First Three Social Policies

[slobberinbear]

What is your typical SP order (if you have one), and how important are getting the early SPs to you?

For me, I start monument-scout or scout-monument to get early culture and possibly a culture ruin.

Assuming I don't have marble for wonderspamming and that I am not warmongering with warriors, I will then either go Liberty - Free Settler - Free Worker OR Tradition - Liberty - Free Settler. I really like Tradition's +3 CPT, and I think you get more policies quicker in the long run by taking Tradition first, but you get the Free Settler faster by going straight to Liberty first.

This sets me up for getting 2-3 cities going very early. I then will usually fill out the Tradition and Liberty trees and then proceed to Piety to help with happiness.

I know that many here favor going straight Tradition to get the +2 food and +15% growth policy. I will have to give that a go and resist my REX urge.

I am finding the early Honor policies underwhelming; having better quality units seems more effective than getting the small bonuses. I do like the later honor policies for upgrading and garrison purposes, however, but without taking Tradition and Liberty, the fourth and fifth social policies are just very slow ... and if you're warmongering, you are probably not prioritizing Temples and Monasteries or their underlying techs. So I either end up warring without Honor, or taking Honor and having precious few social policies.

 

[snarzberry]

I've had a lot of success lately taking Liberty-Free Worker-Free GP and either taking an engineer for the great library if it's available or a scientist to pop civil service. This leaves RA's to plow deep for important techs. With 3 early neighbors I have been able to have Chivalry, Education, Astronomy and Steel by turn 100 while attacking and puppeting one of those civs.

It's the fourth SP that I find an interesting decision during this game plan. There are many possibilities. Tradition, free settler, patronage and even commerce could all be right it seems to me given the situation.

I'm also finding scout - monument - granary highly effective as an opening build order.

 

[CaptainKapow]

Since the patch I've been doing:
Liberty -> Citizenship -> Meritocracy (GS)

I then settle the Great Scientist for a nice early boost to science.

After that it depends on the map what I get next.

 

[Camikaze]

Tradition --> Liberty --> Citizenship seems pretty tempting. You'll get the first three quicker if you go Tradition first, and you've also opened up for Aristocracy if you're going to go for some wonders. Seems decent for culture, at least.

 

[wcbarney]

This sets me up for getting 2-3 cities going very early. I then will usually fill out the Tradition and Liberty trees and then proceed to Piety to help with happiness.

I still never ever go to the Piety tree. I guess I've tried it once or twice, but it always seems that the science benefits of the Rationalism tree more than outweigh the Piety bonuses. You can get more happiness (or less unhappiness) on many of the trees, including Patronage, Honor, Rationalism, Commerce, Order, ... I have won a good many domination games on Emperor/standard time/standard maps, and happiness has never been a big huge detriment -- that is, I have managed to keep happiness above zero for most of the game.

 

[kell_the_kyuss]

really depends on the type of game your playing.

if you plan to go big civ and just beat on the entire world, you really want piety.

that is a lot of unhappy people to moderate.

really dont like the current happiness situation.

build something for 4 happiness, and only get 2-3 out of it is a joke.

wheres my happiness refund darn it. thats the problem with dealing in decimals and percentage figures though.

 

[Camikaze]

If you're planning to shut up shop and go for culture you'll probably want Piety, too. It really is quite nice for all occasions.

 

[ras9929]

Tradition --> Liberty --> Citizenship seems pretty tempting. You'll get the first three quicker if you go Tradition first, and you've also opened up for Aristocracy if you're going to go for some wonders. Seems decent for culture, at least.

Indeed it is, I've tried to do the math, but it seems to me the +3 from going Tradition before liberty quickly makes up for the delay of 1 SP before reaching Meritocracy

Thus in most cases, my build order is Tradition -> Liberty -> Citizenship -> Meritocracy.

The only reason I'm considering something different atm is the idea proposed (I think) by Martin that getting to Patronage before raising cultural policy costs. I haven't yet tried that out, but my gut then says to avoid culture bonuses are much as possile.
My gut then says:
- Avoid huts
- Rex to 4 cities
- Go Writing first / NC Start -> rush to Theology
- Pre-build Monuments to 1 turn
- Start with Tradition and take Aristocracy if you need to.
- Just before Theology (and unlocking Patronage), take Legalism and get 4 free temples

You should have a pretty good culture setup there and policies could be relatively cheap. I'd then take cultural allies first, to knock as much out of the Patronage tree as I could.quickly and build a wonderful network of allied CSses

 

[Michl2602]

I know that many here favor going straight Tradition to get the +2 food and +15% growth policy. I will have to give that a go and resist my REX urge.

I am finding the early Honor policies underwhelming; having better quality units seems more effective than getting the small bonuses. I do like the later honor policies for upgrading and garrison purposes, however, but without taking Tradition and Liberty, the fourth and fifth social policies are just very slow ... and if you're warmongering, you are probably not prioritizing Temples and Monasteries or their underlying techs. So I either end up warring without Honor, or taking Honor and having precious few social policies.

