Favorite Social Policy trees?

[Paeanblack]

So my ideal would be for cities to progressively increase the cost. So that your second city would add 30%, then the next 25%, then 20%, and all the way down until each city is only tacking on maybe 10%.

That's already in the game. Each city adds 30% of the BASE cost, not the current cost.

The way it currently works is:

Second city increases the current cost by 30%
Third city increases the current cost by 23.1%
Fourth city increases the current cost by 18.8%
5th: 15.8%
6th: 13.6%
7th: 12.0%
8th: 10.7%
9th: 9.7%
10th: 8.8%
15th: 6.1%
20th: 4.7%
25th: 3.8%
30th: 3.2%
40th: 2.4%
50th: 1.9%
60th: 1.6%
70th: crashes the game

 

[Supr49er]

Dependent on type of game, of course but I voted Honor.

 

[spider1]

I always start with Liberty because of the cheap settlers and workers in the beginning of the game. The extra turns saved is very important to me early. But I agree with everyone that as the game goes on, the policies in Liberty are fairly worthless once you are deep into the game.

For me though, getting settlers and workers quicker in the beginning of the game allows me to build military units quicker with those saved extra turns and expand quickly. Once I get about three or four cities going I hunker down and defend, improve the land and build military units.

Then depending on which leader I got and who's surrounding me on the map, and the map itself, I may go different ways at this point. But I never EVER waste more policy selections on Liberty after getting the cheap settlers and workers.

 

[UknowsI]

I haven't studied them enough to accurately assess the policies, so it's just based on my gut reaction.

I like honour, rationalism, patronage and freedom the most. Order and autocracy can also be good, but usually come too late to make much of a difference for me. Which ones I chose depends a lot on my play style of course.

Unless I'm on an island I like to put some points in honour. Not because honour is all that great, but because I find it to be a lot better than the other 2 ancient policies. I try to either put 1, 3 or 4 points in in and therefore either take only one point or max out one of the branches. 50% cheaper upgrades can be game breaking, and double XP is also nice. 15% improved combat rating is also very nice, while I find the last two bonuses to be more meh...

Patronage is pretty much my happiness policy. Maxing out the left side will give a huge boost to happiness. I have never really got all the way to the final right side policy, does it give great people often? Is it worth it? Sounds good, but I hardly ever have enough policies to max it out.

I find the best part about rationalism to be bonus to specialists and bonus to trade posts. With lots of puppy states with trade posts, this gives a huge science boost.

Freedom is a bit situational. It's great on lower difficulties, but on higher difficulties I don't really build any wonders and generally rely more on city and puppet states.

I find liberty and piety to be underwhelming, and tradition and commerce to be very situational. I hear many people talk good about piety, so I guess I should give it another chance. Might work well for cultural victory or Persian golden age tactics.

 

[Raethwyn]

I always start with Liberty because of the cheap settlers and workers in the beginning of the game. The extra turns saved is very important to me early. But I agree with everyone that as the game goes on, the policies in Liberty are fairly worthless once you are deep into the game.

For me though, getting settlers and workers quicker in the beginning of the game allows me to build military units quicker with those saved extra turns and expand quickly. Once I get about three or four cities going I hunker down and defend, improve the land and build military units.

Then depending on which leader I got and who's surrounding me on the map, and the map itself, I may go different ways at this point. But I never EVER waste more policy selections on Liberty after getting the cheap settlers and workers.

Actually, the bonus to Worker Construction is not a bonus to building them in your cities, but rather a bonus to how fast they construct tile improvements. That SP makes each worker more efficient, improving the terrain in your REXing empire faster. It also means that you can disband excess workers earlier, especially if you get the Pyramids wonder, since they do stack .

Also, forgive me if I'm pointing out something you already knew, but the bonus to Settler production only applies to Production (hammers) in the city and -not- to the excess food being converted to production when building a Settler. In other words, the SP for 50% increased Settler production benefits cities with more hammers. In a city producing a small amount of hammers, it's usually more beneficial to ally with a Maritime City-State since all the extra food is converted to production when building a Settler. Still, the 50% extra hammers from that SP is definitely going to help get those Settlers out that much faster.

