Rate the Beliefs - part I: Pantheon beliefs

Browd is probably right, though. It's very difficult to actually asses the value of these, or perhaps I did the wrong aproach, perhaps I should have asked people to rate them under optimal conditions. Fertility Rights indeed scores very high, even though this belief is far from the most useful pantheon (in my oppinion - but then again, I may just differ from the majority in that aspect).

0 - Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization
1 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest
5 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles
1 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
4 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate
2 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
4 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
1 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city
4 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
1 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+
1 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength
3 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps
4 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route
3 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
3 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
4 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
0 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth
3 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
2 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
3 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries

black213 said:

4 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles

The fact that Jungles don't have to be improved to take benefit from this pantheon is great. Almost all of the other tile pantheon beliefs require an improvement and they take time to make.

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I especially like that one with a science civ.

Gamewizard said:

What game are you playing? In my Civ V, this is absolutely useless.

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I like Religious Settlements with Russia for ridiculous passive border expansion. I built a city later in a game once after building Anghor Wat, quickly bought Krepost and all the Culture buildings, and the borders expanded like wildfire.

1 - Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization
3 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest (tundras aren't as attractive as deserts when it comes to Petra and/or being the Moroccans. There should be a wonder that replicates Petra but for tundra and maybe also snow tiles)
4 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles
2.5 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city (good if you're attacked often and it's great for last stand defence. Otherwise, largely useless)
5 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate (I choose this quite a lot because it synergizes well with tradition)
1 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+
2 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
1 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
1 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city (largely useless if your civ is generating lots of faith anyway and you barely have any wars)
2 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
2 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+
2 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength (something tells me that city bombard bonuses are calculated differently compared to other percentage bonuses)
3 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps
5 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route (a must if you have a big empire and sprawling religion
2 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
1 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders (very situational)
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
3 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
2 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth (pointless if you get tradition)
3 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
1 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
2 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries

The resource pantheons are, as previously stated, highly situational. Overall, I prefer universal pantheons more than specific ones, unless I start in a desert area. You could evaluate the effectiveness of each pantheon in optimal conditions, but that would skew the results and may overrate a few of them.

I would like to make an addendum, Tears of the Gods, introduced with BNW. It provides +2 faith on all Gems and Pearls. I give it a 4.

Looks like a lot of folks need to redraw their lines post-BNW. CPT isn't as easy to come by. You don't get multiple culture per building, and you can't slot specialists.

That gives pantheons like Ancestor Worship quite a bump.

kaspergm said:

Browd is probably right, though. It's very difficult to actually asses the value of these, or perhaps I did the wrong aproach, perhaps I should have asked people to rate them under optimal conditions. Fertility Rights indeed scores very high, even though this belief is far from the most useful pantheon (in my oppinion - but then again, I may just differ from the majority in that aspect).

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It shouldn't be under optimal conditions, as conditions are rarely optimal. It should be something along the lines of if you had a pantheon to start with before your world was even loaded.

Anyways, my take:
4- Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization
1- Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest
2- Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles
3- Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
4- Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate
2- God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+
3- God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
2- God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
2- God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city
2- Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
3- Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+
4- Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength
2- Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps
4- Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route
3- Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
0- One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders
4- Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
2- Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
4- Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth
4- Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
2- Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
2- Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries

I'm not sure I could really give any pantheon a set-in-stone rating because almost all of them are situational, depending on my starting position and what VC I'm going for.

I totally understand the qualms about rating these. Nonetheless, as a new player, these rating threads (all four of the "Rate the Beliefs" threads) still helped advise me on some of the nuances to the beliefs. Those that rated them and explained why were of greatest assistance, since they'd give a bit of situational context to help understand the difference between one voting 1 and another voting 4 on the same belief. That said, thank you, kaspergm, for all four threads! I'm enjoying my current religious picks, in part, because of them!

2 - Ancestor Worship (+1 Culture for every Shrine) - Primarily, this is useful if you're the Maya and going for a super-shrine strategy, and then otherwise don't intend to spread your religion beyond your empire. In fact, that's likely what super-shrines are best for, if you want a little bit of use off a cheap religious building when you only want to use religion defensively. It's good for that, especially since Shrines are cheap and a little bit of Culture never hurt, but you probably don't want this if you're going super religion.

