[Vote] (9-54) God-King Nerf

[hokath]

Motivation:
God-King is one of those super powerful choices that is meant to be held back by its ability to found, effectively reserving it for Faith civs and lower difficulties.
However, it actually has a non-zero amount of Faith on it.
"+2 Faith and Production from the Palace. +1 Faith, Gold, Science, Culture, and Golden Age Points in your Capital/Holy City for every 5 Followers of your Pantheon in owned Cities."
If we compare it to Ancestor Worship
+1 Faith for every 4 Citizens in the City. +2 Faith and +1 Culture from Councils.
We can see that Ancestor worship is almost strictly dominated!
This doesn't really make sense to me. Especially when we consider that Ancestor Worship is also one of these "hard" pantheons, where the selling point is a faith/citizen scaling in the later parts of the game.

---

The simplest way to create a distinction between these options is
Remove the 1 Faith / 5 Followers from God-King

---

References:
There is related, but separate, discussion here

Thread '(9-WD) Goddess of Renewal'

Jan 2, 2026

Motivation:
For some ineffable reason known only to the Goddess, this Pantheon does not reward Faith from its building.
This makes it very hard to found with for in my opinion no good reason.
If someone has one, please let us know in the thread.

---

Proposal:
Change Goddess of Renewal +2 Science to +2 Faith on the Market

• hokath
• Replies: 20
• Forum: Failed Proposals

• 

 

[Stalker0]

What is the Ancestor Worship buff you noted in your title?

 

[Stalker0]

So just noting God King is already one of the hardest pantheons to found with. This will make it virtually impossible.

I'm not saying non founding religions couldn't have a place in the game, but just noting that is where we are at with this change.

 

[pineappledan]

How is ancestor worship dominated? It’s one of the most reliable founders while god king is one of the riskiest.

 

[Anarcomu]

I think Hokath is underestimating the +2 from council, which actually brings a lot of early faith to the pantheon.

 

[Alpakinator]

I agree God-King is one of the strongest economic pantheons (I think it's the strongest on mixed terrain starts), and I bashed Ancestor worship in the past for its weakness. But I realised that founding early is important enough that it's often worth to sacrifice long term God-King yields for the early of Ancestor Worship.

This change nerfs God-King too much as Skalker0 said. I feel like God-King doesn't really need a nerf. Maybe I'd change God-King to be one per 6 citizens and maybe increase Palaceby 1.

 

[redrum68]

I agree God-King is one of the strongest economic pantheons (I think it's the strongest on mixed terrain starts), and I bashed Ancestor worship in the past for its weakness. But I realised that founding early is important enough that it's often worth to sacrifice long term God-King yields for the early of Ancestor Worship.

This change nerfs God-King too much as Skalker0 said. I feel like God-King doesn't really need a nerf. Maybe I'd change God-King to be one per 6 citizens and maybe increase Palaceby 1.

I agree that this nerfs God-King too much but I think it does need a nerf. Though I wouldn't mess with its faith generation as that is already on the lower end, I would just remove 1 of the yields from the per citizen list.

 

[hokath]

What is the Ancestor Worship buff you noted in your title?

My mistake, I remembered it was 1/5, but it is already 1/4. Otherwise I was going to suggest buffing it.

underestimating the +2 from council, which actually brings a lot of early faith to the pantheon.

founding early is important enough

Yes, there is this possibility for a bit more faith early
(but God-King has +3 Faith on adopt which is instantly online. I think that's just too high)
Since Faith/Pop already exists on Ancestor Worship, it makes sense to create a real point of difference.

I wouldn't mess with its faith generation as that is already on the lower end

This is indeed my approach, trying to realize the sentiment that it is
"effectively reserved for Faith civs"
criterion: so requiring an India, Ethiopia, or similar kit.
We seem to vary with this so if you want to motivate an alternative change, I'm interested to hear.

 

[redrum68]

This is indeed my approach, trying to realize the sentiment that it is
"effectively reserved for Faith civs"
criterion: so requiring an India, Ethiopia, or similar kit.
We seem to vary with this so if you want to motivate an alternative change, I'm interested to hear.

