The single most critical Social Policy

kaspergm said:

. . .the one that adds production to Mines and Quarries. . .

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YES. Fantastic Policy. If it came earlier it would be so OP... probably as good as the rationalism opener.

The free worker. Almost always my first target.

kaspergm said:

Actually, each policy in Piety isn't great as pointed out above. Of couse they are useful, but when you have the choice between a) picking Piety and either b) finishing whatever tree you started in Classical or c) opening either Rationalism or one of the Industrial trees in later game (which is very often the choice I face) I most often end skipping Piety.

As noted above, the Gold outcome from Theocracy is not that impressive, the happiness-carry-over from Mandate of Heaven doesn't do you a lot good when this is one of the few trees that doesn't provide you any Happiness, and the finisher is not too great either.

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I disagree with that post.

With both shrine and temple, organized religion gives you a 67% increase in faith generation, and a 100% increase with a shrine only. Yes, it dies off quickly, but look at the UB elimination thread, people love their faith.

Mandate of heaven isn't good if you aren't happy, but neither is the rationalism opener. The only reason I dislike the rationalism opener and think this one is ok is because if you're going for a cultural victory, you'll end up with tons of excess happiness, while for the beaker heavy space win, happiness isn't as easy to keep. I don't consider either of them all that great, due to the condition of happiness though.

Theocracy gives +10% gold, which, alone isn't all that great. However, as I said, you might want to change your religion a bit for Piety. A temple that gives +1 food and +2 happiness, as well as +10% gold is amazing. If you are in a situation where you don't need a shrine or temple, building it JUST for the gold increase won't look so good. If you get 10% more gold in addition to other modifiers, however...

In a tall empire, reformation may well be +33% culture. That's just amazing. Even if you go wide if it's not ICS you could steal a wonder if a city here and there later in the game, giving a very nice culture boost to anyone willing to invest the hammers and beeline techs.

The thing that reduces culture costs of policies by 10% (don't remember the name now...religious acceptance?) gives you important policies faster and "gives" you a massive amount of free culture, no matter if you are wide or tall, no matter your VC. The only issue I have with this is that it comes a bit later than I would want. If it were at the bottom of Tradition, I'd say it'd be the best policy in the game, but we're talking about individual policies, and this one is certainly outstanding, the type of thing you'd invest in just because it'll pay for itself.

Oh, the finisher. You'll get a tile that gives +3 gold and +3 culture, and improves strategic resources...and gives faith which, while not awesome at that point (your religion should be firmly founded), gives the bonus of giving more faith for more GPr's which allow more of those tiles to be planted, and that 3 gold is better than a trading post, alone, nevermind the 3 culture, and the fact that as the finisher your temples are giving extra gold as well!

Piety opener is fairly solid, it's the fact that Faith generation from shrines and temples =! having a religion faster or at all. Pantheons that triple your faith... Obtaining pantheons without building a single shrine to RNG... If they fix that... I can see a game where the people getting piety opener will almost all have a religion faster and more efficiently then people that sit on it till Rationalism.

Rooftrellen said:

With both shrine and temple, organized religion gives you a 67% increase in faith generation, and a 100% increase with a shrine only. Yes, it dies off quickly, but look at the UB elimination thread, people love their faith.

Mandate of heaven isn't good if you aren't happy, but neither is the rationalism opener. The only reason I dislike the rationalism opener and think this one is ok is because if you're going for a cultural victory, you'll end up with tons of excess happiness, while for the beaker heavy space win, happiness isn't as easy to keep. I don't consider either of them all that great, due to the condition of happiness though.

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Organized Religion is fine, if you have a Religion. Like others said, problem is by the time this comes, you may well be too late to found or at least miss out on the good beliefs. The difference between Mandate of Heaven and Rationalism with regard to happiness is that Rationalism has a first-level policy that grants a pretty massive happiness boost, Piety doesn't have a single perk that provides happiness, so unless you get a belief that grants happiness, you'll have to invest in another branch of policies which will spread you wide and postpone your procedure in Piety.

Like you said, if you are a small, tall culture-empire this might not be a problem, but this very well underlines the problem in Piety: Piety is actually two trees merged into one that should be separated: A culture tree and a religion tree. The culture tree should be best for small, tall CV-civs, but religion works for both tall and wide.

