What is ideology? "A set of doctrines or beliefs that are shared by the members of a social group or that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system."
Your ideology, and ideological choices, should be the shared - and consistent - 'glue' that binds your empire together, not some multi-choice lottery that lets you choose what suits on a week by week basis.
Anyhow, other folk rage about tech specialistions, which don't bug me at all, but this does. One of the arguments against specialisations was that it wasn't realistic; civlisations will try and make their tech better AND cheaper AND cost less to maintain, not just one of those three options. Pfffftt I said, realistic, whatever...but now, how realistic is it that the ruler of a benevolent civilisation could make several non-benevolent choices without upsetting his subjects? That the ruler of a benevolent civilisation WOULD make non-benevolent choices to begin with? A benevolent empire making a malevolent choice just to get a few free ships ain't no benevolent empire to begin with, right?
And it's cheesy, marginally outright cheaty, right up there with other cheesy "player only" tactics.
And yes, I pick which trait my civ is going to be at the start of each game and limit myself to those options, because that's just more realistic to me, and I want those limitations forced on every other player...trust me, you'll thank me. Eventually.
