific building (Temple of Enrichment, Arbitration Center, Death Furnaces)
+0.2/turn: Player-unique intermediate ideology-specific building (Elevation Foundation, (nothing), Citadel of Revenue)
+0.1/turn: Colony-unique ideology-specific building (Missionary Center, Preparedness Center, Intimidation Center)
Okay let's run some numbers. Assume an Excessive or Immense-sized galaxy where you are able to colonize 50 additional planets. Selecting only the one ideology gets you 500 points. Assuming you unlock the ideology buildings and you place all of them, you get an additional 6.2 ideology points per turn (1 + 0.2 + 0.1 * 50). Let's say you start counting that from turn 80, which is perhaps a best-case scenario for colonizing 50 planets on a typical map. Let's say every 30 turns you get an ideology choice for a galactic event and choose your ideology. That averages to about 0.67 per turn, bringing you up to about 6.87 ideology points per turn in an ideal case. To make up the remaining 1510 ideology points will take 220 additional turns. So we're looking at a 300-turn game in an ideal case with a strict focus on one particular ideology.
Is there a better way?