Piety or Rationalism?

Piety or Rationalism?

  • Piety

    Votes: 28 17.3%
  • Rationalism

    Votes: 134 82.7%

  • Total voters
    162

Skibbi

Prince
Joined
Nov 8, 2011
Messages
422
Under most circumstances, do you prefer Piety or Rationalism?
 
Piety stinks really badly now in G&K, needs some serious buffs. I would rather stick with Tradition all the way than go into Piety. For a tree that's supposed to make cultural victories easier, it does a bad job at it.

Rationalism is great from the opener to the finisher. There isn't a single policy that I wouldn't want to keep.
 
I often find rationalism necessary to keep up with the AI in science, especially in higher difficulties. Piety was much, much better before Gods and Kings. I often find that by the time you finish piety its already late in the medieval or renaissance era, and by that time faith is pretty much useless other than to generate great people at the end of the game. If they really wanted to balance the social policies they should just remove Rationalism entirely, seeing as 99% of the time its used as soon as possible. Or they could at least make it possible to use both rationalism and piety, but it would block them out of commerce or order or something like that.
 
I actually think it would be better if they split Piety into 2 different trees, one for culture and one for faith. It's like giving Commerce policies a boost to production. They are completely separate currency systems. Give Piety it's tree from vanilla, and give Humility (the religion tree) some policies to increase the capacity of the state religion without making it too much like pantheons or religious beliefs.
 
Definitely Rationalism, except when I'm playing a culture game, where I feel obliged to take Piety (although it really isn't all that great). The Rationalism opener and LH policies (really all of the policies, and the finisher) reward almost any play style.
 
I actually think it would be better if they split Piety into 2 different trees, one for culture and one for faith. It's like giving Commerce policies a boost to production. They are completely separate currency systems. Give Piety it's tree from vanilla, and give Humility (the religion tree) some policies to increase the capacity of the state religion without making it too much like pantheons or religious beliefs.
Pretty much this, except the religion tree should obviously be called Piety, and the culture tree something else (Aestheticism?).

I voted Rationalism, because it's just plain better. Apart from the fact that Piety comes too late to really help you found a religion, Piety really needs something that boosts happiness. I made a small mod on my own files which opens Piety right from game start, and taking Piety opener and the one that offers extra faith from religious buildings as some of your first policies (usually 2nd and 3rd after Tradition opener) actually really helps in getting to found a religion and thereby justifies picking Piety.

However, by the time you finish Tradition + Piety you are REALLY in need of something that boosts happiness, and those good policies in Liberty and Honor are pretty deep in the tree, and it's usually still some time until Order opens (and even that will only grant you 1 happiness for each city, whereas the Honor tree will grant you up to 5 happiness for each city and Rationalism would grant you at least 2). Taking another opening combo (like Piety + Honor or Piety + Liberty) might help on this, but Piety + Tradition is just a combo that has a lot going for it whereas the others seem less obvious.
 
I think the reason that Rationalism is so good is that it's probably the most essential currency there is. Researching techs faster just gives you that much more turns to make the buildings/units that count in your playstyle. You could maybe even play a cultural game with Rationalism if you did it right.

EDIT: Maybe the Culture tree could be called The Arts? Something that invokes a sense of cultural pride.
 
This is a joke poll, right?

It's not for me.

Since i play 80% of my games into multiplayer i picked Piety. In sp games it's ovbiously Rationalism. But really not so obvious in mp games. I like to get extra GA, faith and culture from Piety and open Order(with 25% science and happiness bonus) later and buy great engineers.

Some mp players are awared of my strategy and they were suprised when i said that i often open Piety while they open Rationalism and i'm still leading in science.

Don't forget that Piety can be unlocked before Rationalism. And for cultural games it's Piety all the way for sp/mp.
 
It's great in multiplayer started in indutrial age, if you have 3 people on a team and you all take rationalism from the start, that's 6 free techs!
 
The lack of happiness in the Piety tree can be offset if you pick Pagodas or Mosques. Essentially +2 happiness per city.
 
Rationalism is better for cultural now. With the science bonus and the finisher you can actually get to ecology and build the SOH before the game is over.
 
I often find rationalism necessary to keep up with the AI in science, especially in higher difficulties.
Agree. King level or below, you pull a Louisiana move - blue bayou. (blew by you.)
I often find that by the time you finish piety its already late in the medieval or renaissance era, and by that time faith is pretty much useless other than to generate great people at the end of the game.
religious buildings.
except when I'm playing a culture game, where I feel obliged to take Piety (although it really isn't all that great)
Not that great for culture? Most culture games, people stick to fewer cities and try to get a WW in each, so piety gives +33% culture to all cities, extra culture for happiness, more faith for religious buildings which are cheaper, 10% reduction in SP cost, a free GA, rocking holy sites, and 10% gold to boot. Which policy tree is better for culture wins?
The lack of happiness in the Piety tree can be offset if you pick Pagodas or Mosques. Essentially +2 happiness per city.
you can build religious buildings whether you pick piety or not. they become cheaper and you generate slightly more faith, but most people look at the total number of happiness points you can add, and the total for piety is 0. This is the equivalent of saying that the rationalism tree would be just as good if it offered 1/2 price theaters and stadiums instead of +1 happy per observatories, public schools and research labs, which would probably cause forum riots.

