Papal Primacy

[trooth]

In viewing other threads it seems like a lot of people always choose tithe or church property for their religion. I am finding Papal Primacy (15 resting rate) with Patronage and Aesthetics (20 resting rate) gives permanent religious friends on Marathon setting. You can pledge to protect as well for another 10 resting rate.

I generally play king with max civs and max city states. Even with standard civs and city states it is very good. Obviously if you limit the city states in the game it will be less powerful.

I find it more powerful than any other founder belief. You get free c/s friends, saving a lot of gold in the process. Certainly with tithe you could choose what you want to buy, however via the friendships you will get:

Free military units
Faith
Culture
Food
Happiness

Aside from the gold beliefs nothing else will cover that big of a range. If you go further down patronage you can add in science and specialists from C/S you ally with. You can maintain a lot of allies for free just with the c/s quests a which you will win due to the increased science/culture/faith/specialists from the city states.

Once the ball is rolling on this, you are a powerhouse, and you have your choice of what VC you want to go for. It works for tall or wide empires. For the AI to counter it, either Austria has to start buying the c/s off, or the other civs have to take out your religion, or the c/s which will anger everyone.

Your military can be huge without building any units, you can cover most resources and many luxuries without going wide, and if you have diplomatic victory enabled you can lock it in fairly easy. I just can't see any other founder belief having that much potential. The cost is higher to make it work due to focusing missionaries at C/S and the policies in Patronage, but the pay off is huge.

Has anyone tried it on higher levels?

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[Gamewizard]

I tried it once but found it unimpressive when compared to tithe or ceremonial burial. I however play all standard settings so there are less CS. I play Emperor/Immortal and find it relatively easy to ally and remain allied with most CS through questing and the occasional gold gift.

 

[trooth]

I can see that. The more C/S in the game the stronger it is. I have grown to enjoy Huge maps with 22 civs and 44 City States. They take up enough real estate to get the map filled up relatively quickly. Anything less than standards c/s I would probably prefer tithe. I also wouldn't take it without going into patronage, or vice versa.

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[Magma_Dragoon]

It would be pretty good for an OCC, where you don't have alot of money to get city states on your side and you can't afford to have your army spread out all over the map kill barb huts.

 

[FromBirth]

I'm not sure if the requirement is to have more than 30 influence to be friends on Marathon but on standard, pledge to protect and aesthetics gives enough to maintain friendship which mean you can go ahead and still take Tithe or whatever else.

This works well enough if you can ignore the other Civs getting uppity because you are cosying up to their CS. If you were playing peaceful you'd possibly choose to side with the Civ in that situation and lose influence with the CS so it suits aggressive play styles better I'd say.

 

[trooth]

It is the SME to 30. Granted I get civs not liking the spread of my religion, but it isn't as bad as protection early on. But wit the three you get a resting spot of 45. With many CS being friends you win a lot of quests for culture and since you are focusing a bit on faith you win should be winning those two. And if you need you can buy and keep allies pretty easily. For diplomacy victory, i think it can save you a lot of god over tithe, depending on how long the game lasts.

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[patsfan454]

i think it can save you a lot of god over tithe

reformation is a social policy

 

[Dentalfury]

I've used it to great effect in some of my past games. However, you need to be pretty aggressive about spreading your religion and if Greece/Siam/Austria is on the map you can pretty much forget it.

However, if you are one of those 3 Civ's the synergy would be nuts! Less so for the Austrians because they don't need to maintain relations in the long term.

 

[adampjr]

I go for Papal Primacy. Mostly because I really like to go for CS bonuses.

 

[Scarpa]

Play Byzantine and you can have Tithe AND Papal Primacy. And Religious Texts.. Did that once and it was pretty nice.

