So, is Consulates still that good?

[arand86]

Now that the PtP has been nerfed down to 5 influence, consulates no longer grants you auto-friends with CS's.

Has that changed how anyone is picking up policies? I often find myself picking up Scholasticism first and going down to cultural diplomacy instead of picking up consulates, which seems like much more of a hassle now. Either that, I delve into Rationalism a little earlier.

So, I ask you, is consulates still absolutely un-missable?

 

[joshua43214]

Consulates is still worth taking if you have two policies to waste before rationalism, the extra 20 influence still makes it easy to get allies from simple CS quests. Pledging, imo, is not worth doing at all anymore. You either get a steady bit of negative diplomacy with the bullies or you lose 20 influence with the CS.

I have actually found the nerf to be a larger game changer than I expected. I get far fewer policies that before, so I have to focus more on making my own culture. Suddenly I am actually building Amphitheaters again, and making an effort to get archeologist out

 

[RedRover57]

I find myself taking Commerce more now since whoever said "Money can't buy happiness" never played Civ 5.

 

[Kintara]

I have actually found the nerf to be a larger game changer than I expected. I get far fewer policies that before, so I have to focus more on making my own culture. Suddenly I am actually building Amphitheaters again, and making an effort to get archeologist out

Yeah, how people adjust to the loss of culture from this is going to be interesting, I think. I noticed that I appreciated the Mud Pyramid Mosque, and Choral Music looked pretty good as well. Also, Piety holy sites can give a ton of culture if you have lots of holy sites. Looking through the social policies, there really isn't much there in actual culture generation. Keeping Happiness high enough to benefit from Aesthetics can be a pain, Commerce/Rationalism have nothing, Tradition and Liberty have startup bonuses. Perhaps Exploration will be appreciated more for the culture you can get from it, now.

 

[Deau]

Now that the PtP has been nerfed down to 5 influence, consulates no longer grants you auto-friends with CS's.

Has that changed how anyone is picking up policies? I often find myself picking up Scholasticism first and going down to cultural diplomacy instead of picking up consulates, which seems like much more of a hassle now. Either that, I delve into Rationalism a little earlier.

So, I ask you, is consulates still absolutely un-missable?

Consulates is still worth taking if you have two policies to waste before rationalism, the extra 20 influence still makes it easy to get allies from simple CS quests. Pledging, imo, is not worth doing at all anymore. You either get a steady bit of negative diplomacy with the bullies or you lose 20 influence with the CS.

I have actually found the nerf to be a larger game changer than I expected. I get far fewer policies that before, so I have to focus more on making my own culture. Suddenly I am actually building Amphitheaters again, and making an effort to get archeologist out

I disagree. Consulates is now near worthless. I'd take the two to the left and sustain a few allies over consulates + pledge. If I get enough allies through quests and general good wealth, I'd take scholasticism after secularism or free thought depending on map. Otherwise, I'd just go commerce instead or explo if I have all coastal cities.

For most CSs for which you sit at 25 points, consulates is simply wasted. For all others, consulates was only good if you pushed to friend/ally after the full consulates yield which is hella rare if you take it as your 8th SP. Scholasticism+some investment is competitive with RAs. Esp. if you are not miles ahead of AIs. Ultimately, the +25% points from gold of the left side will provide more effective points than consulates for the entire game.

Still though, I think going commerce to mercantilism is likely to outperform scholasticism if you don't need CS allies and can spend all the gold on RAs instead because of all the turns gained from rush-buying important infrastructure. Pretty much, I figure out if I am to go order or freedom. If the former, I skip patronage for commerce. If the latter, I take scholasticism over commerce and spend gold to sustain some allies until ideologies.


As to address your issue with getting far fewer SPs than before. Since culture is actually like metascience, I simply aim for scholasticism and spend gold dump on culture CS allies above all else. The extra SPs convert into beakers so you repay your lost RA gold from purchasing CSs through the extra SPs.

 

[joncnunn]

Consultates is no longer over powered. But if you see yourself fulfulling city state quests it might be useful.
But with the nerf, I personally prefer half priced Amphitheaters & Opera Houses for my two filler policies after Tradition while waiting for Rationalism.