3 - Dance of the Aurora (+1 Faith from non-forested Tundra) - This one is basically Desert Folklore for Tundra starts. If you do get a start up north, it's definitely worth it, since it makes your surroundings give you a load of Faith. But I find Tundra starts are a bit rare, honestly.

5 - Desert Folklore (+1 Faith from Desert tiles) - Arguably the single best Faith generating Pantheon in the game. If you start in a desert, GET IT, or hell, if you start anywhere near a desert, still maybe try to get it. That Faith racks up FAST, and swiping this alongside Petra is a quick path to being extremely powerful throughout the game. Morocco especially wants this what with the Kasbah and everything, as they can quickly turn unworkable desert tiles into an absolutely immense base.

3 - Faith Healers (+30 HP healed per turn if next to a friendly city) - This one is probably one of the better Pantheons to take if you're going war, mostly if you only intend to spread religion a little. It can be a good strategy to send Missionaries out to key locations where your troops are going to base an assault from, and use that city as a base to rapidly heal your troops and swiftly send them back into the front lines. Pays off best if you end up in tight borders with someone else and are likely to fight a long war of attrition and holding the line.

2 - Fertility Rites (10% faster growth rate) - I'm not exactly sure of the best way to use this one. It definitely pairs well with the Temple of Artemis, yes, which entails you want this if you're going for a semi-wide strategy with lots of tall cities, but hmm. It seems a little tough to make best use of, mostly for if you're founding lots of key cities but don't intend to found a religion. But I feel that a wide empire could make religion very powerful, and there's better Pantheons for it anyway.

1 - God of Craftsmen (+1 Production in cities with population of 3+) - The best way I can see to use this is if you intend to go Order and Resettlement and go for serious ICS, but then, 1 point of production is still pretty weak, and to make real use of it you probably need missionaries anyway, regular use of which necessitates a high faith yield that could be done for other things.

2 - God of the Open Sky (+1 Culture from Pastures) - Best useful if you're Mongolia, the Huns, or Poland, or otherwise have lots of Horses or other Pastures available. It's pretty simple and useful, but somewhat situational, and in the long term won't yield as much as one would want.

4 - God of the Sea (+1 Production from Fishing Boats) - The pantheon to take if you've got a heavy sea bias. Carthage, England, Venice, starting by ocean resources in general, this is a belief that is very useful both early game and later on, especially with Offshore Platforms. Of course, if you're landlocked or there's no locations with large amounts of water resources...maybe you want to pick something else, but if there are lots of boats in your future, definitely go for it.

1 - God of War (Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles of your city) - This just seems...a bit meh. It functions best when you've got Barbarians swarming you or hostile neighbors, and...I really don't think a belief that relies on people coming in to take your stuff is very reliable. If you see a long war of continuous invasion in your future, consider it, but otherwise...

4 - Goddess of Festivals (+1 Culture and Faith for each Wine and Incense) - Stacks awesomely with Monasteries. If you have lots of those resources available, this is a super awesome belief and you should definitely take it.

2 - Goddess of Love (+1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+) - Like with God of Craftsmen, I'm not sure how to really use this, and it seems a little weak for what you would intend to use it on.

3 - Goddess of Protection (+30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength) - Probably the best one to get if you're trapped by hostile neighbors or will otherwise likely get into a dangerous war. Of course, doesn't do much when you're at peace, and not exactly something reliable since you can still get your stuff taken if you get this, but it's definitely a huge boost.

3 - Goddess of the Hunt (+1 Food from Camps) - It can definitely be a big yield, but I find I never start by enough Camp-based resources for this to be of much use. I have used it before though, and it is definitely a help, especially since this likely takes best effect in an area where Food is otherwise low.

4 - Messenger of the Gods (+2 Science in cities with a Trade Route) - It can definitely be powerful, especially if your empire is going wide and you intend to build lots of roads. Works very nicely for the Maya or any science-based civ really, and can be a huge chunk of science early-game.

3 - Monument to the Gods (+15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders) - If there is a Wonder you REALLY REALLY NEED then this is a good one. A viable strategy with Rome since you want a lot of wonders as them and they're all over the tech tree. Obviously this has the best effect as Egypt, especially if you've got a decent production base and Marble available, as you'll be pumping out Wonders faster than Monuments at that rate.

