Scientific Revolution - 2 free techs?!?!?!?

[TM Moot]

Rationalism
•Scientific Revolution: Gives 2 free technologies.

Firstly, I assume every Civ/CS gets the 2 tech bonus once they purchase the required SP, rather then say just the winner of the Lib race or builder of the Oracle, ala cIV.

But this still seems like an over powerful gambit, bearing in mind, iirc, that there are less techs, so i guess they are harder to come by.

To me, it does look like Rationalism is much preferable then Piety overall...any thoughts??

 

[stealth_nsk]

1. Social policies are more valuable than techs, at least they are much more rare.
2. One of piety SP gives 2 SP.
3. That's one-time bonus, there are a lot of cool long-term bonuses in other SP.

 

[Thyrwyn]

The Rationalism tree doesn't even open until the Renaissance era; Scientific Revolution requires Free Thought & Secularism, too. That's 4 Social Policies (the tree itself, plus 3 policies). That is very late, but useful if you are pursuing a Scientific Victory. If you are, you are probably devoting yourself to something other than culture. Which means you will get there even later, or that you have NOT spent your culture to save up for those Policies, thereby forgoing the benefits other Policies could have given you.

 

[stealth_nsk]

The Rationalism tree doesn't even open until the Renaissance era; Scientific Revolution requires Free Thought & Secularism, too. That's 4 Social Policies (the tree itself, plus 3 policies). That is very late, but useful if you are pursuing a Scientific Victory. If you are, you are probably devoting yourself to something other than culture. Which means you will get there even later, or that you have NOT spent your culture to save up for those Policies, thereby forgoing the benefits other Policies could have given you.

I'd say what by the Renaissance any player will have to spend more or less equal time to get a new SP. Cultural players will already open a lot of them, so their price will rise.

Also, I doubt the Rationalism is for science victory only. You could play techy militarist, for example.

 

[TM Moot]

2. One of piety SP gives 2 SP.

Someting i'm not sure about (at all ) is how easy is it to change SP branches..??

Can you easily switch from one exclusive tree (say, Piety) to another (say, Rationalism) without any Anarchy or financial cost?

Also, do you retain any benefits from the SP's you have purchased but are no longer available, or (as i'm guessing) you lose these benefits once you 'opt out'?

 

[stealth_nsk]

One of reviewers reported 1-turn anarchy, but no clues it will appear in final build. Plus you loose all bonuses.

But both apply to switching between mutually exclusive SP trees only.

 

[Schuesseled]

There seems to be at least one, one off bonus, in each policy tree.

Honor nets you a great general for example.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Someting i'm not sure about (at all ) is how easy is it to change SP branches..??

Can you easily switch from one exclusive tree (say, Piety) to another (say, Rationalism) without any Anarchy or financial cost?

One of reviewers reported 1-turn anarchy, but no clues it will appear in final build. Plus you loose all bonuses.

But both apply to switching between mutually exclusive SP trees only.

According to the Civilization 5 Analyst in the section about Social Policies :

[...] These bonuses are cumulative, and the civilization does not "switch" between policies, but rather chooses which trees to invest in.

I think all decisions in the SP screen are irrevocable. You pick one SP and stick with it until the game ends. If you chose Piety, then Rationalism is gone forever. Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I assumed all decisions in the SP screen are irrevocable. You pick one SP and stick with it until the game ends. If you chose Piety, then Rationalism is gone forever. Correct me if I am wrong.

Can't find the exact link, so can't say how competent was the person who wrote about anarchy, but I remember reading it recently.

 

[SeismoGraf]

It may help to quote the Civilization 5 Analyst again to compare the benefits of Piety and Rationalism each. As usual and challenging in Civ games, the decision will not be easy. You can't have both, so this adds to the challenge, on top of the classic "short versus long term" considerations.

Piety
Unlocks at Classical Era.
Piety increases the Happiness of empires, and allows their Culture to flourish. Adopting Piety immediately increases the Happiness in the empire by 2. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Rationalism.

• Organized Religion: Amount of Happiness required to start a Golden Age reduced by 25%.
• Reformation: The empire immediately enters a 6-turn Golden Age. (requires Organized Religion)
• Theocracy: -20% Unhappiness from population in non-captured cities. (requires Organized Religion)
• Mandate of Heaven: 50% of excess Happiness added each turn to the amount of Culture that may be spent on Policies.
• Free Religion: 2 Free Cultural Policies. (requires Mandate of Heaven)

Rationalism
Unlocks at Renaissance Era.
Adopting Rationalism triggers a 5-turn Golden Age. This branch cannot be active at the same time as Piety.

• Secularism: +2 Science from each specialist.
• Free Thought: Adds +2 Science points for each Trading Post (requires Secularism).
• Humanism: +1 Happiness from each University.
• Scientific Revolution: Gives 2 free technologies (requires Free Thought).
• Sovereignty: +15% Science while your empire is happy (requires Humanism).

If you get "Mandate of Heaven" and "Free Religion" you invested 1+1 SP points and get 2 SP points back. So in a certain sense you get the benefits from "Mandate of Heaven" for free. Of course you need to accumulate the culture for these 2 picks, but then, when "Free Religion" finishes, you can directly invest those rewarded 2 points elsewhere.

