Is Piety even worth it for cultural victories?

[apocalypse105]

Piety and religion in general favor wide empires... Pre-G&K Piety was awesome.

This will be fixed with the national temple national wonder wich proparly will give a lot of faith but you need to built temples in each city

 

[Buccaneer]

I have the Piety boost mod installed, just to balance out Piety, and it's awesome... well, good enough to be a serious contender to rationalism.

It has numerous boosts, like trading posts giving +1 faith instead of shrine and temples giving +1 faith, and culture boosts from cities with wonders giving 50+% culture instead of 33%, temples giving 25%gold instead of just 10% (the worst policy at the moment), and finally, 15% social policy culture reduction instead of 10%. The changes in this mod, in some form, should be bundled with the Fall patch.

This thread demonstrates how one can effectively play with Piety and choices to be made without resorting to cheating.

 

[Cromagnus]

* "never build any wonders" again, if I were to commit 2 social policies to piety, it's not that hard to get one wonder in your capital, and just that single city getting a 33% bonus would go a long way. After all, were you planning on building 2 workers by the early mid-game? That's 140 hammers. For 45 more, you could have the two workers, have all of 'em work 25% faster, and get 1 great engineer point/turn and a culture/turn (well, 1 1/3 culture per turn...) Not that I'm endorsing the pyramids as a great wonder to strive for, but it's very low priority for the AI, making it very accessible if you're planning on doing anything with piety, if the reformation hang-up is that you can't get any wonders.

Who *builds* workers? ;-)

Seriously though, I build one worker. Ever. So, it's not 2 workers vs pyramids. It's the pyramids (which take a while to build) vs a worker and something that I really need asap, like a granary, shrine or library.

Edit: I do love the pyramids though. Don't get me wrong... GE points are yummy, and so is the tile improvement speed bonus. I just have too many things I need in the early game for this to be practical most times. And AIs *do* build it on Deity. Not always, but often enough to hose you.

 

[black213]

This thread demonstrates how one can effectively play with Piety and choices to be made without resorting to cheating.

Using a mod that makes a weak SP tree more powerful isn't cheating: the AI also gets the new powerful bonuses.

 

[tommynt]

every1 who dont get how strong religion is dont understand the game - its that simple ..

 

[tommynt]

oh yeah and every1 who dont understand how strong peity without a mod is also got no clue of the game

 

[Dogmouth]

every1 who dont get how strong religion is dont understand the game - its that simple ..

I don't understand why people post such things without explaining themselves. IMO, piety doesn't actually provide that much of a benefit to religion. Shrines and temples aren't that important for faith generation. The best way to generate faith is through a good pantheon belief plus friendly relations with religious city states. You only need shrines to get the pantheon. I very rarely build more than a handful of shrines and temples, and the 50% discount comes to late. Ultimately, you end up getting something like +4 faith/turn and nothing else after investing two social policies. No thanks. I'll just buy a city state. +10% gold from temples does nothing for faith, and basically nothing for gold. -10% on future policies is ok, but you only recoup your investment here if you're get it relatively early and you're going for cultural victory. The bonus to holy sites? Bleh, holy sites stink and even the improved holy sites take forever to get a decent return. The bonus to the cost of religious purchases also comes way too late given that it doesn't apply to GP.

 

[budweiser]

Its called Gods & Kings for a reason.

Most of the time you can get a religion, then there are 2 or 3 other civs who dont get one, so you spread yours to them. Then you profit from that and then the King part comes in.

 

[tommynt]

don't understand why people post such things without explaining themselves. IMO, piety doesn't actually provide that much of a benefit to religion. Shrines and temples aren't that important for faith generation. The best way to generate faith is through a good pantheon belief plus friendly relations with religious city states. You only need shrines to get the pantheon. I very rarely build more than a handful of shrines and temples, and the 50% discount comes to late. Ultimately, you end up getting something like +4 faith/turn and nothing else after investing two social policies. No thanks. I'll just buy a city state. +10% gold from temples does nothing for faith, and basically nothing for gold. -10% on future policies is ok, but you only recoup your investment here if you're get it relatively early and you're going for cultural victory. The bonus to holy sites? Bleh, holy sites stink and even the improved holy sites take forever to get a decent return. The bonus to the cost of religious purchases also comes way too late given that it doesn't apply to GP.

If u play with 2 cities only that might be true ... for a wide empire things change a lot

 

[Sidor1982]

Most effective cultural Deity games are with the use of GA - Landmark spam (with freedom bonus)

Piety gives You additional bonuses, so I go for it. I don't take Rationalism, as effective Cultural games (deity) are meant to be with the use of 1 - 3 cities max. Therefore it will be impossible to keep up with the AI tech wise anyway (unless really lucky with tech stealing) and instead of trying that, I concentrate on generating more culture and getting the CV before AI gets diplo or tech win (on G&K really easy to achieve). If You want more cities, military for wars and rationalism, then CV is the last victory type You should aim for. Additionally when going for such a strategy You'll be able to build utopia project way before researching Ecology for SOH so it's not a relevant factor.

