Has the Sacred Sites reformation belief ever been gamechanging?

[76561198799323534]

In my experience, no. When an ai civ go piety in the early game and take the Sacred Sites reformation belief they get a large initial tourism boost (if they do have religious buildings as follower beliefs!), but they suck in terms of growth and expansion compared to the civs. that open with tradition or liberty, and ends up getting wiped out by the stronger civs.
To test if Sacred Sites can actually work for a human player I tried out Byzans recently on King level, large map, 10 civs. standard speed. It worked nicely: I built Stone Henge early on secure an early religion with at least two religious buildings. My social policies was a liberty-piety-combo followed by two policies in rationalism and asthetics (full tree). I built a total of 16 cities, that all had two religious building (= 64 points of tourism). I finished the game with a cultural victory in the early industrial era, but at that time I was leading in every aspect of the game, and could have gone for any kind of victory. Sacred Sites was thus not a gamechanging strategy in my game -- it was just a nice shortcut to victory, that would probably not have worked on a higher difficulty level.
Have anyone of you ever experienced that Sacred Sites worked so well that it qualified as a gamechanging strategy?

[kkeday]

There is no "Religious Victory", which devalues this social value. Unless I accidently get religion first or second from goody huts, I rarely take Piety. So even if you take Sacred Sites & pump out missionaries - at best you may get more city state votes; the extra influence from from shared religion can be amplified throught other policies outside of Piety.
I so like the cash boost from temples on the Piety policies if I am playing a mercantile civ.

[The Silent CivVer]

Originally posted by Montezumas revenge:

In my experience, no. When an ai civ go piety in the early game and take the Sacred Sites reformation belief they get a large initial tourism boost (if they do have religious buildings as follower beliefs!), but they suck in terms of growth and expansion compared to the civs. that open with tradition or liberty, and ends up getting wiped out by the stronger civs.
To test if Sacred Sites can actually work for a human player I tried out Byzans recently on King level, large map, 10 civs. standard speed. It worked nicely: I built Stone Henge early on secure an early religion with at least two religious buildings. My social policies was a liberty-piety-combo followed by two policies in rationalism and asthetics (full tree). I built a total of 16 cities, that all had two religious building (= 64 points of tourism). I finished the game with a cultural victory in the early industrial era, but at that time I was leading in every aspect of the game, and could have gone for any kind of victory. Sacred Sites was thus not a gamechanging strategy in my game -- it was just a nice shortcut to victory, that would probably not have worked on a higher difficulty level.
Have anyone of you ever experienced that Sacred Sites worked so well that it qualified as a gamechanging strategy?

Like anything in Civ V, sacred sites is effective to the extent that it coheres with your strengths (as a civ and as a playstyle) and attacks the weakness of your enemies.

If you have selected two faith buildings; sacred sites is a solid choice...giving you more cultural policies (in the long term if faith buildings are built efficiently), giving you more faith for great people, making a tourism win easier and also putting civs that choose a different ideology under pressure.

It is even more advantageous if the civs in your game are poor at culture generation.

It is a poorer choice if you have only selected one faith building and have poor/mediocre faith generation meaning you are not very efficient at building religious structures.


I have won multiplayer games with the Celts using sacred sites, and would also consider taking it with other good faith producing civs.

However, I would never go 'straight piety' in order to achieve this. I would work the left side of liberty or take tradition and finish it before going through piety.

I think to see sacred sites as a 'game winning strategy' in itself is incorrect; it is a religous belief that can confer huge cultural power on the civ who adopts it.

[Sixe史吏]

What if Piety added 1 Faith to each city simply for adopting it? Would you pick it over Tradition or Liberty opener then?

[Matthew]

Outside of a gimmick where you win with it super quickly by spamming it with someone like Maya, its usefulness is as a secondary policy tree which helps tourism. For every religious building you purchase, it is like purchasing an extra great work.

The main problem with it is three different things. First, it can be difficult to beat AI's to a religion before they take the faith building picks on higher difficulties. Second, Piety is a slow policy tree. Which is fine if you pick it up later, that leads to the final point. Only one Civ can get Sacred Sites and AI's love Piety. So if you don't lead with it, you risk losing out on getting Sacred Sites.

tl;dr it can be a fun, thematic way to play a culture game but doesn't scale well as you go up in difficulties

(it is not impossible on higher difficulties though, just that the odds are heavily stacked against ya)

[Matthew]

Originally posted by Sixe史吏:

What if Piety added 1 Faith to each city simply for adopting it? Would you pick it over Tradition or Liberty opener then?

It wouldn't help make up for its disadvantages and that would make it even more difficult to form a religion if you don't get Piety and others do.

