Piety or Rationalism?

Piety or Rationalism?

  • Piety

    Votes: 28 17.3%
  • Rationalism

    Votes: 134 82.7%

  • Total voters
    162
My problem with splitting the piety tree into culture and religious trees is that the nature of religion in the game makes it difficult to imagine a religious SP tree that would be beneficial to use in the long run. There is no religious victory condition, rather it's used to facilitate other victory conditions. I guess the same could be said about gold, and the economics tree certainly holds its weight, but excess gold can be leveraged very diversely and effectively throughout all eras, whereas faith's main purpose late game is almost exclusively faith-buying great people, but you would need to use other SP trees to unlock the great people that the extra faith could buy... Not sure how well I explained that - basically
1.) you would need to generate a lot of culture, which the religious tree is not focused on, to complete it but then
2.) you would need to go through, say, the Freedom and Rationalism trees so you could spend the extra faith on GAs and GSs.
3.)Man, you would need a lot of culture to utilize all these policies, so you'd probably need to go through the Culture policy tree just to get all the SPs you would need to use it!

Unless the finisher for the Religious tree enabled faith-buying all variety of great people, but that might be overpowered, and even if not, I much prefer the flavor of unlocking GSs with a science SP tree, GMs with an economics based tree, and so on.
 
My problem with splitting the piety tree into culture and religious trees is that the nature of religion in the game makes it difficult to imagine a religious SP tree that would be beneficial to use in the long run. There is no religious victory condition, rather it's used to facilitate other victory conditions. I guess the same could be said about gold, and the economics tree certainly holds its weight, but excess gold can be leveraged very diversely and effectively throughout all eras, whereas faith's main purpose late game is almost exclusively faith-buying great people, but you would need to use other SP trees to unlock the great people that the extra faith could buy... Not sure how well I explained that - basically
1.) you would need to generate a lot of culture, which the religious tree is not focused on, to complete it but then
2.) you would need to go through, say, the Freedom and Rationalism trees so you could spend the extra faith on GAs and GSs.
3.)Man, you would need a lot of culture to utilize all these policies, so you'd probably need to go through the Culture policy tree just to get all the SPs you would need to use it!

Unless the finisher for the Religious tree enabled faith-buying all variety of great people, but that might be overpowered, and even if not, I much prefer the flavor of unlocking GSs with a science SP tree, GMs with an economics based tree, and so on.

I posted an idea for a cultural SP tree. I'll try my hand at a rework of the Piety tree tomorrow, due to this problem, and I do see it.

I imagine it should be easier than the culture tree however, since I can imagine a lot more fun things for religion. Still, I'll give it a shot and see if I can make a believer out of you ;)

I do see the problem, however. The fact religion dies out annoys me a bit. I don't understand the reasoning behind it from a gameplay or historical perspective, and it is something in itself I would like to see changed, but even working within the current framework of religion, I think it would be very possible to come up with something useful and fun for a religion only Piety tree.
 
Where did you find that?

How can it be better? Best times are with Piety. With SOH or not.

One of the gotm write ups. I don't remember the details, but he had one of the earliest finishes.
 
My problem with splitting the piety tree into culture and religious trees is that the nature of religion in the game makes it difficult to imagine a religious SP tree that would be beneficial to use in the long run. There is no religious victory condition, rather it's used to facilitate other victory conditions. I guess the same could be said about gold, and the economics tree certainly holds its weight, but excess gold can be leveraged very diversely and effectively throughout all eras, whereas faith's main purpose late game is almost exclusively faith-buying great people, but you would need to use other SP trees to unlock the great people that the extra faith could buy... Not sure how well I explained that - basically
1.) you would need to generate a lot of culture, which the religious tree is not focused on, to complete it but then
2.) you would need to go through, say, the Freedom and Rationalism trees so you could spend the extra faith on GAs and GSs.
3.)Man, you would need a lot of culture to utilize all these policies, so you'd probably need to go through the Culture policy tree just to get all the SPs you would need to use it!

Unless the finisher for the Religious tree enabled faith-buying all variety of great people, but that might be overpowered, and even if not, I much prefer the flavor of unlocking GSs with a science SP tree, GMs with an economics based tree, and so on.
First off all, to address your point #2, you don't need to go through a tree to get the ability to buy the GP, you just need to open the tree. Huge difference. That being said, with Order, Autocracy and Freedom currently being mutually exclusive, and with Rationalism exclusive with Piety, that does limit your options.

