Strategies for Tradition, Honor, or Piety

[Chemical Toilet]

I know there have been several similar threads lately but none of them really addressed some questions I have.

I always go liberty, regardless of if I'm going tall or wide, for the free worker, the pyramids, and the free settler. Recently this has been getting pretty bland and I've been wanting to explore the other start trees but I haven't had near the same success as I usually do with Liberty.

Now, I'm looking at Tradition. (but this should also cover honor and piety). My early game strategy is:

Build a scout, then monument/shrine, granary, then I rush Stonehenge, Pyramids, and the MoH. The reason for this is I depend on Stonehenge to secure a better chance at grabbing a religion with the beliefs I want. I guess pyramids isn't that big of a deal, but I like the faster tile improvement and free workers that allow me to focus on building other things. MoH of course is for the gold bonuses, which I don't nessecerially I need I guess, sometimes the AI beats me to it anyway.

But my other problem with the other trees is, with my current strategy, I don't have time to build a worker or another settler fast enough, and if I don't get atleast the worker, my entire game suffers.

Do I need to sacrifice one of my wonders in order to make the other trees, particularly Tradition, work? Some posters have mentioned that they steal a worker from a CS, but this isn't always an easy task. I usually either don't have enough CSs around, or they simply aren't afraid of my (small) army.

How do you guys manage the other trees? Any advice? I play on Prince, by the way.

 

[Ulthwithian]

The most disposable Wonder of those, IMO, is actually Stonehenge if you choose to ignore/relegate Religion to a minor role, MoH otherwise.

Particularly if you have no Stone/Marble around you, the Tradition Policy that give you gold equal to half of your Capital's Population (per turn) is probably a good 'tradeoff' for the MoH.

 

[Chemical Toilet]

The most disposable Wonder of those, IMO, is actually Stonehenge if you choose to ignore/relegate Religion to a minor role, MoH otherwise.

Particularly if you have no Stone/Marble around you, the Tradition Policy that give you gold equal to half of your Capital's Population (per turn) is probably a good 'tradeoff' for the MoH.

Oh okay, what you said about MoH makes sense. But I'm curious how many people actually ignore Stonehenge. In my experience unless you're playing the Celts or Ethiopia you can't really afford to pass it by, unless I'm over emphasizing the need for religion?

 

[Ulthwithian]

Well, opening Piety clearly obviates the 'need' for Stonehenge.

I play on Prince as well, almost never build Stonehenge, and (should I wish) get the first Religion if I want.

Opening Liberty or Piety (or both) is probably the LEAST likely opening (for me) to build Stonehenge.

Incidentally, I'm also a big fan taking the Honor opener to gain the Culture to speed through the Piety tree. It also gives diplomatic bonuses as well as helps you to protect your early trade routes.

 

[joncnunn]

Stonehenge is in the "awesome but impractical" with Piety. Boring but practical Shrines are better with them being 50% cheaper and twice as effective.

And going Tradition, you shouldn't be building Pyramid (the world wonder), as that is diverting a policy away from finisher.

Tradition is all about getting 4 free aqueducts faster than you get the tech for them.
Simliarly, Piety is all about getting a Great Phophet before you've already enhanced your religion and Liberty is all about getting a free great person of a type that couldn't have been naturally born yet (often Great Engineer)

 

[Calouste]

First look at your starting location and your civ, then decide which Policy tree is going to work best. Tradition is not going to be a great success if your start out in the middle of Plains with 3 or 4 resources. You need food to grow your capital and valuable tiles to work.

Stealing workers doesn't really work on Prince, the AI is too slow to build them. It works on Immortal and Deity where the AI starts with one. And don't build a monument when you're going Tradition, it's really not worth it in BNW.

 

[Law Lord]

I wouldn't build any of those wonders if going Tradition. You're better served focusing on growth and hard building settlers/workers when necessary. MoH is really not good unless you have at least two stone/marble.

