Social Policy Openers

[Merenptah]

Hi Civfanatics!

I've been away from Civ since G&K and only now getting my feet wet with the new expansion.

To start, I've been trying to compile a list of feasible and strong Social Policy openers (depending on situation). From browsing the S&T forums mostly, I have come up with the following list for which I would like to get your feedback and opinion on how you rate them depending on civ, difficulty and situation.

1. Pure Tradition
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=502837
   
2. Trad/Lib2(free Settler)/Trad5
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378
   
3. Trad/Pie1/Trad5
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501996
   
4. Pure Liberty
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503931
   
5. Lib2(free Settler)/Pie4(Reformation)/Lib5
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503798
   
6. Lib2(free Settler)/Pie2/Lib5/Pie4(Reformation)
   http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501527
   
7. Trad/Lib2(free Settler)/Pat1(Consulates)/Trad1(free Watts)
   Papal Primacy Siam
   
8. Trad/Lib5/Trad1(free Ceilidh Halls)
   Celts
   
9. Lib2/Trad5
   Shoshone 4 Cities?
   
10. Pure Piety
    http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521674
    Byzantium?
    
11. Honor combo with any of the above (where to squeeze it in?)
    with Raging Barbarians
    
12. Pure Honor
    Aztecs? Early Warmonger?

Notation: I am using in-game notation style; so Pie4 means 5 policies spent into Piety; Trad means just one policy in Tradition while Trad1 means two, etc.

Please also let me know if there are any other popular combos which I have omitted. Thanks!

 

[vivalamexico]

Full lib/ Full trad with poland???

 

[joncnunn]

#1 works really well

#2 tends to unacceptably delay the 4 aqueducts from finishing Tradition. (Remember that from the closer you get aqueducts right away even if you don't yet have the tech to have hand built them)

#3 Also unacceptably delays the 4 aqueducts for everyone except Poland.

#4 Those that self found wide like it.

#5 Appears very sub par as it would greatly delay the free great person from Liberty

#6 While not quite as bad would also unacceptably delay the free great person from Liberty for everyone except Poland.

#7 Appears to be one from back in the days of Vanilla; that's forgoing all closers for a very long time

#8 Unacceptable delay to the free Great Person; easily fixable by switching to full Liberty and then beeline to Tradition

#9 Very long delay to free Aquaducts

#10 Appears to have been the intent of the developers; but that choice actually works better for Poland (In Poland's case follow full Piety with full Tradition)

#11 The answer to when it can fit is after finishing the first tree.

#12 Doesn't work well at all for anyone except as a self-imposed challenge.

 

[Luven]

I would like to add one I play often on Deity and find pretty strong.

#13 - Open Tradition, Liberty 5.

You go Scout, Monument, Scout, Granary. If you find an early culture ruin you go: Scout, Scout, Granary, Monument. Focus on growth.

From there you build Caravan, Library, Archers, Worker, in no particular order, depending on Map and AI. You steal a Worker from AI asap. Basically you develop your Capital before the free Settler arrives.

After that you build Settlers or Rush 2 City NC. Or you go straight Construction if needed.

The big advantage to pure Liberty is the Increase in Culture and especially Border growth which is very very important in my Opinion.
Great Person comes Later but if you dont need it for Petra, it doesnt really matter.

I rarely build more than 4, maybe 5 Cities. So you should go to war at some point to take advantage of Liberty. 2 City NC into Machinery while building two more Cities and then Conquer nearest Capital with a lot of wonders works best in my experiance.

 

[Calouste]

#1 works really well

#2 tends to unacceptably delay the 4 aqueducts from finishing Tradition. (Remember that from the closer you get aqueducts right away even if you don't yet have the tech to have hand built them)

#3 Also unacceptably delays the 4 aqueducts for everyone except Poland.

#4 Those that self found wide like it.

#5 Appears very sub par as it would greatly delay the free great person from Liberty

#6 While not quite as bad would also unacceptably delay the free great person from Liberty for everyone except Poland.