I do agree with the general consensus of the thread, rationalism is better for 3 out of 4 victory conditions. If I'm trying to min/max to do everything possible to finish the game one... turn... earlier..., then I'd use piety only for culture wins. But it isn't that bad for other situations. the real sting for me is that there's no increase in total empire happiness, which I weight highly in SP evaluation early to mid game. I still like my proposal from the other thread - remove the opener (as it currently is), make the faith bonus from shrines temples the opener(access one policy earlier would really help found a religion) and make org rel. +1 happy for 2 of the culture buildings, or +1 happiness for every 10 points of faith accumulated per turn.

But every game, I usually try to find something new to try. My next two games will be experimenting with a culture win not using piety, and a non-culture win using piety. I think someone like Ramky, who gets a lot of bonus culture from UB and CSs will do great with rationalism for a culture win since the bonus research will 1.) provide earlier access to the culture buildings and 2.)more rapidly progress to new eras, which adds more culture from CSs. For the following game, a strong warmongerer (thinking China, but haven't ruled out Huns or Mongols) could make a crazy army with a strong faith pantheon, Mosques and HOLY WARRIORS! Anyone wanna be able to faith purchase another battering ram every other turn?
 
Since a lot of people tend to say the Tradition is the best opener, and Piety is often sighted as being underwhelming and not producing enough :c5culture:, here's an idea to fix both:

Move Legalism (maybe with a new name) to Piety. Tradition gets +3 :c5culture: in the opener, Liberty gets +1 :c5culture: per city, why not move the four free culture buildings to Piety. This would improve the Piety tree, nerf the tradition tree (although a new policy would replace it), and make the timing of Legalism more of a choice rather than delaying tradition to abuse the bonus buildings.
 
Rationalism is better for cultural now. With the science bonus and the finisher you can actually get to ecology and build the SOH before the game is over.
Why would I want to build SOH if I can get the required policies and build the Utopia project without it?
 
you can build religious buildings whether you pick piety or not. they become cheaper and you generate slightly more faith, but most people look at the total number of happiness points you can add, and the total for piety is 0. This is the equivalent of saying that the rationalism tree would be just as good if it offered 1/2 price theaters and stadiums instead of +1 happy per observatories, public schools and research labs, which would probably cause forum riots.
Well put, this exactly, in response to above about Pagodas and happiness. I always get Pagodas, even if I don't take Piety (unless of course someone beats me to it, at which point I'll have to settle for Religios Centers or Cathedrals or something else).

I do agree with the general consensus of the thread, rationalism is better for 3 out of 4 victory conditions. If I'm trying to min/max to do everything possible to finish the game one... turn... earlier..., then I'd use piety only for culture wins. But it isn't that bad for other situations. the real sting for me is that there's no increase in total empire happiness, which I weight highly in SP evaluation early to mid game. I still like my proposal from the other thread - remove the opener (as it currently is), make the faith bonus from shrines temples the opener(access one policy earlier would really help found a religion) and make org rel. +1 happy for 2 of the culture buildings, or +1 happiness for every 10 points of faith accumulated per turn.
There's still that other suggestion which I strongly favor about splitting Piety into a religious and a cultural tree. But I do think that no matter what, the Happiness needs to get a way back with Piety.

But every game, I usually try to find something new to try. My next two games will be experimenting with a culture win not using piety, and a non-culture win using piety. I think someone like Ramky, who gets a lot of bonus culture from UB and CSs will do great with rationalism for a culture win since the bonus research will 1.) provide earlier access to the culture buildings and 2.)more rapidly progress to new eras, which adds more culture from CSs.
I just tried that - without much luck. Well, the game went well enough, I was just no where close a CV, I got tired of it sometime during Modern, I could probably have pulled off a diplo win fairly easily though. I had a native 5-city kingdom, spawned pretty much every wonder of cultural significance, loads of landmarks, had maxed out Tradition, Freedom and some Rationalism and Patrionism, I was ally with all the cultural city states (except Austria that ***** managed to buy out one of them, I hate her so much), but even so my cultural progress was much to slow in classic/medieval, so by the time I really got things going in Renaissance and Industrial, I still needed something like 12 policies to finish which would take med at least 120 turns, which was just not going to net me a victory. But then again, I'm not really a CV specialist, so you might have better luck at it than me.
 
I voted Rationalism. I only pick piety when role playig, or when I want a culture victory.
 
In juxtaposition, Rationalism is just far to strong to take over Piety. Now, even in a culture game, Rationalism just isn't worth it in most cases.

Whereas Rationalism give you up-front and long-term bonuses, the Religious bonuses of Piety shrink over time as Religion declines in importance over the course of a game. And Piety's opener and early policies aren't very good and come too late to be helpful, anyway.

Piety is just too unfocused to be helpful. And since it conflicts with Rationalism, it just can't stand its ground.
 
The problem with Piety, as has been stated, is that it is both faith and culture, while Rationalism is very science focused.

Piety needs to be split badly.

I'd say the new culture tree should be called Patronage, and move the current Patronage wholesale to a different name (and picture, since even the Patronage PICTURE screams culture).
 
Top Bottom