You could try to get Hanging Gardens, but the AI prioritizes it so get there quickly. It's often worth picking up the Oracle because the AI often ignores it (so you can build it quite a bit later) and it is a one-time benefit.

 

[ezbutton]

I think Joncnunn said it best, which is just focusing on finishing one tree before starting another. Although there are alot of times where I feel the need to get a point into piety just to speed up religion but really depends if its a viable option (meaning I will beable to keep my religion and/or pick beliefs that I feel are useful).

Also, on harder difficulties building wonders is very risky as the number of hammers and turns invested and the amount of gold you get back for not being able to complete it is just not worth it. But by all means if you feel you can squeeze it out depending on your difficulty go for it.

MoH is in my opinion one of the worst ancient/classical wonders there is 100 gold on every GP pales to compare to Colossus which gives extra trade routes which is by far more gold in the long term. Petra is also very good because of the improved tiles and also extra trade routes. Don't underestimate the amount of early gold trade routes bring in.

If your going tradition and plan on going tall, then you'll most likely use alot of trades routes to get those +50 pop capitals so more trade routes the better it is. BTW cargo ships are almost always better than caravans so if possible try and use cargo ships more often than caravans as the yields from the ships are much greater.

 

[rondiggity]

The addition of Reformation makes Piety a much more interesting opener. Ethiopia likes to play tall and the Stele guarantees an early jump start on beliefs. However, I often find myself with a second GProphet before I reach the Piety finisher.

 

[Plumfairy]

The addition of Reformation makes Piety a much more interesting opener. Ethiopia likes to play tall and the Stele guarantees an early jump start on beliefs. However, I often find myself with a second GProphet before I reach the Piety finisher.

It may be interesting, but it's not really viable. If you take nothing but Piety, you don't get any freebies: no free settlers, no free monuments... you have to build *everything* yourself. Including military. Which means you either get slaughtered or you expand at a snail's pace... thus leading you to get slaughtered in the mid-game.

If you mix piety with another branch that works better, but it takes you a lot longer to get to Reformation...which means that all the good reformation picks are taken by the time you get there 9 times out of 10 on Immortal.

I really like the idea of Piety and what they tried to do with it, but in practice it kinda sucks.

 

[NukeAJS]

The extra food from landed elite makes you build settlers faster. People often forget that excess food is added to the production of settlers.

So, build a lot of farms or keep hitting the restart button until you get a two cattle start.

 

[Kizo]

But I'm curious how many people actually ignore Stonehenge. In my experience unless you're playing the Celts or Ethiopia you can't really afford to pass it by, unless I'm over emphasizing the need for religion?

I can't remember the last time I built Stonehenge; I'm going to guess it was some crazy "build every wonder as Egypt" game. Silliness aside, I don't see the value in sinking so many hammers so early into something barely better than a few regular buildings. Skip Stonehenge, build shrine/granary/archers/settlers/anything else, get your empire up and running, and you should still be able to get a religion. (Aside: When I do want a religion, it's almost never a building/wonder that gets me one, but instead a good Faith-generating Pantheon.)

As for whether you're over-emphasizing the need for religion: Whether or not religion is necessary/helpful depends entirely on the civ and your surroundings. Religion can be fantastic, but it's not mandatory. Try playing a game sometime where you deliberately avoid religion, and instead build your empire; you'll see how religion is complementary, not critical.

One last note: While winning the religion race (or placing 2nd/3rd) is very important for certain civs/environments, good catch-all beliefs are almost always left over for those who are last to found a religion.

[...]the good reformation picks are taken by the time you get there[...]

I really like the idea of Piety and what they tried to do with it, but in practice it kinda sucks.

Agreed completely, and honestly, while a couple of them are nice, the Reformation beliefs aren't anywhere near good enough to compensate for what it takes to get them.

 

[Falconiano]

I don't think I ever built Stonehenge in my life.
Gambling for +5 faith seems like a joke to me, especially since on deity AI will most likely get it first.
If you get a good pantheon and rush shrines you get roughly the same benefits as SH without riskying that AI steals it.
As for MoH, Colossus is far better.