3 - One with Nature (+4 Faith from Natural Wonders) - If you're Spain, you want. Otherwise, a bit unreliable.

3 - Oral Tradition (+1 Culture from Plantations) - Can be nice, but a little situational. It's basically a Goddess of Festivals light if you have lots of plantations in your future.

3 - Religious Idols (+1 Culture and Faith for each Gold and Silver) - Basically a different version of Goddess of Festivals. If you have these around, go for it, it will pay off a lot.

1 - Religious Settlements (+15% faster border growth) - ...eh. If you're Russia or the Shoshone, you can gain a lot from this, but otherwise...

5 - Sacred Path (+1 Culture from Jungle tiles) - Anyone with a Jungle bias will have a field day with this. That bonus is huge when applied to nearly every tile, and combined with Trading Post spam it can do a hell of a lot.

2 - Sacred Waters (+1 Happiness from cities on rivers) - ....eh.

4 - Stone Circles (+2 Faith from Quarries) - Links well with the Mausoleum, and can get a lot of Faith in general. I find large concentrations of Stone somewhat rare though.

4 - Tears of the Gods (+2 Faith from each Gems or Pearls) - Requires an odd terrain, but can be extremely powerful. Gems seems a bit rare to me though, I never seem to start near it.

I like the new Sun God pantheon belief which often beats the crap out of Fertility Rites (+10% growth):
+1 Food for each Bananas, Citrus, and Wheat resource

Especially wheat is pretty abundant, there is no need to improve the tile (as with e.g. Goddess of the Hunt) and the bonus is a flat +1 . So it does not rely on a huge food surplus (you need a +10 surplus to get +1 net with FR).

On some starting locations it just makes the capital sky-rocket.

Crafty Bison said:

Religious Settlements: This, and angkor wat, and krepost, and America. Seriously, who at firaxis keeps on going on about border growth? Cos they're all useless (Not a comment on the other American unique bits, just the border growth).

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Do you play Tradition too much? Because other than Tradition, border growth can be a pain. If you want to quickly access that delicious resource in the third ring, then you better get some border growth.

3 - Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization
3 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest
4 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles
2 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
4 - Feed the World: +1 Food on Shrines and Temples
5 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate
1 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
3 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
3 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city
3 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense
2 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+
2 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength
4 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps
4 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route
1 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders
1 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders
2 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
3 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver
0 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth
4 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles
3 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers
3 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries

My rating scheme:
5 - always very helpful in any situation and timeless (aka effect does not expire)
4 - very useful but situation dependent (may not always be good)
3 - situationally dependent but not as big an effect as others OR always effective but benefit is less than a 4
2 - could be useful but under-powered in the long scheme of things
1 - very minor effect or only useful in very particular situations.
0 - utterly useless: Effect is not really needed and replaceable by other gameplay or strategies (aka border expansion you can buy or focus on culture instead - it provides nothing unique that really helps you win in the long run)

Vitruvius said:

Do you play Tradition too much? Because other than Tradition, border growth can be a pain. If you want to quickly access that delicious resource in the third ring, then you better get some border growth.

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Which is true. But the problem with Religious Settlements is that whichever culture giving Pantheon that fits your terrain (God of the Open Sky, Goddess of Festivals, Oral Tradition, Religious Idols, Sacred Path) is going to be roughly as good at expanding borders and will also have other benefits. With the way the map generator clusters resources and terrain, whichever Pantheon is useful in your capital is also going to be useful in some of your other cities.

And the problem with the Krepost is that it is a Barracks (pretty useless in satellites) instead of a Wall (sometimes useful in satellites, and no maintenance).

I agree that America's UA, and buying tiles in general, is vastly underrated.

I was interested in opinions on God King but there doesn't seem to be any... :S

This thread was pre-BNW, so none of the BNW pantheons were included.

re Dance of the Aurora:

My limited experience with rare Tundra starts has been that they include a lot of Tundra tiles with plenty of resources, especially sea-based resources, which make up for the otherwise-barren tundra itself. Early faith generation from Dance of the Aurora will almost always beat out Desert Folklore, simply because there are generally more workable Tundra tiles (i.e. with resources) than Desert tiles with the same. And, with the right beliefs, being able to generate boatloads of faith can make up for a lot of the deficits of a tundra start.