 

[Deau]

Yeah, how people adjust to the loss of culture from this is going to be interesting, I think. I noticed that I appreciated the Mud Pyramid Mosque, and Choral Music looked pretty good as well. Also, Piety holy sites can give a ton of culture if you have lots of holy sites. Looking through the social policies, there really isn't much there in actual culture generation. Keeping Happiness high enough to benefit from Aesthetics can be a pain, Commerce/Rationalism have nothing, Tradition and Liberty have startup bonuses. Perhaps Exploration will be appreciated more for the culture you can get from it, now.

People just need to learn that blowing a few RAs to sustain culture CS allies actually pays itself off big time...

Piety takes just too much SPs to have a weak culture yield. I would only consider piety for reduced building cost if I had weak faith yield and wanted pagodas/mosques from another civs' religion (or if I went warmongered wide and wanted to be able to purchase buildings in stolen cities). But in almost all cases, my first sentence above is the solution people need to use to adjust. Doing so opens up a lot of potential 2-3 SP expenditures between opener and rationalism.

As I said in a previous post, I mostly debate between scholasticism(patronage) and mercantilism(commerce) and the pick is dependant on my ideology target.

 

[Kintara]

People just need to learn that blowing a few RAs to sustain culture CS allies actually pays itself off big time...

Piety takes just too much SPs to have a weak culture yield.

A weak culture yield compared to allying cultural city states perhaps, but you can do both. Piety actually does yield good gold now. If you take it as a secondary tree you can ally city states and finish the tree and benefit from a good faith start by improving your holy sites earlier.

 

[Deau]

There is no way you will complete 12 SPs before entering renaissance. So you effectively won't get holy sites' culture in about forever. The left side can be thought as good for early game gold but working 3-4 holy sites (which costs 4200 faith if you don't account for tree finisher GP) also comes at the cost of a lot of growth. This is an extreme faith requirement and you could very well invest it elsewhere (buy pagodas/mosques/monasteries) to improve your culture yield more and earlier

Commerce opener alone will provide you nearly as much gold and 2 pts in the tree will provide more than 4 holy sites + temple. Effectively yielding significantly more as the game progresses and you don't need to finish the tree to get good yield.

 

[Kintara]

There is no way you will complete 12 SPs before entering renaissance. So you effectively won't get holy sites' culture in about forever. The left side can be thought as good for early game gold but working 3-4 holy sites (which costs 4200 faith if you don't account for tree finisher GP) also comes at the cost of a lot of growth. This is an extreme faith requirement and you could very well invest it elsewhere (buy pagodas/mosques/monasteries) to improve your culture yield more and earlier

Commerce opener alone will provide you nearly as much gold and 2 pts in the tree will provide more than 4 holy sites + temple. Effectively yielding significantly more as the game progresses and you don't need to finish the tree to get good yield.

Well, I do like collecting holy sites. If you go Messiah and snipe away an unexpended great prophet at the right time, then the finisher on top of that can add up to a lot of holy sites. Six holy sites, which I don't think is that difficult to attain, essentially equals the yield of your guilds, and is multiplied by your Hermitage. And that'll do nicely with To the Glory of God. Getting in Mosques and Pagodas helps, certainly, but, again, you can do both. Piety certainly won't slow that down. Or, if you miss out on them, you can still use Piety to add value to your Faith. If I didn't go Piety in some games, I'd be sending off Prophets out on fools errands to convert a few city states for a couple dozen turns. I think holy sites are worth the investment.

 

[joshua43214]

I disagree. Consulates is now near worthless. I'd take the two to the left and sustain a few allies over consulates + pledge. If I get enough allies through quests and general good wealth, I'd take scholasticism after secularism or free thought depending on map. Otherwise, I'd just go commerce instead or explo if I have all coastal cities.

For most CSs for which you sit at 25 points, consulates is simply wasted. For all others, consulates was only good if you pushed to friend/ally after the full consulates yield which is hella rare if you take it as your 8th SP. Scholasticism+some investment is competitive with RAs. Esp. if you are not miles ahead of AIs. Ultimately, the +25% points from gold of the left side will provide more effective points than consulates for the entire game.

