Deity: Early shrine or not?

[hr_oskar]

I've noticed that many deity level build orders feature a shrine somewhere in the first five items built by the capital. I wonder if there is some unquestioned assumption going on that early faith is such a priority.

Personally I've completely removed the shrine from my early build order, in nearly all cases. These are my reasons:

• Opportunity cost. Even before new techs your build list is stocked with options that are so important that every choice needs to be very strongly justified. I want scouts, monuments, military units, settlers, granary... the list only grows with every new tech.
• Early shrine doesn't reliably give you a pantheon. Back when I built shrines early on it would happen to me occasionally that I got no pantheon at all, or perhaps very late at 35-40 faith, only to see it replaced soon after by an AI's religion. With BNW I think this comes up more often now because more civs are going piety first, so pantheons come early and a religion gets enhanced fairly soon too.
• Even assuming you get a pantheon, you may not be able to pick a pantheon whose benefit will really justify the price you paid for it (in terms of opportunity, hammers and maintenance).
• Early shrine forces me to go for pottery first, which I don't necessarily want.
• In BNW I almost never want to found my own religion (except for some oddball piety games, which of course have their entertainment value). The cost of a religion on deity is hefty: I must pick a faith pantheon and I spend two prophets on the whole thing. In exchange I get a founder belief. I then probably have to spend more faith on missionaries and inquisitors to keep my religion around. Instead I could let a piety AI bring me their religion for free and gain a reformation belief in exchange for the founder belief. I'll earn a diplo bonus with them too. So early shrine for the chance to found a religion? No thanks. In some of my recent games I've gained prophets because of faith from CS's or natural wonders and have happily settled them for a holy site rather than waste them on getting my own religion.

What do other deity players think? Perhaps everyone agrees anyway and have long since stopped building early shrines? Or what?

 

[adwcta]

If my opener does not tech pottery, or if I'm building something else instead of shrine first... or if I know within 10turns that I have a close Piety neighbor... Then, assuming I'm in no position to get a religion, I don't build shrine.

Otherwise, Pantheon is too good. The AI takes a while to spread religion to you, since they prioritize enhance and faith buildings. You need something like 40 turns of active pantheon in 2 cities to pay off the gold and hammer cost of the shrine, or 15 turns of god-king. Everything else is bonus. You'll need shrines after that anyway for faith buildings (the earlier the cheaper). It also sets you up to better hit GS breakpoints later.

Only on very specific strategies do I not build the shrine. It's usually the second thing I finish building (after scout).

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[tommynt]

well on some maps (either island and u skip your own ruins or some tundra ice in your backyard for example) u could hope for a faith ruin after turn 20 instead.

But apart that, yes - i play never without religion and therefore need a shrine usually ... the early the better.

 

[Memoryjar]

I'm a baby Deity player, so...

I always build a shrine after scouts and monument. If I get a pantheon, cool. If I can have a religion, cool. If my neighbor religion is good it's some faith saved for stuffs like pagodas, mosques or the holy graal public school and labs.

 

[Vitruvius]

Shrine is low opportunity cost. It takes about 5 turns. The earlier you start accumulating faith the better. And you are building it before city gets big enough for settlers or developed enough for caravans.

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[hr_oskar]

Adwcta, I don't think any abstract math can provide a clear answer for the payoff of a pantheon. The sheer uncertainty of what those hammers could have yielded you if you had spent them on something other than the shrine is so great - it's all so situational. The pantheon itself is very situational, as the value of it depends on so much on your surroundings etc.

But I may well be underestimating it. Pantheons have actually become a lot better since BNW because of all the added options (some of which can be great, like sun god or god king), so there's almost always something decent to pick now (assuming standard map, 8 civs). I think I've just been bummed about the number of times I built my shrine and then never got a pantheon.

But why get a religion, assuming you didn't go piety? It just seems to me that you have to commit so much faith to that project that could otherwise be spent on buying the faith buildings that the AI's religion will bring you, or on GP's. I always feel like I have too many other important things to do.

 

[hr_oskar]

Vitruvius, I strongly disagree that it's low opportunity cost. For one thing I'm always hungry for archers early, to help steal workers or possibly even snipe an AI's settler coming my way, and to kill barbs for CS quests. Granary is another good option too which becomes available at the same time as the shrine.

But okay despite the (imo) high opportunity cost I guess you may all be right in saying it's worth it anyway. I think I'll start giving it a chance in my games.

 

[adwcta]

The pantheon is not situational. I mean, the ceiling is, but the floor is god-king (AI never takes this). You can 100% do math with god king. Its a really rare game that god king won't pay off compared to the 40 hammers for the shrine (for the record, that's like half a library).

Like I said, if you have something specific you need to be doing asap, like a wonder or a jaguar rush, then fine. Or, if you started within 10 tiles of an AI capital that went Piety, fine (even here you'd certainly get your investment back if you went tradition).

Its not that hard to do the math on what an earlier granary will give you (10 food total), then earlier caravan, etc, and add those up, shifting each by 40 hammers (it soon becomes irrelavent after the ancient era), add 2 turns of pop production, then one turn, then zero turns, and then calculate how many turns of god-king you would need to have to break even. It'll get you 95% of the way there on the math. And, unless you're getting an AI religion in your capital in the first 100 turns... it'll pay off in spades.

How does an archer help to steal a worker anyway? You already have a scout and a warrior.

Religion's a different (more situational) calculus, because you need to be able to keep it alive at reasonable costs. But the pantheon is a different story.

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[hr_oskar]

I've actually seen the AI take god-king. Once.

If I'm only stealing workers off a CS, then archers don't help. But I often steal from neighbouring AI's. In that situation, building my military early lets me stay in control, steal multiple workers and eventually cause enough damage to the neighbour to make it capitulate (either offering a city or all the gold and resources they have). But sure, the archer is situational too.

Overall though... point taken. I think you're probably right, so I'll rest my case.

 

[Justice1337]

I think just the Pantheon alone is worth it, provided you get it around Turn 30. I've often just built a Shrine to get a limited-use Pantheon like God of The Sea or Sun God.

Other Pantheons, obviously, are too good to pass up, such as Religious Idols, Goddess of Festivals or Desert Folklore. With the right start, they're enough on their own to get a Religion. But, I assume no one is talking about those starts.

On not getting a Pantheon, I don't know that I've ever seen an AI enhance with all 5 Pantheons taken before Turn 40'ish or so. Even at the time Ethiopia enhances, usually I am getting 4th or 5th Pantheon with Shrine second and I'm hoping some AI enhances so that none of the rest invest in Faith.

On opportunity cost, the issue is what to build instead. I rarely want an Archer or a second Scout as an alternative, even to a Pantheon like God King. Writing comes late enough that I can't build a Library in that window. I don't generally build Granary before the first Settler anymore. And if I am Tall I'm Tradition and don't need a Monument, while being Wide I am founding enough cities for Shrines to get me a Religion, so I'm unlikely to skip. I might build a Caravan if I'm within range of an AI, but that is what early game Gold is for. Worker second just has you improving tiles beyond the population you have to work them. I just don't see any of those alternatives as better than a Turn 30-40 Pantheon, worst case.