Rationnalism vs Piety : it should be a choice, it's not....

[Baron2]

In my games, I go around half the time rationnalism, half the time piety. There are, imo, at least a couple of things ''wrong' with rationnalism compared to Piety

A)The elephant in the room.

As seen in a precent post, virtually everyone starts with ''Liberty''. Once you cleared liberty, you have the choice between ''Piety'', ''Tradition'' and ''Patronnage''. Piety is all about culture. Piety is so good about culture than in virtually all games I picked, even games with expansionnist powers on pangean maps, I can usually pick a whole new tree after completing ''Piety'' compared to rationnalism.

For instance,I will have Liberty, Piety, Commerce/Patronnage, Order/Liberty ''done'' by early modern age, even with a huge number of cities. However, with science, I will usually have, say, Liberty, Honor/Tradition/Patronnage, and finish rationnalism at the same time.

Piety and Rationalism are comparable. Piety and a whole tree vs rationalism are not really comparable.


B)The choice time
Simply said, you pick Piety much earlier than Rationnalism. (That's probably why you get way more social policies with Piety, as the effect kicks much earlier). By the time you reach Renaissance, you are in the lead or in the van. What I mean is, by the time you can pick science, you usually have an insurmontable advantage over AI CIVs.

C)The conditionnal nature of the ''opener'' for Rationnalism
While Piety get for an opener a rather humble looking 15% reduced construction time for monuments and such (NB : humble looking is the key word. I find that super useful for my part), Rationnalism get 50% more science from accord. There are three problems with this
1)You can have exactly the same effect with Porcelain Tower, a wonder the AI dislike apparently
2)This boost is dependant on having neighbours that are rich AND peaceful....
3)This boost is dependant on having gold....

[joncnunn]

Actually, it's usually not PT OR Rationalism.
But it's instead PT AND Rationalism. (PT used to get Rationalism early)

This is the standard after clearing initial cheap techs beeline to Education, then research Optics.
Meanwhile on that way you build HS, and use the free GE to rush PT. (Alternatively you can use the Liberty induced GE).
Use the GS to bulb Astronomony for very early access to Rationalism social policy.

You then interrupt whatever 2nd tree you started for Base Rationalism and then go back to that base tree. Following that you go back to Rationalism. I like to get 2 modern era techs or better from Rationalism.

While, when going Culture victory, you really don't need RAs as much as culture. So that often lines up as rushing Notre Dame instead.

[DevilHell]

I also si a disbalance between Piety and Rationalism

The way I see it is Piety/Rationalism on any Continents or so map 60/40% in Pangea it would be 90/10%

Why?

Piety is expansive / Rationalism is defensive

In high difficulty games you have to deal with wars almost always, and therefore, taking some cities, with Piety you can manage the unhappiness of a medium big empire, and early on the game

Rationalism might only be chosen when one is decided to go for science, because universities and public schools are more ahead in the tech tree and cost more hammers therefore the time to compensate the happiness for 3 cities is infinite

[ShadowSonic]

Strange, I've hardly ever used Piety in my games but occasionally used Rationalism.

[The Pilgrim]

True, the comparison is not there. Rationalism as a tree is much stronger than Piety unless you go for cultural VC. In domination games you're ofter forced to take Piety for Organized Religion to manage the unhappiness, but no way you waste SP's on the entire tree. Moreover, If you pick Honor, you don't need Piety at all but can go with Rationalism once again. For science/diplo there is nothing even to talk about.