Policy Discussion: Piety

[BroOfTheSun]

TBH i don't think we should go that route. The problem is, you go only Piety if you invest in Faith. This propably means you could grab Holy Warrior, which allows you to purchase all units you want. AFAIK including Settlers and Worker.

I'm not sure about the Holy Warrior (can't remember atm), but buying Settlers with faith can still be a good strat, and it can be available to all civs taking Piety (instead of just the one taking Holy Warrior). There are certain ways to implement this too, as you mentioned. It could be modded for Settler buying with faith to work similar to GP buying, where the price increases with each Settler that you buy. So it can be fixed where you can only afford 1, maybe 2 settlers with faith buying early-mid game. Plus, if you focus faith for settlers/workers, you will likely enhance your religion much later and not have faith for religious building purchases. So it adds a trade-off there. Either enhance early, or expand early with faith buying.

But if we make it too cheap its an alternative to Hammer and Gold and i don't think that's a good idea. It can work with them, if the Faith-price is high enough. If we make it too cheap, it just becomes too strong if you invest in some Faith-stuff early on and shift your focus on Hammer or Gold later.

The strat can be tweaked so that it isn't OP. Also, what's wrong if this is strong? Isn't that what Piety needs, is strong policies? I think a policy to faith buy settlers/workers would be strong, but it only works early game. After your empire is setup, an entire policy that gives faith buying for Settlers and Workers only suddenly because useless.

 

[mitsho]

I think the question was whether Piety should be remodeled to be a competition to Tradition and Liberty who both focus on building up your empire's economy. Piety is probably fine with concentrating on Religion, it only has the problem of incorporating policies that are no good in the early game, but AI fills them out anyways...

If it were to be equal to the other three trees, it needs on the opener a culture belief (Earn 1 culture per two faith until one of your cities is religious?). It can't be too good as otherwise every civ would take the opener. Imagine one that takes the Tradition, Liberty, Honor and now that policy.

So the other way is to have one culture belief pickable after the opener. That sounds fine. Then there's the one that boosts faith production, the one that lowers faith expenditure and the Reformation beliefs. Leaves 3 spots open.

Faith-buyable settlers might not be necessary, who would take both that one AND the liberty policies? So I can't take them together so I can't fill both trees. I don't like that.

 

[BroOfTheSun]

...the more I think of it, faith buying settlers/workers probably wouldn't be great for early game, since you want all your faith to go to enhancing a religion. Anyways, one point I wanted to make:

For my thoughts on a culture bonus in the Piety tree, it should come from either pantheon or first follower belief for early game instead of a policy. You have several choices to give you more culture between the two follower beliefs, and the pantheon belief. There are pantheon beliefs that can easily out produce the culture you get from Tradition/Liberty openers too.

I think adding culture in a Piety policy also nerfs the culture giving pantheons/follower beliefs.

 

[Stalker0]

i personally would like the opener to provide a straight up +1 (maybe +2) to faith.

That way it can help me get that early pantheon, or get it up faster. That way i can choose piety to work in some religion but then go for other things (maybe even ignoring shrines completely). Or i can choose to invest deeply in piety for more religion based benefits.

 

[griffer13524]

i personally would like the opener to provide a straight up +1 (maybe +2) to faith.

That way it can help me get that early pantheon, or get it up faster. That way i can choose piety to work in some religion but then go for other things (maybe even ignoring shrines completely). Or i can choose to invest deeply in piety for more religion based benefits.

I agree with this. +2 Faith in a capital city, and maybe +1 in other cities would be a fine opener. Then, it would pair well with either tradition or liberty, rather than making it an alternative. You can either rely on the opener to get you a pantheon, or you can add shrines and temples to that and rush a religion.

 

[mitsho]

Strongly against free faith. That's basically a free Pantheon allowing you to focus stuff elsewhere while still getting a pantheon. You can then always buy the Shrine for faster religion (or even better, rush through Liberty of Piety for a free Prophet).

There should be no freebies, and I really don't think we need more faith around (the free faith would be useless if you raise the faith costs at the same time so I think that was not in the proposal).

But the opener as it is isn't good since it means you have to wait until you can build one. Easy Solution: Create a mysticism tech that takes exactly as long to research if you start on turn one as it would to get the first policy! (I'd also argue that Stonehenge should be available to be build on turn 1). Then you can include the faster build time and add 1 per shrine and 2 per temple into the mix.