The problem, though, is that Dance of the Aurora usually competes head-on with Goddess of the Hunt: Tundra areas tend to have tons of Camp-able resources, making the food bonus from GotH almost impossible to ignore.

So it's not that Dance of the Aurora sucks, in my opinion, it's that in any situation where DotA is appealing, Goddess of the Hunt is likely to be more appealing.

I think this poll is too open-ended. Another preference for the resource-specific pantheon beliefs, is to rate as if there are 3 of said resource next to your city. Hence, you would rate STONE CIRCLES as if there are 3 stone/marble close by?

Is that accurate?

Most pantheons range from 5 to 0 depending on the terrain. Thats why most of these are a 3 on average to me.

1 - Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization - Pretty weak compared to other culture pantheons
2 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest - Great with tundra starts, worthless otherwise. Would be a 3 but most of my tundra starts have lots of forest tiles.
3 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles - Great with desert starts, worthless otherwise
1 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city - Pretty lackluster as I'm usually offensive
3 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate - Growth is great but I think it only applies to excess food and not total food.
1 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+ - Just lackluster
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures - Great with lots of pastures, worthless otherwise.
3 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats - Great with lots of sea resources, worthless otherwise.
0 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city - You'd have to win a battle once every 4 turns to equal the faith generated by working 1 resource of the other pantheons. Basically never take
3 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense - Great with lots of wine and incense resources, worthless otherwise.
2 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+ - takes a while to kick in
2 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength - Great for defense but I'm usually on the offensive
3 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps - Great with lots of camps, worthless otherwise.
3 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route - Decent science boost. Great for Venice.
2 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders - Somewhat useful on lower difficulties, worthless on immortal/diety.
2 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders - Great with Natural wonders, worthless otherwise. I don't get many NWs anyways
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations - Great with lots of plantations, worthless otherwise.
3 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver - Great with lots of gold/silver, worthless otherwise.
2 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth - decent with liberty, funny with shoshone + tradition. There are usually better options though
3 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles - Great with lots of jungle, worthless otherwise.
2 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers - Decent with lots of rivers, worthless otherwise
2 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries - Great with lots of stone/marble, worthless otherwise.

my vote. agree with benito, depends a lot on the terrain.

3- Ancestor Worship: +1 Culture for every Shrine in your civilization
1 - Dance of the Aurora: +1 Faith from Tundra tiles without Forest [if i get a tundra start, i re-load the game]
3 - Desert Folklore: +1 Faith from Desert tiles [what i get if i am lucky to get the right start. low rating bc tht doesn't happen often]
3 - Faith Healers: +30 HP healed per turn if adjacent to a friendly city
4 - Fertility Rites: 10% faster Growth Rate [growth is always good, right? kicks ass with tradition start]
3 - God of Craftsmen: +1 Production in cities with population of 3+ [tried it, meh.]
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures
4 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats [awesome on an islands map]
3 - God of War: Gain Faith if you win a battle within 4 tiles if your city [i prefer goddess of protection]
5 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense [what i get if i have the requisite luxes]
4 - Goddess of Love: +1 Happiness from cities with population of 6+ [much better than sacred waters, IMO]
4 - Goddess of Protection: +30% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength [love it when playing tall]
1 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Hunting Camps [i never use this one]
5 - Messenger of the Gods: +2 Science in cities with a Trade Route [what i use if i don't have gold, silver, wine or incense]
1 - Monument to the Gods: +15% Production of Ancient/Classical Wonders [i hate anything that doesn't last the whole game]
1 - One with Nature: +2 Faith from Natural Wonders [not often that i get wonders in my borders
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Plantations
5 - Religious Idols: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Gold and Silver [what i get if i have the requisite luxes]
1 - Religious Settlements: +15% faster border growth [never used this one either]
4 - Sacred Path: +1 Culture from Jungle tiles [pretty fun with iriquois]
1 - Sacred Waters: +1 Happiness from cities on rivers [i hate this one because i typically have at most 2 cities on a river]
3 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries