Which Secret Society is Best for Poland?

Playing a Poland game, which I’ve barely even tried before, while waiting for the new release to pop tomorrow. Not really thinking about it, I went with Voidsingers because they want to found a religion and want relics, but looking at it, Owls of Minerva could also be great for them, with two powerful CH buildings among other benefits.

Which is better, in your opinions?

 

Depends on the angle

Voidsingers are fun, and provide Relics mid-game (or is it late game?), which Poland has a bonus to.

I wouldn't give Owls of Minerva as a good synergy, while strong, it doesn't actually benefit from anything Poland has.

Instead, I'd argue the Hermetic Order is better. Poland gains a +1 adjacency bonus for each district in Holy Sites which then stacks on top of Leyline adjacency. so you can have +1 from Lelyines, and then +X from adjacent districts.

 

Voidsingers are best for any civ that can generate a good amount of faith. You want to go for monumentality classical or medieval pushes anyways with Poland, and the Obelisk just helps with that. If you build an obelisk as the first thing in every expand, and settle cities on turn 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 (which is not a very aggressive estimate) it equates to 600 faith by turn 80, which is around 2 settlers.

Moreover, the Medieval era promotion of the Voidsingers is just insanely strong. It's pretty easy as a faith civ to get to 200+ faith production by the medieval era.

I think the Owls don't have a huge amount of synergy with Jadwiga. Banks are pretty crappy buildings and they don't get that much better as Gilded Vaults, unless you have obscene Commerce Hub adjacencies which Jadwiga doesn't have much support for. Moreover, the economic policy slot is less useful for Poland than for other civs, as Poland already has a Military to Wildcard conversion. The only real synergy I see is that Jadwiga likes international trade routes a bit more so can use the city state trade route envoy ability well.

Hermetic Order is just weak. There's basically no civ that isn't better served by picking a different society.

 

I think voidsingers is the best fit for poland by far. They want relics, they want religion in short they want everything the voidsingers offer.

The second best fit imo are vampires. Since they have to hard build their UU which comes in the medival era you can use those castles (which also unlock at the start of medival era) in high produciton areas to build them faster. Also the first winged husar will boost the vampires to a nice 55 base quite early.

Owls are still better then hermtic imo since ley lines are just way to bad atm. Rare, often in harsh terrain (aka desert or tundra/snow) and they often ruin good clusters/good tiles for districts. The bonus yields unlock quite late. Owls at least fit the trade theme of poland. And even with an extra wildcard slot instead of a militarisitc one you can make use of the extra card slots.

 

It's only the Holy Site that gets +1 from adjacent districts for poland.

 

Voidsingers is clearly the best Secret society in general and it is even better with Poland, because of their relic bonus. I would even say that no matter what victory you are going - Voidsingers is the best option for Poland.

 

Oop, soryr, I know that, that's wht I meant, but i worded it poorly, I just meant that the Ley Line + other districts boosts Holy Sites even more.

 

There are two good choices for Poland I think and they are Void Singers or Sanguine Pact.

Void Singers are easy and good for any heavy faith civ regardless of what they want to do.

Vampires are amazing if you want to go domination (I've had a late game Vamp with 161 strength) and they also really juice up the capital with their castles. You can place two castles once the medieval era starts and they can easily combine to add +20 food, +20 production, and some faith/culture/science to the capital. If you get some really good spots the castles could do significantly better. Unlocking a wonder and immediately building it in 7-10 turns without chopping? That's easy with a couple good vampire castles because not only are those castles providing +20-30 production but the massive food surplus means your capital is going to be huge. You could have a Pingala Oracle capital city in medieval era with 16+ population with Campus, Commercial Hub, Industrial Zone, Encampment, Theatre Square, and Holy Site earning tons of GPP.

Supposedly vampire castles also get district yields when they're placed next to a district. Now I want to make a German vampire castle in the middle of a bunch of Hansas. I wonder if a single vamp castle could get +40 production for the capital. It should be easily possible if they get the full Hansa yield after the Craftsmanship card is applied to double industrial zones. After playing around with a hex grid I think a +64 production German vamp castle is possible (four +16 Hansas around the castle) with a bit of map luck. Add in even more map luck with a couple dams and the castle might get near +80 production per turn to the capital.

Void singers are never a bad choice for a faith civ but I think people are sleeping on Vampires. There's some potential there in the right situations.

 

I think the vampire castles only provide the base adjacency of the district, before any policy cards. Plus you would need to place it after the hansa adjacency has been maximized already, or at least keep a vampire around to remove and replace it.

One other big point in favor of sanguine pact is the early game protection and rushing capability that an immortal unit provides. This is especially beneficial for a civ like Poland that wants to build holy sites first and set up a mid-game crusade.

 

Taking Vamps on the first barb camp clear also means an extra unit in ancient era to go hunt barb camps to hopefully get a classical golden age.