The problem with Piety compared to Tradition and Liberty is more about momentum. Tradition and Liberty kickstart your empire by giving you vital bonuses you need early on in the game. Piety's bonuses are more for playing the long game. Problem is, early game bonuses tend to be way more useful than late game bonuses. It doesn't matter how many holy sites you can eventually place down, how much fpt you will be getting if your empire is significantly behind where it should be if you went Tradition/Liberty.

[The Silent CivVer]

Originally posted by Sixe史吏:

What if Piety added 1 Faith to each city simply for adopting it? Would you pick it over Tradition or Liberty opener then?

That's why the civs who get bonuses to faith generation are much better than other civs at using this reformation belief.

You can go liberty or tradition with these civs and get the inherent bonuses from your UA (Maya - the Pyramid +1 faith and +2 science, Celts - Druidic Lore +1 faith for city next to forest and +2 for city next to 3 or more forests, Ethiopia - Stele +2 faith.

This allows you to hold off on piety for a period of time and take advantage of the better early tenets in the liberty or tradition tree.

I agree with Matthew:

'Tradition and Liberty kickstart your empire by giving you vital bonuses you need early on in the game. Piety's bonuses are more for playing the long game.'

Piety can be incredibly powerful in the long term, but there is just no decent use for it the early game...

You don't need lots of early happiness/more faith/more culture in the early game. You need to get to a higher pop as soon as possible.

The monarch policy in tradition or good trading if you go liberty gives you plenty enough happiness before it then makes sense to go into piety for those extra culture/faith/happiness mechanics.

[War Crime Wizard]

I usually don't take piety, but isn't there a policy that boost citys gold production by 25%?

[76561198799323534]

Originally posted by Jimmy:

Like anything in Civ V, sacred sites is effective to the extent that it coheres with your strengths (as a civ and as a playstyle) and attacks the weakness of your enemies.

If you have selected two faith buildings; sacred sites is a solid choice...giving you more cultural policies (in the long term if faith buildings are built efficiently), giving you more faith for great people, making a tourism win easier and also putting civs that choose a different ideology under pressure.

It is even more advantageous if the civs in your game are poor at culture generation.

It is a poorer choice if you have only selected one faith building and have poor/mediocre faith generation meaning you are not very efficient at building religious structures.


I have won multiplayer games with the Celts using sacred sites, and would also consider taking it with other good faith producing civs.

However, I would never go 'straight piety' in order to achieve this. I would work the left side of liberty or take tradition and finish it before going through piety.

I think to see sacred sites as a 'game winning strategy' in itself is incorrect; it is a religous belief that can confer huge cultural power on the civ who adopts it.

It all makes perfect sense. I have never tried multiplayer myself, but with all player starting on an equal footing, I guess that the Celts have reasonable chance of getting many cities, two faith buildings and Sacred Sites, and in that case it is obviously a powerfull strategy.
I have tried the Celts myself on immortal level myself (8 city liberty game). I liked playing them, but I only managed to get one faith building, and I did therefore not find it worthwhile to pick Sacred Sites. Instead I picked "To the Glory of God" -- the very best reformation belief in my opinion because of its flexibillity. Thanks "To the Glory of God" I could rush build Eiffel Tower and Broadway with GE's, get internet faster with GS's and faithbuy a great general to boost my war against my main cultural rival, Egypt.

Off topic: what kind of music does the whole world listen to when the Celts win a cultural victory -- U2 and bagpipe music? And are they buying your kilts instead of "blue jeans"?

[lukebaird84]

The only time I've pulled off Sacred Sites Industrial cultural victory, I played as Egypt. If I remember correctly, I used a piety/liberty combo and ICS'd everything. Rome left one legal tile in the middle of his empire? Egyptian city. The Iroquois left one snow tile? City. Did I get attacked by all my neighbors for expanding too aggressively? Yes. I've noticed that even though the AI will spam fifteen cities by turn 60 and expect you not to care, they denounce you and attack if you settle half of that in the same amount of time. Anyways, I agree with people here that the strategy is not tactically sound, especially for higher difficulties, but if the goal of the game is to have fun, this strategy can fulfill that purpose well.

[Joshybones]

I only play multiplayer, but I can tell you that the easiest victory in the game is won with sacred sites. Pick Ethiopia and spam out about 30 cities, each with 1-2 pop. Get your 2 religious buildings in each and reform with sacred sites. Viola! Victory. Dont worry abou sim, happiness, or anything else.

[The Silent CivVer]

Originally posted by Joshy:

I only play multiplayer, but I can tell you that the easiest victory in the game is won with sacred sites. Pick Ethiopia and spam out about 30 cities, each with 1-2 pop. Get your 2 religious buildings in each and reform with sacred sites. Viola! Victory. Dont worry abou sim, happiness, or anything else.

If you tried this in a game with decent players you would be crushed.

It might work against inexperienced players, not versus veterans...