After doing a lot of playtesting, here is where my rankings come in for Pantheons. Note that I am always ranking pantheons "in their element", obviously I'm not taking purity without lakes, etc etc. However, if I do have a pantheon that is just always good no matter what, I will give that a bump in the ranking. I am also going to ignore civ specific notes. If a pantheon is good but in just 1 civs hands, I don't consider that a high mark of balance.
S - Frankly too good, probably could use a tune down.
A - Rock solid, I think these are well balanced.
C - A bit sketchy at times, sometimes I really need the stars to align to make this good, but it gets the job done.
F - I never use this pantheon, there are generally always better options.
S - Frankly too good, probably could use a tune down.
A - Rock solid, I think these are well balanced.
C - A bit sketchy at times, sometimes I really need the stars to align to make this good, but it gets the job done.
F - I never use this pantheon, there are generally always better options.
- Ancestor Worship - A, the literal baseline of balance to me.
- Earth Mother - C, you really have to commit to iron early to ensure this is viable.
- All Creation - ?, I haven't taken this in a long time, as I generally always like to found.
- Commerce - A, with petra opener or trade focused progress civs it does very well.
- Craftsmen - F, its just too risky, too much has to go right for this to work.
- Expanse - C/F, its borderline for me. I really only use it for Russia, its pretty bad everywhere else.
- Open Sky - C on communitas because there are so many hills, probably A on other maps.
- Sea - S, with a water resource heavy start, guaranteed easy found, massive production bonus, more food, this thing is the moon and back.
- Stars and Sky - S, makes the Klondike start the best start.
- Sun - F, complete garbage I never touch it.
- War - S, no reason for a warmonger not to take this right now.
- God-King - ?, I need to play with this more. For India its amazing, but I'm curious if the founding can workable with a more shrine first opening (using the pantheon cutlure to cover you). If so its later scaling can't be matched.
- Beauty - A, very solid off a Stonehenge opener to bag several wonders, normally taken with Tradition civs.
- Festivals - C, can be tricky to play with, and you need a very niche scenario, but it can rock very well in that scenario.
- Nature - A, only reason this isn't S is you need terrain that gives you no benefit to get the bonus, which tends to balance it more. S for inca in most cases.
- Protection - A, very good culture benefit but takes real effort to get up and going.
- Purity - C, can give a nice start but I find unhappiness even with the river bonus just tends to ****** its benefits too much.
- Renewal - A, probably the best way to make a jungle start work.
- Springtime - C/F, C with the right setup but it has to be good, otherwise this can get lackluster quickly. It also hurts that several early lux you may not want to plantation right away.
- Home - F, garbage, I do not get the hype with this pantheon, every time I use it I'm like "why do you exist, you are so bad".
- Hunt - A, very nice with camp heavy starts, which are frequent enough. A good backup for Stars and Skies if its been taken.
- Wisdom - C, its ok but the specialist bonus weirdly is best to do through a merchant, the scientist just takes too long to get online.
- Spirit of the Desert - A, just great.
- Tutelary - A, for tradition starts I've really started to warm up to this pantheon. It has a lot of juice.
