Piety Opening in BNW (+great library)

[Pythakoreas]

Even on Prince it's hard to get a Great Library AND a Stonehenge. Getting both Borobudur and Great Mosque of Djenne is hard as well. If you really want lots of gold, tourism and science, get 4 cities and HG.

 

[ToodleElNoodos]

Curious, do you have a turn by turn case for how this works if done on quick? I'll give it a try and see how it compares, but in Prince difficulty, I had a setup that guarantees a full-fledged Reformed/Enhanced religion by Turn ~76. Tried it with Iroquois and Byzantine, worked roughly around the same time.

 

[joncnunn]

My first impression for Original Post is severe over-kill of Religion at expense of other things.

Going Piety, you don't need a lot of world wonders boosting religion. You instead get them from the basic underlying religious buildings.
However, for this to work properly you need to have more early culture per turn than that.

So basically: standard scout (unless on water maps) next MONUMENT.
Probably start a worker next especally if wanting Great Library to start working those tiles, but whatever it is as soon as you reach the first policy and open Piety start your Shrine, interrupting whatever build it happened to be for a few turns.

Great Library is normally OCC, but actually Piety works better with the standard regular library so you get get that second city up (first build in the new city being a Shrine, probably followed by Monument.)

In my first Piety game just by the basic buildings (and faith producing pantheon) I managed to enhance my religion before completing the piety tree.

 

[Vidszhite]

You're analysis looks very good to me ! Any mind sharing what you would advise ? the thing is I really don't see how to do as good as Tradition or Liberty with Piety (or at least close enough !)

Well, first step is to stop thinking like it's a Tradition/Liberty Opener. You CAN still GL rush to get to Philosophy, and thus, quick Temples, but still, even with half-cost temples, that still delays your other buildings.

I don't think Piety is a great opener for a GL rush simply because for a GL rush, you usually plan on not getting a religion, and getting a religion with the GL just piles on more opportunity costs from delaying settlers, workers, granaries, and army, for religion buildings. Even though you were fast in getting out a Nat College and have great Temples, you will fall behind in general tech, CS influence, trade, and military power, because you didn't expand. More cities means more build queues for units to come out of, more faith buildings, more culture, more science, more gold from city connections, and more resources. You won't have the Tall-empire goodness that Tradition gives, nor the free GP and free settler/worker that Liberty gives. Liberty and Tradition are both very good openers for a GL rush, because Trad/Lib do a LOT to blunt the opportunity costs of having just built the GL. Tradition gives free gold, free food (which can translate into more hammers), free happiness, and more wonder hammers, and Liberty gives you a free worker and settler, which offsets the fact that you weren't building those things on your own. Not to mention, for a GL rush to be worth it, the tech you slingshot to has to be used immediately, and temples are not effective use of Philosophy.

A better opener for Piety is a joint Liberty-Piety split where you fast expand, then get Piety for half-cost/double power shrines, cheap missionaries, cheap buildings, and a reformation belief. Still, that's not an opener. I've never tried a Piety opener, but I've been interested in trying one, so I'll come back to this once I've found something that works.

 

[Vidszhite]

True. If you do not get any techs from ruins, then in most games comps will finish GL before you get Writing and Mining.

It's actually not that bad unless the AI gets a free tech. I've GL rushed as Attila with no free tech OR trees to chop, just to see if I could do it with extra-hammer Pastures. However, Immortal AI will VERY often finish the GL exactly 1 turn before you do, even if you starve and chop trees, so the race is always grueling and heartbreaking.

 

[Louis XXIV]

it skips a monument until after the Great Library

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your post overall, but would it be viable to skip Monuments if you take Ancestor Worship (+1 culture per shrine) as your pantheon belief? At least build a shrine before a monument?

 

[Vidszhite]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your post overall, but would it be viable to skip Monuments if you take Ancestor Worship (+1 culture per shrine) as your pantheon belief? At least build a shrine before a monument?

Ancestor Worship is a garbage pantheon. Ethiopia is the only civ I can see getting any real use out of it, but even then, they also need it far less, and there are better pantheons for culture. If you meet the requirements for one of those, you can totally skip a monument, especially if you start the game surrounded by gold and silver and get Religious Idols. Doesn't even require you to build anything and gives faith as well.

I can see what you were asking, though, and yes it IS possible to skip a monument if you get a culture pantheon, but of all the culture pantheons, Ancestor Worship is the worst.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Fair enough. It's the only one I can think of for culture that isn't map-dependent, which is why I mentioned it.

 

[rodrigoq]

In my faith heavy diety games I generally pick:
Desert Folklore.. even if i dont get a desert start, I will take over deserts for the faith. I love deserts..
Pilgrimmage- very powerful faith builder
+2 faith per wonder... w/e its called. - I wonder wh0re on diety.. I can usually get Glib, HGardens, Petra, parthenon, all 3 theo(I gun theo), plus national wonders give +2 faith aswell.
2nd follower isn't important, I take +production to make life easier, or w/e is left.
Enhancer- -30% missionarie/inquis (for missionary spamming, coupled with piety tree discount)
Reformation- Buy ant great person starting at industrial. This is how you wonder wh0re late game, and get the majority of your great people.

Faith generation by industrial age on a large or huge map can exceed 300 &400 faith p/t. respectively. even when great people start to cost 6k+ faith each, you can still buy them very quickly. Long term, gpt is worthless, since you can't but great people with gold. Your faith becomes a major currency that allows you to dominate wonders/culture/sci very quickly.

