Big J Money
Emperor
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2005
- Messages
- 1,030
I personally don't like the Candi
Piety is now Ancient - still very weak.
- Thread starter Arilian
- Start date
stealth_nsk
Deity
Piety opener gives quite huge boost for religion race. If you don't choose Piety and you're not Ethiopia or Maya, you'll not found a religion and (unless find faith in ancient ruins) not even found a pantheon. And if you're Ethiopia or Maya, Piety bonuses are really welcome and will boost the civilization a lot.
I wouldn't say it's mandatory as founding a religion is optional. But it's really strong.
Talcove
Slayer of Spies
I don't know about founding a religion, but the 'Religious Tolerance' policy from Piety is going to synergize very well with the Indonesia's Candi.
I think people are forgetting that religion affects diplomacy which ultimately affects world congress voting. Having control over a religion and spreading it like crazy can pay off in the long run as a result.
Piety increases your ability to create a powerhouse religion.
Piety increases your ability to create a powerhouse religion.
Religion can also be a major source for happiness. And more happiness means more growth, science and production.
This is especially true for wide strategies because happiness is the major limiting factor. Going Liberty without Piety seems to be silly, really.
Only thing that can severely cripple wide Liberty/Piety starts is maintenance though. Hopefully, Tithe takes care of that problem. ^^
I know I'm going to make sure I get a religion now with Byzanthium with both Intinerant Preachers and Religious Texts. The rate at which that spreads, especially with trade routes...it'll be glorious. Especially with trade routes...
... Just add Tithe.
... Just add Tithe.
Ryoga
King
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2010
- Messages
- 993
I don't know what kind of difficulty you play at but with a bit of careful planning I usually managed to found religions and be on par with Ethiopia on Emperor even without taking the piety tree.
If now taking piety becomes an absolute requirement for that I don't think it's such a good thing. Piety should give a boost to your religion not be a mandatory choice for those who want a religion at all.
Monthar
Deity
Don't forget the faith, culture and gold from holy sites if you've gone through piety. Since the finisher also gives a prophet, if you've already enhanced, that prophet can build a holy site. if you take the enhancer for cheaper prophets, you can plant several holy sites.
Keep in mind, the culture from holy sites (with piety completed) helps defend against tourism and can boost your tourism with the right buildings in the city. Plus, the gold from the holy sites not only adds to your base gpt, it also increases the income for the trade routes to and from that city.
Keep in mind, the culture from holy sites (with piety completed) helps defend against tourism and can boost your tourism with the right buildings in the city. Plus, the gold from the holy sites not only adds to your base gpt, it also increases the income for the trade routes to and from that city.
Monthar
Deity
MadDjinn pointed out in his videos that the spread via trade routes only kicks in outside the range of IP and RT.
So with Byzantium, I'd likely go with cheaper prophets for the bonus, so I get my 2nd prophet faster. Then take cheaper missionaries and inquisitors for the enhancer. Then I can strategically spread with the missionaries until the industrial era. Then buy prophets to build holy sites with since they will be fairly cheap.
stealth_nsk
Deity
I'm speaking about Emperor+
And I disagree with you. Religion is designed as optional system, but in G&K it wasn't actually - religion provided too big bonuses. If religion will actually require Piety, there will be some real choice as not going religious will be beneficial for many strategies.
chazzycat
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 13, 2010
- Messages
- 2,918
I wonder if going piety without liberty is just as silly. IMO to get the most out of those first couple policies, you should be spamming cities out. But that's hard to do without collective rule.
In a ultra-wide religious game in G&K, I would open liberty through collective rule, take the first 2 policies in piety and then go back to finish liberty all while spamming settlers out of the capital.
My point is that I'm not sure unlocking piety at ancient really matters, if you need liberty bonuses to make it worth it. Religion with city spam is just so powerful...I am not sure a pure piety opener from the beginning will be as good.
Ichabod
Gaucho
20 hammers per city is not a lot. You need 8 cities to just breakeven with the free monument hammers from Legalism. By the time you have 8 cities, 20 hammers is not a big bonus. The snowball effect of the monuments, for instance, will be way better.
Is that true?
Man, I didn't know about this. I assumed it worked like Civ 4, where the overflow of a built item was reduced by the percentage bonus you received when building it (if you got 40 hammers overflow from a creative library - which was 100% more production -, it'd be cut to just 20 hammers in the next build). Of course, the fact that the UI doesn't show how much overflow you are getting on the next build helps a lot in not noticing this.
