Animal Husbandry can wait.

Is Animal Husbandry worth getting early?

Only if you are going to get Horseback soon after?

Agriculture gives you Farms and the Agriculture civic which is awesome. You are getting one more food out of farming a pig (as long as it is next to fresh water) as building a pasture on it. Sure you miss out on the health bonus but is it worth it. Should pastures benefit from Agriculture as well?

The extra hammers from the other tiles is kind of useful, but again better to build a couple of farms and just work plains forests. You aren't quite as efficient but early on you will be busy going for Godking which gives you +50% hammers in your capital. Sure its too techs for some people but the benefit is also more than twice as good in terms of production. Heaps better and you are on your way to founding a religion, etc.

Should pastures be more beneficial?

If you think it is important to get the culture and happiness from animal cages, getting husbandry early is improtant. Usually, the animals are gone if you postpone it too much. It seems like you pay some early to have some of your biggest cities a little happier toward he end of the game.

Capturing animals ASAP is a high priority on high difficulty settings. That's the real "pro" for Animal Husbandry.
About pastures, you mentioned a farmed pig tile, but you forgot that a pasture on a plain with cows nets 3 food and 3 hammers, and a pasture on a grassland with horse 2 food and 3 hammers and one commerce (or 1-4-1 on plains). You aren't getting any hammer (on the contrary you waste them) with just Agriculture. Lastly, you can't farm pigs and sheeps on hills and not until they are on irrigated tiles (rarely they start near rivers) .

jwin said:

If you think it is important to get the culture and happiness from animal cages, getting husbandry early is improtant. Usually, the animals are gone if you postpone it too much. It seems like you pay some early to have some of your biggest cities a little happier toward he end of the game.

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I think the bonus from cages is more important in the beginning. One more happy citizen can make a difference in the early game but not so much toward the end of the game. And about culture, cages are very, very good. There are many buildings in FFH, especially in the beginning, that provide a bonus to culture based on %. To mention them, they are Carnival (20%), Pagan Temple (10%), and religious temples (20%). But initially only the obelisk can provide the raw culture (+3) that can take benefit from those boni, and at the cost of 1 raw gold (and it's not a minor cost in the early game, IMO). Theatres aren't too far off if you research Drama early on, but they are so damn long to build... so in short the culture bonus from cages is really useful in the beginning. A must have if you want to try culture victory.

onedreamer said:

I think the bonus from cages is more important in the beginning. One more happy citizen can make a difference in the early game but not so much toward the end of the game.

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Cool. I'd agree about early game happiness being crucial. I didn't realise all races could build animal cages, I thought it was only Balseraphs!! This has upped my opinion of Animal Husbandry already.

onedreamer said:

And about culture, cages are very, very good. There are many buildings in FFH, especially in the beginning, that provide a bonus to culture based on %. To mention them, they are Carnival (20%), Pagan Temple (10%), and religious temples (20%). But initially only the obelisk can provide the raw culture (+3) that can take benefit from those boni, and at the cost of 1 raw gold (and it's not a minor cost in the early game, IMO). Theatres aren't too far off if you research Drama early on, but they are so damn long to build... so in short the culture bonus from cages is really useful in the beginning. A must have if you want to try culture victory.

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Have you had or been close to cultural victory? I thought it was still too long winded. Only an option if you're patient and already far ahead of everybody.

Cultural Victory is a pain compared to Vanilla, there are less wonders and less buildings that provide raw culture. Also, the other victory conditions are more interesting to achieve However there are civs and religions that can try that with good chances of success. I think Kuriotates are the best choice for a cultural win. Animal cages can be built by all civs, but Balseraphs can also enslave enemies with their taskmasters and put them in cages, adding to the number of cages they can have.

Thats very interesting onedreamer. I never thought of how capturing animals can be so crucial on higher difficulties (probably because I usualy dont do higher difficulties). Usually most people ignore animal capturing (animal husbandry tech) compared with what else they can and need to go for instead. Also its hard to capture animals unless u beeline and go for it. Cuz, as long as animal disapear quickly by replacing barb units it isnt that useful. I think everyone would rather have axemen destroying other civ's cities than going around getting animals with scouts or hunters to bring back and cage for only +1 hap and culture bonuses. Though now I see how it can be very good on higher difficulties, thanks one dreamer. If future versions, patches, or phases increases animal's importance or anoyance than capturing can be a more viable option to go for. The next version .022 is gonna do this with the lion prides, dens, baby spiders, etc. giving animals more of a role in the world of ffh2 and thus recon units and animal capture. Also, I've read that in future patches, the team hopes to have quests and dangerous areas to explore with maybe dangerous animals as well which would greatly help animals role. But, until than animal capture is a neat feature but not that important right now (at least on lower diffictulties).

m2m everyone can capture and cage animals, but the ONLY the balseraphs can CAGE SLAVES captured (freak show buildings). other civs can capture slaves with OO rel slavery civic but ONLY balseraphs can CAGE them into/as a building

Regarding cultural victories, I'd imagine temples of the overlords come in rather handy for extra raw culture - Kuriotates/Overlords looks like a doable combo, but without cathedrals it will still be longer than in vanilla.