Lets note that you can fill 4/5 of Piety with only 2 SP points, which could be decisive in order to achieve a cultural victory.

For 3 SP points the Rationalism tree has "Secularism" -> "Free Thought" -> "Scientific Revolution" in store. Not bad at all. Even better, if e.g. your grand plan has little use for Piety or you are aiming (beeline) for a certain Renaissance Tech anyway.

 

[Ahriman]

It seems like the cultural cost of acquiring a new social policy depends on how many you have already purchased.

If you purchased MoH and Free Religion, and then got two policies free, you could be worse off than if you had not done so, because you have increased the cost of every other social policy that you purchase.

You are trading off the value of MoH for the increased cost of every SP you purchase after free religion.
If you're moving out of Piety and into Rationalism, then you're pretty unambiguously worse off.

So I would think that if you're going for a cultural win, you probably want to delay free religion as long as possible, and make it (and the 2 free policies you then get) the last ones you acquire.

 

[Louis XXIV]

One of reviewers reported 1-turn anarchy, but no clues it will appear in final build. Plus you loose all bonuses.

Actually, I believe it was Jon Shafer who said that. You lose all ongoing benefits of the tree and the new benefits you still have to unlock will be very expensive, so you have to decide if it's really worth it.

 

[SeismoGraf]

Interesting thoughts Ahriman. If this is true, then picking "Mandate of Heaven" -> "Free Religion" early could be unwise. Even only picking MoH could put you in a huge dilemma for a long time, because there would always be the option to invest only 1 SPP to get 2 SPP back immediately - but thereby increasing the cost of future Social Policies!

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well that depends on if "Free Social Polcies" increase the cost of Future ones, or if only 'Purchased' ones count.

Also I thought Free Religion required MoH+Reformation

 

[Chiyochan]

I dont see what everyone is complaining about, if you increase the cost by selecting more policies, then you will increase the cost weather they are free or paid for, the only reason to ever delay is if you just happen to want SPs from a tree you havent unlocked. it seems like people are just missing the point, like trying to save oracle for the last tech, Free religion will always be better spent when you are culturally poor, just like oracle is best spent when you aren't producing alot of science.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Well that depends on if "Free Social Polcies" increase the cost of Future ones, or if only 'Purchased' ones count.

I'm hoping it's the latter, but we'll have to see.

Chiyochan, the idea is that you'd want to purchase cheaper SPs before you activate the two free one, otherwise, those expensive ones would be even more expensive. To use ridiculously fake numbers, say the first SP is 10, the second is 20, etc. With Free Religion, you would purchase it for 10, get two free, and the cost would go to 40 for the next one to unlock. If you instead buy one for 10, another for 20, and then Free Religion for 30, you'll unlock the 40 and 50 ones for free. The idea would be to wait for ones that are harder to afford so they'll be free.

 

[Theon]

I think I saw a screenshot in the gameinformer article that said that the cost of social policies increases by 30% every time you gain or found a new city. I wonder if this is the only method to increase social policy cost.

 

[SeismoGraf]

(double post)

 

[Ahriman]

I dont see what everyone is complaining about, if you increase the cost by selecting more policies, then you will increase the cost weather they are free or paid for, the only reason to ever delay is if you just happen to want SPs from a tree you havent unlocked.

This is not the case.

Suppose that the cost of purchasing a social policy is dependent on the number of policies you already have (no matter how they are acquired). (This might not be how it works; this is speculative.)
For simplicity's sake, suppose that it is 50+25X, where X is the number of policies you already have. So the first policy costs 50, the second 75, etc.

Suppose that you are acquiring 25 policies over the course of a game.

Scenario A.
You purchase Free religion as your 10th policy, giving you the 11th and 12th for free.
Total cost of purchasing 25 policies = 50+75+100+.....+275+FREE+FREE+350+375+....+625+650
= 8,125

Scenario B. You purchase Free Religion as your 23rd policy, giving you the 24th and 25th for free.
Total cost of purchasing 25 policies = 50+75+100+125+....+575+600+FREE+FREE
= 7,475

So, the earlier you use up your free policies, the higher is the aggregate cost of achieving all the policies.

In the similar way to how in Civ4 you could waste a free tech from the oracle or liberalism on a cheap tech, if you didn't plan things such that there was an expensive tech available when you got the freebie.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

According to the Civilization 5 Analyst in the section about Social Policies :



I think all decisions in the SP screen are irrevocable. You pick one SP and stick with it until the game ends. If you chose Piety, then Rationalism is gone forever. Correct me if I am wrong.

Its been confirmed in at least 1 review that you *can* switch from Piety to Rationalism-at the cost of 1 turn of Anarchy-but that you lose any *Long Term* benefits of the Piety Tree in doing so (like the benefits of Mandate of Heaven (which is pretty potent) or Organized Religion (which is equally potent)).

Actually, looking at some of the effects of Social Policies, I think too many of them grant one-off benefits (at least in Piety). Piety has at least *two* abilities that are one-offs (Reformation & Free Religion). I hope they've considered this & balanced Piety with the other Branches (which as said elsewhere, seems to have 4 ongoing benefits & 1 one-time benefit each).

Aussie.