Strongest Social Policies (Top 10)

[Alphaetus_Prime]

Absolutely, 100% depends on the game. That said, I like citizenship (+25% construction rate of workers). What with the longer improvement times in ciV compared to cIV, AND how early it comes, it can be very effective when, say, combined with the Pyramids. 175 hammers + however much culture it takes to get two social policies on the difficulty level you're playing = permanent 1/4 improvement time or 3/8 improvement time, depending on how the math is done. (Unless I'm understanding those boni wrong, and it lessens the time it takes to build the worker itself. ) I have no real opinion on the top 10 in general, as it very much heavily depends on the game.

EDIT: Note that I am not saying that it is the strongest policy overall, but factoring in how early it comes, it is. (Unless I'm missing something very, very obvious here.)

 

[delra]

Cities grow too slow compared to time improvements take to construct. Even with 1 worker per two cities you will upgrade all tiles centuries before you will be using those upgrades.

 

[pi-r8]

The benefit is still significantly more than most other policies for a culture win. Other policies give far less benefit than Piety does for that purpose. Piety is the third best policy for a culture win, and still vital for that goal, regardless of how weak you think it is.

Most of Piety does help for a culture win - half of > Culture, 2 free policies, and 20% less also increases your empires happiness. The only two policies hat dont are the golden age, and reduced happy cap for new golden ages, however if that gets you just two extra Golden ages during a whole game, that can be very significant, especially more if you are playing Darius.

For a cultural win, you actually do need to have a super small empire anyway, most of what you say about Piety is completely irrelevant because you obviously arent applying it to what it is meant to be used for, and that is for culture wins.



Why would you? Piety IS a cultural only policy tree, it opposes Rationalism, meaning that you have to plan ahead and choose your strategy - do you want to win a culture game, or a space race? Patronage is a whole branch of social policies too, but how useful is it if you play on a map with no city states? Or start out on an isolated island with nothing but militaristic city states nearby? Each social policy tree caters to different playstyles, if you arent interested in culture wins, then simply take something other than Piety.

I'm just going to stop arguing with you because it's a waste of time.

 

[Alphaetus_Prime]

Cities grow too slow compared to time improvements take to construct. Even with 1 worker per two cities you will upgrade all tiles centuries before you will be using those upgrades.

Yes, but then again, because of that same fact (that workers improve faster than cities grow), you will, with said worker speed combo, probably have 3-4 workers for the entire game and, even with a REXing strategy (which is what going down the Liberty tree would suggest), be up to date on your improvements. Also, one thing reading write-ups of civ4 games taught me was to NEVER underestimate the power of combat workers. (I would assume that that's the case with civ5 too.) 1-turn roads? Why yes I would like some of those. One last thing: as previously stated, it all depends on the game. (Sorry if that was confusing, I'm more accustomed to arguing - uh, "debating" - out loud than with text. )

 

[delra]

I have 3-4 workers for entire game already. I'd rather steal an extra one when I need him than waste a policy on speeding up thing I am not doing like road constructions.

 

[Alphaetus_Prime]

I was talking about combat roading. A peaceful player (such as myself) would have no need for that aspect of the boni.

 

[SomethingWitty]

Free Religion is even weaker than it appears. You only net one free policy.

But in order to even get access to Free Religion you have to take the policy (I forget the name) that gives you a very short golden age (6 turns on epic speed). That's really tepid.

So unless you really need a tiny golden age, going for Free Religion is a wash. No net free policy.

 

[taltamir]

Theocracy -20% Unhappiness in un-occupied cities

it should be noted that a puppet city is considered unoccupied for the purposes of this
only annexed cities WITHOUT a courthouse are exempt from this bonus.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Yes, I suppose the way the actual policies are laid out, the question is whether getting all of the Piety Tree is worth 4 social policies. The -20% unhappiness one is certainly worthwhile, and that one requires 3 social policies. So at that point it is worth the extra one policy to get the two policy bonus. So it seems that if you get into the Piety tree at all, it is worth it to get the two free policies.

 

[QuothTheRaven]

Military tradition is extremely powerful, especially on the higher levels (Immortal, Deity) where the only way to survive the masses of AI units is to have an elite force of highly promoted soldiers.

 

[civhawaii]

This thread is useless without first stating what type of victory you're aiming for.

 

[taltamir]

wtf have you all guys smoked ?

it doesnt change anything to take it first or last

if you take free religion at 10th spot then you have 11th and 12th free and start now working on 13th at the cost of 11th, the 18th spot will cost like the 16th
if you take FR at 15th spot you get 16 and 17 for free and guess what? the 18th will cost like the 16th

but since the goal is STILL the the Nth policy which gives you cultural victory it doesnt change at which slot you speed the policy it will cost exactly the same like the N-2th policy and you still have to pay all the 1 to (N-2) others


instead its huge for NON cultural victories so you can boost a policy when you are likely NOT to get any more cause you are going to war or something else

no smoking, math is just difficult for some.
To those less mathematically inclined, a "free cultural advancement" is worth an equal amount no matter when you get it. early in the game, from oracle, from free religion, or from that late game wonder.
This is because it doesn't count towards how many you already have had when calculating the cost of the next.

 

[ilikepies]

Monarchy + America is awesome for cheap land.

Can't believe Firaxis didn't think of this when they were naming the policies. Especially if you add in Big Ben, which is great for the US as well.

 

[bhavv]

I'm just going to stop arguing with you because it's a waste of time.

Free Religion is even weaker than it appears. You only net one free policy.

.......

This thread is useless without first stating what type of victory you're aiming for.