 

[Ahriman]

I like Piety giving more faith from shrines and temples much more than free faith. We should want policies to encourage you to play differently, and to give complements rather than substitutes. Free faith substitutes for a shrine, extra faith from shrines complements shrines. Faster build time is ok.... but higher faith yields is better. What might be really nice is if we could have a policy that increased passive religions spread from cities that have shrines or temples.

I think we had fairly broad consensus that religious tolerance doesn't make sense for Piety.
+gold from faith buildings probably works better than +% gold.

I like boosting holy sites by having them give culture rather than faith. It encourages you to keep getting prophets and settling them, and then eventually they become tourism. It's a different way of playing, that should be part of our goal for policy trees.

For religious wonders, I would rather mainstream the free building effects back onto the wonder itself, so that they don't block the building if that if your follower belief pick.

I like a great prophet on the finisher, I think being able to enhance your religion early while spending your faith on missionaries is a nice way of making your religion much more powerful.

I don't think Piety should be tied to golden ages or to early happiness.

I also think it is ok for Piety to have less short-term benefit than Liberty or Tradition, but arguably more long-term benefit, but that this will happen only if religion itself as a mechanic is sufficiently powerful, and if there are enough gameplay benefits for spreading your religion far and wide. This is arguably mostly a matter of belief strength. Could we have a few more founder beliefs that really benefited you from spreading your religion to lots of other people outside?

 

[Seek]

Agree with all Ahriman's points, except one: I really like Religious Tolerance, what if the policy just got an additional effect, allowed for Follower Beliefs as well, or was tied to a mid-game building? I'm not adamant about keeping it in Piety (definitely willing to compromise on this) but I don't want to lose the effect, and moving it to Freedom as has been suggested seems too late.

 

[mitsho]

Aesthetics would have been my go to choice to put it, I agree that Rationalism is probably too late to really matter. Exploration might be another option. If it stays in Piety, it certainly shouldn't be required for anything (or require anything for that matter), with or without Follower Beliefs included.

 

[Ahriman]

: I really like Religious Tolerance, what if the policy just got an additional effect, allowed for Follower Beliefs as well,

It'd be fine it if were an optional belief. But it just seems too narrow to make a good policy, even in another tree like aesthetics.

 

[mystikx21]

I don't see how religious tolerance is even that useful until later in the game most games. You should need 100-150 turns or so of trading abroad or the AI converting some citizens with pressure on the borders before there will be a significant percentage of minority religion cities in the first place and the effect is too weak as a pantheon only effect to be worth concerning yourself as an early game policy pick as some kind of long-term gain. The tree is already heavy on long-term effects (other than the free prophet and the faster shrines) but the benefits should not be so long-term as to be virtually invisible.

Making it optional, or moving it where the purchase cost policy is now would be fine. Buffing it with religious follower beliefs would help too.

Agreed, there's no need to add happiness to this tree.

 

[Anvari]

The problem with Religious Tolerance is, that most of the times it's impossible to get other religions in your cities. Your cities will simply have too much pressure (and thats a good thing!). This policy is simply useless.

 

[griffer13524]

If the religious tolerance policy was broader, I could see it having a better effect. Say, instead of getting an additional belief, cities with followers of two or more religions gain some sort of boost to happiness, culture or faith output. That, at least, would be a more tangible effect. Right now, even if the effect comes into play, there's no guarantee that the pantheon belief that I happen to receive will even benefit me at all (Woohoo! +1 faith on dessert tiles! Too bad all of my cities are in the jungle...). I'd rather get a more general benefit than a gamble, personally.

Here's some possible ideas I'd rather see:
+1-2 happiness in cities with more than "X" followers of religions other than the majority religion.
+1 faith and/or culture for every two followers of religions other than the majority religion.

I would actively court trade routes / pressure from other religions if those were the benefits, myself.

 

[xInVicTuSx]

The problem with Religious Tolerance is, that most of the times it's impossible to get other religions in your cities. Your cities will simply have too much pressure (and thats a good thing!). This policy is simply useless.

Eh its not the pressure really, its the plethora of GPs and Missionaries having too much conversion strength. Particularly GPs wiping out every other religion and having 4 spreads.

 

[ExpiredReign]

Historically the introduction of additional religions into other civilizations made for some advances in other fields of endeavor, like science.
What if Religious Tolerance granted a science boost if other religion(s) had as much influence in your cities.