Going straight for tradition to get the +2 food and 15%
1)passes a SP that gives you free culture buildings in your first 4 cities
2)goes very well together with an NC-start (you research Pottery --> Writing (probably Mining before, if you have such luxury or if you have some wood to chop, which helps you building) build a library and the national college and stay with 1 city while doing so to keep NC cheap)

Then switch to Liberty --> Settler --> probably Worker

The advantage of REXing now, is that your cities have much more food from start, grow quicker and therefore get better production sooner, and the first 4 get a free monument. Over all this way seems superior to me.

With some civs you can modify this to get a better culture building (eg. Siam wat, Songhai their special temple) if you tune your SP-order and research accordingly. Normally a university needs a library, but not so Siam's wat. Normally a temple needs a monument, but no so the temple of Songhai (forgot the name). Therefore this is possible without prebuilding something.
While it's quite easy to claim the Songhai temple by this method, it's very hard to do the thing with the wats, because this takes a lot of research you only can get by early RAs and blocking unwanted techs. This is for experts.

 

[sschmalz]

that the science benefits of the Rationalism tree more than outweigh the Piety bonuses

So true ^

I usually start building a monument first, even before scout. I take Tradition as my first policy and then Liberty second. I can't help but start out each game going all out for culture.

I like the idea someone had above about going for Meritocracy to get the Great Engineer to build a fast wonder. I usually don't even look at Meritocracy as it is under Citizenship which I don't value nearly as high as other policies. This might be something I'll try in the future.

 

[Guardian_PL]

So true ^

I usually start building a monument first, even before scout. I take Tradition as my first policy and then Liberty second. I can't help but start out each game going all out for culture.

I like the idea someone had above about going for Meritocracy to get the Great Engineer to build a fast wonder. I usually don't even look at Meritocracy as it is under Citizenship which I don't value nearly as high as other policies. This might be something I'll try in the future.

There's also an interesting gambit to go as Babylon to settle Writing Great Scientist and then gun for Meritocracy to settle Great Engineer. +4hammers so early in game (adding more modifiers later on) makes your capital a true production and science powerhouse.

 

[spider1]

So true ^

I usually start building a monument first, even before scout. I take Tradition as my first policy and then Liberty second. I can't help but start out each game going all out for culture.

I like the idea someone had above about going for Meritocracy to get the Great Engineer to build a fast wonder. I usually don't even look at Meritocracy as it is under Citizenship which I don't value nearly as high as other policies. This might be something I'll try in the future.

I almost always get the free Engineer with the social policy as well. However, early in the game I've found it more profitable in the long run to build a manuafactory on a hill in the captial city with the GE. That's a 6 hammer tile. You can then start to pump out what you need - military units, settlers, workers, buildings, whatever very early in the game. And a 6 hammer tile never wears thin. Ever. If I play Babylon and get the GS early and lay down an acadamy, that's freaking great early in the game. But the 6 science it produces means very little in the mid to late stages of the game. A 6 hammer hill never goes out of style.

 

[sschmalz]

A 6 hammer hill never goes out of style.

Amazing quote and another very good reason to go for Meritocracy.

If I got my hands on a GE that early in the game I might have a real hard time not rushing the Great Wall. At least when I'm playing for Domination (which I usually do), I can't allow anyone else to have it.

 

[Michl2602]

Amazing quote and another very good reason to go for Meritocracy.

If I got my hands on a GE that early in the game I might have a real hard time not rushing the Great Wall. At least when I'm playing for Domination (which I usually do), I can't allow anyone else to have it.

Then he builds Himeji and Kreml or do you rush those also?

 

[vexing]

My gut then says:
- Avoid huts

do not listen to your gut

 

[sschmalz]

Then he builds Himeji and Kreml or do you rush those also?

Absolutely! I go for Himeji only if it's convenient, but I always go for Kremlin.

The best offense is a good anti-enemy-defense...

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I'm kind of worried they made Meritocracy too appealing.

 

[snarzberry]

Before the patch I barely, if ever, touched the Liberty tree. Now on almost every game three of my first four SP's are Libs.

 

[Civsassin]

Before the patch I barely, if ever, touched the Liberty tree. Now on almost every game three of my first four SP's are Libs.

I tend to agree. Liberty is awesome to get that settler and worker out and begin expanding early. I've found that delaying the NC in favor of getting 3-4 cities out early keeps me tech competitive on Immortal.

 

[Firvulag]

I'm yet another of those that struggle to resist Tradition's +3 cpt as my first SP. If I'm playing culture (often do), I just find that it's best.

I'm going to run through it's tree eventually anyway, and I tend to hard build Stonehenge and rarely miss out on getting it. I still usually take the GE from Meritocracy (4th SP, Liberty -> Worker SP -> Meritocracy), but like to either make a manufactory with it, or rush the oracle to get an extra SP.

My current game though, I'm warmongering and seeing if I can avoid both Trad and Lib trees and taking the Honor tree right through. It's so much slower, even with just the 1 city and many puppets.