(G&K) Pantheons + GSs

I'm playing Persia conquest games on Emperor and Immortal. I'm relatively new to G&K, and I'm still trying to figure out which are the best Pantheons to fit my style.

Obviously the pantheons which give you faith for quarries, or faith and culture for gold and silver mines are the best, but these are often taken right off the bat by other AIs. Is it optimal to at least get some faith from your pantheon? Or is it better to get happiness, science or food? It seems to me pantheons can be incredibly powerful or relatively average, depending. What are some of the better ones for a conquest game with Persia that are still available after 3-4 Civs have selected?

It seems like if you don't get any faith from a pantheon or a Natural Wonder, one could go through the game with low faith levels, i.e. > 40 per turn in late game. Max faith seems the way to go to buy 2-4 GS.

Also, try to build GL, and or Oracle and PT, so I can generate at least 3 GS. What is the optimal usage of these? Should all be saved until late game when one might tech to Stealth? Or should one or more be converted into Academies? Which is best for science in late game conquests?

Thanks

Great Library sucks. Dont build it. Get an earlier National college instead.

Faith producing pantheons are usually best, especially when you expect to get a full religion and reap the rewards all game long. If you are lucky, you can get a faith pantheon before you settle you second and third cities and then when you do the pantheon is automatically applied to those cities.

Desert Folklore is often cited as the best, but it was different in GnK than it is in BnW so be careful. (does desert floodplains + folklore yield faith in GnK?)

Religion should absolutly give you happiness *somehow*. Even if you need to get some other AI religion I find the happiness is super valuable. I seem to recall ceremonial burial was good in GnK, but getting from shrines or something is also OK.

The buildings (pagodas, ect) are also really good, and the best way to get them is by having a faith generating pantheon that way you might not even need to build temples.

Thanks. I got Desert Folklore once, and it was incredible, ended up with 170+ faith by the late game. But, alas, that pantheon is rarely available. I don't understand how the AIs get pantheons so early, perhaps its one of their built in advantages at higher difficulty levels.

Founding makes your game more interesting, so I try most games. The most reliable way to found is an early shrine in cap, then a faith oriented pantheon, but you may not have the right dirt. At lower levels, Stonehenge is quite reliable. A faith-orient UA or UB also usually does the trick. With the latter two approaches, then you don’t need faith from your pantheon.

The religious buildings are all really good (well, monasteries are situational), so get them as soon as you can (so they cost less). I think you always want to build temples, every game.

The conventional wisdom for GS is plant them until your public schools are on-line (but be picky about where you plant), and that GS should be bulbed several many turns after research labs come on-line.

Late game conquest is also about having a tech lead on your opponents, so I think that if you wait to bulb until Stealth, then you have waited too long.

On the "GS should be bulbed several many turns after research labs come on-line" point, since GS bulbs are based on trailing 8 turns of science production, you want to wait until at least 8 turns after labs are up and fully stocked with specialists. To really maximize those bulbs, you would also work every other specialist slot (for the +2 beakers from Secularism) and work every trading post (for +1 science from Free Thought) for those 8 turns.

And if you really want to max your bulbs, you would have already converted as many farms to trading posts as possible (once you are doing your final bulb-fest, further population growth has little impact), but trading posts can take longer to build than you might think and you need a lot of workers for that, so you have to think 20+ turns ahead to take advantage of that.

Getting desert folklore :
The AI will go for it. You need to get there first. Dont bother if you dont have a desert

when I chooser my pantheon, I usualy look to the local dirt and think
"What will make this better?"

Some AI will build a faith building or have faith right from turn 1. (Celts, Etheopia), other times you (or the AI) will meet faith City States first (+8 faith gift). Two such CS, and a shrine early gives a very early pantheon. A lucky ancient ruin on turn 20 or so will give +20 faith.

On higher difficulties, the AI start with 2 settlers, allowing them to build 2 shrines, and so they get everything going that much faster.

On Diety, I often just try to get the pantheon and give up on religion. It just depends what I see happening early on. Faith is always valuable, even with a foreign religion, because you can buy engineers / scientists.

Pantheons are always worth it early.