However, if the Piety (as in pure religion) tree opened from beginning of game, that does make it a lot more viable action. If you can gain the bonus to building religious buildings and bonus faith from religious buildings right from start, that WILL almost certainly guarentee you a Religion. If you have a Civ that's very dependant on religion (like Byzanthine), or if that's the way you wanna go, that will be a viable option. In fact, that was why I some while ago suggested that the Byzanthine start with Piety opener on top of their current UA.

Furthermore, having Piety (pure religion) open from ancient era will also mean that you can finish this tree fairly early game - in fact, from my experience I can do a coupled Tradition + Piety run from ancient and have both trees finished around Renasissance. This then allows me to either take some policies from Commerce/Patronage/Honor until the industrial trees open (depending on my game flavor) or one can even go directly into Rationalism at this point, which is not so bad an option as it may sound since religion has played its larger point at this part of game.

Now obviously things will look a bit different if the religion part of Piety is decoupled from the culture part of Piety, so I do understand that things are not completely comparable to what I sketch out above, but I do think that there are benefits of very early Piety (religion) access. If the culture part of the current tree is replaced with some really helpful perks - most notably one that adds happiness from religious buildings, which is direly needed, and a better closer (like adding an extra follower belief to your religion), I think it would be a more viable choice.

One can always discuss whether the new Piety (religion) tree should conflict with Rationalism. I'd say yes, but it is certainly something that weakens the tree a lot. The new culture tree should not conflict with Rationalism.
 
Piety is only useful if you are really, really, really -really- aiming for a cultural victory. Other than that, it is a social policy tree in dire need of a buff. It does need to be opened earlier, and it needs to grant additional benefits to faith (rather than faith generation per se).

However, I don't think that there needs some kind of culture specific tree. A game is suppoused to be about making interesting decisions, not obvious ones. It is bad already that there are a "science victory tree" and a "diplomatic victory tree" to add yet another obnoxorious "cultural victory" one.
 
However, I don't think that there needs some kind of culture specific tree. A game is suppoused to be about making interesting decisions, not obvious ones. It is bad already that there are a "science victory tree" and a "diplomatic victory tree" to add yet another obnoxorious "cultural victory" one.
Well I disagree. Piety currently is the "cultural victory" tree, and that is an extremely poor construction because Piety cuts you off from Rationalism and ironically, people going for CV needs Rationalism more than anybody else because they will by default be narrow which hits you quite hard on science compared to someone going wide.
 
If you have a Civ that's very dependant on religion (like Byzanthine), or if that's the way you wanna go, that will be a viable option. In fact, that was why I some while ago suggested that the Byzanthine start with Piety opener on top of their current UA.

Furthermore, having Piety (pure religion) open from ancient era will also mean that you can finish this tree fairly early game - in fact, from my experience I can do a coupled Tradition + Piety run from ancient and have both trees finished around Renasissance. This then allows me to either take some policies from Commerce/Patronage/Honor until the industrial trees open (depending on my game flavor) or one can even go directly into Rationalism at this point, which is not so bad an option as it may sound since religion has played its larger point at this part of game.

Wow, this is a great idea. I don't think it makes sense to give them the Piety opener, but it would be a really great change to allow the Byzantines to access the Piety tree in the ancient era. The opener would actually be useful, and the +1 faith to shrines and temples could catapult them into an early pantheon and give them a really good shot at a middle-of-the-pack religion on higher difficulties.
 
Since a lot of people tend to say the Tradition is the best opener, and Piety is often sighted as being underwhelming and not producing enough :c5culture:, here's an idea to fix both:

Move Legalism (maybe with a new name) to Piety. Tradition gets +3 :c5culture: in the opener, Liberty gets +1 :c5culture: per city, why not move the four free culture buildings to Piety. This would improve the Piety tree, nerf the tradition tree (although a new policy would replace it), and make the timing of Legalism more of a choice rather than delaying tradition to abuse the bonus buildings.

How about switching Legalism with the Piety opener? Not only will that move the 4 free culture buildings to later in the game to avoid the early game abuse, but also the Piety opener comes way too late to be useful. When I go for a CV, I stick to about 3-4 cities. By the time I open the Piety tree, those buildings affected by the opener have already been built. Moving it to Tradition would make it much more useful to those seeking a CV.
 
The problem with Piety, as has been stated, is that it is both faith and culture, while Rationalism is very science focused.

