Balance — Religion and Faith

[Funak]

Speaking of, yes you can research Fishing before founding a pantheon if you want to see if God of Sea is worthwhile. But researching Fishing is a huge cost! Its way out of the way and its the only base resource reveal on tier 2 techs. It doesnt unlock any buildings/wonders or techs!

Then you still have to spend production to get +1 hammer +1 faith. +3 food in the coastal city is actually sometimes sad because all you have are food tiles to work, so you can't convert the +3 food into something else.

The pantheon doesn't suck, but I think +1 hammer +2 faith would put it in a good spot.

You don't necessarily need to rush fishing to see if you have fish nearby (although God of the Sea is fairly useless before you have access to fishingboats) just seeing that you have crabs or whales as a monopoly-resource makes it a decent choice. Also again you can usually tell if you have fish nearby by how the terrain looks and by absence of other resources.

 

[Atlas627]

You don't necessarily need to rush fishing to see if you have fish nearby (although God of the Sea is fairly useless before you have access to fishingboats) just seeing that you have crabs or whales as a monopoly-resource makes it a decent choice. Also again you can usually tell if you have fish nearby by how the terrain looks and by absence of other resources.

The absence of other resources has not been reliable, because 1) you need to reveal the other resources and 2) not all areas are meant to be equally fertile in map generation. All I know is "my zone" is equally fertile as someone else's, but that doesn't tell me where/if I have fish.

And not having Fish usually makes this a bad pantheon, since you are still constructing Fishing Boats to recupe your hammer cost while making less faith than you would if you had taken any other pantheon that just uses the workers you already have excess of.

 

[Funak]

The absence of other resources has not been reliable, because 1) you need to reveal the other resources and 2) not all areas are meant to be equally fertile in map generation. All I know is "my zone" is equally fertile as someone else's, but that doesn't tell me where/if I have fish.

And not having Fish usually makes this a bad pantheon, since you are still constructing Fishing Boats to recupe your hammer cost while making less faith than you would if you had taken any other pantheon that just uses the workers you already have excess of.

Fish-based monopoly means you should be able to get 5 sources with 2 cities, it also means you should have a fair bit of coast, which should mean fish either way. It may not be 100% reliable, but it definitely works most of the time I go for it.

But if you're feeling that the pantheon is too unreliable, might I suggest letting it add 1 faith in each coastal city? Seems a bit more balanced than letting it provide twice the faith per tile compared to the other similar pantheons.

 

[Gidoza]

The balancing nightmare was referring to God-of-all-Creation, varying in effect between 2/2 culture/happiness on a duel map and 26/26 culture/happiness on a 26 civ map with the celts in the game and Byzantium grabbing the same pantheon as someone who has already picked.

Yes these aren't exactly realistic numbers, but even cutting it down to 16/16 which I know people play, it's still a problem.

Oh if it's just one Pantheon, then just delete it. I know that that's a cop-out, but it's honestly my 2-second assessment that actually seems pretty good.

 

[Funak]

Oh if it's just one Pantheon, then just delete it. I know that that's a cop-out, but it's honestly my 2-second assessment that actually seems pretty good.

Which is exactly what I suggested.

 

[Atlas627]

Fish-based monopoly means you should be able to get 5 sources with 2 cities, it also means you should have a fair bit of coast, which should mean fish either way. It may not be 100% reliable, but it definitely works most of the time I go for it.

But if you're feeling that the pantheon is too unreliable, might I suggest letting it add 1 faith in each coastal city? Seems a bit more balanced than letting it provide twice the faith per tile compared to the other similar pantheons.

+1 faith per coastal city might be enough. That's both more reliable and has less risk of overwhelmingly good scaling.

 

[Gidoza]

Hi, guys.

Do we have an extant list of all the Pantheons and their effects that's easily postable on the forum? I'd appreciate the list, as I'm going to do another review of the Pantheons in light of some of the recent modifications - testing out weak/strong ones, considering short-term/long-term, ect...thanks!

 

[Moi Magnus]

Hi, guys.

