Full on Piety is fun!

Hi,

Just trying this out in my new game as Poland.

I wanted to see how doing Piety before anything else would work out. I know I'm only on Warlord, but wanted to try Culture victory.

I wanted my game to be a go heavy faith, culture, and tourism. So, I prioritized Stonehenge, and got an early Pantheon. Then, I got my free GP from Piety just as I got my GP from faith. I took the +2 Tourism for buildings bought with faith, and got building Pagodas, and building Cathedrals for my religion too. The whole idea was to spam cities, and 2 faith buildings in each for massive tourism.

After full Piety, I went full Liberty. Then, I'm doing full Aesthetics.

It is going so well. I have about 8 cities right now, and my tourism is about 50, and I'm already Influential with nearly every Civ on my continent. It looks like all I have to do is get to Astronomy and find the other Civs and victory will be mine.

Of course, with the two faith buildings in each city, happiness is just a non issue. I'm continuing to found cities and take over other Civs cities with abandon. Lots of fun.

Cheers.

I find going straight piety to be challenging when you have to depend on your religion to be your primary source of culture and happiness in the early game without the assistance of Tradition or Liberty.

I have not managed to make piety work at all in my games. Even with Spain with 2 faith natural wonders, the policy tree still seems not worth taking to me. Good luck though, I do enjoy the feeling I'm getting right now when all but 2 cities on my starting continent (both holy cities) are completely my religion without much competition. When I get astronomy, I hope I can dominate the entire world with my holy mountains. I've also decided that my personal victory condition is to conquer or settle every natural wonder in the game.

Yup, Sacred Sites ICS cheese is a fun and very different build from anything else. I think Poland is decent for it but ideally with this strat you want to end the game before Renaissance and definitely before Industrial, so you're only looking at 2-3 free policies.

For some variety try it with Egypt, Byzantium, Songhai, Maya or Ethiopia.

Are you going to get full Piety + full Liberty + full Aesthetics + full Rationalism + Ideology? Seems too much to me... Or maybe you plan on sacrificing Rationalism for Piety? Rationalism is the best tree, but Aesthetics is very important for CV, and Piety is a must if you plan on getting a religion...

In the few BNW games I got Piety, what I did is: Piety opener + Organized Religion as first 2 policies. Then Tradition/Liberty, until I got my first great prophet with faith. Only when I already had a religion, just then I completed piety. I know, there's a risk that the AI will take Sacred Sites, but Trad/Lib just felt too important to neglect...

Well Roy. With Pagodas and Cathedrals everywhere, the culture is poring in, so I'm getting policies fairly quickly. Also, getting free ones from each era because I'm Poland. I'm probably going to dip into Commerce and Rationalism, if I even get that far before winning a CV

Cheers.

manu-fan said:

Well Roy. With Pagodas and Cathedrals everywhere, the culture is poring in, so I'm getting policies fairly quickly. Also, getting free ones from each era because I'm Poland. I'm probably going to dip into Commerce and Rationalism, if I even get that far before winning a CV

Cheers.

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Poland is a completely different story...

So far, all the games I've played rushing Full Piety in the beginning all came down to one thing: What civ you are. Indonesia, Polynesia, and Aztecs have been some of the best Early Full Piety games I've done.

Personally, I find it super-tricky, and I would not advise this for most players. So far, I can get an amazing early game, but I fall behind easily in military, science, and growth that sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth it. I'll probably have to finish most of my games to see if it is a secretly powerful start, because honestly I think in the long run it's actually pretty powerful. Do hotels and airports work with Holy Sites?

ToodleElNoodos said:

So far, all the games I've played rushing Full Piety in the beginning all came down to one thing: What civ you are. Indonesia, Polynesia, and Aztecs have been some of the best Early Full Piety games I've done.

Personally, I find it super-tricky, and I would not advise this for most players. So far, I can get an amazing early game, but I fall behind easily in military, science, and growth that sometimes I'm not sure if it's worth it. I'll probably have to finish most of my games to see if it is a secretly powerful start, because honestly I think in the long run it's actually pretty powerful. Do hotels and airports work with Holy Sites?

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Yes, I'm quite sure they do.

I agree, making Piety work needs a bit more "skill". I've mentioned it quite a few times already but everybody seems to ignore it.

Mosque of Djenne + enhancer for cheaper missionaries + Evangelism almost assures religious dominance, even on high difficulties.
Your missionaries erode foreign religions. It still takes some time and patience to convert a full civ but in the end, the AI will give up defending.

Prepare for war though because some AIs don't like to convert to the one and only religion. Although 100+ additional gold per turn from Tithe should be enough to repel the heresy.

Anyway, I still think that Liberty left side before Piety is, more often than not, the better opening.