 

[acjvanv]

''Some posters have mentioned that they steal a worker from a CS, but this isn't always an easy task. I usually either don't have enough CSs around, or they simply aren't afraid of my (small) army''

I might be wrong, but I think you mean bullying the CS for a worker, am I right? But this is not what is meant with stealing a worker.

What they mean is that you 'attack' the worker with your unit (scout mostly). The CS then declares war, but you can make peace the same turn. You'll take a diplo hit if the CS was protected by some other Civ, but you gain the free worker.

If I was wrong, neglect this post

 

[Browd]

The mechanic is slightly different. When you steal a worker, you are DOWing the CS, not the other way around. So you risk a warmonger label by other civs when you do that.

Bullying a CS for gold or an enslaved worker does not involve a DOW, but it does adversely affect your relationship with the CS (immediate drop in influence) and damage relations with any AI civ that is protecting that CS.

 

[Scott Jegg]

Only steal from a CS that is not protected by an AI civ, unless it's someone who already gave you a DoF. They don't seem to care too much if you are friends and back off immediately, and I never had a problem with them continuing with the DoF once it expired. Stealing from a protected CS tends to get you warmonger hatred for the ENTIRE game.

Don't steal from two CS though, as they will stop gifting cash when you meet new ones, and the influence takes much longer to recover from negative.

You can steal from AI civs as well, if you see an opportunity to attack and get away the following turn without getting killed. They will accept peace fairly quickly. Even if they are demanding stuff, just remove it from the deak and they will still usually take it. Don't expect a life long ally out of them though.

 

[LostJB]

With Tradition I often rush the Great Library. The tech boost helps a lot with small civs and the extra writing slots are useful too. I do a build order something like: scout, monument, worker, Great Library, settler. In my experience if you stay small one worker will serve a very long time. As other's have noticed, the extra food from tradition makes settlers not that hard to build.

I've played successful Honor starts never building a single settler or worker. I'm sure you can work out the details of that strategist for yourself.

 

[Machiavelli24]

The extra food from landed elite makes you build settlers faster. People often forget that excess food is added to the production of settlers.

The extra food from landed elite isn't really going to help build settlers because efficiently building settlers involves abusing the fact that a city building a settler doesn't lose food stockpile even if it is eating more than it is collecting. The fastest way to build settlers is usually to put everyone in hills/mines and get minimal food while the settler is being constructed.

 

[Scott Jegg]

The extra food from landed elite isn't really going to help build settlers because efficiently building settlers involves abusing the fact that a city building a settler doesn't lose food stockpile even if it is eating more than it is collecting. The fastest way to build settlers is usually to put everyone in hills/mines and get minimal food while the settler is being constructed.

Yes, I believe the surplus food no longer counts towards production like it used to.

 

[Tachii]

I don't think I ever built Stonehenge in my life.
Gambling for +5 faith seems like a joke to me, especially since on deity AI will most likely get it first.

Er, the guy is playing on Prince so... this isn't really any good advice. Also, +5 faith adds to whatever shrines/pantheon would give you. So it certainly doesn't hurt.

I like building both the pyramids and stonehenge. It means you get a GE around Renaissance or later Medieval to rush Machu Pichu, Notre Dame, or Pisa.

The piety tree isn't really practical as others said. I'd only do it with Casimir II considering he gets a bunch of policies for the lols. Religion seem to have taken even a more dimishing role in BNW, if that makes any sense. Unless you're gunning for cultural vic, it's really not that necessary. Reformation is OK, but it's chancy as hell.

Honor: Really only go here if you want something like a domination victory. Or want a domination victory but settled for science/diplomacy instead. Either way, only go for this if you are bent on waging war around the Medieval era or before. Or else you're just wasting what this tree has to offer. I wouldn't even complete this tree even as a domination victory. Just get the +1 happiness/+2culture one and then complete tradition/liberty or something. (I actually don't recommend completing tradition if you started another tree, the aqueduct bonus is very minimal at that point.)