My Main Problem with Piety

[redwings1340]

In Civ V, there are 5 major ways to get an early religion. From the most powerful to least powerful ways, they are:

1) Find a faith natural wonder and settle it for your second city. Then choose a pantheon that gives you more faith. This can be really powerful, especially if you're Spain, but it's also unreliable.
2) Play as a civ that has an awesome Shrine/Monument replacement that provides faith. Some of the most powerful civs have early extra faith.
3) Get Stonehendge. This puts you a little behind, but gives you a pretty massive faith generation, and it's just one building.
4) meet a couple of religious city states, get lucky with a faith ruin (or Shoshone it), and choose a pantheon that gives you additional faith (desert folklore). This can give you a great religion for not a huge amount of effort, but is kind of random on whether you can get it (barring Shoshone).
5) Mass up shrines and temples early game and try to compete with the above civs who incorporated one of the above strategies. This will put you behind some other civs in faith and put you way back in early game science and growth.

Aside from the -20% discount, going Piety helps you only if you go for strategy #5, and even then, a piety start doesn't allow #5 to get even close to the power of these other strategies. Faster shrines and temples only saves a couple of turns, and the +faith from them doesn't add nearly as much faith as some of these other sources do. The +gold from temples does nothing to address the growth/science problems from beforehand, and religious tolerance is worthless. By the time you get a reformation belief, Piety will put you so far behind that it doesn't matter.

Even if you are going for religion, tradition or liberty will be more powerful than Piety, because Piety isn't even close to the best way to expand your faith. All of the first 4 strategies without piety will beat #5 with Piety, and religious beliefs have more to do with faith than what shrines and temples give. Piety seems designed to buff shrines and temples, but shrines and temples have relatively little to do with how well your religion does, so the entire tree is just outclassed by other stuff.

 

[joncnunn]

You're missing #6 which is my favorite.

Start in an area in which a faith based pantheon is suitable.
Such as Desert Faith / One with Nature / Religious Idols / Stone Circles / (Beta Patch only) Mother Earth

With the possible exception of Religious Idols which in addition to the faith is also producing Culture, these all actually work better with Tradition start though.

For this; since you are choosing Pottery anyway and are going to get Monuments for free, you simply build a Shrine as the first building in both your capital and second city and then you just have tiles you are going to be working anyway get you to your religion.
This won't significantly slow down science (you'll be cash buying the library in the second city anyway and as for the capital; a Shrine is a whole lot cheaper than Stonehenge.)

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.

My own opinion of what Piety is best for would be if the most suitable pantheon nearby is a cultural only one.
(Use Piety opener for faster Shrine for faster founding of that pantheon, then use tiles you are working anyway for faster process thru Piety; while your unlikely to first in the world to found, this does have a decent shot at being first to enhance via the free GP from completing the tree.) This does carry somewhat of a risk though as the AI likes to choose Cultural pantheons.

 

[JollyRoger]

I never get too pious, but I have found the cheap shrines and temples useful if I am choosing religious strands that buff shrines and temple - such as the one that gives extra food. For the most part, I've got better things to do in my cities, so I don't take this gambit too often. Besides, its much more fun to get faith the more honorable way - crusading against barbarians.

 

[Beaver79]

If I don't get a faith natural wonder or faith from a ruin I usually ignore religion altogether up until Theology. It's on the way to education and the AI piddles around getting aqueducts at that point, so you're usually in the medieval era awhile before anyone else gets there. You can then build the Hagia for the free prophet and usually the Broudir before anyone else gets in the era. The prophet gives you your religion and pantheon and you didn't have to waste any production on temples.

Those two wonders or even just one will get you more faith than shrines + temples + the piety tree bonus. The production and maintenance for shrines and temples are just too high, there are just so many better ways to get faith.

 

[redwings1340]

If I don't get a faith natural wonder or faith from a ruin I usually ignore religion altogether up until Theology. It's on the way to education and the AI piddles around getting aqueducts at that point, so you're usually in the medieval era awhile before anyone else gets there. You can then build the Hagia for the free prophet and usually the Broudir before anyone else gets in the era. The prophet gives you your religion and pantheon and you didn't have to waste any production on temples.

Those two wonders or even just one will get you more faith than shrines + temples + the piety tree bonus. The production and maintenance for shrines and temples are just too high, there are just so many better ways to get faith.

I suppose this is what my argument boils down to. Piety is about getting shrines and temples for faith, but you can run a great religious empire without shrines and temples, and it may even be better than one with those! Piety should be about getting a religious empire with less effort or about improving a religious empire. Buffing shrines and temples doesn't do either, because it still forces you to change your strategy, even in the most religious empire. The best cultural policies supplement what you're already doing (exploration if you already have costal cities, patronage if you plan on getting city states, commerce if you're getting gold, rationalism if you're getting science, which is already always). Piety should be good if you're getting religion, but right now it's good if you're getting shrines and temples. The game tries to make this the same thing, but it's definitely not, and it's a bit frustrating when I get these great faith natural wonders as Spain, or I get Stonehendge, and I think 'well, Piety should be good here, but it's actually not the best policy for me to take, even though I have all this awesome religion going on!'

 

[Ninakoru]

You main problem with Piety is THE problem with piety itself. Other than the gold boost there's no other pasive boost to apply to your empire, and you get plenty of them with liberty and tradition, on witch you can get you religion anyways even it is much less powerful. Honor is out of the question, is unplayable in competitive right now.