Still though, I think going commerce to mercantilism is likely to outperform scholasticism if you don't need CS allies and can spend all the gold on RAs instead because of all the turns gained from rush-buying important infrastructure. Pretty much, I figure out if I am to go order or freedom. If the former, I skip patronage for commerce. If the latter, I take scholasticism over commerce and spend gold to sustain some allies until ideologies.


As to address your issue with getting far fewer SPs than before. Since culture is actually like metascience, I simply aim for scholasticism and spend gold dump on culture CS allies above all else. The extra SPs convert into beakers so you repay your lost RA gold from purchasing CSs through the extra SPs.

Ya, I've kicked around with other trees trying to figure out the best place to "waste" policies before rationalism. I am actually starting to lean back toward heading right for acoustics like in vanilla. Trying to go three deep into any tree before rationalism seems awkward if I am trying to finish rationalism before opening an ideology. I'm still playing with it, but on the whole I think consulates is still worth it because I make an effort to do CS quests and typically can get 3 to 6 allies at all times for doing basically nothing but hooking up a resource and the policy timings are solid. On the other hand if I am saving the rati finisher for late game, it does not matter how deep I go into a tree so long as I get rati 2 early.

 

[Monthar]

I think they should have left Pledge to Protect as it was and reduced Consulates by 5 instead. Especially considering they didn't reduce the penalty from -20 to -10 when you choose to break it after an AI tells you they bullied that CS.

 

[joncnunn]

There is no way you will complete 12 SPs before entering renaissance.

When I played Poland I actually was able to complete two full policy trees before entering renaissance. That is the only civ I've been able to do this though.
As I recall this was also with a start very suitable for the Religious Idols pantheon.

 

[Blicero]

I'd love to be tempted to take delve into honour, but sadly for the opener as my 7th SP I am not. But probably not worth opening this topic l up again here, although it is related to the discussion.

 

[pkf]

When I played Poland I actually was able to complete two full policy trees before entering renaissance. That is the only civ I've been able to do this though.
As I recall this was also with a start very suitable for the Religious Idols pantheon.

Postpatch Poland seems bound on a Tradition - Commerce till Mercantilism build. With Oracle it's very easy to get, but even without sustaining some cultural friends its usually enough.

In fact, even with civs other than Poland Commerce seems the way to go. You might end up one policy short of Mercantilism before Ren, but you should usually (GWs) be able to get Secularism and Free Thought quickly so the next (usually quite useless) policy before Ideology can go to Mercantilism. You will get Big Ben (AIs rarely take Commerce) and Mercantilism before Labs..

 

[chazzycat]

haven't used it once since the patch, I've been going into aesthetics or commerce instead. or even the left side of patronage.

edit: to expand on that, I don't think it's useless. I think it could have a place if you really focus on the CS quests. I just haven't had that type of game yet.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think they should have left Pledge to Protect as it was and reduced Consulates by 5 instead. Especially considering they didn't reduce the penalty from -20 to -10 when you choose to break it after an AI tells you they bullied that CS.

Rather they should have increased Pledge to 15 (-50 for breaking) and made it require a Denunciation of the bully to maintain.

 

[Browd]

In which case, I suspect no one would ever use Pledge. Probably better that they nerfed it rather than made it unusable.

 

[FeiLing]

I'm still pledging. But no more consulates for me/or lets say I'm at least undecided concerning that.

 

[Cromagnus]

All Pledge is good for now is an extra 5 turns of friendship/ally status when you first get a quest. I only pledge when I know I'm going to do a quest in 5-10 turns.

Deau is right, Scholasticism is one of the best ways to spend your SP until Rationalism. Especially given the value of Forbidden Palace. Although, good luck building it. ;-)

Commerce is a close second. And Exploration is really solid for Continents. 3 happiness/city, 3 production/city are both nice. If you intend to go Domination, or are Venice/TR-heavy, I find some of those policies better than Ideology. +4 production/culture in the capital, +4g/trade route, etc. etc. Yummy. The free great Admiral and extra movement is quite nice for Domination.