 

[bryanw1995]

Liberty seems like utter junk to me, compared to others.
It supports (weakly!) ReXing, and ReXing is not really a good strategy in this game.

Unlike Honor or Tradition, which both have some nice bonuses that hang around all game (Oligarchy, Professional Military) the Liberty bonuses are rapidly outclassed.

lol!!!! it's funny looking at this quote from 2 mos ago. maybe he didn't like early rex b/c he didn't use liberty...

 

[Varanid]

If you like mid/late game expansion, a combo of commerce and order is freaking awesome. +8 production to cities just starting out=fast building. Toss in patronage and cozy up the maritimes for good food too, and you can grow cities to mid sized super-quick.

 

[The Tollan]

How effective, generally, would a strategy involving getting Honor (either Discipline or Military Tradition), Commerce (mainly going for Mercantilism), Rationalism (down to Scientific Revolution), Autocracy, and Order be on Immortal difficulty?

Large map, continents

Would it simply be more effective to get Freedom instead of Autocracy (and possibly not bother with Commerce)?

 

[anti_strunt]

Liberty seems like utter junk to me, compared to others.
It supports (weakly!) ReXing, and ReXing is not really a good strategy in this game.

Unlike Honor or Tradition, which both have some nice bonuses that hang around all game (Oligarchy, Professional Military) the Liberty bonuses are rapidly outclassed.

Oh, man... Those were the days.

 

[Dudu42]

I have never really got all the way to the final right side policy, does it give great people often? Is it worth it? Sounds good, but I hardly ever have enough policies to max it out.

Junk, IMO.

There are a lot of better ways to obtain great people that doesn't involve wasting policies. But everything else in patronage is pretty good. I like the science bonus a lot.

 

[iggymnrr]

I don't remember what I voted for but I've been using piety a lot lately. Seems to go well in concert with any other tree save rationalism.

 

[JudgeDeath]

Yeah, but Rationalism is awesome IMO.

 

[stormerne]

Rationalism is a good one to go for on turn 1 if you're doing a Renaissance Era start or later. Not that I normally do a late era start, but you get enough free culture points to unlock (or get close to unlocking) the two free techs of Scientific Revolution immediately. B17s immediately anyone?

 

[futurehermit]

Liberty tree = ICS goodness
Honor tree = Puppet goodness

I use one or the other pretty much every game depending on whether rushing or rexing.

I typically go rationalism for the bonus to tps and specialists.

I voted liberty + honor + rationalism.

LOVE order, but agree it comes too late. I want to like autocracy, but agree with the already mentioned drawbacks.

Need to use freedom, patronage and commerce more--haven't used them that much yet.

Not a fan of tradition and piety.

 

[JudgeDeath]

For Rationalism I save up till I get to Renaissance. It fits very well with Babylon.

 

[lloxdg]

lol, so few votes for Autocracy. Yes, it's really not very useful vs AI with it's poor combat, but it's very good in multiplayer, where you often have to have a large army.

 

[anti_strunt]

That's already in the game. Each city adds 30% of the BASE cost, not the current cost.

The way it currently works is:

Second city increases the current cost by 30%
Third city increases the current cost by 23.1%
Fourth city increases the current cost by 18.8%
70th: crashes the game

Does having 70 cities really crash the game? Honest question.

 

[Lyoncet]

I don't think there's much of a "hard cap" in terms of cities the game can handle, so the answer to your question is no. But longer, larger games can strain systems since there have been some memory leak issues (I think they've all been fixed, but I'm not entirely positive on that).

 

[avl8]

Im not a big fan of warmongering, doing science/diplo/cultural games.
So my vote is for Liberty/Rationalism/Freedom combo. Everything that supports great people and ICS.