Social Policy: Piety Questions

ghost49x

Chieftain
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Aug 8, 2012
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Hi,
I've noticed that in BNW Piety is available from the start as a social policy. My question is can you start and fill piety first as a social policy tree and if so, how would you do it?

I personally can't seem to find a way because the Piety tree's culture bonus isn't until you've completed it. Thus making going into that tree first with intent to finish it gets you the handicap of no culture bonus to help start you off on your social policies. But I would like other opinions on this.

Note: This is for the brave new world expansion version of social policies. Also I currently usually run with Tradition as my first tree, I'm looking for alternatives. Not to be told to give up and run Tradition or Liberty.
 
general consensus (with good reason) about opening piety first is that is the weakest policy three compared to traditon, liberty or even honor .. That being said you can still win games opening piety ( playlist indonesia piety full first / deity domination game ugly ugly game that had me wait until stealth bombers to snag victory - not entirely's piety's fault but I'm pretty sure I could've won faster using other policy trees )

Now - on first look piety doesn't have culture output until finisher - but that is only if you ignore religion (which ironically full piety first doesn't gurantee to get / 3 in liberty and spamming cities + shrines safer bet ; liberty/piety mix safest bet to get religion) .. Religion can give culture from partheon, religious buildings (can really spam those with piety - but you'll also need some liberty to be able to spam the cities first) etc ..

You stil need good faith generating dirt + panthon to be able to pull it off ..
 
I would say Piety is possible if you play Aztecs and if you have a lot of jungle tiles possibly choosing the Sacred Path pantheon (1 culture per jungle tile).

Otherwise perhaps if you were absolutely deadset on going for a Sacred Sites Culture Victory.

But the benefits to your economy are simply so weak compared to the other 3 opening tree's that you really are handicapping yourself.
 
I'm thinking Honor full tree as starting tree is even weaker than Piety full tree is starting tree.

But unless you are playing Poland [massive number of free polices] or Byzantine [the value of their entire UA depends upon how quickly they found and enhance a religion], it's like playing a full difficulty level harder to have the starting tree be anything other than Tradition or Liberty.

I'm hearing that much like Honor working better as a second tree that others are having great success with Piety as their second tree (with a large source of faith and having grabbed a faith building as follower, usually Pagoda) via Tradition first, Piety second, Rationalism third, and ideology last. I'm currently testing that idea now.

Edit: The reformation part of Piety doesn't actually work that well as a second tree, it's really popular with the AI as a first tree and unlike follower beliefs, the AI tends to pick the best currently available. However the reduced cost for religious buildings policy works extremely well as a second tree if you've already taken one of them.
 
It's a terrible opening tree. Main issue being there is 0 culture in it. I guess you may make it work with a culture pantheon but even then you encounter the second problem. All the firsts piety are just useless early besides the +1 faith from shrine.

You're just better off taking it as a secondary tree. Here is what you can attempt:
-3 In liberty for Collective rule then Piety up to Reformation. Build a little bit more cities than usual and grab 1 or 2 faith building, preferably pagoda. The added happiness may cover your wider expansion and the added culture from faith building should help to grab a little bit more policies before rationalism. Try to get Oracle too. Then, taking jesuit education will make getting universities schools and labs easier in your empire.
-Go Full tradition + 2 in Piety. You basically will just increase your faith output by a lot. Can be useful, if you grab Pagoda and ally cultural CS you can even attempt to reach jesuit education after dipping into Rationalism
-Play Poland and grab Reformation on top of completing tradition.

I doubt it's better than good old Tradition + (+1/2 in Commerce/Patronage/Aesthetics) and straight into rationalism. But these ideas should at least "work" well enough to play something different.
 
There are some reformation beliefs that works best if you finish piety as soon as possible. For example sacred sites and heathen conversion. If you are not targeting these reformations you can do a hybrid piety-liberty or piety-tradition.

