Going for Gold: Pantheons

[azum4roll]

2) That's why I opt to put 1 on Monuments instead of 1 , and put that on quarries that come later.
4) Are you sure you want ITRs as Morocco?

 

[CrazyG]

Right now the only time I really take Craftsmen is on Jade, which already get 1 culture when improved. I think the problem is that two quarries, Lapis and Amber, have no connection to the stoneworks. So the number of starts where I seriously consider craftsmen is just pretty small.

I still prefer this for Craftsmen: +1 Faith, Production and Culture from Quarries. +1 Gold and Production from Stone Works. +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Monuments.

This is barely any easier to found with than the current version, but long term it is way better. I really wish we could move away from that, and just chill the faith on a few other beliefs.

 

[Stalker0]

4) Are you sure you want ITRs as Morocco?

Hehe I knew someone would mention this! The answer is an emphatic yes in the early game. You really cannot beat the incredible boost that ITRs give you to city development right at the beginning.

Beyond that, there are two reasons:

1) Morocco's TR bonus starts out pretty small. Its useful of course, but I find its better to get some ITRs started for infrastructure in the first round of TRs. And then go for ETRs as my era multiplier goes up and the bonuses get better.
2) An X factor with ETRs are barbarians. Early game it is hard to defend your TRs from barbs, you just don't have that many units yet, and one sneaky barb can rob you of a ton of work. ITRs are much safer until you have the forces to venture out and guard your routes.

 

[azum4roll]

This is barely any easier to found with than the current version, but long term it is way better. I really wish we could move away from that, and just chill the faith on a few other beliefs.

I think with the faith coming earlier it's okay. You get 2 faith per city with 1 quarry per city, and 1 faith comes earlier. If the culture is too much we can always move that to Stone Works.

 

[Gidoza]

I think with the faith coming earlier it's okay. You get 2 faith per city with 1 quarry per city, and 1 faith comes earlier. If the culture is too much we can always move that to Stone Works.

I just think that if the Pantheon allows building of Quarries itself, having an easier founding day will follow. Translation: let all resource Pantheons have access to their improvements at the same general time, even if the techs themselves remain the same.

 

[azum4roll]

I just think that if the Pantheon allows building of Quarries itself, having an easier founding day will follow. Translation: let all resource Pantheons have access to their improvements at the same general time, even if the techs themselves remain the same.

That's probably new code.

 

[andersw]

I go monument -> shrine in my 2nd and third cities, and I think this is where craftsmen can trip you up a bit. With that solid monument bonus, you clearly want an early monument. But even with this amazing start, Craftsmen is very faith lite. Even going shrine first in my 4th and 5th cities (and with 1 quarry in my 5th city)....I founded on Turn 101. On an Immortal Start, that is on the razor's edge of not founding (I consider turn 100 a viable founder on Immortal, otherwise, your just gambling).

Now on the one hand, maybe craftsmen is better positioned for a Tradition play, and with that extra +3 faith it would make a big difference. On the other, the science from progress gets me the techs I need to start the Maus sooner, the extra worker, helps get the quarries going...and of course the +3 food helps compensate for the food lite quarries. So while tradition might help you found easier, I think progress has better synergy with this start. Ultimately I probably should have gone shrine first in my 2nd city to be more comfortable. Granted, that culture has been a godsend to get me in line for good wonders, but I think if I had done that, I could have likely gone monument 1st in the 3rd and 4th cities and still had a more comfortable faith position with a decent culture output.

But I did manage to found, and now I have a beastly production capital. Another side benefit of this opener is the availability of Stone works in my satellite cities. I am able to put 2 hammer ITRS to my capital. So now I've got a bonus +19 hammers, 14 from ITRs, and 5 from craftsmen. That's a +73% hammer boost from my capitals base production....huge!!! I am building the hanging gardens in 6 turns.

So overall, with this amazing start, I was able to make craftsmen work very well. The notes:

1) Craftsmen's niche is a quarry heavy opener where a Maus rush looks viable.
2) The monument bonus on craftsmen is anti-synergistic to your gameplan. You normally need to consider some shrine firsts in satellite cities...but the monument bonus makes you want to go monument first.
3) If you are able to found and have good quarries, craftsmen can provide a good amount of production and gold, which makes wonder production highly viable.
4) This has strong synergy with early hammer ITRs that can ramp up production in your capital.

