Your favorite SECOND social policy?

Freedom is only good if you build the Statue of Liberty. Order is great for a SV or production.

Autocracy is the premier war monger & tourism ideology - it allows for quadruple promoted land units without Brandenburg & gives 250 tourism for each GP that is born. With Priora it is also the best ideology for generating happiness.

Liberty + save policies until Rationalism.

kaspergm said:

You must be better at making gold than I am.

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No kidding. The point of the +20 to resting point is that you can then complete a quest and you jump straight to ally status.

I agree that the cash bonus to CS gifts is underwhelming, but it doesn't hurt and opens up the science bonus for allied CS. This is a huge bump for me due to the fact that I open the policy well before renn era, when every stupid bulb matters.

I always wanted to try this when playing wide :

- Tradition opener : +3 Culture in capital
- Liberty opener : +1 Culture in every city
- Honor : Military Caste : +2 Culture, +1 Happiness for city with garrison

With monuments this adds to +5 Culture early for every city (+9 Culture in Capital). Especially on Giant Maps where each city increases the culture cost of social policies only by 5% or when creating a puppet empire, this should allow some early additional social policies.

CV second tree has to Aesthetics. Diplo, second tree has to Patronage. If I open Tradition, looking for a SV, I will prolly only get a couple of polices before concentrating on Rationalism and then my Ideology. Exploration really only pays out once its filled up. So Commerce then? I am new to BNW after lots of GnK, so the jury is still out on this for me, and I very much appreciated this thread!

Question said:

I think its obvious that some policy branches are far better than others. Tradition is the best game opener, liberty's minor bonuses like +1 production per city just do not compare.

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Again, new BNW after lots of GnK, but the basic approach of Tradition for 4 cities, Liberty for 6+ cities still seems to hold true. I feel like I am getting a lot more out of Liberty in BNW than I ever did with GnK, but I am not sure why that seems to be the case.

Piety is really only useful when you are rushing to get the first religion as the first religion will almost always dominate their respective continent, at which point it becomes near impossible for any other religions to make an impact. By all means send in a force of 4 great prophets costing thousands of faith to try and convert some cities, the AI will proceed to mass spam infinite missionaries at a fraction of the cost, and he will never get tired of doing so.

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I very much disagree. If your are going wide anyway, Piety should be your second tree, it is just too OP. You need to found, but not early. I don't even think Piety helps with founding, because (assuming I am playing a tough game) I can't afford not to finish Liberty (or Tradition) ASAP.

My current game, I founded the last religion, 3rd on my continent. No faith buildings available for my religion. Yes, most of my cities were following foreign religions, as the competition was pretty fierce, but I didn't fight it. I actually ended up getting several faith buildings, and did not start saving for a 2nd GPr until very late.

Stupid AI, Religious Texts and Itinerant Preachers were both available when I enhanced, even though mine was the last religion to do so. Still, I picked up more faith buildings (from the foreign religions), and only started saved for my my 3rd GPr when that was through. At that point, I had 6 or 7 cities, all except my Holy City (not my cap) following foreign religions.

Eventually my 3rd GP spawned, and I converted my core cities. The missionary spam continued, but now it hardly an effect. I never bother with inquisitors as RT did the job fine. (Besides, I wanted the benefit of the secondary pantheon belief any way!) Eventually the AI sent not one, but two (!) GPr my way. I DOW'd and planted both of them...

I was also very late for my reformation pick too, but Jesuit Education (as well as other good picks) was still available. The GPr from finishing up the Piety tree could have been used to cement faith in my territory, but RT had already taken care of that. I didn't have any CS conversion quests open, so I end up planting that GPr as well, so three Holy Sites altogether. By industrial, climbing towards 100 fpt. Again, last religion, not the first.

This particular game might have been bit unusual, but I have always found the religion mini-game to quite worth the effort. Only once did I found, but not get to enhance (but that was early on and I play it smarter now). Yes, trying to covert AI cities against their will is a losing proposition. But, most games, why would you bother with that? Founder benefits are weak.

I cant be the only one who finds it REALLY easy to make tons of gold in BNW with trade routes, especially if your capital is a coastal city. Hitting 30+ gold in late game per trade route is easy, and that gets multiplied by all the bonuses you have from markets, etc.