All ancient policies should provide some culture and happiness to an extent, you need the happiness early to not get stuck with the horrible happiness problems you will face until your empire is consolided, and culture is necessary to end those ancient policy branches earlier.

With tradition you get plenty of gold, growth happiness, mixed free buildings, wonder production boost. And THEN you may add your religion to boost your empire even further. Hard to compete with that as it is now...

 

[joncnunn]

As I see it; there are two highly situational cases for Piety:

1. You are playing Byzantine and thus want to ensure you don't waste your entire UA.

2. Your start & difficulty level are is such that you can't reliably get a religion using standard Tradition, but you want a religion anyway. (Particularly the leverage a massive Cultural pantheon, that is if you can beat the AI to using that pantheon at all.)

This results in something like 85% of the time me picking Tradition and only 15% of the time Piety.
(I personally never pick Liberty nor Honor)

 

[AW Arcaeca]

Eh. I think Piety is all right. My main problem with it is I can't have both Piety AND Rationalism. The former is just conveniently unlocked earlier and helps more with culture, but the latter is simply essential to stay competitive in the game. Never sure which to pick...

 

[joncnunn]

Eh. I think Piety is all right. My main problem with it is I can't have both Piety AND Rationalism. The former is just conveniently unlocked earlier and helps more with culture, but the latter is simply essential to stay competitive in the game. Never sure which to pick...

BNW removed the former exclusion between Piety & Rationalism that had been in place in both Vanilla and G&K.
In addition, Piety actually opens in ancient era, so you can finish the tree before you reach the Rea era.

 

[Ninakoru]

Eh. I think Piety is all right. My main problem with it is I can't have both Piety AND Rationalism. The former is just conveniently unlocked earlier and helps more with culture, but the latter is simply essential to stay competitive in the game. Never sure which to pick...

Piety on BNW does not provide culture, only some gold and religion boosters.

 

[AW Arcaeca]

BNW removed the former exclusion between Piety & Rationalism that had been in place in both Vanilla and G&K.
In addition, Piety actually opens in ancient era, so you can finish the tree before you reach the Rea era.

Piety on BNW does not provide culture, only some gold and religion boosters.

Well... I don't have BNW, just G&K, so...
In my games the rule about no piety and rationalism active at the same time still applies, unfortunately.

 

[Kintara]

Piety on BNW does not provide culture, only some gold and religion boosters.

There is Culture on Holy Sites. It's actually one of the best Culture generators you can find among the social policies because it gives you a source of Culture that will turn into Tourism and expand your borders, and the amount of culture can be quite high. With a good Faith income you can get a lot of Holy Sites up. But it's true that Aesthetics is the Culture tree now.

Edit: Yes, the Culture comes at the end, which can make it a pain in the ass to plow through.

 

[Resipsa]

Piety on BNW does not provide culture, only some gold and religion boosters.

That's why as others have said you need a culture pantheon rather than a faith or other pantheon.

I don't really like Piety because there are too many bad policies in the Tree.

 

[Matthew.]

I view Piety in the same way as Honor in that it is better as a supporting tree, not an opener. You don't use it to form a religion, rather use it so you can spam cathedrals in all your cities before you reach atomic era and they cost 600 faith a piece. You still need to rely on outside sources for religion (naturals/pantheon/stonehenge). Gold boost on temples is just to off-set the gold you need to drop to get them initially.

 

[Ninakoru]

Yes, the Culture comes at the end, which can make it a pain in the ass to plow through.

Yeah, that's the issue. +3 culture mean you have to land prophets, and you will land 1-2 at most, if any. Is nor a stable culture source, and the major problem is that you don't count on it for ending piety at a reasonable pace without the aid of a religion culture booster. One of the main benefits I see on religion is the extreme flexibility, you can tailor to your need to boost your strengths or cover your weakneses, even if some beliefs are situational... other than the +2 from temples and the culture from other cities on your religion (gold per 4 pop is like 3x more useful BTW) other culture sources are situational.

Again, you can get culture from religion with other ancient policies, that actually net you more culture overall... And a healthy early setup is king on this game, specially on higher difficulties.

 

[Kintara]

Yeah, that's the issue. +3 culture mean you have to land prophets, and you will land 1-2 at most, if any.

That's completely...not my experience. You can generate far more than that.

 

[Ninakoru]

That's completely...not my experience. You can generate far more than that.

I'm talking about planting, not just generating them

 

[Kintara]

I'm talking about planting, not just generating them

That doesnt make any sense. You dont have to spread your religion everywhere. In fact there are situations where you definitely shouldnt spread it. Sacred Sites works better if you keep it to yourself, for instance. Besides, its quite possible to capture unexpended Great Prophets and plant them.

 

[Rambuchan]

Agree with the OP. The only reasons I'll even touch Piety are to allow the building of the Great Mosque of Djenne and the cheaper missionaries policy - and that's all to rapidly spread a religion that's already been founded via the methods identified in the OP. The latter reason can be really powerful actually, as that cheapness applies to everything you purchase with faith. But I will never go beyond that policy into the Piety tree and I would rather spend a steamy night with Margaret Thatcher's corpse than open the game with Piety.

 

[SnowKomodo]

It's fun to go down the Piety tree to change it up and some of the beliefs can be very powerful. Otherwise, it's reached the point where I can't choose anything other than Tradition. Just too strong. Even Liberty, which I used to choose a lot, runs 2nd to Tradition