#7 Appears to be one from back in the days of Vanilla; that's forgoing all closers for a very long time

#8 Unacceptable delay to the free Great Person; easily fixable by switching to full Liberty and then beeline to Tradition

#9 Very long delay to free Aquaducts

#10 Appears to have been the intent of the developers; but that choice actually works better for Poland (In Poland's case follow full Piety with full Tradition)

#11 The answer to when it can fit is after finishing the first tree.

#12 Doesn't work well at all for anyone except as a self-imposed challenge.

Honor can be an option for Sweden, or at least the left side. As long as you're fighting someone (you don't have to conquer them), you are generating Great Generals to give to city states. Of course, you need a convenient victim and preferably a cultural city state or two to help you through Patronage later.

Aztecs go full Tradition but fit in the Honor opener early on, depending on when they find barbs to farm.

 

[Memoryjar]

1. The easiest way to play.
2. Fast expand. Seems useful on quick speed.
3. Nothing else to say.
4. Domination or something different than tradition. There's a debate about. Tradition for fast growth and happiness versus Pyra and early expansion. It's a way of gameplay. It needs more carefulness to avoid happiness if you want to play tall. If you're going to wide, Liberty is of course better.
My games are many times tall (I don't yet know how to play wide). I prefer Liberty for his culture and hammers (+1 but surely free and fast settlers and free and fast worker). Despite this, in GOTM and HoF, cause I'm lazy, in a no-brainer style, I go to full tradition.
5. Only for MP and Emperor and below. Not possible on Immortal and Deity.
6. Idem
7. I don't think it's a good strat in BNW fall patch. Consulates was nerved and you can't still be friend with CSwith only consulates and pledge to protect. Forgot about papal premacy on higher level, except you're going in a full piety game.
8. Any civs, useful to have free amphis.
9. Lib 2 for hammers or worker ? I think, it's for worker. With legalism you don't really need to wait for tiles to improve. With Shoshones ? Why not, I have to try.
10. Byzantium, yes but for doing what ? I don't like Byzantium. UA seems strong, until you get you're Piety4 and see that only one belief is useful. Full piety is for ICS sacred sites so any civs fit for this. I tried Tall Korea full piety. It's slow, I need to improve but SVT320 on Emperor is not an enjoying first try.
Also : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=521674
11. Yup, rage barbs. I like with aztecs too.
12. Sweden ! Or early warmonger game.

 

[Merenptah]

Thanks for all the great feedback!

Greatest challenge for me in BNW at higher level has been:

1) city placement + land grab - and that's why I find Trad/Lib2/Trad5 particularly strong even though I've always been a pure Tradition player. Problem with BNW is that I often have to settle with just two good cities when going pure Tradition (instead of the 4 I would like), unless I do some fancy acrobatics with scouts squatting settling spots instead of exploring. Nothing new here except that what would have been an OK settling spot in G&K just doesn't cut it in BNW (need Lux for Gold + good Food for Science etc.), so it often results in a lost opportunity to have an additional city (rather than just having to settle for a NOT so good a city) which is a huge difference.

2) getting a religion + defend/spread it - just founding alone is difficult but not enough because with BNW I've come to know the "Missionary swarm" ... must be some new AI coding where they just a send a whole bunch of missionaries as a team (I've seen a group of 5 once ) with the mission to eradicate other religions. Trad/Pie1/Trad5 helps but then you loose out on city placements.

It seems that Poland stands out big time in BNW and I could see myself trying Lib2/Pie1/Trad5 ... but again, is it worth it?

9. Lib 2 for hammers or worker ? I think, it's for worker. With legalism you don't really need to wait for tiles to improve. With Shoshones ? Why not, I have to try.

Actually I meant for the free settler; added a note in the OP to clarify the notation.

 

[Calouste]

Thanks for all the great feedback!