I wouldn't go that far. You can still take it as a non-religious civ but its a bit of a gamble on whether you will found then. But just nerfing non-faith yields a bit I think would be good.

I took God King in my current deity Ottoman game and founded the last religion on T102. Ottomans don't have any bonus faith and I didn't really get any other considerable RNG based sources either (CS, monopoly, etc).

 

[hokath]

I believe it is the only pantheon with golden age points...

 

[Stalker0]

Yes, there is this possibility for a bit more faith early
(but God-King has +3 Faith on adopt which is instantly online. I think that's just too high)
Since Faith/Pop already exists on Ancestor Worship, it makes sense to create a real point of difference.

Its not a "possibility", when you play Ancestor Worship its what you do. You go councils fast because they are well buffed, and your faith expands out quickly.

Yes God-King might get 3 faith off the bat (maybe, 5 followers at the onset is not guarranteed, but I would say most likely), but that scaling is slooooooooow for the next 80ish turns (aka the founding window). Getting to 10 followers...maybe....getting to 15 is very very challenging. So what you got faith wise at the beginning is basically all you get...and in my experience, often too slow for founding without a lot of secondary factors (faith CS, faith NWs, etc).

Ultimately God-King's "lack of faith" is not the issue (if there even is one), its already one of the worst founders in the game. The only potential problem is its yields scaling, and that's not really addressed here. I agree with Redrum that the far better change here is to remove one of the other yields from the scaler.



I also want to take a moment to note that this is a classic example of "similar on paper vs similar in play". Sure on paper there are some similarities between AW and GK. But anyone who uses these pantheons reguarly knows that they play night and day differently. My entire strategy for the two is different, what conditions I choose to use one over the other is different, etc etc.

I don't care a lick about two things that seem similar, if the gameplay is unique and interesting. Paper doesn't matter, Play does.

 

[redrum68]

Its not a "possibility", when you play Ancestor Worship its what you do. You go councils fast because they are well buffed, and your faith expands out quickly.

Yes God-King might get 3 faith off the bat (maybe, 5 followers at the onset is not guarranteed, but I would say most likely), but that scaling is slooooooooow for the next 80ish turns (aka the founding window). Getting to 10 followers...maybe....getting to 15 is very very challenging. So what you got faith wise at the beginning is basically all you get...and in my experience, often too slow for founding without a lot of secondary factors (faith CS, faith NWs, etc).

Ultimately God-King's "lack of faith" is not the issue (if there even is one), its already one of the worst founders in the game. The only potential problem is its yields scaling, and that's not really addressed here. I agree with Redrum that the far better change here is to remove one of the other yields from the scaler.



I also want to take a moment to note that this is a classic example of "similar on paper vs similar in play". Sure on paper there are some similarities between AW and GK. But anyone who uses these pantheons reguarly knows that they play night and day differently. My entire strategy for the two is different, what conditions I choose to use one over the other is different, etc etc.

I don't care a lick about two things that seem similar, if the gameplay is unique and interesting. Paper doesn't matter, Play does.

Yeah if anything God King and Tutelary Gods play much more similarly. Both are lower faith at the start and take some time to get going but have quite strong scaling yields (per follower vs per city).

 

[pineappledan]

but God-King has +3 Faith on adopt which is instantly online

Ancestor worship is also “instantly online” for anyone who isn’t India, with the bare minimum of planning.

 

[hokath]

You would build Council first in your second, third, fourth city? Before Monument or Well?

 

[azum4roll]

I go Monument -> Council with Ancestor Worship.

 

[Stalker0]

I go Monument -> Council with Ancestor Worship.

Or I will go council -> monument in some cases, depends if I need the border expansion (also if I go progress the science is culture as well so that's a factor).

To Hokath's question, an enthusiastic yes. That's the entire point of AW, councils go from a "yeah I'll get around to it" to "oh yeah, lets go"

 

[hokath]

I sponsor this

 

[azum4roll]

I've never picked God-King, but the premise of this proposal is wrong, so I can't vote for it.

 

[Recursive]

Timestamp post to arrange all the threads in a neat order.