Piety needs to be split badly.

Even if Piety became wholly Religion-focused, who would take it over Rationalism? Religion doesn't win you a game. It isn't a means to victory, it's a means to a means. Science, OTOH, is a direct means to victory.

I like that Piety gives you direct bonuses toward a victory condition. But it certainly could use a buff, particularly the opening.
 
Since a lot of people tend to say the Tradition is the best opener, and Piety is often sighted as being underwhelming and not producing enough :c5culture:, here's an idea to fix both:

Move Legalism (maybe with a new name) to Piety. Tradition gets +3 :c5culture: in the opener, Liberty gets +1 :c5culture: per city, why not move the four free culture buildings to Piety. This would improve the Piety tree, nerf the tradition tree (although a new policy would replace it), and make the timing of Legalism more of a choice rather than delaying tradition to abuse the bonus buildings.
Your logic makes sense, but I think that moving Aristocracy (bonus building wonders and +1 happiness/10 citizens in all cities) from Tradition to piety is a much more logical move for several reasons:
1.)Tradition is the only tree with 2 happiness-granting social policies(well, except honor, but no one is complaining about that) and piety is the only tree with zero. Moving this policy rounds out the happiness bonus in policy trees.
2.)The piety tree is supposed to be culturally focused, and it may be implied that this is even at the expense of research(not choosing the rationalism tree). Wonders do, well, wonders for culture.
3.)If tradition is the "best opener" as you put it, which I'm inclined to agree with, I think that nixing aristocracy will have a much bigger effect on leveling the playing field than Legalism will. The lack of happiness gained from cities outside the capital will force tradition followers to benefit from staying small, the intended purpose of the SP tree "Tradition is best for small empires." Furthermore, losing the wonder bonus, along with excessive happiness(by the end of the game, my capital is usually size 40+, so one policy gives me 20 happiness, it's excessive to have a second policy that would add 4 for the capital and another 1 for every 10 citizens elsewhere) may be enough to make liberty or honor more equally viable choices in general circumstances. Probably replace Aristocracy with the 10% gold bonus from temples, which wouldn't be exclusively helpful to small empires but would certainly be helpful there.
 
Even if Piety became wholly Religion-focused, who would take it over Rationalism? Religion doesn't win you a game. It isn't a means to victory, it's a means to a means. Science, OTOH, is a direct means to victory.

I like that Piety gives you direct bonuses toward a victory condition. But it certainly could use a buff, particularly the opening.

I don't think they should be mutually exclusive. For a good part of history, religion and science (and philosophy) were quite interrelated. Texts from Rome and Greece were tossed out (literally scrapped off the material they were written on so it could be reused) or copied and studied endlessly by Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years. Today several texts about philosophy (which was a much more broad study back then than now) survive to this day due to the study of religious people or groups.

That being said...my, likely imbalanced, ideas can be found here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=477000
 
They should split Piety into two trees as said, and have the new one focus on culture and Piety really boost faith and faith-related items. Then add a new tree called Intrigue in the Renaissance that conflicts with Honor and really improves espionage (which needs to be fleshed out more).
 
Even if Piety became wholly Religion-focused, who would take it over Rationalism? Religion doesn't win you a game. It isn't a means to victory, it's a means to a means. Science, OTOH, is a direct means to victory.

I like that Piety gives you direct bonuses toward a victory condition. But it certainly could use a buff, particularly the opening.
I'm not sure I think things are *quite* that clear-cut. I (only) play on Emperor difficulty, but up to this level I can easily win against AI without taking Rationalism. If that is not possible on higher levels and/or in multiplayer, perhaps one needs to give Rationalism yet another balance check at the same time?

Don't forget that religion comes into play very early in game, Rationalism only comes into play from Renaissance and onwards. If you do get a good religion going, that's quite a long time where those bonuses can accumulate before Rationalism comes into play, don't underestimate the impact of that. Furthermore, while the ability to buy Great Scientists with Rationalism is certainly great and convenient, so is the ability to buy Great Engineers with Order, and the +25 % science bonus from factories that you get in the Order line goes a long way to make up for what you don't get with Rationalism.

Of course, there's always the discussion whether Piety should even exclude Rationalism, but I'm not too much against that myself, I think things can be balanced to make that work, it just needs some changes compared to how it is now. On a sidenote, however, it would be interesting if one could make it so that they are not completely incompatible, but simply so that adopting Rationalism will block you from ever proceeding with new Piety policies (and conversely in the odd case that you should open Rationalism before Piety), but then would could perhaps just as well remove the conflict completely.