In such games religion + a lot of faith generation is important, as when adopting freedeom You can purchase GA for the faith. That's another reason to go for piety.

 

[black213]

If u play with 2 cities only that might be true ... for a wide empire things change a lot

For wide empires you shouldn't be using Piety in the first place. Everyone knows Rationalism is the best social policy tree for any victory condition except cultural.

 

[Moriarte]

For wide empires you shouldn't be using Piety in the first place. Everyone knows Rationalism is the best social policy tree for any victory condition except cultural.

That means you don't know how to lead (or be in par) in science without rationalism, while benefitting from other trees.

 

[Arachnofiend]

It means that having a much easier time getting a much larger tech lead is better than anything piety has to offer for a non-cultural game.

 

[budweiser]

For wide empires you shouldn't be using Piety in the first place. Everyone knows Rationalism is the best social policy tree for any victory condition except cultural.

Hold on a second. I'm pretty sure you can take over the world using older units without the need for Rationalism.

 

[Dogmouth]

If u play with 2 cities only that might be true ... for a wide empire things change a lot

Piety is a funny choice for a wide empire that isn't a puppet empire (for puppet empires, your puppets may or may not build religious buildings). The 10% reduction in policy costs and 33% increase in culture for cities with wonders doesn't add up to much in this scenario (presumably you're not going for a cultural VC). It sounds like you're wasting at least two policies no matter what you do.

 

[slapshot2119]

Who *builds* workers? ;-)

Seriously though, I build one worker. Ever. So, it's not 2 workers vs pyramids. It's the pyramids (which take a while to build) vs a worker and something that I really need asap, like a granary, shrine or library.

Edit: I do love the pyramids though. Don't get me wrong... GE points are yummy, and so is the tile improvement speed bonus. I just have too many things I need in the early game for this to be practical most times. And AIs *do* build it on Deity. Not always, but often enough to hose you.

Great job quoting me out of context. The point was that if you're going to sacrifice delaying all future policies by the time it takes to acquire 2 piety policies which you'll eventually cancel AND ramp up future SP cost by 2 policies worth, there's a third, very powerful policy that becomes unlocked while doing so, which becomes more potent if you have a wonder in your capital, and the other point was that it's not that cumbersome to build one wonder in your capital. The point was not that the Pyramids are a great wonder that you should strive for. Now that I'm thinking about it, Terracotta Army is another wonder which the AI prioritizes very low (well, it's not on their banking beeline) and may work well into your plan as the extra 8 culture it generates may help to compensate for the 2-3 policy inflation that someone following this strategy handicaps himself by.
I even added a footnote addressing this

Not that I'm endorsing the pyramids as a great wonder to strive for, but it's very low priority for the AI, making it very accessible if you're planning on doing anything with piety, if the reformation hang-up is that you can't get any wonders.

and the irony is that, at the time, I only felt obligated to include that footnote because on these forums, I seem to be the king of having everything I post be quoted, taken out of context, and argued against. I find these forums rather frustrating on that account, and as soon as I find an answer to my bug problem, I don't plan on returning here too much.
As an example, I'm going to preempt the next person to quote, take out of context, and "correct" THIS post, saying that Terracotta Army only provides 6 culture where I listed it as 8, by noting that the context in which it was listed assumed reformation, which adds 1/3 of the culture to a city, making the 6 plus 1/3 equal 8.

 

[chazzycat]

slapshot, i've been the main one arguing with you, and I think all my quotes are in full context and fully explained. Let me know if I can explain any of my points better. It seems like you are just not listening. That's fine...I'm just another random dude on the internet like you, and am not offended. But part of having a positive forum experience is willingness to accept other ideas.

 

[AWahl]

I really enjoy the culture bonuses from Piety and I feel they help ME a lot.

 

[Buccaneer]

Using a mod that makes a weak SP tree more powerful isn't cheating: the AI also gets the new powerful bonuses.

Yes it is. First, you assume that the SP tree is weak, Second, you wouldn't know the full consequences of upsetting the balance of just slapping higher numbers in there. Third, the human player takes advantage of increased bonuses more than the AI would, thus cause even more of an unbalance.

 

[iconocast]

temples that give u more gold like a extra bank and policy cost reduction. i find it hard to pass up, but on the other hand commerce is pretty dam good now with +2 from every lux, always brings a smile to my face....geddit.