Social Policy: Patronage (BNW)

Introduction

Patronage, available in the Classical Era, contains policies entirely devoted to relationships with City-States. The initially available half of the branch contains policies that ease the procurement and maintenance of alliances, and the other half provides enhancements for having these alliances. Patronage is of greatest benefit for those pursuing a Diplomatic Victory.

The Policies

• Patronage
• Philanthropy
• Consulates
• Scholasticism
• Cultural Diplomacy
• Merchant Confederacy
• Finisher

General Use

The Policies

Patronage

Influence with City-States degrades 25% slower than normal. Unlocks building the Forbidden Palace.

Cuts 25% from the base rate of influence decay each turn, which can be seen by hovering over the influence bar of a friendly City-State. This stacks additively with other influence decay rate reductions, such as Greece's -50% base influence decay rate (for a total 75% reduction) and the -25% influence decay rate for City-States having your religion.

The Forbidden Palace is a powerful wonder for any player pursuing a strategy involving the World Congress, including a Diplomatic Victory. Forbidden Palace grants 2 additional delegates in the World Congress and provides +1 culture and -10% unhappiness from citizens in non-occupied cities -- cities that you have founded, cities that you have puppeted and cities that you have annexed and that have a courthouse; it does not apply to annexed cities that do not have a courthouse.

Philanthropy

Gold gifts to City-States produce 25% more Influence.

The influence gained is rounded to a multiple of five, so generally slightly less than the full 25% will be gained.

Consulates

Resting point for Influence with all City-States is increased by 20.

This policy gradually raises the influence resting point with all City-States by 20 points. If your current influence with a city state is below the new resting point, your influence will gradually rise over a number of turns to the new resting point. This policy has the benefit of putting the player in friend and ally range via any quest completion or friend range via worker return. Moreover, the policy allows you to ally with City-States easier since you have a lead with 20 influence. Note that the bonus stacks additively with Papal Primacy, which further increases influence resting points by 15, and Pledge to Protect, which further raises influence resting points by 5.

Scholasticism

All City-States which are Allies provide a Science bonus equal to 25% of what they produce for themselves.

A City-State produces research just as any civilization does, through its population and the buildings it has constructed. They start with a Palace for +3 beakers, and generally will have a Library built before Scholasticism is reached, so at minimum will generally provide 0.75 + 0.375 * population of beakers. At some later point they will generally build a University, changing the base gain to 1 + 0.5 * population (+6 for a 10 population CS), and later still will build further science-boosting buildings. As difficulty increases, City-States' rate of construction and rate of growth increase and thus the research gain provided by Scholasticism also increases, making Scholasticism more powerful in higher difficulty settings. Note that a City-State that has been captured will have lost some of its buildings and had its population cut in half, so a liberated City-State tends to produce significantly less science than it did before being captured.

Cultural Diplomacy

Quantity of Resources gifted by City-States increased by 100%. Happiness from gifted Luxuries increased by 50%.

Doubles the amount of gifted strategic resources, and provides +2 per unique luxury you are receiving as a gift (even if you have a local source of that luxury), so you are more likely to consider making a 200 gold gift to allied City-States that have an unimproved luxury in their borders. This policy is very situational; there are generally better policy choices for boosting happiness, and the usefulness of CS strategic resources is very game dependent. It may provide critical late game strategic resources, or City-States may have none or lack the technology to provide them to you. City-State research rates are approximately the same as the average civ, so if you have a significant tech lead you will have access to strategic resources, such as aluminum, oil and uranium, long before a CS can see and gift them to you.

Merchant Confederacy

+2 Gold for trade routes with City-States.

This policy is the weakest of the Patronage policies, so it is likely to be the last policy you adopt. Therefore, its benefits need to be considered in conjunction with the Patronage finisher.

Finisher

Allied City-States will occasionally gift you Great People.

Once the finisher is taken, assuming at least one ally is maintained, a random allied City-State will provide a random Great Person (including unique Great Persons, such as a Great Merchant of Venice or a Great Khan, and that their special powers still work) about once every 40 turns on standard speed (more precisely, 37 turns plus a random 0-6 turns). Each additional allied CS (up to a maximum of 10 additional allied CSs) will reduce the turns by 1. To make this more attractive, the initial Great Person will be received in about half the stated time (i.e., around 20 turns). As with most other "free" Great Persons, each Great Person will increase the Great Person Point cost of subsequent Great Persons that are on the same GPP counter.

General Use

The three early policies (Patronage opener, Philanthropy and Consulates) reduce the amount of gold required to form and maintain a CS friendship or alliance substantially, in most cases by more than one-third. Some will use the opener and Consulates as "filler" policies following completion of their first policy tree (such as Tradition or Liberty) while waiting to enter the Renaissance, when they can open Rationalism. These two policies combine to greatly increase the number of turns of remaining at least friends with a City State following completion of a city state quest -- in many cases at least double the number of turns.

Patronage is especially useful for those pursuing a Diplomatic Victory, given that such a game would typically involve alliances with as many City-States as possible - Patronage makes these easier to obtain and maintain, and also unlocks building the Forbidden Palace, which provides 2 additional votes in the World Congress.

A few particular civs have especially strong synergy with the Patronage branch:

• Austria - to maximize the benefit from Diplomatic Marriage, a number of CS allies is required. Increased resting points, more effective gold gifts, as well as the decreased influence decay rate from the opener will help Austria get more allies. However, the remaining policies in Patronage are less useful, as Austria will be marrying CSs, rather than maintain long-term alliances.
  
  
• Greece - Greece's unique ability, Hellenic League, causes CS influence to degrade 50% slower, which effectively allows Greece to maintain nearly twice as many alliances as other civs. With shared religion, the Patronage opener and Hellenic League, Greece influence with most City-States will no longer decline.
  
  
• Persia - Persia's Golden Age length boost helps provide gold to get and maintain friendships and alliances, and any Great Artists from the Patronage finisher can be bulbed for another extended Golden Age.
  
  
• Siam - Siam's unique ability, Father Governs Children, provides an additional 50% benefit for cultural, religious and maritime City-State friends and alliances, which makes both this tree and City-State friendships generally more attractive.
  
  
• Sweden - Sweden's unique ability, Nobel Prize, provides 90 influence points for each Great Person gifted to a City-State. Sweden can obtain and maintain many City-State allies by using Patronage.

Note: Amended from vanilla Patronage article by vexing and the G&K Patronage article by LordLeoz.