Cultural victory - fully unlock 5 social trees and build the Utopia Project.

- To unlock 5 social trees you need culture. LOTS of culture.
- You also need 5 full trees and lots of polices.
- If you decide to fill up any 5 trees and dont include Piety as one of them, you are NEVER going to achieve a cultural win.

On free religion - For a culture win, you need to fill up 5 trees regardless of what is in them. Commerce has a policy that gives ships +1 move and sight which is overall useless for most people. Freedom has a policy that gives cities +33% combat strength, which alone is far more useless than anything in the Piety tree. Patronage has a policy that improves resources gifted by city states, which really isnt useful at all compared to the rest of the tree. Most of Tradition past the +33% wonder construction is useless unless you are playing a OCC. HOWEVER, you still ned to unlock the full trees to gain a culture win, regardless of whether any of the policies are waeker than any other.

Those two free polices you get from Free Religion ARE still two free polices after completing most of the Piety tree, which you would have to fill up anyway if you are trying for a culture win. The two free policies can be spent in any other tree that you are trying to fill.

As stated by the last above, calling a policy tree weak or not worth it is ridiculuous because you are only thinking about your own playstyle and no one elses.

To anyone else that thinks that Piety is weak, please gain a cultural victory without using Piety at all and post your save game to back up your point.

Honour is far weaker than Piety is because the AI is easy enough to beat in any war without it, I can take out any barbarian camp with a single warrior without it, can defend myself against huga AI armies with just a few ranged units, and you have to waste a policy on gaining a single free great general - that is even more useless than either Reformation or Free Religion, since using the great general for a golden age is going to reduce your GP based golden age timer anyway, but Reformation isnt.

Rationalism also gives only a 5 turn golden age when adopted, surely Pieties +2 is far far better than that is.

People dont realise how to play Civ V yet, that seems very true. You need to pick your strategy right at the start of the game and stick to it. You dont have the option anymore of starting down one victory path and then wanting to change over to another mid game. If you choose to win by Culture, Piety is VERY important for you, and honour, liberty and rationalism are all weak. If you choose to go for a science victory, anything other than Rationalism, especially Piety which cannot be used at the same time is going to be weak for you. If you choose to go conquest, then Honor is going to be your best tree, and maybe even Liberty as well i you plan on annexing a large empire, and also Rationalism is again going to help you more than Piety would as it would allow you to advance through the military techs a bit faster.

Every single policy is weak if you arent going to play to the advantages they give you. The idea is that you pick your playstlye in any game, choose policies that halp you with that, and try to achieve your chosen victory.

 

[bhavv]

Can't believe Firaxis didn't think of this when they were naming the policies. Especially if you add in Big Ben, which is great for the US as well.

Civ is a game, not a simulation of reality.

Monarchy and Big Ben are useful to anyone, not just the US. If you dont like them for RP reasons, then dont build them.

People have been building the Pyramids across every Civ game and not necessarily playing Egypt. You can also play as Gandhi and run military based policies, go warmongering and killing people, and blasting everyone with Nukes.

In the Civ games, you rewrite history. You dont play according to how the factual details of real history were.

 

[Alphaetus_Prime]

Free Religion is even weaker than it appears. You only net one free policy.

But in order to even get access to Free Religion you have to take the policy (I forget the name) that gives you a very short golden age (6 turns on epic speed). That's really tepid.

So unless you really need a tiny golden age, going for Free Religion is a wash. No net free policy.

Free religion is without a doubt a wash IF and ONLY if you aren't going for a cultural victory. For a culture win, it completes a policy tree, so it is clearly the correct choice.

 

[Pantastic]

Monarchy and Big Ben are useful to anyone, not just the US. If you dont like them for RP reasons, then dont build them.

The US very nearly became a Monarchy in history, it was primarily Washington not wanting to become King that led to an explicit rejection of Monarchy.

 

[uberfish]

For culture victory all you really need for most of the game is wonder construction, patronage tree for the extra CS culture and GPs, and some of freedom depending on taste

After that, just stockpile culture points until Cristo Redentor is done and buy everything at once. obviously one of the trees you'll buy is Piety tree, that's just because it's effectively a 4-item social policy rather than 6 rather than because the tree is any good in general

 

[ashmizen]

Wow, this is a totally FAIL list.

You tell us you'll remove the "worst" policies.

I see Mandate From Heaven still on the list. Even with every single happiness resource in the game, I got a mere +18 happiness, which was 9 culture. In most cases, you would barely have any extra happiness, and Representation, which should be worse, is better. But that's fine, maybe some people like it.

Regardless, you removed TWO of my top 10 social policies as "worst" policies. The +1 hammer one from Freedom (the best in the Freedom line!), and the +3 hammer from Commerce. Hammers are so rare in this game, +1 hammer early or +3 hammer mid game in every city is HUGE. Much better than 50% cheaper tiles to buy or some crap like that.

Look, I play on Emperor difficulty, so I know what I'm talking about. Sure, Order has a +5 hammer policy, but unless you are going for a culture victory you won't be getting that until you've basically already have won the game. Its a great policy, but it comes late, so it doesn't eclipse the +1 or +3 hammer choices in any way. Each policy must be looked at it context of its era.

 

[ilikepies]

Civ is a game, not a simulation of reality.

Monarchy and Big Ben are useful to anyone, not just the US. If you dont like them for RP reasons, then dont build them.

People have been building the Pyramids across every Civ game and not necessarily playing Egypt. You can also play as Gandhi and run military based policies, go warmongering and killing people, and blasting everyone with Nukes.

In the Civ games, you rewrite history. You dont play according to how the factual details of real history were.

Take a joke......