My Main Problem with Piety

[Ninakoru]

That doesnt make any sense. You dont have to spread your religion everywhere.

I more often use the Prophet instead of landing a sacred site. Being able to convert 4 cities/CS that are being owned by another religion to my own usually represents a better opportunity cost than planting it for 6 faith. From the 3 to 5 prophets in a single game, I usually not plant more than 1-2.

 

[Kintara]

I more often use the Prophet instead of landing a sacred site. Being able to convert 4 cities/CS that are being owned by another religion to my own usually represents a better opportunity cost than planting it for 6 faith. From the 3 to 5 prophets in a single game, I usually not plant more than 1-2.

Thats fine for a preference, but sacred sites are just one example. Frankly, on some maps you're just not going to get much traction on converting everyone unless you take a conversion reformation belief. And you can plant more than that. Holy sites beget more holy sites. Take Messiah. Try it out.

 

[njmfff]

You're missing #6 which is my favorite.
Anyway; I would mainly suggest downsizing your exceptions. You can't expect to be first in the world to found a religion and for that matter, being third in the world is often just as good because of how bad the AI chooses its beliefs.

I don't know sometimes they pick up awesome religion. In my last game, Arabia had Desert Folklore\Mosque\Cathedrals\missionary spam. (a bonuses that any reasonable player would pick up)

at that point I gave up on having religion and allow him to spread me Islam. (I was also on desert start, but he picked it up first)

 

[ilik]

That's why I only ever adopt Piety and MAYBE go to Mandate of Heaven Tradition start is my favorite, generally the one I always do.

 

[GoStu]

I disagree with the notion that Piety is a useless tree, I think it's just misunderstood. I only consider it if I've already got a religion, or a strong enough Pantheon that I know I'm going to get a religion. It also helps to be going wide (well, wide and religion go together anyways).

Suddenly, the opening bonus to getting Shrines and Temples up helps with building these in later cities. Cheaper purchases of everything is good all around. Temples providing a gold bonus makes them profitable to build everywhere and also offsets the cost of the prerequisite Shrine. The extra faith off those two buildings strengthens your religion by making every city with them generate another five faith, regardless of anything else. Reformation beliefs are quite powerful (if you get two belief buildings like Pagoda/Cathedral, Sacred Sites is hilariously powerful for culture in eras you can't usually spam great works). Religious tolerance IMO is still a bit weak; even if you get a second religion in your city there's no guarantee the pantheon bonus is any good for you. I guess it could be micromanaged through your trade routes (peacefully), or captured missionaries.

By the end of that, a Holy Site becomes 6 faith, 3 gold, 3 culture, plus base tile yield, and potentially enhanced if you're Korean, or through World Congress, or New Deal under Freedom. This makes it possibly the best tile in the game; and you get a free Great Prophet to finish the tree.

In my eyes, it's situational but quite useful, if used to buff up an already powerful religion. I wouldn't commit to it before getting well underway though; if you don't have a religion in the bag already, I wouldn't gamble any early Social Policies on something that might not work out.

 

[njmfff]

Gotta agree there with you, Piety is rather good, but I would never take it as first tree, unless I am rushing for Reformation.

Shorter time to shrines and temples is awesome, because you can boost them with your religion, and it helps puppet cities to build them faster and not waste too much time on it. (puppets LOOOOVe to build Shrines\Temples\Hotel\Airport)

 

[lindsay40k]

I think it's kinda misleading that Piety is available in the Stone Age. It's something that's great to commit to if you've got an economy off the ground and a surfeit of Faith from wonders, pantheon and buildings. But it doesnt make an early faith surplus into a massive economic boon, and it won't get into that situation with any more certainty than you can get an army of Ballistas by befriending every City State. Sometimes circumstances make it worth it, but sometimes Paris and Berlin have to accept that they're not going to be Mecca or Jerusalem this time round no matter how hard they try.

There may have been born more charismatic religious leaders than Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Confucius and Mohammad, but they didn't appear in the right time and place in the specific social and political situations to make the same mark on history as the above did. Sophisticated spirituality loses to food surplus and steel nine times out of ten.

 

[njmfff]

hmm, yeah, Piety doesn't help you get pantheon quickly, but it does makes you get quicker to religion. Half the build time of shrines and temples in all cities allows you setting up faith per turn quickly with only 3-4 cities.

It's good in combo with Liberty, because with Liberty opener you can skip building of Monuments and go for shrines\temples first. You can always just take opener to liberty, then pick up culture building policy from Tradition.

 

[blackcatatonic]

The really annoying thing with Piety is you pretty much have to open (and commit to) it early, otherwise all of the half-decent Reformation beliefs will be gone by the time you get the policy.

 

[kimadactyl]

I think Piety would work a lot better if you bought tenets with faith/GPs/missionaries, not social policy points, but that would be reworking the game considerably

Maybe it could work like the order/autocracy/freedom trees, but be paid for with faith. Might actually make shrines/temples worth it if they get several stacking bonuses, and religions can get multiple enhancers say (lvl 2 or 3 policies). Then there would be extra policies for going early piety... might make it a much more fun thing to go with room for development. But yeah... major rework