Rooftrellen said:

Theocracy gives +10% gold, which, alone isn't all that great. However, as I said, you might want to change your religion a bit for Piety. A temple that gives +1 food and +2 happiness, as well as +10% gold is amazing. If you are in a situation where you don't need a shrine or temple, building it JUST for the gold increase won't look so good. If you get 10% more gold in addition to other modifiers, however...

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But, you also get those other bonuses from temples without Theocracy. It is true that beliefs like Religious Centers will make Temples amazing buildings, but they will do that independantly of Theocracy.

Rooftrellen said:

In a tall empire, reformation may well be +33% culture. That's just amazing. Even if you go wide if it's not ICS you could steal a wonder if a city here and there later in the game, giving a very nice culture boost to anyone willing to invest the hammers and beeline techs.

The thing that reduces culture costs of policies by 10% (don't remember the name now...religious acceptance?) gives you important policies faster and "gives" you a massive amount of free culture, no matter if you are wide or tall, no matter your VC. The only issue I have with this is that it comes a bit later than I would want. If it were at the bottom of Tradition, I'd say it'd be the best policy in the game, but we're talking about individual policies, and this one is certainly outstanding, the type of thing you'd invest in just because it'll pay for itself.

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Never said anything bad about those two policies.

Rooftrellen said:

Oh, the finisher. You'll get a tile that gives +3 gold and +3 culture, and improves strategic resources...and gives faith which, while not awesome at that point (your religion should be firmly founded), gives the bonus of giving more faith for more GPr's which allow more of those tiles to be planted, and that 3 gold is better than a trading post, alone, nevermind the 3 culture, and the fact that as the finisher your temples are giving extra gold as well!

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The problem with the finisher is you need to use a full Great Prophet to get just one Holy Site. You don't get that many Great Prophets during a game in the first place, and irony is if you put all your faith into buying Great Prophets, you use a lot of social policies to get more faith, and then use all that faith to buy a bit of gold and culture which hardly covers the cost in the first place (you'd probably get a much better payback-rate by going into Commerce or Patrionism and grab a couple of City States).

In a normal game, if I don't use my Great Prophets to spread religion (which I normally will if I don't manage to get Religious Texts), I'll at best get 3 or 4 Holy Sites. That's a wooping 9-12 culture and gold, and it doesn't even double with Freedom Closer. Sure, with city modifiers the number will get somewhat higher, but it still doesn't even come close to being impressive.

kaspergm said:

The difference between Mandate of Heaven and Rationalism with regard to happiness is that Rationalism has a first-level policy that grants a pretty massive happiness boost, Piety doesn't have a single perk that provides happiness, so unless you get a belief that grants happiness, you'll have to invest in another branch of policies which will spread you wide and postpone your procedure in Piety.

Like you said, if you are a small, tall culture-empire this might not be a problem, but this very well underlines the problem in Piety: Piety is actually two trees merged into one that should be separated: A culture tree and a religion tree. The culture tree should be best for small, tall CV-civs, but religion works for both tall and wide.

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This, exactly.

If you were to take every one of the Piety policies and put them somewhere else, they would be pretty darn good in general. Mandate of heaven in Tradition would be amazing, +3 culture for the opener and +0.5 x happiness from a second policy, particularly with how good Tradition is at keeping your empire happy...good policy in a messy tree.

The opener is really much better for a wide empire that will have more cities but less production in each, but the culture bonuses are generally geared more toward a tall empire.

Piety desperately needs a split into a religious and cultural tree. With the introduction of religion, Piety SHOULD help it, by name, but the fact they tried to add it without focusing on it just made it a big problem, particularly when it is set in contrast to rationalism.

Rooftrellen said:

. . . particularly when it is set in contrast to rationalism. . .

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See OP

Rooftrellen said:

If you were to take every one of the Piety policies and put them somewhere else, they would be pretty darn good in general. Mandate of heaven in Tradition would be amazing, +3 culture for the opener and +0.5 x happiness from a second policy, particularly with how good Tradition is at keeping your empire happy...good policy in a messy tree.

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Yep, this would work, and the Wonder production bonus and culture bonus in cities with Wonders would also make sense in the same tree.