That's pretty big and extremely exploitative, depending on your objectives. You can essentially double your production in almost everything you want to build, after the city has more than 40 hammers. That certainly makes this SP extremely powerful in the late game.
It's still not that good early game, though. At least in my opinion.
I like the new piety tree. It definitely solves the problem of your 20% discount coming too late to matter, the reformation beliefs look fun to play with, and from a fun perspective I like the idea of being able to go gung-ho on religion from the word-go. As for balance aspects, it seems like it would be weaker than it looks, since you won't have a ton of settled cities to build shrines and temples in, and not being able to bank with other civs for settlers may cripple the early game viability. That said, I think people are massively underestimating the accessibility of the faith discount. Pair that with the -30% missionaries enhancer and you could seed the world with your religion quite fast. Medium-high faith civs/pantheons focusing on urban development can definitely cascade themselves some faith buildings reliably before the costs get out of hand post-medieval/renaissance era. I suspect at immortal+ levels of play high faith civs will come here from liberty just to grab the 20% discount, then move on to rationalism or whatever from there. Mandatory Byzantine Uber-religion game for me in this policy tree though, that's for sure
As someone else pointed out, the Piety opener also "saves" you 50 hammers on temples, so it's 70 hammers when stacked. Legalism for 4 monuments saves you 160 hammers, so Piety opener "saves" more hammers with 3 cities than Legalism provides with 4 cities (still basically the case if you use Legalism for an amphitheater in your capital and monuments in 3 other cities - total 220 hammers vs. 210 hammers for 3 cities with Piety opener). And as Monthar points out, you get hammer overflow from the Piety opener that you don't get from Legalism, which is an extra benefit, even early game.
Is that true?
Man, I didn't know about this. I assumed it worked like Civ 4, where the overflow of a built item was reduced by the percentage bonus you received when building it (if you got 40 hammers overflow from a creative library - which was 100% more production -, it'd be cut to just 20 hammers in the next build). Of course, the fact that the UI doesn't show how much overflow you are getting on the next build helps a lot in not noticing this.
That's pretty big and extremely exploitative, depending on your objectives. You can essentially double your production in almost everything you want to build, after the city has more than 40 hammers. That certainly makes this SP extremely powerful in the late game.
Yep. Even if you aren't producing more than 40 hammers, if you time construction of the shrine to leave only a couple of hammers to completion on the last turn, whatever overflow hammers you generate are essentially doubled. Can have an impact approaching that of chopping an additional forest, so follow shrine with your first turn of an early wonder and finish it all the more quickly.
Monthar
Deity
Plus using the sell & rebuild of shrines trick every other turn in the late game, can power you through those wonders and projects. If you build manufactories with your GE's you really ramp up the production boosts. Yes, I know folks want to use the GE's to rush the wonders, but keep in mind, you can't rush projects with them.
Active spreading attracts diplomatic penalty, so the passive ones are slightly better if religion is founded early.
Monthar
Deity
You're not going to get a diplomatic penalty for spreading your religion to the CS's near the AI, just if you spread to the AI's cities. That's one point of strategic spreading I was talking about.
The other point I was talking about is say you built 4 cities after the capital. You buy a missionary, but instead of spreading it to the two closest cities, you use in on the 2 furthest cities. Then their pressure plus the capital's pressure will convert the 2 cities nearer to the capital faster.
Then you can use your cheap missionaries to go forth and spread to all the CS's. thus you use the trade routes other civs make with the CS's and the natural spread for the AI cities near the CS's to help spread all over the world, without takign diplo hits for it.
Also, those diplo hits are only when spreading your religion to an AI that founded its own religion. Spreading to the AI's that didn't found a religion with your cheap missionaries will give you positive diplo points with them once you've converted enough of their cities.
The other point I was talking about is say you built 4 cities after the capital. You buy a missionary, but instead of spreading it to the two closest cities, you use in on the 2 furthest cities. Then their pressure plus the capital's pressure will convert the 2 cities nearer to the capital faster.
Then you can use your cheap missionaries to go forth and spread to all the CS's. thus you use the trade routes other civs make with the CS's and the natural spread for the AI cities near the CS's to help spread all over the world, without takign diplo hits for it.