I find that completing quests to be really difficult early game where you would be relying on the +20 to resting point. For example, generate a great admiral? Thats not really something you can do unless you are at war. Stuff like leading the game in culture, etc tends to come later when you are in the lead for everything, but by then you have near infinite gold anyway.

Taking out barb camps is only viable early game because once the tech advances to later eras, CS units easily take out barb camps before your units can reach it. Not to mention its so annoying when a CS unit steals the kill.

Personally i would bump the science bonus up to 50%, the number of beakers is really minor IMHO, even with most of the CS in the game as your allies.

I still think freedom is the best idealogy...i went wide and order once, but it was annoying giving them build orders constantly (there doesnt appear to be a way to get them to automatically pick a building to build).

Why freedom is good : 30+ pop capital, 1/2 food from specialists, 1/2 unhappiness and +50% to golden ages. With statue of liberty every engineer produces the equivalent of +1 food, 3 hammers and helps to generate GEs...thats better than a forest + lumber mill. It allows you to hit 50+ pop cities with full specialist slots easily especially if you have pop growth bonuses. Given that you need specialists to generate great writers, artists and musicians, this is invaluable.

Meanwhile all that extra hammers from order does nothing when you run out of buildings/units to build. Its not even significant, party leadership and five year plan will give you less than 10 hammers per city most likely, and doesnt even affect manufactories. Resettlement comes too late to matter and the tourism buff at level 2 is usually unnecessary. With freedom you can generate cities that are massive powerhouses and have much more production than what order can give you.

. The missionary spam continued, but now it hardly an effect.

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Really, thats odd. Typically at least one AI picks something that allows them to generate tons of faith to spam missionaries (much more than you can get) or buffs to missionaries. Ive found that even a co-ordinated strike with multiple enhanced prophets can fail because the AI will simply spam a massive number of missionaries back at the cities, especially for stuff like CS where you cant plant an inquisitor. And every great prophet they get is super annoying. The AI will simply not get bored of buying and spamming 1 missionary a turn at you. Ive played around with increasing religious pressure and even with +200 pressure, ive had AIs keep spamming missionaries in the modern age to stop me from converting a CS permanently via religious pressure.

I also dislike reformation now because most of the reformation beliefs are uninteresting or get obsolete IMHO. I thought jesuit education was good, then i realised that i may as well just go commerce and buy the buildings with gold, of which i start having plenty in the industrial age and beyond. The same for influence boosts. Also im not sure why but sometimes when using enhanced missionaries (increased strength and erode pressure), even 4 of them will only convert 1-2 people per action, whereas the AI can spam missionaries at me to great effect....

Question said:

I still think freedom is the best idealogy...i went wide and order once, but it was annoying giving them build orders constantly (there doesnt appear to be a way to get them to automatically pick a building to build).

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I was highly prejudiced towards Freedom, and I think I really ought to try it again, but I am finding the Order half-price factories so OP that it would be hard to give up.

You can queue up buildings just like units, so how is that annoying? Do you want them to behave more like puppets? I don't like puppets because it hard to catch them when they start building something stupid.

Meanwhile all that extra hammers from order does nothing when you run out of buildings/units to build. Its not even significant, party leadership and five year plan will give you less than 10 hammers per city most likely, and doesnt even affect manufactories. Resettlement comes too late to matter and the tourism buff at level 2 is usually unnecessary.

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I agree that those policies all seem relatively weak.

Really, thats odd. Typically at least one AI picks something that allows them to generate tons of faith to spam missionaries (much more than you can get) or buffs to missionaries.

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Well I mostly play continents and not Pangaea, so that might be part of my success. But I usually see missionary spam, and find it manageable. Here's my favorite tip: don't found in your cap. That really helps keep your holy city off the AI radar.

I've found that even a co-ordinated strike with multiple enhanced prophets can fail because the AI will simply spam a massive number of missionaries back at the cities, especially for stuff like CS where you cant plant an inquisitor.

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Sorry, but that sounds like you doing things wrong. Converting an AI (who has founded) is a losing proposition. As is the expectation of keeping CS converted. Give up those two things, and you can have a strong and enjoyable religious mini-game, but only for your own territory. The coordinated strike is good, but it’s only for your own cities. The AI likes to spam so much, I find it hard to even keep a neighbor with no religion converted. Unless I am relying upon RT or IP. Those work great, and no faith cost.

And every great prophet they get is super annoying.

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A single inquisitor is enough for a tall empire. They work all game long. If it gets too annoying to shuffle one around, buy two. I have never needed more than that.

