Strongest Social Policies (Top 10)

[Lacerda]

I usually aim to invest on City States from the food buff, but, can someone explain me this one policy?

"Cultural Diplomacy +100% more resources and +50% more Happiness from City-States "

100% more resources is on the luxury resource that the city state has? Or the food, or cultural buff as well?

50% more happiness from city states. what happiness? City-states don't give happiness, kinda blind on this one.

cheers.

 

[CornPlanter]

I usually aim to invest on City States from the food buff, but, can someone explain me this one policy?

"Cultural Diplomacy +100% more resources and +50% more Happiness from City-States "

100% more resources is on the luxury resource that the city state has? Or the food, or cultural buff as well?

50% more happiness from city states. what happiness? City-states don't give happiness, kinda blind on this one.

cheers.

50% more happiness from the resources you acquire from city states. If I get it right, if you get 2 resources +1 happiness each, you have +3 happiness total.

100% more resources means you get i.e. 10 oil where otherwise you would get only 5. Or 2 luxuries instead of just 1.

 

[Lacerda]

Hmm, interesting.

Thank you sir.

 

[bhavv]

When I took Theocracy, Cultural Diplomacy, and Protectionism all at once from my saved up policies after building Sydney Opera House, my happiness went up from 20 to 57.

Piety, Patronage + commerce are really powerful together, with freedome as well ofc.

I have a feeling that Liberty would also be nice, but you need tradition for the +33% wonder production in any culture game.

 

[MickyLuv]

I tried using Egypt and Aristocracy my first Prince game and even with both bonuses and Marble I didn't find building wonders to be super easy. On the higher difficulty levels I thought that going the wonder route would be too stressful, since the AI is easily out-teching you.

I only have the demo right now, but ofter the first 100 turns using Egypt on this level I managed to slingshot to CS and build three wonders in Thebes (SH, GL and pyramids, in that order). I was comfortably ahead in all areas, except happiness, and was in a great position to expand from the three cities I had founded due to choosing those SP's that speed up worker improvements and the building of settlers. Getting Stonehenge really early for those culture points seemed to be vital for this. Of course there are sacrifices to be made; until the slingshot my military was pitifully weak.

I'm hoping my copy of the full game arrives soon so I can attempt to replicate this start.


EDIT: I should say I am advocating for Egypt + Aristocracy as first SP for potential wonder spam at moderate play levels.

 

[Delgar]

I feel the social policies are more or less equally strong depending on your needs and the way you approach the game.

 

[ddd123]

The key thing with free religion is that while you only net one policy, you fill up three policy spaces. It's huge for culture victory. (And obviously should be taken last, to speed up the most expensive policies and save the most time.)

wtf have you all guys smoked ?

it doesnt change anything to take it first or last

if you take free religion at 10th spot then you have 11th and 12th free and start now working on 13th at the cost of 11th, the 18th spot will cost like the 16th
if you take FR at 15th spot you get 16 and 17 for free and guess what? the 18th will cost like the 16th

but since the goal is STILL the the Nth policy which gives you cultural victory it doesnt change at which slot you speed the policy it will cost exactly the same like the N-2th policy and you still have to pay all the 1 to (N-2) others


instead its huge for NON cultural victories so you can boost a policy when you are likely NOT to get any more cause you are going to war or something else

 

[Biz_]

in the early game you can often get away with a fast monument if you go honor

otherwise you might need to spend the hammers on an extra warrior/archer

depends on the map

free fast great general is also really helpful for early wars

 

[Wuddel]

I dunno. I really like my Merchant Navy +3 production in costal cities in commerce. Nearly as good as Communism and available way earlier in the game. I hardly make trading posts though, I get all my science from population/specialists, thats why I am always a little tight on money commerce is a great boost for that.

 

[pi-r8]

Mandate of heaven is a very strong way to get extra culture if going for a culture win.

