Going for Gold: Pantheons

[Owlbebach]

Congratualtions, someone else made the investment for you. Alternatively, building Stonehenge with those extra yields is likely to produce a religion as well.

First of all Stonehenge gets built to early for that to be true. But even if you manage to pull that off - your religion will be absolute crapp. With such a small faith income you'll be able to spread only if you play on Prince.

Congratualtions, someone else made the investment for you.

This is true, with an exception that you get bad Holy City and likely bad beliefs. The only real problem is that you can immediately enhance, because you accumulated faith and your Great Prophet is cheaper. This particular part really shoould be addressed. Maybe something like whipe out all your faith when you conquer a religion

 

[YukiN]

First of all Stonehenge gets built to early for that to be true. But even if you manage to pull that off - your religion will be absolute crapp. With such a small faith income you'll be able to spread only if you play on Prince.

Basing religion strategy on a world wonder is questionable at best, which is why I only mentioned it in passing. Nevertheless, you can forgo some other forms of development if you can count on GoAC to shore up your yields later. The bigger concern for me is that you might just straight up lose the race. I also agree on the lack of faith for spreading. However, this may matter somewhat less for small Tradition civs that don't really plan to spread very much, which are the civs most likely to take GoAC anyway; other pantheons inherently scale better with wide play. The changes to St Basils seem quite painful for that idea though. In other words, I agree with you but the problems may not be as big as they immediately seem.

In any case, the problem with GoAC seems to be that the yields come almost immediately, are well rounded and convertible, and are all in the capital. GoAC is thus more powerful than it initially appears, but it's a numbers problem and the nerfs the others have proposed seem reasonable enough.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

I think GoAC is way too strong, but also quite hard to properly balance, so I'd be ok with eliminating it from the game or turning it into a normal pantheon (that's meant to found with).

 

[Owlbebach]

However, this may matter somewhat less for small Tradition civs that don't really plan to spread very much, which are the civs most likely to take GoAC anyway; other pantheons inherently scale better with wide play.

Wrong again, GoAC with Tradition makes no sense. Tradition has huge natural advantage in founding and it is silly not to use it, moreover your capital is naaturally strong enough. You take GoAC only with Progress and Authority. At least this is how it should be, cause as we all agree - it is OP in terms of culture

 

[Bromar1]

First of all Stonehenge gets built to early for that to be true. But even if you manage to pull that off - your religion will be absolute crapp. With such a small faith income you'll be able to spread only if you play on Prince.

This is true, with an exception that you get bad Holy City and likely bad beliefs. The only real problem is that you can immediately enhance, because you accumulated faith and your Great Prophet is cheaper. This particular part really shoould be addressed. Maybe something like whipe out all your faith when you conquer a religion

Recently saw a game where Sweden captured a holy city and then spawned 3 prophets instantly

 

[Owlbebach]

Recently saw a game where Sweden captured a holy city and then spawned 3 prophets instantly

Yeah this is exactly what i'm saying about. I think this one part is broken.

Otherwise i think it would be good to have at least one more non-founding Pantheon

 

[Stalker0]

Didn’t we talk about having the yields scale based on turn number to balance that belief put more?

 

[chicorbeef]

Owl no pantheon requires you to commit to it wholeheartedly. There are plenty of non-terrain based pantheons (Wisdom, Commerce, Fertility, Ancestors, War) and most pantheons provide yields even when not aiming for Religion. I do consider it a bad pantheon that simply gives you a bucket of free non-scaling yields for giving up Religion.

I also never see the AI take it.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Just to clarify, I've seen the AI take GoAC both on Immortal and Deity. Not often, but let's say once per 5 games.

 

[Owlbebach]

Owl no pantheon requires you to commit to it wholeheartedly. There are plenty of non-terrain based pantheons (Wisdom, Commerce, Fertility, Ancestors, War) and most pantheons provide yields even when not aiming for Religion. I do consider it a bad pantheon that simply gives you a bucket of free non-scaling yields for giving up Religion.

I also never see the AI take it.

I do not. I think it is a good thing to have such option.

As for the AI - that is an AI problem, not the pantheon problem, isn't it?

 

[CrazyG]

Wrong again, GoAC with Tradition makes no sense. Tradition has huge natural advantage in founding and it is silly not to use it, moreover your capital is naaturally strong enough. You take GoAC only with Progress and Authority. At least this is how it should be, cause as we all agree - it is OP in terms of culture

Don't be a jerk. God of All Creation is a good pantheon for basically any scenario, so long as the map you are playing has at least 8 players. Its great with tradition, you end up so far ahead in culture. It makes sitting on just your capital really appealing, I don't think you need to build settlers unless you want to settle horses or rush a monopoly bonus.

I recently had a game as tradition Maya where I'm very confident the correct play was to take GoAC and skip religion. The other pantheons would have given me like 4 or 5 yields the turn I founded, it gave me 16. It takes a very long time for pantheons that are linked to terrain to catch up to GoAC in total yields, and they require a lot of work. I think its better than some of the Celtic pantheons, like Ogma (and Ogma isn't bad).

 

[Bromar1]

Don't be a jerk. God of All Creation is a good pantheon for basically any scenario, so long as the map you are playing has at least 8 players. Its great with tradition, you end up so far ahead in culture. It makes sitting on just your capital really appealing, I don't think you need to build settlers unless you want to settle horses or rush a monopoly bonus.

I recently had a game as tradition Maya where I'm very confident the correct play was to take GoAC and skip religion. The other pantheons would have given me like 4 or 5 yields the turn I founded, it gave me 16. It takes a very long time for pantheons that are linked to terrain to catch up to GoAC in total yields, and they require a lot of work. I think its better than some of the Celtic pantheons, like Ogma (and Ogma isn't bad).

It's all about reading the situation. I have founded with low faith pantheons few times. It can work if you have faith monopolies, natural wonders, or religious city states that you can ally early

 

[CrazyG]

It's all about reading the situation. I have founded with low faith pantheons few times. It can work if you have faith monopolies, natural wonders, or religious city states that you can ally early

The thing is God of All Creation really has no weakness if you can take someone else's religion, which is really easy to do when you are swimming in culture, science, gold and production. Your "weak" faith output will still get a great prophet and you can enhance quickly. Its a strategy without weaknesses.

All other pantheons have something they are bad at. Even if you get a crazy desert start and take spirit of the desert, it still doesn't give science or culture.

 

[Bromar1]

The thing is God of All Creation really has no weakness if you can take someone else's religion, which is really easy to do when you are swimming in culture, science, gold and production. Your "weak" faith output will still get a great prophet and you can enhance quickly. Its a strategy without weaknesses.

All other pantheons have something they are bad at. Even if you get a crazy desert start and take spirit of the desert, it still doesn't give science or culture.

What about removing the faith on monuments, making it even less likely to found?

 

[chicorbeef]

What about removing the faith on monuments, making it even less likely to found?

If you steal a Religion (which is what exactly what GoAC aims for most of the time) this is irrelevant.

 

[ElliotS]

The thing is God of All Creation really has no weakness if you can take someone else's religion, which is really easy to do when you are swimming in culture, science, gold and production. Your "weak" faith output will still get a great prophet and you can enhance quickly. Its a strategy without weaknesses.

All other pantheons have something they are bad at. Even if you get a crazy desert start and take spirit of the desert, it still doesn't give science or culture.

How do you think the following change would affect balance:
When you have no religion and take a holy city, all your faith disappears. (It was faith for another religion, and you've got a new state religion.)

You don't get the instant enhance, so the best part of the strategy is gone.

The extra yields on the way to stealing a religion is still strong (maybe too strong) but the overall benefit drops by a lot while the risk and fail conditions stay the same.

 

[YukiN]

How do you think the following change would affect balance:
When you have no religion and take a holy city, all your faith disappears. (It was faith for another religion, and you've got a new state religion.)

You don't get the instant enhance, so the best part of the strategy is gone.

The extra yields on the way to stealing a religion is still strong (maybe too strong) but the overall benefit drops by a lot while the risk and fail conditions stay the same.

I think this is fine. The lower GP cost probably means you can enhance earlier or around the same time as other religions anyway.

 

[CrazyG]

When you have no religion and take a holy city, all your faith disappears. (It was faith for another religion, and you've got a new state religion.)

You need to add a condition that all religions have been founded, I could get a holy city while trying to get my own religion. However, then we have a situation where you get around this loss of faith. I think ts just messy no matter how you do it. We shouldn't redo how a religion is made for one pantheon.

 

[ElliotS]

You need to add a condition that all religions have been founded, I could get a holy city while trying to get my own religion. However, then we have a situation where you get around this loss of faith. I think ts just messy no matter how you do it. We shouldn't redo how a religion is made for one pantheon.

It's a problem with other Pantheons, this is just the best one. I can grab goddess of protection and use the bonus to warring to get a holy city pretty well.

Hell when someone near me founds before me I sometimes DoW for the instant enhance if their beliefs are good even when gunning for a religion. It gives you a massive advantage.

Also you never accidentally capture a holy city. If you want to found a religion leave it sitting for a few more turns. How many games have a civ found a religion while losing a war and you're ready to take their holy city but gosh darnit you're 40 turns off of your religion and the city will be taken by someone else by then?

Doesn't seem super likely, and considering you can just take it out then instead I think it's totally fine.

 

[Owlbebach]

When you have no religion and take a holy city, all your faith disappears. (It was faith for another religion, and you've got a new state religion.)

You don't get the instant enhance, so the best part of the strategy is gone.

That is exactly what i think is necessary. I do not see any downside in this change. You only need to check if you already have a religion, cause it would be awkward to loose all your faith when you actually have your own religion