Yes I feel Craftsman is a somewhat niche pantheon.
I've tried it as Byzanteum who seems to have a high chance for quarry starts and oh my was that a slow found.
It is ofc viable for faith monsters like spain, ethiopia and a couple of other civs that don't nessicarily need the pantheon faith to found and if you go Tradition it will probably be smoother.

 

[Gidoza]

So I was thinking that rather than replacing Goddess of Love with something else, why not merge it in a way with Ancestor Worship? The issue the latter has is that the Faith generation is quite terrible until you get your cities to size 6 - but by the time that happens, it's far too late to found. A boost with each new pop would be helpful.

 

[JamesNinelives]

The new God of Craftsmen seems good btw. Very nice initial yields, not the easiest to found with but doable. And scales rather nicely (if you have a quarry monopoly, of course).

 

[CrazyG]

God of Wisdom gives 2 faith and science for a specialist, even though the text says one.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I haven't seen any AI pick the God of Craftsmen in this version, even when I encountered Tradition/Progress AIs with quarry monopoly and quite a few stones around their capitals&second cities.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I want to talk a little about names.

I like the theme and function of Tutelary Gods a lot but the name seems very esoteric to me. I had to look it up to understand what it meant and I suspect I'm not the only one. The concept of tutelaries is also extremely broad, covering 'a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation'.

What if we focused on a specific aspect of tutelaries? We already have Goddess of Protection for the concept of guardianship. Nature, Spirit of the Desert, and Open Sky relate to geographical features, and Beauty, Craftsmen, and arguably Commerce relate to particular professions. What about Household Gods or Household Spirits? Alternately, Totem Spirits is a name that would lean into the more animistic kind of tutelaries.

I'm also confused about Goddess of Fertility changing to Goddess of the Home. To be clear, I do love the concept and significance of the word home. Fertility was and still is an extremely significant area of worship though, all around the world. It seems odd not to have a named reference to that, particularly with two pantheons focused on food and growth (Home and Sun).

Something else that seems odd to me is that Goddess of Nature has an extremely general name for such a specific meaning. You would think that a pantheon called 'Nature' would apply to several natural features, but no - it's just mountains (and natural wonders, many of which are mountains). Don't get me wrong - worship of mountains is culturally and historically significant and places like Mt Olympus, Mt Fuji, and Sri Pada are awesome. Wouldn't it make more sense to call this pantheon that made it clear what it's about though? Why not just call this pantheon 'Sacred Mountains' or 'Sacred Peaks'? It could also be called 'Nature Worship' for a more anamistic tone, or 'Home of the Gods' for a polytheistic one.

I also dislike that the pantheon connected to lakes, rivers and wetlands is called 'Purity'. Yes, purity and cleanliness are strongly associated with water and washing - which makes sense. Water is so much more than that though! The importance of fresh water for civilization cannot be understated. Water sources are also invaluable in terms of supporting natural life and biodiversity. Consider the Ganges in India or the Nile in Egypt! I would suggest renaming this pantheon 'Waters of Life', 'Sacred Waters' or something along those lines.

 

[Stalker0]

I've been giving Festivals a strong look lately, and I'm leaning towards CrazyG's opinion that its probably OP at the moment. I don't think there's another pantheon that can deliver the culture output of festivals (and the gold is not shabby at all). Its allowed me to snag wonders that I had no business getting because my policies come significantly quicker than with other pantheons.

We could remove the +1 faith we gave it recently (I know I pushed for it, but I can admit when I'm wrong , and try to put it back in the realm of "a great non-founding pantheon". Or we could maybe replace 1 of the culture with a gold or something.

 

[Legen]

I find that Festivals is feast or famine, especially for a civ without early faith bonuses. Goddess of Festivals depends a lot on the map, it can be greatly delayed if your start has plenty of luxuries on forest/jungle tiles that you have to chop beforehand, and if the luxuries require quarries. How many civs you meet also affect it, as you want as many trade partners you can find early on, and that they connect their luxuries fast. This pantheon doesn't perform as well on a continents map as it does on a Pangaea map. Even with Stonehenge, it can be tense to found with it.

I don't think the starting +1 faith in the capital is a bad idea. If you need to nerf the pantheon, you could just remove a gold from it (2 2 1 per luxury + 1 in capital), making it an intermediate between the old "2 2 2 per luxury" and the current "3 2 1 per luxury + 1 in capital". Less bonus gold means it's harder to make good trades, so it can slow down how many luxuries you can get from trades, especially those that the AI has only 1 copy of.