They should split Piety into two trees as said, and have the new one focus on culture and Piety really boost faith and faith-related items. Then add a new tree called Intrigue in the Renaissance that conflicts with Honor and really improves espionage (which needs to be fleshed out more).
A tree for Espionage is interesting, Espionage deffinitely needs a complete overwork. I myself would suggest the 12th tree being for Coorporations, but I guess that could go into Commerce also, although Commerce does open a bit early for that.
 
I'm not sure I think things are *quite* that clear-cut. I (only) play on Emperor difficulty, but up to this level I can easily win against AI without taking Rationalism.

...

Don't forget that religion comes into play very early in game, Rationalism only comes into play from Renaissance and onwards. If you do get a good religion going, that's quite a long time where those bonuses can accumulate before Rationalism comes into play, don't underestimate the impact of that...

Congrats on the level of your gameplay. I can acknowledge that I'm not quite there, but I think my point stands. Indeed, it doesn't sound that our thinking is very far off. When juxtaposed as they are now, it's clear Piety needs a buff.

Even if you do want an early Religion - which can be a good tactic, no doubt - Piety doesn't come fast enough to help you. Its opener is, well, lame. Especially if you're going tall, you'll have all your shrines and temples built well before you go the Piety route. To be competative, the Piety opener needs to do something valueable, like outright increase the amount of faith you produce. And, even then, while Religion is a valuable tool, my point still stands that it is not a direct means to victory like science. And, while it helps in the early-game, Religion does dwindle somewhat in helpfulness in the long run. Piety needs to have more up front value to make up for that long-term deficit.
 
while the ability to buy Great Scientists with Rationalism is certainly great and convenient, so is the ability to buy Great Engineers with Order, and the +25 % science bonus from factories that you get in the Order line goes a long way to make up for what you don't get with Rationalism.
Except that Rationalism isn't exclusive of Order, you can stack Ratty and Order, something I commonly practice with wider space victories, as well as domination victories - technological edge gives advanced units, production bonuses and gold bonuses means making lots of 'em, faith buying GE's when a cool wonder comes along doesn't tie up your soldier assembly line.

it would be interesting if one could make it so that they are not completely incompatible, but simply so that adopting Rationalism will block you from ever proceeding with new Piety policies (and conversely in the odd case that you should open Rationalism before Piety), but then would could perhaps just as well remove the conflict completely.
I like where you're going, but this would be too easy to circumvent. If choosing Rationalism prevented further progress with Piety, everyone would get the 10% SP reduction cost and reduce the cost of Ratty SPs.


A tree for Espionage is interesting, Espionage deffinitely needs a complete overwork. I myself would suggest the 12th tree being for Coorporations, but I guess that could go into Commerce also, although Commerce does open a bit early for that.
Agree that espionage needs an overhaul. Also important because some view the 10 current SP trees as 5 pairs of opposing trees(vertically), which I disagree strategically but may be relevant for role-playing purposes, so splitting the piety tree might then necessitate having a 12th tree to round out the SP overview. The question/problem then becomes cultural victories currently require filling 1/2 the total SP trees available, and is considered one of the more difficult victory conditions to meet. Would adding a religious and espionage tree then require completing 6 trees?
 
Even if you do want an early Religion - which can be a good tactic, no doubt - Piety doesn't come fast enough to help you. Its opener is, well, lame. Especially if you're going tall, you'll have all your shrines and temples built well before you go the Piety route. To be competative, the Piety opener needs to do something valueable, like outright increase the amount of faith you produce.
Yes, without a doubt Piety (religion) needs to open right from Ancient era. Like I mentioned before, I've changed my own game files to have this happen, and from my last couple of games I find that going Tradition (opener) -> Piety (opener) -> Organized Religion (for extra faith) and then back to Tradition is not a bad opening path on the level I play (those who play Diety might disagree with that). If Piety first opens in Classic, opener is not going to do you a lot of good on the short term and Organized Religion will probably come too late to secure you a religion, at least as one of the first founders.

Except that Rationalism isn't exclusive of Order, you can stack Ratty and Order ...
Good point.