Also, those diplo hits are only when spreading your religion to an AI that founded its own religion. Spreading to the AI's that didn't found a religion with your cheap missionaries will give you positive diplo points with them once you've converted enough of their cities.
GhostSalsa
Emperor
Piety looks great. It offers you more ways to play the game and debating whether there's value to variety and dynamic play potential is silly. Some people value it and some only want the optimal. Complaints will still abound.
Having an opener policy I won't want to finish right away is great. That means I can start to blend in more powerful Medieval policies at lower SP cost because I'm still on my first 6. Whereas with Tradition or Liberty it's very hard to get anywhere in Medieval policies because SP-inflation has already eclipsed the piddly free culture outputs. So piety is indirectly helping me flex my play style in mid-game as well. Then I'm closing the policy when Opera Houses are coming online and I'm ready to target my end-game.
Tradition and Liberty are great but the deprive the game of flexibility, they turn culture into a locked-in path that you have to repeat the same way over and over rather than what it probably should be, a broad pallet you can dynamically skim and mix-and-match.
Having an opener policy I won't want to finish right away is great. That means I can start to blend in more powerful Medieval policies at lower SP cost because I'm still on my first 6. Whereas with Tradition or Liberty it's very hard to get anywhere in Medieval policies because SP-inflation has already eclipsed the piddly free culture outputs. So piety is indirectly helping me flex my play style in mid-game as well. Then I'm closing the policy when Opera Houses are coming online and I'm ready to target my end-game.
Tradition and Liberty are great but the deprive the game of flexibility, they turn culture into a locked-in path that you have to repeat the same way over and over rather than what it probably should be, a broad pallet you can dynamically skim and mix-and-match.
GhostSalsa
Emperor
Ok I tried this out and it went terribly, this advice is awful.
Even with a relatively early adopt of Aesthetics (my fifth policy) I was totally out of steam culture-wise by Middle Ages. Meanwhile it's too hard to grow and it's too hard to get workers without all the free junk in Tradition or Liberty. You can't build any wonders which means Aesthetics is useless. I did get 3 great works, but no wonders. You don't have enough production to get trade and exploration off the ground so Commerce and Exploration policies are useless. Piety start made Medieval policies non-leverageable.
It hurt that I was somehow seeded 30 tiles away from the next major civ and from more than 1 city-state, and my neighbor (on Emperor) was growing as slowly as me, so all my religious spread did was going into empty desert.
The new economic mechanisms take forever to kick in and you're already a completely backward nation by the time you're able to build East India Company. my impression is that food/science is still the only real thing to care about in this game. Shrug. All these new game systems and I have to not focus on them to stay in growth.
The QC
Quietly Confident
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2011
- Messages
- 335
Since I'm in Europe I'm not the best person to talk about BNW right now, but...
My two cents go like this: the fact that you can start Piety from the beginning of the game allows flexibility, but doesn't mean it's the best idea. In order to get anything out of it, you need to be able to build up some shrines, which means at least 2 cities. It's just too early and nearly useless to invest in it from the start. It doesn't even help you with rushing a pantheon, since you may be able to build your first shrine before the Piety discount comes into play (and it's a measly discount anyway).
Personally, I would start Piety only after getting the Settler policy from Liberty and starting to expand. At that point it's probably worth it at least for some civs, especially the Byzantines*. If you get a good amount of culture going, you will be able to eventually finish Liberty/Tradition and Piety before switching to a later tree, like Rationalism.
*I'd argue that the Byzantines are one of the few civs that actually NEED Pitety, but even they shouldn't start with it as a first policy.
My two cents go like this: the fact that you can start Piety from the beginning of the game allows flexibility, but doesn't mean it's the best idea. In order to get anything out of it, you need to be able to build up some shrines, which means at least 2 cities. It's just too early and nearly useless to invest in it from the start. It doesn't even help you with rushing a pantheon, since you may be able to build your first shrine before the Piety discount comes into play (and it's a measly discount anyway).
Personally, I would start Piety only after getting the Settler policy from Liberty and starting to expand. At that point it's probably worth it at least for some civs, especially the Byzantines*. If you get a good amount of culture going, you will be able to eventually finish Liberty/Tradition and Piety before switching to a later tree, like Rationalism.
*I'd argue that the Byzantines are one of the few civs that actually NEED Pitety, but even they shouldn't start with it as a first policy.
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