 

[trooth]

I started a Byzantine game last night and was able to secure tithe and Primal Papacy. Pledge to protect got me into trouble early though. Isabella used it to force me into war as I had several city states under my protection. If you don't follow through protecting one, all the others take a significant hit in negativity. Russia and Celts joined in on the war against me. Primal Papacy is the way to go for this strat and then throw in your pledges when you can back them up. On a side note, 22 five and 41 city states on archipelago maps are a blast.

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[Browd]

I started a Byzantine game last night and was able to secure tithe and Primal Papacy. Pledge to protect got me into trouble early though. Isabella used it to force me into war as I had several city states under my protection. If you don't follow through protecting one, all the others take a significant hit in negativity. Russia and Celts joined in on the war against me.

That isn't my experience with pledge to protect. I've never had to go to war to uphold the protection commitment; I just tell the civ that bullied or attacked my pledgee that they will pay for it, and take the slight diplo hit (and it is slight, near as I can tell--it has not impaired my ability to renew DOFs and sign RAs).

Now, in all fairness, most of the messages that require response are of the "I may have attacked" your CS, which comes from the CS changing allies mid-war -- the Fall patch is going to fix that -- rather than from actual attacks.

 

[Trik]

Don't the CS's have to be of your religion to benefit from papal primacy?

 

[Dtekkar]

Some thoughts.

First of all, you can't run around spamming pledge to protect. Every major Civ in the game will be interested in at least a few of these CS, and they will spam you with CS threatens until your diplomatic relations with them are in the dumper. At that point, you'll have fewer friendship successes (i.e. fewer research agreements), fewer 240 lux/ 45strategic sales, you can no longer complete all of the CS lux quests, maybe even gangpile DOWs you wouldn't have gotten. At immortal+, the AIs have a huge military all game long and your troop strength statistic - even if you are pulling a 300 and wiping them all out no problem anyway - is not intimidating to the AIs as far as diplomacy is concerned.

I presume this founder belief is decent when pursuing a peaceful diplomatic VC but lackluster otherwise. It must be really nice to not have to pledge to protect all the cs and still get friendly with all of them.

A key thing that makes Papal Primacy lackluster is that there are really 2 reasons you ally a CS: 1. They have a bonus or resource you want. 2. They are on your borders and you want them on your side for neighborly war. #1 is the key reason to have CSes, and getting and keeping your religion in the CSes is not always simple, reasonable, or worthwhile as some are cross-map.

Does 'Religious Unity' (enhancer: double spread to city-states) count for missionary conversion or just pressure? Might be a decent alternative to Itinerant Preachers/Religious Texts if they are both taken already and you have papal primacy.

 

[bcaiko]

I suppose Papal Primacy could be useful if you're going for Diplomatic Victory, but for the most part I've found it to be utterly underwhelming. It sounds good, but you really *have* to be near city states and focused on spreading your Religion like crazy to get any use out of it.

I like City States, but there are easier ways to get influence over them.

 

[Raz]

If you play as the Greeks, the civ unique ability plus the Patronage opener results in a degradation rate of zero as soon as you take Aesthetics. I don't know why this is the case, but it is - give it a try. Combined with Papal Primacy, and some judicious missionaries, you can make every city state your friend forever.

With a degradation rate of zero, outside the use of spies or standing your army on their land, city state reputation can only move in one possible direction: up.

 

[trooth]

I can see that start being hard to achieve on emperor, and probably self defeating on dirty unless you are going foe diplomacy. I am playing at king right now on archipelago with max civs and c/s. I go for great library, then stone henge unless I have a desert start or a religious natural wonder around. I then go for great lighthouse if I think I have a shot at it, if not go I for theology. I don't have many problems spreading religion at this level, and with the map type there are many island c/s that are up for grabs. I find it fun and rewarding to use the belief, but I now think tithe is better in most cases. Byzantine though with tithe and primal papacy on a loaded c/s map is proving to be great.

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[MaDaZi]

There's an achievement for allying with like 16 city states or something while having Papal Primacy, isn't there? It'd be at least a fun challenge to try to get it