Piety needs a buff... seriously

redeagler

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 24, 2011
Messages
6
ok after the last expansion piety took a pretty hard nerf with the lack of a free policy and a finisher that comes too late its not looking too good now but what is really bothering me is the change to organized religion (+1 faith to shrines and temples)
while this may seem good they got rid of the happiness that used to associated with it.

every policy tree has at least one policy that increases happiness somehow

trad-------------monarchy + aristocracy
liberty-----------meritocracy
honor------------(the one for garrison)
patronage--------(city state extra gifts)
freedom----------democracy? (specialist gives .5 happiness)
rationalism--------happiness for universities and observitories
order-------------opener +1 happy per city
autocracy--------+3 happiness per courthouse
commerce---------finisher (+2 for every resource)

piety used to have organized religion that gave 1 happy for every monument and temple but now its gone i must say this is a policy tree without happiness when every other one has, is too much of a nerf and on top of that you threw a policy (mandate of heaven) that is only useful when you have excess happiness (+1 culture for every 2 happiness) it doesn't even make sense. the finisher comes too late as always my religion is usually spread and established long before i finish the tree and the whole thing pales in comparison to rationalism

instead of just complaining i will offer a couple recommendations and i suggest others also to brainstorm.
firstly piety needs happiness either return organized to its original or combine it some how with the current but regardless piety needs happiness and enough to make it worth it to forbid rationalism

2nd mandate of heaven needs a buff i suggest this because everytree that branches off usually offers 2 choices the first being immediate benefit and the 2nd being a lesser benefit with better long term advantage an example of this could be with old liberty, gain a free settler which we all want right away or pick the lesser worker that opens up representation. another could be in patronage picking the one policy that increases the minimum influence with a city state versus the one that increases influence through gold gifts, the first was better but picker the latter would allow me to open up to scholasticism. you see this kind of pattern in every tree but piety is the only outcast why would i pick mandate of heaven which opens up nothing when i can pick organized which is WAY better, there is no incentive to pick mandate it is simply crap and now that the tree gives no happiness it is practically a waste of a policy so for my 2nd buff i suggest increasing mandate of heaven to a 1 to 1 ratio. for every 1 happiness you would now receive 1 culture besides it is simply not feasible to get enough happiness in any game to really abuse this. an alternative could be instead of culture change mandate to faith and keep organized as plus 1 happiness for every monument and temple that way i have a choice when i enter the tree; do i want the happiness or the faith. but above all a 1 to 1 ratio is needed, this buff was needed since the game came out.

and the 3rd recommendation would be to change the finisher i found that the 20% discount on religious units and buildings comes way to late, by the time i get it; my religion is already enhanced and spread across the map so i don't need the benefit, im not sure why they got rid of the free policy but the finisher needs a buff to make it seem worthwhile to choose instead of rationalism if a free policy is too much of a struggle perhaps a free prophet somewhere in the tree or a way to improve golden ages like more yield per tile or your happiness builds up the Golden age meter while your are already in golden age. piety is really sopose to be a culture tree now that culture has shifted into golden ages perhaps piety should just focus on faith and that golden age aspect.

just some ideas what do you guys think?

edit : i remembered a good buff for mandate would be to also allow % multipliers like hermitage to increase the culture you receive from it.
 
I think I'd only go piety if I aimed a cultural win. Reformation and religious tolerance are "must haves" in this respect, and mandate of heaven is useful combined with whatever happiness boost you slot (usually cultural diplomacy or protectionism, or both, and democracy)
 
I just want happiness to return. Probably piety finisher could be +1 happiness for every non occupied city that follows civ's religion?
 
Other then the reasons you mentioned, Piety needs a buff because it stands against Rationalism, which is a clear winner.
There are many ways to do this but I suggest making it more worthwhile somehow.
I think the opener should be changed. Building Shrines and Temples in half the time is pointless, not much effect to it.
Organized Religion is weak. Not much effect to it. If it would be available since ancient era it would be usefull but like this no.
Theocracy is weak. No need to explain. There are better ways to make gold then spend usefull policies on Theocracy.
Religious Tolerance is too weak because it misses the point that you just wasted some policies. Increase to 20% maybe.
 
I agree that the opportunity cost of missing out on Rationalism is too high. The old Piety tree was attractive when going for a Cultural Victory. Now that culture and happiness have been nerfed and the free policy has been eliminated, the Piety tree is not very attractive at all. Mandate of Heaven doesn't make much sense if Organized Religion no longer provides happiness.

