Pantheon choice with screenshot. What would you do?

[DrakenKin]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=263711810

Obvious options :

1) 10% growth, always good.
2) +1 culture and faith from gold, there are 4 gold in range.
3) +1 food from camps, 3 of them in range.
4) Faith from desert. 7 desert tiles in range, 6 of them will be worked pretty early.

Here is what I am thinking :

Gold seems obvious, however early you want to grow, and with all the river tiles + camps, + sheep + oasis you won't be working the gold for a long while, so you would not be getting the faith and culture anyway and picking this pantheon would be a waste.

Big hesitation between picking food from camps or 10% growth. Camps would give a solid +3 food, how does that compare to 10% growth? I wish i knew the formulae for growth, does anyone here know the details of the math behind these and explain what would be more advantageous in this situation?

Last option, faith from desert, that's at least 6-7 faith very early from working river tiles anyway. Better than a mt sinai!

So, what would you do?

 

[jlim201]

Desert Folklore. Its much more likely another city will work at least a few flood plains than gold or a camp.

 

[joncnunn]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=263711810

Obvious options :

1) 10% growth, always good.
2) +1 culture and faith from gold, there are 4 gold in range.
3) +1 food from camps, 3 of them in range.
4) Faith from desert. 7 desert tiles in range, 6 of them will be worked pretty early.

First #3 would trump #1 even if only 2 were in range. (It would take an over 20 food surplus to get more than 2 food!) Of special note since these two are in the same category.

Next; #2 provides both culture and faith; and even if there were only 3 sources, it would also be better than food bonuses.

#4: Looking at the screen shot, I'm seeing a heck of a lot more desert tiles than that that you'll want to work. So in this case #4 is better than everything else.

 

[peterw1987]

I dunno about others, but for me, considering only this 1 city, usually I'll pick gold pantheon for faster growth.

Desert folklore might be good, but I dont think you will work any of the flood plain tiles before you reach civil service. (thus +3 faith only in earlier stage- 2 from desert gold and 1 from oasis).

Whereas, for gold tile, you will almost constantly work those tiles. (so +4faith culture even in the early stage)

 

[peterw1987]

Next; #2 provides both culture and faith; and even if there were only 3 sources, it would also be better than food bonuses.

There are 4 sources, so it makes the decision more complicated. And the thing is, culture later can be multiplied (e.g from Alhambra or Sistine chapel boost). Whereas faith is flat bonus throughout entire game. So culture value is higher than faith IMO.
(unless you are planning to dominate the world with your own religion)

 

[reddishrecue]

Desert folklore or goddess of the Hunt if available. Look for the pantheon that benefit the resources that are in the city radius. You could do god king also...

 

[Halcyan2]

Desert Folklore.

And go for Petra!

 

[Ryika]

Looks like the only real option to expand is north, where there's even more desert, tons and tons of it in fact... there's about 18 fpt visible (although much of it comes with a delay), just for the first 2 cities and you seem to be playing on a rather low difficulty, so massive amounts of faith will allow you to spread your religion all over the place. I'd absolutely go for desert folklore - and the fact that there's a maximum of 2 religious Civs in the game makes it an even easier choice for me.

 

[DrakenKin]

you seem to be playing on a rather low difficulty

Playing on immortal actually, and aiming for a sub 250 culture victory.

I ended up with food from camps, since growth and science was my priority, and i expanded to a second city that had 3 deers.

But I can see the argument for desert, especially with a second desert city and petra. Even if i aimed for science, i could have bought scientists with that much faith in the end. So in retrospect i agree, faith from desert was probably the most optimal play.

 

[Ryika]

Well, aiming for a turn 47 GL on immortal seemed kind of odd/risky to me, that's why I expected a lower difficulty. ^^ But if it worked out - well played, sir.

 

[DrakenKin]

It did work out, on immortal i can usually pull GL as long as i can manage to get it before turn 45-50.

From watching other people play, i should probably forget about GL and expand faster to 4 cities, but it's a bad habit from my emperor days and i did not find the motivation to kick it off yet.

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

I'd go with Desert Folklore.

Floodplains will help sustain your growth in you city, and more faith = More Great Persons to buy. Expand north on the desert river and you can get even more Faith to possibly even rival Ethiopia. Speaking of Ethiopia, they might get quite upset but nuts to them.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

First #3 would trump #1 even if only 2 were in range. (It would take an over 20 food surplus to get more than 2 food!) Of special note since these two are in the same category.

In my current game, my capital city (Madrid) has 2 dear and 3 furs within it's potential borders. I just had to select my pantheon and I chose Goddess of the Hunt. So is it ridiculously good luck to have five camps within your capital's borders and have Goddess of the Hunt? Is there any way I could lose Goddess of the Hunt? If so, what can I do to prevent this?

also: playing as Spain, I was tempted to take 'One with Nature.' Barcelona has the natural wonder that gives +10 gold (+20 for Spain!). So I believe I could have gotten +8 faith per-turn (usually +4 for OwN). However, I chose GotH instead. Plus 5 additional food in one city seemed just too good to pass up; although only one potential city founding spot has any more potential camps -and it has only two.

I'm fairly sure that I made the optimal choice. Would you have done the same? Thanks in advance.

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

I think it's tough not to take desert folklore when you've got a setup like that. I would think it'd be a gimme.

 

[DrakenKin]

Thomas, I would have made the same choice.

An on your question how not to lose GOTH, it depends a lot on your difficulty level. But I'd recommend you make a shrine as one of the first 4 things you make in your capitol (scout monument scout shrine maybe?), that should give you a good shot at getting a quick pantheon before the one you want gets taken.

Most AIs take the defensive pantheon (city ranged strength) first, so as long as you are in the first 2 or 3 people founding a pantheon you should be able to pick what you want. That should work well up to immortal, and maybe even deity. If you play on lower difficulties you probably don't need to be this quick on the shrine as the AIs are slower getting a panthon / religion.

 

[Myth and Legend]

Desert Folklore hands down. If you are only going to play with one city, then Religious Idols might also be worth considering. But why would you limit yourself to one city?

 

[poekie70]

desert folklore without a doubt as you will be working those flood plains for sure

 

[tetley]

Desert folklore, but I don't think it's hands down.

 

[subtledoctor]

I don't know, if you're going for CV then it seems faith+culture from gold might, with 4 sources, actually trump Desert Folklore in this instance. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the bonus doesn't require a mine, right? You can irrigate two of those gold tiles, meaning you can comfortably work 2 before Civil Service, and all four pretty immediately after.

Granted that's only half a Stonehenge until CS, so you would need to supplement it with a few shrines to make sure you get a good religion; but that's pretty easy. And long-term, the extra culture and tourism from those tiles will be worth more than extra faith. In fact the extra faith DF will provide (call it ~10 fpt, vs. 4 for just the gold, so a difference of 6) over the course of the whole game probably won't even buy a single extra Great Artist/Writer/Musician.

 

[Blueboots]

Someone mentioned God-King earlier. Do people consider this pantheon as a first (or stable) pick?