Free religion still gives you 'Two free policies' that do not add to your policy cost increase. If you think that neither of those are worth it, then you really dont understand the mechanics of trying to gain a culture win in Civ V.

It's good for a culture win, but very weak if you're trying to do anything else. And Whee. The rest of the piety tree seems really weak too. 2 extra happiness? Yeah ok, that's only half of what a building will give you.

Mandate of heaven is only going to give you, realistically, maybe 10 extra culture max. Now, if it worked the other way around- part of your culture becomes happiness- now that would be great!

 

[bhavv]

It's good for a culture win, but very weak if you're trying to do anything else. And Whee. The rest of the piety tree seems really weak too. 2 extra happiness? Yeah ok, that's only half of what a building will give you.

Mandate of heaven is only going to give you, realistically, maybe 10 extra culture max. Now, if it worked the other way around- part of your culture becomes happiness- now that would be great!

And why would you take Piety unless you were going for a cultural win? Of course its weak for anything else because it is purely for cultural wins only.

If your going for space race, rationalism is better. If your going for domination, rationalism is still better (tech faster, get better units, go kill).

Saying that Piety is weak if youre not going for culture wins is as silly as stating that Aristocracy is weak if your never going to build any wonders, or that Liberty is weak in a one city challenge.

However, if you are planning on a culture win, Piety is the third most important tree after Freedom and Patronage.

By the way, in my last game I had +57 by the end game, thats an extra 28 culture per turn, though I still failed at unlocking 5 full policy trees.

 

[Bluetooth]

I believe it depends on your strategy and even more the on leader you play. I’ve played my first games as Alexander the Great and the best social policy in these games has been Patronage.

His trait:

City-State influence degrades half as slowly as normal, and it recovers at twice the speed as for other civilizations.

Patronage:

Patronage -25% City-State influence degradation speed
Philanthropy +25% more influence from City-State gifts
Aesthetics +20 non-degrading influence with all City-States
Scholasticism +33% Science bonus from allied City-States
Cultural Diplomacy +100% more resources and +50% more Happiness from City-States
Educated Elite Allied City-States will gift Great People

So it’s quite cheap to ally with several City-States and also keep them as allies. This strategy can lead to a Diplomatic Victory.

 

[Ahriman]

My top 10 having played so far would be:
1) Free Religion 2 Free Policies
2) Communism +5 Production per city
3) Theocracy -20% Unhappiness in un-occupied cities
4) Planned Economy -50% Unhappiness from cities
5) Police State -50% Unhappiness in Occupied Cities
6) Order +20% building Production
7) Free Thought +2 Science from each Trading Post
8) Meritocracy +1 Happiness per city connected to the Capital
9) Socialism Order -10% Building Gold maintenance cost
10) Scientific Revolution 2 Free Technologies

I think you're over-valuing the late-game ones relative to the earlier ones.
But my 10, in no particular order, would be:
Free thought (note, this only actually gives +1 science).
Secularism.
Autocracy.
Patronage.
Philanthropy.
Professional Army.
Oligarchy
Order
Theocracy
Free religion.
Communism.

 

[pi-r8]

And why would you take Piety unless you were going for a cultural win? Of course its weak for anything else because it is purely for cultural wins only.

If your going for space race, rationalism is better. If your going for domination, rationalism is still better (tech faster, get better units, go kill).

Saying that Piety is weak if youre not going for culture wins is as silly as stating that Aristocracy is weak if your never going to build any wonders, or that Liberty is weak in a one city challenge.

However, if you are planning on a culture win, Piety is the third most important tree after Freedom and Patronage.

By the way, in my last game I had +57 by the end game, thats an extra 28 culture per turn, though I still failed at unlocking 5 full policy trees.

The rest of piety is basically irrelevant to a culture win (or help only indirectly). In principle, extra happiness and golden age is always helpful. However, the benefit that you get from these is much less than what you can get from other policies.