Perhaps the opener should offer the happiness bonus for Shrines (instead of monuments) and Temples which used to be offered by the Organized Religion policy. The free policy at the end of the tree should definitely return.
 
Theocracy needs a buff 10% gold is not great especially when with cultural you go tall and it affects few cities. Piety is all bout generating faith and reducing costs so you can spam GA for cultural and use GP as partial landmark. FOr Cultural its worth it for any other civ type its not. Same with Freedom unless you go crazy on specialists especially since late game happiness is a joke.

Autocracy and Commerc have been improved and Patronage is still useful. With buff to tradition and slight nerf for Liberty fixing these policies would make the balance great.
 
My suggestions:

Mandate of Heaven: gives 1 happiness and culture for empire per 4 faith empire produces.
If you producing 40 faith per turn, it'll give 10 happiness and culture. Since w/ organized religion a city with shrine and temple will produce 5 faith per turn, it'll be 1.25 happiness and culture.

Theocracy: Temples increase faith production by 20%, in addition to current bonus.

Religious Tolerance: Give back the free policy or increase discount amount, to make piety tree attractive for cultural victory.
 
I think the opener and left-hand side are perfectly fine. If you're going heavily religious, they're a must-have, especially since so many religious beliefs also give benefits to shrines and temples. A 10% essentially-empire-wide gold boost also seems to me to be at least on par with the mercantilism opener's 25% gold boost in the capital - and it kinda has to be 10% given that it's a tithe. I wouldn't touch these.

But yeah the middle and right-hand side...they suffer from being "spend culture to make culture", so they're really only useful for filling out the tree - which is really only worthwhile if you're specifically going for a culture win. Someone just playing culture-heavy for the benefits that culture brings (irrespective of the victory condition) is not really going to benefit from taking these policies. Nor is someone who took Piety to go faith-heavy. I don't really have better ideas, but I do agree that one of them really ought to provide a happiness boost - after all, piety makes sense as the "happiness and stability" tree.
 
"use faith to buy units" could be a useful policy for piety even though it is already one of the founder beliefs I think.
 
With the right belief setup, Piety can still increase your happiness; all that extra faith you get from Organized Religion now goes a long way towards buying up Pagodas & other religious buildings, or if you're aiming conquest then coupled with Holy Warriors it allows you to build up your army quickly while your cities keep building circuses and coliseums. And you're leaving out the boost to holy sites which comes with the finisher, which can be pretty powerful as great prophets start cheaper than other great people in Industrial and planting one makes for a nice tile when going for the culture win. I had a bit of trouble adjusting to not getting the immediate happy boost we were used to in vanilla, but the adjustment wasn't very difficult.

Losing the free policy does kinda stink, but I was always of the opinion that the vanilla Piety tree was too strong with it in there. You've still got Oracle/Sydney Opera House for your free policies, and again, the new religious buildings + a few holy sites can make up that extra policy by the end-game.
 
I think Teocraty should give 1 happiness for relegious buildings plus the 10% gold bonus for Temples.
 
I believe the reason why happiness was removed from Organized Religion was the devs thought it is easily available from most beliefs - +1 happy from shrines, +2 from temples, those buy-with-faith buildings, etc. You don't have to necessarily found a religion to get the happiness - they're all follower beliefs.

But still it's better to have stuck with the vanilla as others pointed out. If golden ages are actually useful for pumping culture then why remove the happiness? Other than that I think Piety's finisher could also use a little buff by allowing the Freedom finisher to multiply the gold and culture from holy sites as well. It's a pity that the free SP is gone but I read somewhere that the culture costs of extra cities has gone down compared to vanilla so that's a plus I guess.
 
I agree with the overall premise but not with the specifics. The Piety tree is a mixed bag and Mandate of Heaven is one the best policies in the tree and for a cultural victory.
More happiness from Piety would make sense, but not every tree needs a policy to increase happiness. Monarchy is there to maximise your capital city's potential, Meritocracy to help compensate for REX and Protectionism to encourage resource trades. If you don't neglect your happiness and choose the right policies in other trees Mandate of Heaven can double your total culture output in the Classical era and will stay significant throughout the game if you don't overexpand. MoH and Reformation are the two policies that don't need a buff and are must have for a cultural victory.
Now for the things that need a buff:

The opener is nothing to write home about. It can be helpful, but only if you have a lot of cities/puppets which requires a playstyle that defeats the purpose of MoH. It should be combined with Organised Religion and give double production speed and +1 faith for faith buildings.