 

[WC4J]

A better opener for Piety is a joint Liberty-Piety split where you fast expand, then get Piety for half-cost/double power shrines, cheap missionaries, cheap buildings, and a reformation belief. Still, that's not an opener. I've never tried a Piety opener, but I've been interested in trying one, so I'll come back to this once I've found something that works.

This is the approach I have tried taking with King, and it hasn't worked out too well for me. You seem to have superior analytical skills so I'd like to see how it fares for you.

What I have done is opened with Liberty and only completed the left side of the tree, securing the production and settler under the assumption that I steal one or even two workers from nearby City States.

I then proceed to filling all of Piety except the Temple Gold bonus (which I tend to replace with either the Commerce opener, Aesthetics if I go for culture, or Rationalism if I'm that far in the tech tree).

Maybe try completing Piety completely?

Whenever I used this strategy, I wasn't able to keep up with happiness or army, though gold and science never were a problem (I chose Messenger of the Gods and Tithe which helped those two categories). I may experiment with Pagodas to try and boost happiness.

What do you think of that opener? This is not necessarily related to the GL though, I tend to not build that and instead try and get the Nat Col. Could that still work for the GL?

 

[Lord Katana]

It's often impossible to beat the AI to the great library since the AI often seems to rush it and starts with free pottery to help their rush.

This has both GL and stonehenge before the AI..

What difficulty?

on difficulty 6 (emporer i believe) if you first rush the GL (need some good tiles/forest) i can beat the AI to both wonders.. It means usually foregoing HG although in my latest game i fot all three (shoshone, had not picked the tradition policy for wonders). So don't know about diety and such, but on emp.. doable for me...

 

[simonthesinner]

Does the free mosque from Great mosque of Djenne count as faith building for sacred sites?

 

[Verified_Confection_Being]

Ancestor Worship is a garbage pantheon. Ethiopia is the only civ I can see getting any real use out of it, but even then, they also need it far less, and there are better pantheons for culture. If you meet the requirements for one of those, you can totally skip a monument, especially if you start the game surrounded by gold and silver and get Religious Idols. Doesn't even require you to build anything and gives faith as well.

I can see what you were asking, though, and yes it IS possible to skip a monument if you get a culture pantheon, but of all the culture pantheons, Ancestor Worship is the worst.

I don't agree. But i will only ever take ancestor worship with one civ: The Mayans.

With them i get the +1 culture, +1 happiness and +1 food for shrines to make their pyramids essentially palaces for every new city. It works a TREAT for ICS. The extra culture in particular is helpful as it means they can get on and grow their borders quickly and give you social policies a little quicker, despite you building a shrine first. It may not be a perfect pantheon, but it's certainly good for some situations.

 

[Vidszhite]

Does the free mosque from Great mosque of Djenne count as faith building for sacred sites?

Yessir

 

[ToodleElNoodos]

I don't agree. But i will only ever take ancestor worship with one civ: The Mayans.

With them i get the +1 culture, +1 happiness and +1 food for shrines to make their pyramids essentially palaces for every new city. It works a TREAT for ICS. The extra culture in particular is helpful as it means they can get on and grow their borders quickly and give you social policies a little quicker, despite you building a shrine first. It may not be a perfect pantheon, but it's certainly good for some situations.

That's the neat thing about religion, there are a lot of situational approaches to all of the beliefs. Certainly some are more versatile, but it's great how you can mix-and-match things together.

Also, is there a bug with Theocracy? Everytime I choose it, I get a drop in gpt.

 

[lampuiho]

It's not a feasible strategy for immortal. GL is one of the wonders that is usally gone by turn 30.

you mean turn 24

 

[RealHuhn]

I think the Oracle is essential to make Piety opening work.

You don't get any culture bonus through policies and want to build shrines before monuments, so getting to reformation belief takes ages without the free policy.

GL just doesn't work on Immortal+ without constant reloading.

 

[AndrewHunter]

Playing on Small/Quick/Emperor (mix of multiplayer & AI) the Great Library is generally gone somewhere between turn 25 and 28. I find the only way to win the race is to go Scout - Worker - GreatLib. Because of not producing a settler until mid-30s, I find the only Social Policy path that works for me is Liberty to free settler (with the +1 production per city boost on the way). I may be the last to build my 2nd city, but may be the first to 4 cities.

Scout is necessary, universally agreed. Worker is necessary, as chopping forest is half of your production.

I typically build Nat College before the 2nd city too, though neighbours and possible locations can change that.

If I'm not in a location for Desert Folklore, I'll probably skip the shrines and head to Hagia Sophia asap. Great Lib gives you Philosophy for free, and NatLib is a huge boost to science. it's not that tough to get HS for a free great person (in this case, Prophet) and be one of the first to start a religion despite being slowest to a pantheon. Meaning I see absolutely no reason to open with Piety. Open with Liberty for the settler, or Tradition for the culture (+15% wonder building vs +1 production per city is equal at this point). Piety's main purpose is the reformation belief, not the half-speed shrines/double faith shrines.

 

[Johnpecan]

It's a good general idea that when you're posting a guide or a strat or whatnot, to include the difficulty that this was executed on. That will clear up a lot of clutter and questions.

As someone who plays on Deity, I could tell from the title that this obviously didn't work on Deity and very unlikely to work on Immortal.

 

[jlim201]

On emperor, the strategy isn't ideal.

To go early piety, I would

Scout
Monument
Shrine
Great Library
Stonehenge (on small or smaller maps)


Policies

Liberty
Free worker policy

Or

Tradition
Legalism
Landed Elite

Piety

Techs

Pottery
Writing
( whatever tech you need for luxes)
Calendar
Rush philosophy