Part 132

Explore Civilization V's Social Policies in Part 132. Learn about Tradition, Liberty, Honour, Piety, and more, and how they shape your empire's growth and strategy.

Part 132 of this Civilization V guide covers the game's Social Policies, which replace the civics from previous titles. Social Policies are unlocked using culture points generated by your cities. These policies influence how you rule your empire and can be adopted once you accumulate enough culture points. Choosing a new policy or branch rolls over any unspent culture points, increasing the cost of the next policy. There are 10 distinct social policy branches, some of which are mutually exclusive (e.g., Liberty and Autocracy, Rationalism and Piety).

Each social policy branch offers unique benefits and strategic advantages:

• Tradition: Best for small empires, focusing on improving the capital city.
• Liberty: Ideal for rapid expansion, encouraging settling new lands and population growth.
• Honour: Enhances the military for offensive strategies against other civilizations or barbarians.
• Piety: Boosts culture generation, crucial for achieving a cultural victory.
• Patronage: Develops relationships with city-states, beneficial for a diplomatic victory.
• Commerce: Supports naval power and increases wealth generation.
• Rationalism: Accelerates scientific advancement by boosting science production.
• Freedom: Balances culture and specialist production, aiding city specialists.
• Order: Suitable for large empires, increasing production across many cities.
• Autocracy: Focuses on building a powerful late-game military.

Adopting a social policy branch first unlocks the branch itself, providing an initial bonus, and then allows for further policy choices within that branch or the unlocking of new branches.

The Tradition branch specifically focuses on the capital but offers extensions for the rest of the empire. Key policies within Tradition include:

• Tradition: -25% Culture Required for new tiles, +3 Culture for Capital City.
• Aristocracy: +20% Production when building Wonders.
• Oligarchy: Garrisoned units cost no maintenance; cities with garrisons gain +100% Ranged Combat Strength.
• Legalism: The first 4 cities receive a free culture building.
• Landed Elite: Cities grow 15% faster, +2 Food per city.
• Monarchy: +1 Gold, -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in the Capital.

Tradition is generally recommended as an early-game policy, especially for wonder builders. Policies like Legalism are valuable early on when culture generation is difficult, helping to unlock more social policies faster. Landed Elite provides significant growth benefits, and Monarchy offers useful gold and unhappiness reduction.

The Liberty branch, which cannot be active simultaneously with Autocracy, is focused on culture, settlers, and workers. It is another strong early-game choice, facilitating the quick production and deployment of settlers and workers.