Greatest challenge for me in BNW at higher level has been:

1) city placement + land grab - and that's why I find Trad/Lib2/Trad5 particularly strong even though I've always been a pure Tradition player. Problem with BNW is that I often have to settle with just two good cities when going pure Tradition (instead of the 4 I would like), unless I do some fancy acrobatics with scouts squatting settling spots instead of exploring. Nothing new here except that what would have been an OK settling spot in G&K just doesn't cut it in BNW (need Lux for Gold + good Food for Science etc.), so it often results in a lost opportunity to have an additional city (rather than just having to settle for a NOT so good a city) which is a huge difference.

2) getting a religion + defend/spread it - just founding alone is difficult but not enough because with BNW I've come to know the "Missionary swarm" ... must be some new AI coding where they just a send a whole bunch of missionaries as a team (I've seen a group of 5 once ) with the mission to eradicate other religions. Trad/Pie1/Trad5 helps but then you loose out on city placements.

It seems that Poland stands out big time in BNW and I could see myself trying Lib2/Pie1/Trad5 ... but again, is it worth it?



Actually I meant for the free settler; added a note in the OP to clarify the notation.

Religion is only worth it if you can generate lots of Faith. Which means you are either Celts/Ethiopia/Maya/Spain, you can settle a Faith Natural Wonder, or you can get a Faith Pantheon (Stone Circles/Desert Folklore/Tears of the Gods/Dance of the Aurora/Religious Idols/Goddess of Festivals), and have a good number of tiles that benefit from them. You could go for Theology and get some wonders, but often there are better things to do. Of course Arabia and Byzantium want a religion for their UA, so they have to work for it. Songhai and Egypt might want to try as well because of their Temple UB, but less needed than Arabia and Byzantium.

But if none of the above apply, I might get a Pantheon via a single Shrine if there's something interesting around, and ignore religion and faith. So what if someone else spreads their religion? I might lose some food, hammers or culture from my Pantheon, and they will be relatively minor amounts by the time missionary spam starts, but I save a significant amount of hammers and gold not building and maintaining shrines and temples.

 

[joncnunn]

Honor can be an option for Sweden, or at least the left side. As long as you're fighting someone (you don't have to conquer them), you are generating Great Generals to give to city states. Of course, you need a convenient victim and preferably a cultural city state or two to help you through Patronage later.

Aztecs go full Tradition but fit in the Honor opener early on, depending on when they find barbs to farm.

Sweden and left side of Honor: If you wait to start Honor until just after finishing Tradition it should work. Consider building the Oracle to move this point up about 20 something turns.

On the Aztecs: Because each policy acquired increases the cost of the next one; the true break even point is the cost of your last social policy. (Often around 3000); you are highly unlikely to kill several hundred barb units in a single game even with raging barbs on.

 

[Calouste]

Sweden and left side of Honor: If you wait to start Honor until just after finishing Tradition it should work. Consider building the Oracle to move this point up about 20 something turns.

On the Aztecs: Because each policy acquired increases the cost of the next one; the true break even point is the cost of your last social policy. (Often around 3000); you are highly unlikely to kill several hundred barb units in a single game even with raging barbs on.

For Sweden I guess it depends on your environment when you want to pick Honor sooner or later. You need a victim nearby and some useful (read: cultural) city states to donate those Generals to.

For the Aztecs, there are other things to consider to picking the honor opener than just the culture over the lifetime of the game. You might get some early policies faster, because 16 culture per barb is a nice addition to the 6cpt your capital generates. You don't have to worry about defending your cities, caravans and workers, because you know where the barbs are (and if a new camp pops up, you usually have enough time to get a unit over there before the second barb spawns and starts wandering around). And because you know where the camps are, you are in a better position to benefit from city state quests that want them destroyed. Of course, you need a decent amount of space so that barbarians are likely to spawn and some useful city states you can do quests for (i.e. non-military). And it's not only the Aztecs that can make use of this. For Germany, Songhai, Greece, Siam, Japan and pretty much any civ with an early UU the Honor opener can be a good investment. Heck, I've picked it with Venice on an Archipelago map just to be notified of camp spawn and making it efficient to protect my trade routes.