Do we have an extant list of all the Pantheons and their effects that's easily postable on the forum? I'd appreciate the list, as I'm going to do another review of the Pantheons in light of some of the recent modifications - testing out weak/strong ones, considering short-term/long-term, ect...thanks!

The wiki :
http://civ-5-cbp.wikia.com/wiki/Beliefs

 

[Gidoza]

The wiki :
http://civ-5-cbp.wikia.com/wiki/Beliefs

Thanks!

 

[Gidoza]

Hmmmmm...does anyone recall the stats and name of the random Pantheon that gave no Faith at all, but simply yields when borders expand?

 

[Glidergun]

Hmmmmm...does anyone recall the stats and name of the random Pantheon that gave no Faith at all, but simply yields when borders expand?

You're probably thinking of one of the Celtic special pantheons, none of which yield any faith because the UA gives them +3 per city. I think that one in particular is Epona, the Great Mare.

 

[Gidoza]

You're probably thinking of one of the Celtic special pantheons, none of which yield any faith because the UA gives them +3 per city. I think that one in particular is Epona, the Great Mare.

Nope, it wasn't Celtic - haven't touched them in months, so I wouldn't have seen it there.

 

[Tubbilicious]

Hmmmmm...does anyone recall the stats and name of the random Pantheon that gave no Faith at all, but simply yields when borders expand?

God of the Expanse?

 

[Gidoza]

God of the Expanse?

Nope, not that one! It still exists! Maybe I WAS imagining things...but in the end, I suppose it doesn't matter.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Is it just me or is there no reason not to take Pagoda?

Base 4 Faith 4 Culture 2 Food 2 Production 2 Gold which can easily turn into 66444 or even 88666 with 3 religions. Just compare this to any other thing, like Order's 2 Faith, Cathedral's 3F3G (with scaling gold tho, but how many farms are you even realistically going to work?), Synagogue's 3f2p, Mosque's 3f2s, Church 3f, etc. Nothing even compares. It gives so many yields everything else seems bad.

All that on a building the AI won't take and hates for some reason.

 

[Magil]

Is it just me or is there no reason not to take Pagoda?

Base 4 Faith 4 Culture 2 Food 2 Production 2 Gold which can easily turn into 66444 or even 88666 with 3 religions. Just compare this to any other thing, like Order's 2 Faith, Cathedral's 3F3G (with scaling gold tho, but how many farms are you even realistically going to work?), Synagogue's 3f2p, Mosque's 3f2s, Church 3f, etc. Nothing even compares. It gives so many yields everything else seems bad.

All that on a building the AI won't take and hates for some reason.

How many farms? Er, farms are pretty good with the adjacency bonuses. I seem to default to Cathedrals most of the time just because farm triangles are so great to grow cities, which is necessary to run specialists, which are needed for all kinds of things... Order is essentially a barracks isn't it? You need to look at the other bonuses besides the base yields. Synagogues I take as China because of the WotE day synergy.

Edit: After trying out Pagodas though... they do seem a bit strong. I feel like it shouldn't count your religion, or be +1 per religion or something.

 

[Stalker0]

I also likes orders for a military bent, but I agree on Pagodas. I had assumed for the longest time that it had to be your non-dominant religion to get the bonus....making it worthless to me. Once I realized it works by default, holy crap is it strong!

 

[Funak]

Is it just me or is there no reason not to take Pagoda?

Base 4 Faith 4 Culture 2 Food 2 Production 2 Gold which can easily turn into 66444 or even 88666 with 3 religions. Just compare this to any other thing, like Order's 2 Faith, Cathedral's 3F3G (with scaling gold tho, but how many farms are you even realistically going to work?), Synagogue's 3f2p, Mosque's 3f2s, Church 3f, etc. Nothing even compares. It gives so many yields everything else seems bad.

All that on a building the AI won't take and hates for some reason.

Think the point of the Pagoda is getting a bunch of yields(comparable to an early-game yield-belief) while still acting as a religious building (increasing pressure and so on)

I haven't picked it up in a while, but it probably can't be that bad, can it?