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I'd try Egypt/Songhai. Their super temples get even better if combined with Choral Music (+2 Culture, need 5 followers) or Religious Centers (+2 Happy, need 5 followers). This approach makes Philosophy even more important than usual. This works very well on Immortal (because you can get better religious perks), haven't tried it yet on Deity.
 
It's a terrible opening tree. Main issue being there is 0 culture in it. I guess you may make it work with a culture pantheon but even then you encounter the second problem. All the firsts piety are just useless early besides the +1 faith from shrine.

You're just better off taking it as a secondary tree. Here is what you can attempt:
-3 In liberty for Collective rule then Piety up to Reformation. Build a little bit more cities than usual and grab 1 or 2 faith building, preferably pagoda. The added happiness may cover your wider expansion and the added culture from faith building should help to grab a little bit more policies before rationalism. Try to get Oracle too. Then, taking jesuit education will make getting universities schools and labs easier in your empire.
-Go Full tradition + 2 in Piety. You basically will just increase your faith output by a lot. Can be useful, if you grab Pagoda and ally cultural CS you can even attempt to reach jesuit education after dipping into Rationalism
-Play Poland and grab Reformation on top of completing tradition.

I doubt it's better than good old Tradition + (+1/2 in Commerce/Patronage/Aesthetics) and straight into rationalism. But these ideas should at least "work" well enough to play something different.

If I wanted to go Liberty first than Piety, I'd go full Liberty use the great person for a Prophet then start on Piety. This way I have my prophet early and a better pick at religious bonuses.

Strange I don't see any way of following the above strategies and still being in the Ancient Era while when opening up Piety (unless I'm in a Marathon game maybe). I feel like the design intent was to make it viable or close but they've totally missed the mark.
 
There are some reformation beliefs that works best if you finish piety as soon as possible. For example sacred sites and heathen conversion. If you are not targeting these reformations you can do a hybrid piety-liberty or piety-tradition.

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Heathen conversion is a terrible reformation choice and sacred site strategy is better with 3 in liberty first. Well maybe yu can fool around with heathen conversion, I just doubt you'd even get your missionaries with the reformation belief before someone taking left Liberty first. Or not that much faster.

If I wanted to go Liberty first than Piety, I'd go full Liberty use the great person for a Prophet then start on Piety. This way I have my prophet early and a better pick at religious bonuses.

Strange I don't see any way of following the above strategies and still being in the Ancient Era while when opening up Piety (unless I'm in a Marathon game maybe). I feel like the design intent was to make it viable or close but they've totally missed the mark.

Why would you go into piety after finishing Liberty ?

If you wait for liberty finisher to get a prophet you will end up with few beliefs anyway. It really comes late. Engineer or Scientist is often a better choice. Engineer can speed up HS if you even really want a Prophet. Should be your enhancer anyway, not your founder.

If your question was instead how to make Piety work on a non faith area where you cannot pop 2 quick prophets by yourself then you just never go piety in this situation. Piety needs a good base faith generation, good enough to give you 2 prophet and buy other faith stuff.
 
Heathen conversion is a terrible reformation choice

Perhaps the poster that was advocating Heathen conversion turned raging barbs on and is going for domination victory instead of cultural? If that is the case you can get quite a large army and navy for just one missionary and so would have a much lower faith cost than directly faith buying units.

Also perhaps 3 AIs beat him to Reformation. The AI normally picks reformation beliefs that a human would place in the top three if any are still available.
 
Perhaps the poster that was advocating Heathen conversion turned raging barbs on and is going for domination victory instead of cultural? If that is the case you can get quite a large army and navy for just one missionary and so would have a much lower faith cost than directly faith buying units.

To add on top of that, the thread is about exploring options, not discussing what is best and what is worst. Civ can become incredibly boring if all you pick is a limited number of social policies and religious beliefs. Unless you are playing multiplayer, theres always a way to beat the AI using unconventional or so called "bad" policies and beliefs.
 
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