My attempt at improving the Piety policy tree.
Changes to policies -
Opener: Shrines and Temples built twice as fast AND +1 Faith from each.
This just combines the original opener with Organized Religion, the rationale for this being that I find it annoying when taking the policy if I've already built a few Shrines and Temples, and the policy was pretty weak anyway.
Organized Religion: 15% discount on unit and building Faith purchases.
This moves part of the original finisher to earlier on, making it a lot more useful for spreading your religion around, and making Piety preferable over relying on Faith from other areas. The 5% decrease is to try to balance out getting it earlier over time.
Mandate Of Heaven: 50% of excess Happiness added to Culture AND +1 Local City Happiness from Shrines and Temples.
I wanted to add a little Happiness to the tree as all the others do either directly or indirectly. This also stops the policy being useless if in negative Happiness.
Theology: +10% in cities with a Temple AND +5 Faith in the Capitol.
Faith can sometimes be hard to come by early on, especially if your empire is small or there are no Faith natural wonders or religious city states around, so this helps increase it so you can get a Great Prophet earlier. I think it comes late enough so as to not make it too powerful.
Reformation: +25% Culture in cities that have a World Wonder and a Golden Age is started.
I thought that this was by far the best policy, so just toned it down slighty. It also balances the additional and earlier Culture in other parts of the tree.
Free Religion: Changed name to Monasticism: Allows you to build Monasteries in your cities.
I never liked the way they changed Monasteries for Gods & Kings, it felt a little forced. Also unlike the other Faith purchased buildings, in reality they are not tied to one religion. The Monastery building itself is explained further down.
Finisher: +3 Gold and Culture from Holy Sites AND -10% to future policy costs.
Making the future policy reduction a bonus rather than a choice just seems more natural to me, I can't really explain why. It also forces you to finish the tree when going for a culture win.
Changes to buildings -
Monastery: This is now available to build when you take the Monasticism policy. The yields are now +2 Faith, +2 Culture AND a Scientist Specialist Slot. The extra Faith and Culture from Incense and Wine is removed.
I wanted to add some Science to the tree and this is the best way I could think of. It makes sense in both a gameplay and historical context.
Synagogue: This replaces the Monastery in the Faith buildings list. It gives +1 Happiness, +2 Faith and +3 Culture and costs 200 Faith. The name of the Monasteries belief has been changed to Synagogues.
This is just added to complete the belief list, as I'm not sure whether getting rid of a belief would impact the game balance. I'm not particularly happy with it, but it works.
Overall -
The overall impact is not too big, with most policies being re-arranged rather than totally re-done. For Faith you get +5 overall and +2 per city, plus whatever savings you make from getting the discount earlier. For culture, you get +3 (+2 if unhappy) per city, but -8% and whatever you lose from getting the reduction later. This should make Piety a little better for wider empires, and the strategy in going for a cultural victory a bit more varied. It also makes Piety empires better at getting and spreading a religion, which I thought was strangely lacking before.
There is also +2 Local City Happiness per city, which is one of the smallest of any tree so not too substantial, and a Great Scientist slot, one of the earliest specialist slots in the game. I thought these 2 things were needed to bring Piety up to the level of other trees, and especially when compared to Rationalism. In my play testing on Emperor and Immortal at normal speed, I would still take Rationalism 75% of the time, so I don't think I've made Piety over-powered.
Notes -
A big thank you to Pazyryk, FramedArchitect and all the others in this forum for making this mod possible. Please feel free to use/modify/abuse this mod as you see fit. And please leave any suggestions/comments/abuse below, I am interested to know what people think of it, if any bugs are found, and how it plays on other difficulties and speeds.
Changes to policies -
Opener: Shrines and Temples built twice as fast AND +1 Faith from each.
This just combines the original opener with Organized Religion, the rationale for this being that I find it annoying when taking the policy if I've already built a few Shrines and Temples, and the policy was pretty weak anyway.
Organized Religion: 15% discount on unit and building Faith purchases.
This moves part of the original finisher to earlier on, making it a lot more useful for spreading your religion around, and making Piety preferable over relying on Faith from other areas. The 5% decrease is to try to balance out getting it earlier over time.
Mandate Of Heaven: 50% of excess Happiness added to Culture AND +1 Local City Happiness from Shrines and Temples.
I wanted to add a little Happiness to the tree as all the others do either directly or indirectly. This also stops the policy being useless if in negative Happiness.
Theology: +10% in cities with a Temple AND +5 Faith in the Capitol.
Faith can sometimes be hard to come by early on, especially if your empire is small or there are no Faith natural wonders or religious city states around, so this helps increase it so you can get a Great Prophet earlier. I think it comes late enough so as to not make it too powerful.
Reformation: +25% Culture in cities that have a World Wonder and a Golden Age is started.
I thought that this was by far the best policy, so just toned it down slighty. It also balances the additional and earlier Culture in other parts of the tree.
Free Religion: Changed name to Monasticism: Allows you to build Monasteries in your cities.
I never liked the way they changed Monasteries for Gods & Kings, it felt a little forced. Also unlike the other Faith purchased buildings, in reality they are not tied to one religion. The Monastery building itself is explained further down.
Finisher: +3 Gold and Culture from Holy Sites AND -10% to future policy costs.
Making the future policy reduction a bonus rather than a choice just seems more natural to me, I can't really explain why. It also forces you to finish the tree when going for a culture win.
Changes to buildings -
Monastery: This is now available to build when you take the Monasticism policy. The yields are now +2 Faith, +2 Culture AND a Scientist Specialist Slot. The extra Faith and Culture from Incense and Wine is removed.
I wanted to add some Science to the tree and this is the best way I could think of. It makes sense in both a gameplay and historical context.
Synagogue: This replaces the Monastery in the Faith buildings list. It gives +1 Happiness, +2 Faith and +3 Culture and costs 200 Faith. The name of the Monasteries belief has been changed to Synagogues.
This is just added to complete the belief list, as I'm not sure whether getting rid of a belief would impact the game balance. I'm not particularly happy with it, but it works.
Overall -
The overall impact is not too big, with most policies being re-arranged rather than totally re-done. For Faith you get +5 overall and +2 per city, plus whatever savings you make from getting the discount earlier. For culture, you get +3 (+2 if unhappy) per city, but -8% and whatever you lose from getting the reduction later. This should make Piety a little better for wider empires, and the strategy in going for a cultural victory a bit more varied. It also makes Piety empires better at getting and spreading a religion, which I thought was strangely lacking before.
There is also +2 Local City Happiness per city, which is one of the smallest of any tree so not too substantial, and a Great Scientist slot, one of the earliest specialist slots in the game. I thought these 2 things were needed to bring Piety up to the level of other trees, and especially when compared to Rationalism. In my play testing on Emperor and Immortal at normal speed, I would still take Rationalism 75% of the time, so I don't think I've made Piety over-powered.
Notes -
A big thank you to Pazyryk, FramedArchitect and all the others in this forum for making this mod possible. Please feel free to use/modify/abuse this mod as you see fit. And please leave any suggestions/comments/abuse below, I am interested to know what people think of it, if any bugs are found, and how it plays on other difficulties and speeds.
