[GS] Advice: Religious Settlements vs Other Pantheons

[Ihodael]

Was looking for some advice/sanity check on pantheon choices, from the experts (couldn't find any up to date discussion on this - apologies if I missed it).

If we take out Religious victories, is Religious Settlements always the best choice vs other pantheons? Which other pantheons can compete and in which situations?

E.g., game I'm playing I have a bunch of pastures available (a dozen or so). However I'm still very much inclined to taking RS - getting those pastures up and running will take me many turns (to get settlers and builders) and force me to use earlier builder charges (the longer I take the less relevant the pantheon will be).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Edit: Found another thread elsewhere on the forum on it. Feel dumb. It seems RS does top it almost always...

 

[Victoria]

It seems RS does top it almost always..

With a few camps, +1 production and +1 food does make them quite strong. It also changes a plains deer tile significantly as it lacks food otherwise. Truffles,furs and eles are also great tiles without this that become greater.
+1 to fishing boats may not seem like much but it can seriously better a coastal civ. there is a biting point when a coastal civ takes off and it just helps, even without Auckland. I am seeing a lot more double turtle reef tiles and these are seriously awesome tiles early with god of the sea.
It is a very good point about builders early, camps get food and prod, sea tiles need to be worked relatively early anyway and for Kupe it removes the need for provision.
With pastures (and plantations) there is a feeling of I need to get more builders out and you can sacrifice critical early time doing so for a reward that does not scale with the game and can be got easily through Pingala.
In essence fishing boats are got anyway for the needs of housing and gold and I have relayed the first 100 turns on the same game using both for comparison... the boats help settlers come out, just like the camps do, so that free settler is sort of caught up with and the tile improvement lasts all game.
I thought I would mention it here as it is not stressed enough in the other thread, but then again, just my view.

 

[Stacked_Deck]

I think the biggest consideration is that on immortal or deity it's very rarely available for the player, I've had first meets with a Religious CS and was still beaten to the punch. Since the last patch I think I've only been able to get it as Master Money.

I've also done enough appeal based culture wins that I get a lot of mileage out of Earth Goddess. Faith is a fantastic currency regardless of VC and with a bit of careful planning you can reap lots of it.

I'm awful at generating culture, so on the right maps plantations and pastures can be beneficial, but that's purely because of my playstyle.

 

[Sykes179]

I'm a big fan of divine spark. Especially if you want a religion because you need all the help you can get to get enough GP points in time. I'm also very keen on Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi so the extra great person points are vital. Of course they help later on as well just not as noticeably.

God of the Sea can be great on the right map especially as I'm a liot keener on coastal cities than a lot of people on here. I did Fire Goddess once when I was Rome on true start Europe map as my capital was near a volcano. If you have a strong early unique unit then I suppose God of the Forge is a possibility.

 

[Archon_Wing]

If you get it in the first dozen or so turns, having another city is just too large of an advantage.

But what if it shows up later on? The faith pantheons become much more interesting. If you can get a classical golden age, it can be very strong with monumentality. But if you can't, then it's a bad idea.

The pasture pantheon is great, but those pastures need to be actually there and improved. If not then it's just a pipe dream.

Basically, don't fall for pipe dreams!