Back to the OP and taking universal applicability into account, my vote is for the tradition finisher. Whether you're going for culture, science, or whatever, and whether you have 3 cities or 30, you're always better off if you're growing faster. And the four maintenance-free , instantly built aqueducts just add more.
That's actually the only thing that hampers me, personally, about the policy. I'm really obsessive-compulsive about not making buildings that I know I'm getting for free later, and consequently often get my aqueduct in the capital long after I should have...

slapshot2119 said:

Back to the OP and taking universal applicability into account, my vote is for the tradition finisher. Whether you're going for culture, science, or whatever, and whether you have 3 cities or 30, you're always better off if you're growing faster. And the four maintenance-free , instantly built aqueducts just add more.
That's actually the only thing that hampers me, personally, about the policy. I'm really obsessive-compulsive about not making buildings that I know I'm getting for free later, and consequently often get my aqueduct in the capital long after I should have...

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Do you typically not finish tradition straight through? I almost never get the opportunity to build aquaducts before I get my freebies. Then again, I usually stick to 2, maybe 3 cities until i finish tradition (for exactly the reason you gave, those acquaducts are HUGE).

I think Piety would be better if the finisher gave you a bonus Follower Belief. It wouldn't be as powerful as the bonus any type of belief that Theodora gets, and it would stack so she could get both the UA and Piety finisher bonuses. This would make the finisher worthwhile. As it is now, the finisher is just plain lacking compared to finishers from other policy trees.

in mp the free settler

Mesix said:

I think Piety would be better if the finisher gave you a bonus Follower Belief. It wouldn't be as powerful as the bonus any type of belief that Theodora gets, and it would stack so she could get both the UA and Piety finisher bonuses. This would make the finisher worthwhile. As it is now, the finisher is just plain lacking compared to finishers from other policy trees.

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Nice idea. The problem with Piety is that its culture / faith split, culture favors tall, faith wide. At least this would give a bonus either could benefit from, (although still mainly wide)

Mesix said:

I think Piety would be better if the finisher gave you a bonus Follower Belief. It wouldn't be as powerful as the bonus any type of belief that Theodora gets, and it would stack so she could get both the UA and Piety finisher bonuses. This would make the finisher worthwhile. As it is now, the finisher is just plain lacking compared to finishers from other policy trees.

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This is a great idea. +1.

Dogmouth said:

This is a great idea. +1.

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I wholeheartedly agree. Would also encourage taking Piety early to grab a nice follower before the good ones are gone! I might reconsider going rationalism if this was the case.

Yeah, that was my suggestion also.

Let me ask a kind of open question: Let's say you've finished your first tree and rationalism isn't available yet... what do you do with it and why? For discussion's sake let's say both Patronage and Commerce are available.

I usually go Tradition --> Honor if I plan to warmonger or Tradition --> Patronage if I've got a healthy cash flow.

Are there any 1-2 Policy Tree combinations you think are particularly effective?

Seabastian Civ said:

Let me ask a kind of open question: Let's say you've finished your first tree and rationalism isn't available yet... what do you do with it and why? For discussion's sake let's say both Patronage and Commerce are available.

I usually go Tradition --> Honor if I plan to warmonger or Tradition --> Patronage if I've got a healthy cash flow.

Are there any 1-2 Policy Tree combinations you think are particularly effective?

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Usually my first two policies are Tradition opener followed by Honor opener, simply because both a very effective at gathering early culture and the bonus vs. barbarians is useful as well in reaping early experience. I normally develop Tradition fully from there, unless I plan on going very wide (will take Liberalism instead of Tradition) or very military (will develop Honor completely).

Once I've finished Tradition I'll normally either develop the right side of the Honor tree (for the Happiness) or - particularly if I play a continents map - take Commerce and the first policy on the left side of that tree: The free Great Admiral and extra movement will secure me first contact with the other continent which gives pretty significant diplomatic and trading advantages. The second policy on the left side of that tree is also very good if I'm going wide with a lot of small coastal cities. I only rarely take Patronage, I find that since G&K, I don't really need Patronage to sustain an alience with a couple of CS, so unless I go for a CV I don't really need Patronage.

piety is fine, you're only meant to finish it in culture games. The first 2 policies really do help get a religion going earlier if you expand fast enough.

IMO too many people are stuck on the "i have to build the NC before I expand" mindset. Attempting to shoehorn piety into that strategy doesn't work. If you have 10 cities instead of the NC at turn 100 then piety kicks ass.

the only problem with peity is that its closes Rati tree and Rati is just best for fast science wins