Agreed. Lol, I've always had the exact same situations. Sometimes I've had more success with Tradition Opener + Aristocracy.

Though I know all of ya guys have been mentioning it, I still haven't done the Mosque of Djenne/Holy Order/Evangelism combo yet.

Though, I think that's what's so hard about pursuing Piety. You really have to craft what kind of religious strategy approach early on, choosing the wrong beliefs or missing out on a belief can throw a rut.

Not only culture, but piety can be used for SV as well.... (it's so much better it doesn't conflict with rationalism anymore)
All I know is if I can get "interfaith dialogue" and have a good way of producing faith (with reduced missionary cost), I can double my research speed in the medieval and renaissance eras XD by missions at enemy holy cities (those are hard to convert by missionaries and a size 20 one gives you ~200 science from one spread religion; couple that with great mosque (if you can miraculously sneak one in on immortal and above) and the tech game goes so much easier.

What's even more amazing is that once you get to a handful of isolated followers (without any pressure) the AI will burn an inquisitor or even a GP on it (even if they didn't enhance their religion yet); thus completely shutting down their faith income and clearing the cache so the next missionary nets you maximum science again. Then Jesuit education basically instant-buys science buildings later on.

I caught up in the medieval era on Immortal easily using this method and led all the way to the end. (when I launched my ship, the runaway domination AI was still busy building great war bombers... needless to say, a mobile SAM will beat two dozen of those any day)

The best strategy I've found is to completely ignore the piety tree. Ive done amazingly well finishing tradition and getting consulates with city states (plus forbidden palace) and timing that perfectly to going into rationalism.

This strat seems to work every time.

Poland is totally different and broken, its so easy

Actually...I do have a game as Iroquois where I have Interfaith Dialogue. I gotta redo that game, but it's amazing how much science output you get. I have to hand over some free luxuries though, coz I wanna grab some beers with Harald, Hiawatha style...whatever that would be. o.O

I still think I'm just being overly pessimistic. ^_^

There is a BO that advocates collective rule and then full piety sacred sites. The real squeeze to this build is getting your faith buildings and getting your reformation belief

The only 'strength'I get from full piety is if I'm able to create a few trade routes. It means I can get stronger followers bonuses early but... and then later when they get their own religion it becomes ridiculously easy for me to gain a second Pantheon. However if said capitol doesn't get its own religion.... I feel as though this opener wastes.

Well, that was underwhelming. I didn't realize how Tourism worked. I thought that if you already had massive tourism, you'd get influential as soon as you met a new Civ. Anyway, cleaned up my continent and went to scout out the other one. There was Alex and Hattie and some unknown Civ. My tourism was gaining fast on these two, but I was worried about the unknown one because I hadn't met it yet.

Funny thing was that the Tourism tooltip was saying 0 of 2 required for victory. So going to war with Alex, just trying to find that unknown Civ wasn't even necessary? Well, Alex wiped out Hattie and all I needed was influential and victory was mine. I spammed two Musicians and declared war to get them in his lands and ding - victory.

However, the score was way lower than when I got full domination. That's even though I won way earlier.

I guess I still don't understand Culture Victory. Influential with All? Or just influential with those you've met? Or a certain number? I don't get it.

Cheers.

Eagle Pursuit said:

I find going straight piety to be challenging when you have to depend on your religion to be your primary source of culture and happiness in the early game without the assistance of Tradition or Liberty.

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i dont know where the problem is to use a monument for really early culture, later on religion will do it. it especially easy if u take a panthenon with culture (sacred path, holy shrines, religious idols, godess of festivals...)

but one serious hint: piety as starter is really a pro tree, because its soo flexibel that you have to plan your religion and how to use it. it becomes even more complicate if u try to make a plan B if u fail to get a certain belief.

but if u know what you are doing religion is also the most funny thing of early game imho. you have not only 6 policies like the other trees, nope you have more then 20 panthenons, you got more then 15 follower beliefs...what does tradition or liberty offer? yeah right 6! policies only...and its always the same! with piety you have to be really flexible and need to understand every aspect of the game (science, production, happiness, gold, food and culture). if u want to master this, try to balance these aspects of the game and use the strength of your civ. easiest way to learn piety as first tree is imho with a religious civ like celts, byzantium, ethiopia, maya or indonesia, maybe under certain knowlege arabia too (but its a really strange hybrid between trade routes n piety)

I still maintain piety is the most versatile of all openings, just don't expect it to pay dividends right away; apart from the opener and the +faith from temples and shrines, none of the other policies really shine until after your religion is enhanced. Which, admittedly, won't take long if you rush piety, but when you're staring down either Mandate of Heaven or Religious Tolerance when you're sitting at like 10 faith which you're saving for a prophet, and nobody else even has a religion yet, it is very easy to get distracted and waste valuable time in the race for the first reformation.