Unlocking Societies

[steveg700]

So, my previous experience with SS is that I expect unlock all the societies. But in my current game, I've just entered the medieval era and still have not gotten Hermes or Minerva. That's new to me. It's not as if I haven't discovered any national wonders or sent any envoys.

Is there some window for unlocking societies that has closed? Or is it something like prophets where once so many civ's joined, they stop taking members?

 

[Pure24]

You have a % chance to be invited to a Secret Society (I think 70% for each task; meet a city state, clear a barbarian outpost, get a tribal village, or discover a natural wonder).
A sort-of guaranteed way is to raise your diplomatic visibility enough to see what society another Civ has joined.

While it is rare, it's very possible not to be invited by a certain stage

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Sometimes it just takes forever. In my couple games of SS, I think I only discovered one society in the first try. Otherwise, what I've experienced is finally getting Voidsingers after my 5th village (on turn 150!). Even in my current game, it took 4 envoys to unlock Minerva.

 

[Pure24]

Sometimes it just takes forever. In my couple games of SS, I think I only discovered one society in the first try. Otherwise, what I've experienced is finally getting Voidsingers after my 5th village (on turn 150!). Even in my current game, it took 4 envoys to unlock Minerva.

There's a bit of RNG, although I think it is fair.

The opposite happened for me once. I cleared a barbarian outpost, with my movement unveiling a natural wonder which was in the fog of war. I also met a city state warrior and revealed a tribal village. Got three SS invitations at once! The next turn and I got the fourth

 

[Pfeffersack]

A sort-of guaranteed way is to raise your diplomatic visibility enough to see what society another Civ has joined.

My experience is that just seeing their membership is not enough; you need "secret" diplomatic visibility on a civ to have a chance for an invitation into their secret society. Easiest way is sending a trade route, befriending and allying; but a high level spy could probably even achieve that with a civ your have less friendly relations.

 

[Deadly Dog]

The chance for getting an invite for Hermetic Order is supposed to be 100% on discovering a natural wonder. But my experience leads me to believe that if a rival discovers it first you will not get an invitation, at least not if they accept it. Beaten to a wonder by a rival by one turn, I saw they had joined the HO. Reloaded, took a more direct route, beat my rival to the Wonder and got the invite. Checked my rival once they caught up and waited a turn, no SS.

 

[steveg700]

Interesting responses.

I was the first to meet two CS's, not invite to Minerva. I've sent envoys to both too. Not sure if I have to go find another CS to send envoys to.

 

[Linklite]

Pure24 said it's 70% of getting an invite upon performing the relevant action. If correct, it's a 9% chance that you'll do two actions and get nothing, so not particularly log odds ~1/11 chance. Try again, and if it still doesn't hand you an invite, I'd start looking at fixes maybe.

 

[cain3456]

In my current game as the Hungarians, I had made up my mind beforehand that I would join the Vampires. I got the other invites straightaway, but cleared two barb camps and no invite. The continent was getting too civilized, so my best hope became to ally with the only civ to join the vampires, who were the neighboring Arabs. They had been on the rampage, having wiped out the Turks and leaving Russia with poor cities. Eventually I got the invite, another factor being that Arabia was spreading their religion (Zoroastrian, as Greece took Islam for gawds know what reason) to me as I didn't get one in time.

 

[tedhebert]

Playing a RR Teddy game at the moment. the intent was to chose Miverva. Got invited to voids (don't want to cause it's the only one I've already tried) and Hermetic. I'm at turn 110 now,
have sent numerous envoys. I even send them one by one if I have more than one, in case I get the RNG at every send. This is highly annoying. I would never have chosen to play RR Teddy if it wasn't for the interest of playing it along with Minerva. Apparently, the odds are 80% at first, decreasing with every civ choosing it by an amount I haven't seen list anywhere.

by the way, I have no intention whatsoever of playing hermetic with Teddy, but for fun, before going to bed last night, I saved then activated it just to see. In my known map (playing huge, about 50% of the map revealed so far) there were 19 ley lines. 14 of them were in snow tiles !!! So 0 yields, or 1 prod yields for Hills, Who in the world would even want to take on the task of founding cities in there ? this needs to be fixed.

 

[Deadly Dog]

I think you only get a chance to trigger an invite to the Owls with the first envoy you send to a particular CS. Doesn't matter if other civs already have envoys.

Anyway, a 70-80% chance is going to yield some streaks where you get shut out for a few rolls. So while many games the invites seem to just come fast and early, I've had more than a few games where there's at least one invite I miss out on, and yes sometimes its the invite I want.....

 

[reddishrecue]

The SS I haven't gotten is sanguine pact and the other non voidsingers and owls of Minerva. I actually had it once but I didn't continue with it for some reason. I've had good success with owls and voidsingers. I had 2 banks with ottoman ub and owls ub. I had good income it was awesome.

 

[steveg700]

by the way, I have no intention whatsoever of playing hermetic with Teddy, but for fun, before going to bed last night, I saved then activated it just to see. In my known map (playing huge, about 50% of the map revealed so far) there were 19 ley lines. 14 of them were in snow tiles !!! So 0 yields, or 1 prod yields for Hills, Who in the world would even want to take on the task of founding cities in there ? this needs to be fixed.

I mean, the thing FXS needed to do was consider how to source food in low-food terrain. Having camps give gold first and food only much later is a bad idea. Tundra is particularly problematic because there's so much of it in so many maps. Now, if they wanted Hermes to be more appealing, then yeah they shoulda had ley lines provide growth.

 

[tedhebert]

I think you only get a chance to trigger an invite to the Owls with the first envoy you send to a particular CS. Doesn't matter if other civs already have envoys.

Are you serious ? Is that a confirmed fact ? So if someone wants to get it, they should never send a second envoy to a CS, because that can't make it proc ? I really didn't understand it that way, but I suppose it could be ;-(

 

[steveg700]

Are you serious ? Is that a confirmed fact ? So if someone wants to get it, they should never send a second envoy to a CS, because that can't make it proc ? I really didn't understand it that way, but I suppose it could be ;-(

I believe that assessment was correct. I sent a half-dozen to the same two CS's, but only got an Owl invite by completing a quest for a third CS that resulted in my first envoy going there.

 

[Tuvok694]

Funny thing, in most of my games I discover that society last or not at all which I wanted to have for a planned strategy.

 

[Datian]

The luck factor is quite frustrating, and some societies are much easier to join than other.
If you want to play hermetic, you need a natural wonder... there are only so many of them, and so scattered ! And it's really the one you need very early, in order to see the ley lines.
On the opposite side, sanguine pact is easy, because there's no shortage of barbarian camps, you can never get rid of all of them.