Organised Religion could have -10% faith to spawn a Great Prophet, making it more attractive for people who want to get an earlier religion and the gold and culture bonus for Holy Sites from the finisher to make excess Prophets more useful.

Theocracy in it's current form is extrmely meh. I suggest it be changed to decrease the pressure of foreign religions and increase the pressure of your religion inside your borders (this would obviously only make sense if you found a religion yourself, but why would you pick Piety if you don't?). If that sounds too weak it could additinally decrease theb maintenance cost for Shrines and Temples by 1 gold each.

Religious Freedom/Tolerance may be good over the course of a game, but 10% still appears kind of weak. An additional 10% reduction in happiness required for golden ages would be good.

Now that I've moved the Holy Site bonus to Organised Religion the Finisher needs a buff. Right now the faith cost reduction is essentially a weaker version of Holy Order because I usually have built all my Cathedrals, Pagodas etc by the time I complete Piety. I think the only thing that needs to be done here is to apply the discount to the price of Great People bought with faith.
 
I tried piety on my 2nd game on GnK and was not impressed. I need to play around with it more, especially mixed with Byzantium in a tall empire religion powerhouse setup, but that's a very limited play-style and I almost have to go completely peaceful on that one.

A possible buff is to double the effect of your pagodas/catherals/mosques as a finisher.
 
Even more happiness would make ICS even easier. As it is, you get 1 Happy from trade routes and 1 Happy from Ceremonial Burial. If you got 1 more Happy from Piety, it would completely negate city-based unhappiness, leaving you with only population unhappiness to deal with it.

As it is, Piety is for larger, wider empires that focus on religion - I always take it with Carthage or Ethiopia. The opener is very powerful, saving precious hammers in newly founded cities. The +1 Faith to Temple/Shrine is great as well. Wide empires will get anywhere between 20 and 40 Faith with it which is just huge. Faith follows a little different pattern than culture so generating 60 Faith is actually incredibly powerful, while generating 60 Culture may not be.

Happiness to Culture is important for Culture games where you are mostly Happy throughout and the bonus can get very high. I would raise the Temple gold bonus to +25% to make it relevant.

Adopting all Policies should give you an extra belief. After all, the most pious civilizations should be rewarded by getting a more powerful Religion.
 
Agreed with the poster above. There's no need for yet more improvements to Happiness. You can maintain giant empires without even trying now.

Not sure about the extra belief though - wouldn't it come too late? Usually when taking Piety I've enhanced my religion long before I get to the end. So completing Piety would give your religion a mini-buff about halfway through the game.
 
Agreed with the poster above. There's no need for yet more improvements to Happiness. You can maintain giant empires without even trying now.

Not sure about the extra belief though - wouldn't it come too late? Usually when taking Piety I've enhanced my religion long before I get to the end. So completing Piety would give your religion a mini-buff about halfway through the game.

Actually, considering you would most likely get another Founder belief (since they are the strongest), it might net you +50 gold / + 30 culture / + 30 Happy / + 20 faith depending on which belief you chose. That seems like a strong finisher balanced by the fact that some (or all) of the good Founder beliefs may not be available.
 
My greatest problem with Piety is not the removal of happiness; I didn't like it at all even then. The problem is that it prevents Rationalism, and the tech tree is the jugular, like it has always been in every Civ game. That alone is too high a cost for me, and a good reason why I don't like taking the tree. Maybe some policy that gives a science bonus for religious buildings, "Monastic Learning" or something. Extra happiness is not really needed; like others I find happiness easier to manage in G&K.
 
I couldn't agree more, Piety is absolute garbage now. Before, the 2 free policies gave you some real incentive to go for it if you were going for a cultural victory. By removing those, along with the happiness bonus, and keeping the tree opposed to rationalism which is just necessary if you don't want to be left in the dust by the AI research-wise, they have basically removed any incentive you might have to take it. I'm really disappointed that they took the opportunity to fix Tradition while at the same time ruining Piety.
 
I'm trying it for a cultural victory... so far, inclined to agree they nerfed the culture aspect too much. The faith is good, but by the time it's unlocked it's no good for founding religions, just for getting more faith for purchases, which requires a lot of bonus faith to be worth it. Therefore it could probably use both more faith and more culture (or free SPs).

The 10% more gold for Temples should also give either +1 happiness or +1 culture & faith. I wouldn't push for more gold but it needs more of something.
 
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