 

[isau]

I keep Raging Barbs turned on all in games now to make the Honor opener more valid. Makes a huge difference when a wave of barbarians could crush you, and makes the opener at least not quite as terrible.

Tradition really is so overpowered though that there aren't a lot of real reasons to skip it except when forcing yourself into a different playstyle.

 

[Memoryjar]

Aztecs Full Honor is a domination game. Caps are puppets other cities razed. So there's many room for barbarian camps spawn. One hundred maybe not but fifty maybe. Think you can have unhappiness over -10 and barbs near your cities. Not so bad in mid or late game for free gold and culture with Honor ending.

I don't yet play Honor on Deity, but if I'm looking power-players comments, it's just a question of time and understanding to use same strats on Deity like on Immortal and below. And I tend to prefer fighting AI over barbs, those last are really, really annoying.

 

[anthropophage]

Honour opener + full Piety works quite well with Songhai.

 

[Resipsa]

Honour opener + full Piety works quite well with Songhai.

You get to rush buy Settlers with your extra gold from farming barb camps and MPM Produce +3 faith +2 Culture and Increases Gold in Cities but you better start capping cities early and you better have a faith pantheon and you better have some gold tiles to increase you gpt from cities to cover what you would get otherwise from Monarchy.

Edit: If you don't you can still open honor and do Tradition and rush buy your settlers and pick up a decent religion from the AI.

 

[Merenptah]

Full lib/ Full trad with poland???

I assume, this is something like Trad/Lib2/Trad5/Lib5 according to tommynt's guide.

But what would you take as free GP in this case? GW to open Rationalism? GE for a wonder? or a GS to plant?

 

[hai 1]

On a diety liberty-domination game as celts where I wanted to leave the option of a conquest-facilitated CV open, I utilized #8 with an early culture ruin (otherwise idk if it's worth the delays for liberty benefits). Then, every city I capped from late renaissance on retained ceilidh hall... very fun game.

 

[anthropophage]

You get to rush buy Settlers with your extra gold from farming barb camps and MPM Produce +3 faith +2 Culture and Increases Gold in Cities but you better start capping cities early and you better have a faith pantheon and you better have some gold tiles to increase you gpt from cities to cover what you would get otherwise from Monarchy.

Edit: If you don't you can still open honor and do Tradition and rush buy your settlers and pick up a decent religion from the AI.

The faith pantheon isn't absolutely necessary, though it is nice, 5 faith/city is a lot, and you may have some religious CS in your vicinity. Otherwise I agree. But yeah, a powered up MPM is badass, it can get two happiness and a further two culture from religion too, which sets you up nicely for some midgame domination, once you've done your librarys & NC you don't need any other buildings, just build more archers/CBs and tech to x-Bows.

 

[lithium97]

Aztecs Full Honor is a domination game. Caps are puppets other cities razed. QUOTE]

Trying this now with Aztecs. What to do after that tree though? I built an oracle and got a free policy- but Rationalism was not unlocked yet. I went full Honor, then Liberty1, Rationalism opener, then right side of Commerce tree. Pretty far behind in science though and prob will quit and start over.

 

[Memoryjar]

Commerce, Ratio + Secularism, next to commerce until Autorcracy.

Far in Science, on which difficulty level? I'll try a game. I have to remember a full game. No lake ?

 

[direblade99]

I don't feel like honor has enough happiness to do well in science and still conquer, nor the ability to build up war infrastructure and units very well. (I find liberty helps better with this by far) In my experience Liberty-commerce-rat-autocracy is good for dom especially as poland or aztecs. Other civs I think can do well with minimal early war and alot of late game war, tradition can help with this better than honor I think.