In Defense of Piety

[dewbak75]

I honestly see the most potential in opening piety with the Mayans. Half speed pyramids sound good to me. However, if I was playing the Byzantines, I would open tradition then aristocracy for stonehenge, then go into piety.

I think I'm with you on the Mayans. I'm picturing a Mayan empire able to build those Pyramids at double-speed, then Temples, becoming a faith-generating powerhouse. Then grabbing the Jesuit reformation belief and using all that faith to buy the higher-level science buildings, and just crush everyone technologically. Though the last time I played as the Mayans, I went wide thanks to Liberty and fast Settler production, taking advantage of Messenger Of The Gods for an extra science boost. With the science penalty you incur when adding cities, it might be better to go tall instead. Does the faith cost for a University etc. increase the more you build them the same way it does for Cathedrals & such?

 

[Maledict]

Faith cost doesn't increase per the number you build, it's per the era you build them in. A Pagoda starts off at 200, and goes up by 100 for every era after classical for example.

 

[Jatta Pake]

Probably not... frankly if you're not going to take it right away it doesn't seem like the best choice. There are better options available later.

I did take it first (and only) but lost out in the religion race. (I ram 22 civs into my large map games). So I'm halfway through Piety without a religion to show for it. Is it viable to push on, complete Piety, and try to work with someone else's religion for the rest of the game?

If not, this is a critical strike against ever taking Piety. None of the other three cultures carry the same risk.

 

[Maktaka]

You've convinced me of its power; however, how do you get it going.

You start the game with 1 culture per turn. Building a monument brings that to 3. Then what? While you can get culture from a pantheon belief, I believe the strongest are desert folklore/the tundra faith per tile ones. These won't give you any culture, so the social policies will come slowly right?

(The tone of this post is meant to be with a desire to learn and not mocking/doubting)

Try getting the Piety opener and Organized Religion, then switch over to the Tradition or Liberty opener for a culture boost depending on your city building plans, then use that to finish out Piety. Piety is powerful but narrow and works best in combination with a bit from one of the other two infrastructure policy trees once you've gone far enough into Piety to secure yourself that early religion.

 

[PhilBowles]

I'd find it hard to believe that anyone's arguing against Piety as of BNW - it's by some way the strongest of the ancient trees, and arguably Reformation Beliefs are each stronger than any other single policy in any pre-ideology tree (and can be taken as the fourth rather than final pick if you forego the temple gold discount). In fact so far I've only been successful in BNW using Piety - Tithe is phenomenally powerful in the era of limited gold, anyone going for culture victory basically has to take Religious Art, Cathedrals and the tourism Reformation Belief (not to mention the ability to faith-buy artist types in the late game), Convert the Heathen is just absurd, and my current game's pick - Charitable Donation - is a pretty strong diplomatic tool.

Though the last time I played as the Mayans, I went wide thanks to Liberty and fast Settler production, taking advantage of Messenger Of The Gods for an extra science boost. With the science penalty you incur when adding cities, it might be better to go tall instead. Does the faith cost for a University etc. increase the more you build them the same way it does for Cathedrals & such?

Faith cost of religious buildings doesn't increase the more you build, it increases by era. The university always costs the same as a Missionary in faith (including the reduction in cost from the Piety policy, so it starts out at 160 faith), so it too scales with era.

I haven't yet found the science penalty a disincentive to go wide - as with culture or happiness, the slight cost is more than offset by the extra boost you get from being able to build extra science buildings and populate them with Scientist specialists, as well as the greater returns from jungles, trading posts etc. because you simply have more tiles to work and improve.

 

[Gliese 581]

I would say rushing for the reformation belief depends on which one you're going for, if you're looking for tourism from sacred sites for a culture victory or you're want heathen conversion for a military push then getting the reformation belief quickly in a religion-focused game can be very beneficial.
If you're planning to get jesuit education or the glory of god then there's not as much incentive to rush straight down piety and you can double dip in another social policy tree before finishing piety (just be careful that you're producing enough culture).

 

[Cissnei]

I am tempted to start with Piety (because i always play with own religion, and i play with 22 civilizations so it's difficult) but they made early game even more difficult and I don't see how to open with Piety and not Tradition and not fall far behind every one T_T
I always play culture game. Can you give me tips?

 

[Teaf]

I love Piety, but I just don't feel it's a good opener over Tradition or Liberty. I will nearly always get Piety completed but I stagger it through my city development due to not everything you get in the tree being immediately useful. It's still a great tree though and it's rare I'd not bother with it.

 

[Chiatroll]

I took piety as Morocco following the tradition opener and my enhancer belief was Messiah since I was on the desert I was making over 100 faith a turn before the industrial age. I was able to bump out a dozen holy sites each generating piles of culture I was rich and had everyone beaten in tourism while also winning diplomacy with Charitable missions combined with patronage.

The gold, culture, and faith production of those cities was nice.

I don't question the piety try.