"Saying that Piety is weak if youre not going for culture wins is as silly as stating that Aristocracy is weak if your never going to build any wonders, or that Liberty is weak in a one city challenge."
Aristocracy is just 1 policy for a specific purpose. A one city challenge is an usual varient type of game. Piety, however, is a whole branch of social policies, so you'd expect it to occasionally be useful outside of cultural victories, which are themselves a very specific type of games. In MOST games, it is not useful.

"By the way, in my last game I had +57 by the end game, thats an extra 28 culture per turn, though I still failed at unlocking 5 full policy trees."
By the end of the game, 28 culture per turn is almost nothing. And if you don't have a super small empire, you'll never even reach double digit happiness.

 

[Optimizer]

Here is a poll about favorite trees.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=383991

 

[bhavv]

The rest of piety is basically irrelevant to a culture win (or help only indirectly). In principle, extra happiness and golden age is always helpful. However, the benefit that you get from these is much less than what you can get from other policies.

And if you don't have a super small empire, you'll never even reach double digit happiness.

The benefit is still significantly more than most other policies for a culture win. Other policies give far less benefit than Piety does for that purpose. Piety is the third best policy for a culture win, and still vital for that goal, regardless of how weak you think it is.

Most of Piety does help for a culture win - half of > Culture, 2 free policies, and 20% less also increases your empires happiness. The only two policies hat dont are the golden age, and reduced happy cap for new golden ages, however if that gets you just two extra Golden ages during a whole game, that can be very significant, especially more if you are playing Darius.

For a cultural win, you actually do need to have a super small empire anyway, most of what you say about Piety is completely irrelevant because you obviously arent applying it to what it is meant to be used for, and that is for culture wins.

Piety, however, is a whole branch of social policies, so you'd expect it to occasionally be useful outside of cultural victories

Why would you? Piety IS a cultural only policy tree, it opposes Rationalism, meaning that you have to plan ahead and choose your strategy - do you want to win a culture game, or a space race? Patronage is a whole branch of social policies too, but how useful is it if you play on a map with no city states? Or start out on an isolated island with nothing but militaristic city states nearby? Each social policy tree caters to different playstyles, if you arent interested in culture wins, then simply take something other than Piety.

 

[Civafl]

I didn't know that the 2 free Social Policies from Piety didn't increase cost. My strategy with my only cultural victory saved this policy until I had 2 left.

I agree that Piety is pretty weak even for a cultural victory, the 2 free social policies is what makes it attractive. In my only cultural victory I was getting over 1000 culture per turn at the end, about a social policy every 8-9 turns.

This was on an easy difficulty, however. Things might be different on higher difficulties. i was also playing as Siam, which is a pretty nice civ when trying for cultural victory between his UA and UB. Also elephants are pretty strong.

 

[erragal]

50% more happiness from the resources you acquire from city states. If I get it right, if you get 2 resources +1 happiness each, you have +3 happiness total.

100% more resources means you get i.e. 10 oil where otherwise you would get only 5. Or 2 luxuries instead of just 1.

The 100% more resources does not affect luxury resources. This is actually the weakest policy in the patronage tree unless you're really desperate for strategic resources.

 

[Rameau's Nephew]

Discipline. The 15% combat bonus when there's a unit in an adjacent tile is invaluable. Plus, it's available in the Ancient Age with your 2nd social policy, and the one pre-requisite has a useful bonus, too. Don't go to war without it.

 

[Dizzy75]

I've found Secularism and Free Thought to be very strong, even though Free Thought only gives +1 science per trading post, instead of the listed +2. It basically reduces the opportunity cost of science focus vs. gold focus to almost nothing, and I only have 1-2 cities running hammer-heavy.

Aside from that, the Patronage tree on the Cultural Diplomacy branch is awesome.

I've been mostly playing slingshot-style strategies so far, so Rationalism is usually the first branch I open up. Combat bonuses are not very useful when you're using Riflemen to attack Spearmen.