The two infamous starting SP's. Honor and piety are very infamous for being terrible starter SP's because in order for them to work correctly you have to already be well established but they can still be selected from the start of the game.
Has anyone ever had a successful game where they don't start with tradition or liberty but go with piety and honor first? I have tried it but i was behind everyone and never recovered until i reached the medieval era and everyone else was an era ahead of me or just getting out of medieval Even though i recovered i quit because there was no way i could win the game in the position i was in.
So has anyone ever had a good game starting with the SP's?
How exactly did you "recover", but were still not in a position to win the game? What difficulty level were you on? I know that on King and Emperor, a player can effectively pivot your victory strategy almost on a dime during the industrial or modern era (when ideologies come around).
Also, are you asking about the viability of simply opening the Honor or Piety tree with your first policy choice? Or are you asking about the viability of exclusively finishing one of those trees before going into another?
I would imagine that an Honor start with Aztecs or Germany could be highly successful. It also might work with Shoshone considering the high strength of its Pathfinder unit. It can also work well with Assyria, since you can use your army to steal technologies.
As noted by an earlier poster, Honor can also be a life-saver if "Raging Barbs" is enabled.
In any game in which you specifically want one of the popular pantheon beliefs or want to be the first to found a religion, then starting with Piety is almost necessary. I've found that God of War, Goddess of Fertility, Stone Circles, and Desert Folklore are usually one of the first pantheons to go. Once religions are founded, Mosques, Cathedrals, and Monasteries seem to be the most popular choices for the A.I.s. If you want any of these beliefs, then taking Piety and Organized religion as your first two policies and building Shrines and Temples ASAP in all your cities might be the only way to get them if you are competing against religion-flavored civs like Celts or Ethiopia. Otherwise, you are stuck relying on finding and settling near a religious natural wonder, being the first to meet multiple religious city states, or finding faith in ancient ruins on multiple occasions - none of which is a reliable strategy.
I've had plenty of successful games on King difficulty in which I started with Piety.
While I do think that Tradition and Liberty are generally superior as starting policies, there are merits in some cases to starting with Piety or Honor. With either policies, you might get a slightly slower start, but if played properly, it could pay off later down the road.