 

[Stalker0]

I find that Festivals is feast or famine, especially for a civ without early faith bonuses. Goddess of Festivals depends a lot on the map...

While true, you will get to explore a lot of that map in most cases before having to choose your pantheon. For example, in my last game I had 4 different luxs in a reasonable area (2 in my cap, 2 more not a far distance away), and unencountered 2 civs before I had to make my selection. That's 8 culture/8 gold....not even counting the trades I will make in short order. I can't think of another pantheon that can generate culture like that.

Of course I would not take festivals if I didn't see resource variety, but that is true of all pantheons. If the map is not favorable, I don't take it. The key question is....how good is the pantheon when the map is favorable...and in festivals case, its very very good.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I love goddess of festivals. It is one of the best beliefs when the map has been kind to you. However gold is fine, the real power of this belief comes from culture in my opinion. It is just great development pantheon for wide playstyles. And I don't think it deserves a nerf. It is really low faith honestly, and you may be forced to use newly-gained gold to rush shrines. As early faith is what you should normally seek in pantheon first I find consider it good balance. It also forces you to rush settlers, buy workers and unlock techs to extract resources, for which you pay in basically abandoning early wonders which require beelining. I think it is in good spot right now. It is a great pantheon but may cost you late and weaker religion or religion at all.

 

[Stalker0]

It also forces you to rush settlers, buy workers and unlock techs to extract resources, for which you pay in basically abandoning early wonders which require beelining.

On Immortal I can absolutely still get wonders with Festivals if the terrain is favorable, if the variety is mostly coming from the same type of resource (aka mine, plantation, quarry, etc). I beeline the tech, start my wonder, and have my workers start getting me to that sweet sweet culture. I would agree you can't go heavy on wonders with festival, but 1 or 2 is doable.

Its true that festivals doesn't truly bloom until the midgame, as if I'm going for it, I am going shrine first everywhere, and expanding fast. So some of its early culture is burned with later monuments. But once those monuments are in place...well now I have a lot more culture than my opposition. An extra +12 culture (very doable with festivals), is a huge shot in the arm at that point in the game.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I would agree you can't go heavy on wonders with festival, but 1 or 2 is doable.

Yes, I am mostly wide semi-warmonger, but I am also wonder-whoring myself every time to the point I may catch some STD sometime.
As of recent patches I am extremely cautious with Stonehenge and Pyramids. I don't see a point for goddess of festivals for tradition, but also most early wonders are not-very-optimal for wide-play. However, as I love statecraft, I nearly always try to go Roman Forum into Terracotta into Angkor Wat, into... and basically this is when it starts and don't slow down until Eiffel, and Prora.

What do you think about purity? I think it is extremely weak, situation when there are enough tiles to validate going for it are extremely rare, and marshes are going to be replaced sooner or later, while most other pantheons retain they yields for the entirety of the game.
Happiness from cities on rivers is like a spit in the face, really.

 

[Stalker0]

What do you think about purity?

Purity is a lot like nature, the key to its success is really carving out the territory to multiple cities. So if I start near a big lake or a series of lake, I will put every city I can on that lake front and milk the bonuses. What makes purities bonuses useful is that they are immediate....no terraforming required, they start as soon as you hit the pantheon button. So if you build your first few cities quickly, its a solid founding pantheon for me.

The marsh bonus is very situational. If I get it, great....but generally I don't rely on it for the pantheon. The river bonus....a happy is a happy, its useful early game to help with that rapid expansion. Its usefulness tapers off quickly, but its a good early bonus.

The last thing to make purity work is you want a tech path that leads to early aqueducts. Lakes will start losing their luster compared to terraformed land, but with the aqueduct they come in form.

So I think its a fine pantheon. Its not in my upper tier, but if I have a good lake start I will put it to work.

 

[pineappledan]

Purity is pretty unique in that you wouldn't be caught dead working unimproved marshes or lakes after Medieval, so the benefit of the pantheon drops to literally zero.

I do think that lakes are missing a mid-late game boost in addition to Hydro Plants. Something to help them compete with other pantheons, who all get tech/policy boosts to their respective terrain/improvements

Maybe Zoos or Hotels could boost Lakes and Marshes?