The AI will simply not get bored of buying and spamming 1 missionary a turn at you.

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That's a good thing. Religious tolerance SP means the city gets the Pantheon belief bonus of the second most popular religion. (I will confess, this only helps about a quart of the time. But now I don’t resent missionary spam.)

Ive played around with increasing religious pressure and even with +200 pressure, ive had AIs keep spamming missionaries in the modern age to stop me from converting a CS permanently via religious pressure.

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Again, most games, why do you care if the CS flips back? If you get frustrated by this, and I have the few games I tried (and failed) to make Papal Primacy really work for me, don’t pick beliefs that depend upon foreign cities permanently following your religion. In contrast, Tithe (which is almost always available) works on number of followers, not number of cities.

I also dislike reformation now because most of the reformation beliefs are uninteresting or get obsolete IMHO.

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I don’t agree, but it doesn't matter even if the majority are poor because you don’t pick those! Two are fantastic, and there are a few others that are very good.

I thought jesuit education was good, then i realised that i may as well just go commerce and buy the buildings with gold, of which i start having plenty in the industrial age and beyond.

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Yeah, but you never have enough gold, and there is always other things to do with gold. It takes relatively little faith to purchase science buildings. If they cost twice as much faith, I would still find Jesuit Education to be OP. I like Glory of God even more than Jesuit Education, but I can only catch that half the time.

I've found that the general best social policies to take would be full tradition, patronage opener and +20 influence, then go rationalism before your ideology.

This can get boring though, so I only do it every once in a while. Still, I'm almost always successful when doing this order of policies. After you've done enough ideology stuff (generally two level 2s), you can go back and fill in patronage and whatever you have left of rationalism. You get a solid empire with good happiness, gpt, city state influence, and science. Everything you need for a victory.

I think mix it up is fun.

Current game has me as USA (Emperor difficulty only, I don't like the forced plays of Deity, small map, other settings as standard, with random civ and map and "take what is rolled" philosophy) on and I found myself with just the Aztecs and me on one continent, which was weird, with the other civs all on the other one. There was just so much space around me that I went uncharacteristically wide, and first hut being culture helped accelerate me sufficiently that I hit four cities with big gaps around me. Kept expanding, just because I seemed to be in a surplus of happiness but with growth held back by landlocked cities and heavy hills, and next thing you know it I was at six cities. On a whim I conquered the nearest city state that I'd been worker farming since first contact, then also found that the Aztecs had been hemmed in by barbarians (with no less than three of their settlers scooped out of barbarian camps and turned into workers). It was one of those games where everything was going swimmingly.

Main problem here was science wasn't keeping up with culture, and policy saving was off, so on finishing Tradition I didn't have Rationalism open yet. Splashed into Commerce instead, and with the high number of cities my science slowed enough that I thought may as well get on with it. By that stage, I needed the happiness, and so the Commerce finisher gave me a massive happiness boost. Along route to that I wiped out the Aztecs and had something like 90 turns between that kill and contact with any other civilisation, as I'd been neglecting overseas exploration.

So now I'm playing the sort of game I almost never have - 13 cities, including 8 that I built myself, with Order ideology turning up at the right time to keep me in massive happiness surplus, and caravan / cargo ship feeding being used to supercharge the growth of my smallest cities as and when they were planted. Science has started to accelerate again, and while Portugal has been now conquered its own continent, its well behind me on tech and score, and I'm at that stage of the game where I can choose to win any way I want. I've gone down the right side of Rationalism to enhance my many trading posts, which between Commerce finisher, Economics and that are now incredibly productive, and scooping in 200 gold a turn at around turn 250.

All in all, the Commerce experiment has gone amazingly well, and is an entirely different game experience to my usual Tradition -> Rationalism -> Splash Patronage - > Order standard game or my Tradition -> Aesthetics start -> Rationalism -> Finish Aesthetics -> Freedom culture game.

Keep experimenting!

in most circumstances patronage consulates+pledge is best for all the bonus happiness/food/culture/units, potential to get allies for quests. that is, unless Genghis Kahn is on the field.

Okay, so dipping into patronage is very popular.

Even for non-CV games, what about dipping into Aesthetics for the half cost cultural buildings? I am always interested in Opera Houses to unlock Hermitage NW, and usually eventually build museums in every city even when focused on a SV.