City with 15 people and 3 religions each with 5 followers = a science boost for that city

Or such like.

 

[xInVicTuSx]

There is no way to keep that though, after their religion is enhanced AI basically use all their GPs to spread. I would rather them have it be the new majority religion but not erase all the others.

 

[Seek]

Another idea is to increase religious pressure from Trade Routes by say, 50%, so it would be easier to get minority religions in cities.

Aesthetics would have been my go to choice to put it, I agree that Rationalism is probably too late to really matter. Exploration might be another option. If it stays in Piety, it certainly shouldn't be required for anything (or require anything for that matter), with or without Follower Beliefs included.

I assume that when you say "Rationalism" you are referring to Freedom (as in my post)? In any case, adding this effect to the Rationalism opener might actually be a good place to put it - it fits thematically and the beginning of the Renaissance strikes me as an appropriate place in history.

If the religious tolerance policy was broader, I could see it having a better effect. Say, instead of getting an additional belief, cities with followers of two or more religions gain some sort of boost to happiness, culture or faith output. That, at least, would be a more tangible effect. Right now, even if the effect comes into play, there's no guarantee that the pantheon belief that I happen to receive will even benefit me at all (Woohoo! +1 faith on dessert tiles! Too bad all of my cities are in the jungle...). I'd rather get a more general benefit than a gamble, personally.

Here's some possible ideas I'd rather see:
+1-2 happiness in cities with more than "X" followers of religions other than the majority religion.
+1 faith and/or culture for every two followers of religions other than the majority religion.

I would actively court trade routes / pressure from other religions if those were the benefits, myself.

+1 happiness per religion present would be an excellent addition to the policy - I actually suggested this as an Ottoman or Songhai UA back before G&K was released. (Personally I'd rather get both the belief and the happiness.)

One thing that I've been thinking about recently is that although Piety is great being available in the Ancient era, some of it's later policies are both more fitting and more effective as later era policies (Reformation and Tolerance especially, they should be Renaissance, and Theocracy somewhat, it should be Medieval). So what if some policies weren't available until certain eras/techs were discovered? I'm pretty sure the code is already there so it would be an easy change.

This would, of course, have the added change of making the free Prophet unavailable until the Renaissance, which might be a good thing; it would mean slower religions (or enhanced religions) somewhat since all Prophets would need to be "hard-built" so to speak.

There is no way to keep that though, after their religion is enhanced AI basically use all their GPs to spread. I would rather them have it be the new majority religion but not erase all the others.

This idea is certainly worth keeping in mind. The code is there - one of the reformation beliefs halves the amount of the effectiveness of Prophets and Inquisitors, and I'm not even sure we would need to change the effect of the belief; it would simply make them 75% less effective.

===

So I think we have a few viable options here:

1. Buff Tolerance by adding some happiness or another yield when there is more than one religion present.
2. Move Tolerance to be added to the Rationalism opener or a tier-1 Rationalism policy.
3. Make Tolerance more available by lowering the effectiveness of Prophets and Inquisitors generally at removing religions.
4. Make Tolerance more available by increasing Trade Route pressure.
5. Delay Tolerance until it's actually useful later in the game, by giving it a tech/era requirement.

Many of these could also be used in conjunction with other ideas.

 

[mitsho]

Freedom is definately too late, I'd say Rationalism maybe as well (if the effect stays on Pantheons at least).

I'd go with 1. and put science on there, as a counter-action for wide empires! Seems okay flavour-wise and works for gameplay, wide empires will have a higher chance of having more religions present.

The Teech/Era requirement sounds more gimmicky than useful, but it is true that Piety is a bit shizophrenic at the moment with early and late effects.

 

[agc28]

What really baffles me is that a wide empire has a lot more faith-accruing potential than a tall empire...

The same is not true for science or culture...

 

[Gothic_Empire]

one of my chief problems with piety is that this isn't really true. if you research pottery first and build a shrine right when it finishes, the policy does nothing because it comes too late. It only works if you hit a culture ruin in the first ~12 turns or so.

I used to love piety for wide starts in G&K...but now that city spam got nerfed pretty hard I struggle to find a good usage for it in BNW. Religion is great but you don't need piety for it. As good as some of the reformation beliefs are, they don't seem to be worth giving up the entire tradition tree (or liberty).

I think part of committing to early game religion is pumping out a monument before a scout, frankly - at least with the way Piety works now. It's not broken--the opportunity cost is just unpleasant.