Piety in Brave New World

[Curiousfanatic]

Hello everyone

I watched the IGN preview this morning and I have a question. Will the piety and rationalism social policies continue to be exclusive in the expansion?

 

[Rolaran]

I hope they at least consider removing their "one-or-the-other" nature. Now that the choice of three from the Industrial era is being turned into the Ideologies system, Piety-or-Rationalism is the only mutual exclusivity left. It also makes it really difficult to ever make Piety a truly viable tree, since the policies have to be not only good enough to compare to the other policies available in the Classical, but also good enough to compensate for locking yourself out of more science later on.

 

[pyroflare77]

In that preview their cursor crossed paths with Piety, causing the info tooltip to briefly pop up. There were like two frames where the mostly-transparent tooltip was visible, but I saw nothing that indicated that adopting it would remove the Rationalism policies they already had.

 

[stealth_nsk]

We don't know what's inside Piety. If Piety now is almost a requirement for religious play (i.e. gaining Enhancer and Follower belief are social policies now), the choice between it and Rationalism will be interesting.

 

[NukeAJS]

Since a cultural victory is done with tourism, not culture, I'd imagine piety and rationalism are not mutually exclusive anymore. My reasoning being that choosing piety pretty much locked you into a cultural victory and you had to forsake the tech victory and vice versa.

I don't see how having a powerful religion and lots of tech would be game-breaking.

And not like it matters, but there are plenty of real-life civs that started out very pious and away from dogma and towards science (All of Europe). Also, there were periods where very pious civs made large gains in science (The Islamic Golden Age, almost the entire history of India).

 

[Arachnofiend]

Piety isn't linked to culture anymore. It's 100% faith oriented, all culture policies have been moved to the new Aesthetics tree.

There are enough pious, scientific civilizations that the two don't need to be exclusive to each other and it would take some absurd bonuses to make a religion strong enough to off set giving up an entire tree worth of science boosts so it's not viable from a mechanics perspective to keep them separate.

 

[tranger66]

We don't know what's inside Piety. If Piety now is almost a requirement for religious play (i.e. gaining Enhancer and Follower belief are social policies now), the choice between it and Rationalism will be interesting.

I hadn't heard about the enhancer/follower change yet. That'll make the religous game much different. I never take Piety now but I might have to start.

It looks like there are more 'must have' policy trees this time, will they reduce the cost per policy or just have us make tougher decisions?

 

[stealth_nsk]

I hadn't heard about the enhancer/follower change yet. That'll make the religous game much different. I never take Piety now but I might have to start.

It looks like there are more 'must have' policy trees this time, will they reduce the cost per policy or just have us make tougher decisions?

I hadn't heard about it as well. But with dedicated religious policy tree we could expect some changes.

 

[EEE_BOY]

Faith purchasing great scientist is too powerful. unlike any other type of great people. I'd say piety and rationalism should still be mutually exclusive.

 

[Seek]

@EEE_BOY - Faith purchasing has moved to the finishers of trees so it'll be much less accessible.

I don't see how having a powerful religion and lots of tech would be game-breaking.

Because it would be OP?

 

[joncnunn]

I hadn't heard about the enhancer/follower change yet. That'll make the religous game much different. I never take Piety now but I might have to start.

It looks like there are more 'must have' policy trees this time, will they reduce the cost per policy or just have us make tougher decisions?

The two known Reformation beliefs don't match any of the existing ones. It appears to be a more powerful version of the G&K Bryzantine UA, only available to everyone that completes Piety.

It's more likely Enhancer and second follower is as before.

 

[joncnunn]

@EEE_BOY - Faith purchasing has moved to the finishers of trees so it'll be much less accessible.

If we're still allowed to save faith up once we hit Industrial era (rather than it automatically getting Great Prophets upon hitting that amount), the delay on getting faith based GS isn't much of an impact.
(Instead of starting to purchase Great Scientists starting with the Rationalism opener, you just save up and buy multiple Great Scientists when you complete Rationalism.)

More significant is that faith purchasing of Great Engineers (& Great Artists) appear to have been removed entirely during the switch of late game social trees to Ideologies.

 

[Schalke 04]

I hope they at least consider removing their "one-or-the-other" nature.

I don't. Rationalism and Piety IS exclusive by all means. One side is the attempt to explain all in the world by the means of a static, one-sided and antagonistic concept with very little dogmatic exceptions. The other one is the approach of using certain, intersubjective and changeable methods to get knowledge of the world (with at least the effort of avoiding the personal sets of belief)

Both do not fit together.

 

[SamBC]

More significant is that faith purchasing of Great Engineers (& Great Artists) appear to have been removed entirely during the switch of late game social trees to Ideologies.

Didn't someone say GWAM purchasing is on the Aesthetics finisher?

 

[Schalke 04]

Because it would be OP?

I'm not sure. One may have all top tier beliefs and a couple of space ship parts, and can still losse due to cultural dominance or nukes and bombers...

Reigion is not a key element to achieve a victory. It just helps (for example due to gold gaining beliefs). Of course, having a strong religion and a good science output helps quite a lot, when used properly. But this combination it is not gamebreaking in my books. OK, Science will always be key. But Science and Gold make up for a good pair as well, just like like Gold and Culture/Tourism. I don't see the synergetic advantage of science/religion over other possible pairs.

 

[Rolaran]

I don't. Rationalism and Piety IS exclusive by all means. One side is the attempt to explain all in the world by the means of a static, one-sided and antagonistic concept with very little dogmatic exceptions. The other one is the approach of using certain, intersubjective and changeable methods to get knowledge of the world (with at least the effort of avoiding the personal sets of belief)

Both do not fit together.

I understand the original justification for making them mutually exclusive, though I don't really agree with it; as NukeAJS pointed out previously, there are historical examples of civilizations where faith and reason coexisted. In addition, is rationalism and piety really that much more incompatible than, say, rationalism and tradition?

Besides, at this point, every other "pick one or the other" choice between policy trees has either been removed, or folded into the Ideologies system. From a gameplay standpoint, singling these two out as the only two ideals that cannot coexist seems odd, and even a bit heavy-handed.

 

[HeraldtheGreat]

We don't know what's inside Piety. If Piety now is almost a requirement for religious play (i.e. gaining Enhancer and Follower belief are social policies now), the choice between it and Rationalism will be interesting.

Don't forget, at the end of Piety they're adding Reformation beliefs to give an extra oomph to your religion.

 

[Uberfrog]

gaining Enhancer and Follower belief are social policies now

Woah, what? Is this a fact, or speculation.

That kind of rains on the Great Prophet's parade, doesn't it?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Woah, what? Is this a fact, or speculation.

Please read carefully. That's pure speculation.

 

[Calouste]

If we're still allowed to save faith up once we hit Industrial era (rather than it automatically getting Great Prophets upon hitting that amount), the delay on getting faith based GS isn't much of an impact.
(Instead of starting to purchase Great Scientists starting with the Rationalism opener, you just save up and buy multiple Great Scientists when you complete Rationalism.)

More significant is that faith purchasing of Great Engineers (& Great Artists) appear to have been removed entirely during the switch of late game social trees to Ideologies.

The Great Engineer might have gone to Tradition. That would give all the policy trees something Great Person related as a finisher. All effects but for the first three trees are already confirmed:

Tradition: Engineer with faith
Liberty: Free GP of your choice
Honor: General with faith
Piety: Free Prophet
Aesthetics: WAM with faith
Patronage: GP from city states
Exploration: Admiral with faith
Commerce: Merchant with faith
Rationalism: Scientist with faith

Most of them have an additional effect to the finisher as well.