Social Policy: Piety (vanilla)

Piety
A closer look at the social policy branch

Introduction

Religions, especially organized religions, had a huge impact on civilizations and governments throughout our history. Not bound to any particular religion, the Piety social policy branch describes various levels of influence and interaction between worldly and heavenly politics.

This branch cannot be active at the same time as Rationalism. Selecting Rationalism as the next policy of choice will result in one turn of Anarchy (production of almost all resources in the empire comes to a halt), and the effects of all social policies acquired in Piety will become inactive. Players are free to switch back and forth between Rationalism and Piety, but every switch will result in a new period of anarchy.

The Policies

The Policies

Piety

Adopting Piety reduces the time to build Culture buildings by 15%. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Rationalism.

Unlocking the Piety branch presents the player with a strong boost (15%) to :c5production:

Production when building culture buildings. Becoming effective at the time of Temples and Monasteries, this policy is equally powerful throughout the game, as it boosts the production of Opera Houses, Museums and Broadcast Towers as well. This bonus will save up a significant amount of production turns in every strategy that makes heavy use of social policies throughout the game.

Note: this bonus is a production bonus, it's not making buildings cheaper. Every 10 hammers will be worth 11.5 hammers when building cultural buildings. It does not affect rush-buys with gold in any way.

Organized Religion

+1 happiness from every Monument, Temple and Monastery.

As it is expected of the player investing into Piety to also invest into early cultural buildings, Organized Religion offers additional benefits to this strategy in the form of happiness.

The realistic and expected bonus from this policy is +2 :c5happy:

per city, although having access to either Wine or Incense - one of the two requirements for building Monasteries - is quite common. Its efficiency grows with size of the empire, as for very large empires cities need to rely more and more on their own soruces of happiness. Compared to other early sources of happiness (for example, Professional Army), Organized Religion is the most effective.

Mandate of Heaven

50% of excess Happiness is added each turn to the amount of Culture that may be spent on Social Policies.

This social policy grants global Culture points that may be spent on social policies. The higher the excess Happiness of an empire, the more effective this social policy is. Small empires that aim for a cultural victory might focus on gaining as much excess happiness as possible, creating many Golden Ages in the process. For example, it is possible to have over 60 excess happiness, resulting in over 30 :c5culture:

Culture from this social policy alone. However, large empires that spend their happiness on maintaining order in their numerous cities will see little benefit from this social policy.

Theocracy

Temples increase a city's gold output by 10%.
Requires: Organized Religion

As players that choose Piety are expected to build temples in all cities, it is safe to say that Theocracy basically increases the gold output of all cities by 10%. Note that this bonus does not apply to trade route income, which might make a large portion of the empire's gold output. Players of Egypt and Songhai that aim for a large puppet empires will be especially blessed by this policy, as the "commerce governors" of puppet cities always prioritize civilization-specific buildings.

Reformation

Culture increased by 33% in all cities which have built a World Wonder and the empire immediately enters a Golden Age
Requires: Organized Religion

Selecting this social policy will immediately start a Golden Age of a standard duration (10 turns on standard game speed), as well as providing a 33% culture bonus in all cities that produced a World Wonder. Effects of this social policy stack with Sistine Chapel (+25% culture in all cities) and Broadcast Tower (+33% culture in city) for a total of a +91% bonus on culture (or +141% with hermitage). For cultural victories, this social policy is pretty much mandatory. Players with low-production cities are encouraged to create and use Great Engineers for wonder-rushing.

Free Religion

+1 Culture for each Monument, Temple and Monastery. Also gives 1 free policy.
Requires: Mandate of Heaven, Reformation

Presuming that players that chose Piety already invested into building Monuments, Temples and perhaps Monasteries in their cities, this policy effectively grants 2 to 3 :c5culture:

Culture per city, as well as an additional free social policy. The free policy gained from Free Religion does not increase the culture cost of future policies.

Finisher

Adopting all policies in the Piety tree will reduce the Culture cost of future Policies by 10%.

Aimed at players who go for a cultural victory, the straightforward Piety finisher will help players acquire policies 10% faster. Note that the effects of this stack with the Cristo Redentor World Wonder.

General Use

Since choosing Piety basically prevents the player from picking up Rationalism (a switch is possible but not recommended), the Piety social policy tree can be a part of any strategy that presumes a victory by Domination, Culture, Diplomacy or Score.

Along with Patronage (diplomacy), Commerce (gold) and Rationalism (science), Piety is a Second-tier policy* and deals almost exclusively with Culture.

For conquering players, Piety will grant the much needed happiness and policy gains (especially important for maintaining large, conquered empires), while the diplomatic players focusing on "gold per turn" empires will welcome the 10% bonus to cash output of their cities. A cultural victory, on the other hand, is almost impossible to achieve in a competitive amount of turns without having the player turning to Piety. Players are encouraged to have a strong, medium-sized empire made of cities dotted with culture buildings, World Wonders and landmarks.

As is the case with all other second tier* social policy trees, Piety works extremely well if boosted by wonders, technological advances and production investments that make use of its bonuses.

Piety versus Rationalism

Note: Piety is available from the Classical Age, while Rationalism is unlocked in Renaissance.

What Piety does for culture, Rationalism does for science. As the two social policy trees are (effectively) mutually exclusive, players are forced to choose. It is impossible to say which social policy tree will benefit the player more, as it depends on many factors, most notably the desired victory type. Players aiming for Domination or Culture victories are probably better off with Piety, while aiming for Science or Diplomacy wins favors Rationalism.

Benefits of Piety and its synergy other social policies

Piety works well with the following social policies:

a. Aristocracy and Legalism social policies and the Tradition social policy tree in general, as Piety favors strong cities filled with wonders and buildings.

b. Military Caste, Professional Army and the Honor social policy tree in general, as the two work well together in forging large early empires. The two policy trees combined can provide up to whopping +8 :c5happy:

per city.

c. Freedom, Order and Autocracy in general, as - except for heavy investments into cultural city-states - picking up Piety is the only realistic way of speedy acquisition of social policies from these late-game social policy trees.

* Bibor's social policies by tierTM

Spoiler :

Patch version of this article: 1.0.1.383