I like where you're going, but this would be too easy to circumvent. If choosing Rationalism prevented further progress with Piety, everyone would get the 10% SP reduction cost and reduce the cost of Ratty SPs.
Agreed. Then one could as well just remove the restriction all-together. However, do notice that using 3 Social Policies just to get a discount on future Social Policies will be money poorly spent, it will be a long while before the culture you spent on those three policies have earned itself back, and in the meantime you would have delayed this progress. Also notice that if one actually *did* split the trees, the SP discount should move to the Culture tree (which would have no conflict with Rationalism), albeit my suggestion would then be to have the discount part of the closer for that tree, which would sort of prevent abuse.

Agree that espionage needs an overhaul. Also important because some view the 10 current SP trees as 5 pairs of opposing trees(vertically), which I disagree strategically but may be relevant for role-playing purposes, so splitting the piety tree might then necessitate having a 12th tree to round out the SP overview. The question/problem then becomes cultural victories currently require filling 1/2 the total SP trees available, and is considered one of the more difficult victory conditions to meet. Would adding a religious and espionage tree then require completing 6 trees?
Yes, however a key point in increasing the SP tree number should be to decrease the policy required for each social policy. Interestingly, the Communitas Expansion Pack has reach sort of the same idea through different paths - to reduce the cost for SP's but increase CV requirements to 6 trees. My motivation is primarily that I think SP's come too slowly and that you don't get enough of them in normal games, which was something I thought of independantly of the Piety tree splitting, but it does work well with this idea also.

To go into more detail, my suggestion would be that the SP cost progression is lowered to follow these numbers (old numbers listed in brackets):
20 (was 25)
30 (30)
50 (60)
80 (105)
120 (170)
170 (255)
230 (355)
300 (475)
380 (615)
470 (775)

The system here is that the 2nd policy requires 10 more culture than 1st, 3rd requires 20 more than 2nd, 4th requires 30 more than 3rd, 5th requires 40 more than 4th, etc., which is about similar to the old system, but where the increment seems to be somewhere between 15 and 20 (sometimes 15, sometimes 20) in the old system where I use a fixed 10 in my system.

The difference is quite significant, and I guess one would have to playtest it to see how it comes across in reality, but the point here is that with my numbers, you need a total of 78,400 Culture with one city to get a CV (36 policies), which is very close to the value in the old system (79,800 culture for 30 policies*), so basically the CV is unchanged (although in reality, having you rush through the social policies faster will of course make you reach those discount-giving policies a bit faster, which will save you something in the long run and help cultural victory, but as I do find that one the hardest to achieve at the moment, I don't see much problem in that).

* This number is based on a mapping of SP cost up to #16 and then extrapolating from there, so it might not be exactly accurate, but should be close to correct.
 
Piety is so bad in G&K that I am considering taking Rationalism anyhow if I decide to go culture for a change on this standard Emperor Fractal map where I spawned alone on a decent sized island and have 5 decent cities. The Piety opener really needs a buff as you certainly have shrines built and maybe some temples by then.

I'll likely end up trying Piety if I go culture but I am not really convinced.

EDIT...OK I went Piety for culture as there's some help there, but my science is about half of what it would be if I went Rationalism. I'll soon win by culture. I'd not risk this lack of science if I wasn't all alone since I'd want science for better units.
 
The new SP policy cost a few posts above is a square relationship (derive from the difference equation given) wheras I think the old one is exponential. By the time this gets to the 30th policy this'll be a massive difference, I think It'll be too strong. however I don't disagree with the idea of policy cost reduction in general.

For those that say a religion policy would be weak - It depends how good the policies are. How about this?

Opener - current finisher and +1 faith policy combined.

policy - extra follower/pantheon belief
policy - CS's with your religion influence degradation decreased by 50% (on top of what it does already). Religious city states grant double faith.
policy - Religious pressure doubled if city is within 7 tiles, or if the city exerting pressure is one of the top 20% of cities on the map in terms of population.
policy - enemy missionary attrition +100%, enemy GP's suffer normal attrition. Your Missionaries do not suffer attrition.
policy - If any player who has your religion in the majority of their cities declares war on you, they will automatically also declare war on all other players with your religion in the majority of their cities. Peace is blocked until the enemy makes peace with you. As the founder, this does not apply to you declaring war on others.

Finisher - standard great people (not prophets) cost in faith reduced by 50% (perhaps it could be that they follow a different cost path entirely that isn't exponential, maybe linear, like the standard GP costs).

Anyone think this would be a weak tree? It might not be well balanced, but i'd be very tempted to take this tree :).
 
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