Going for Gold: Pantheons

Is this item in a reasonable state of balance?


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I've used it with Spain. Its yields are good in the long run, but indeed I'm not sure that that makes up for its slow start.
But it's hard to balance properly

I've founded a few times recently with God of All Creation, so I actually like that one more nowadays since it turbo-charges your early game (at the expense of later yields).
 
I just tried the Pantheon that gives culture and faith to Natural wonders as Babylon. Didn't have any mountains in range, but I quickly settled Uluru and then both tiles of the Great Barrier reef. So three natural wonder tiles, one of which already had faith attached. And I rushed built the shrine in every city and most were invested, right after the monument. And I was second to a Pantheon because of a lucky ruin as well. On 6. And I still barely made it to religion, as the very last civ to do so, on a large map on 6. Considering that one of these natural wonders is a primary faith wonder, this feels a bit weak in terms of faith production. The Culture is strong, so maybe knock a point off the culture, and add an extra point of faith to natural wonders. Or since natural wonders are very rarely going to be near the capital, add a faith production to something in the capital, like the Palace to start the Pantheon ticking while moving out the settlers.

I know Babylon isn't really a faith civ, but I rushed faith production as strongly as possible, bar Stonehenge. My very first settler, produced as soon as I hit 4 population settled Uluru, and the Great Barrier Reef city followed fairly soon after.
 
I just tried the Pantheon that gives culture and faith to Natural wonders as Babylon. Didn't have any mountains in range, but I quickly settled Uluru and then both tiles of the Great Barrier reef. So three natural wonder tiles, one of which already had faith attached. And I rushed built the shrine in every city and most were invested, right after the monument. And I was second to a Pantheon because of a lucky ruin as well. On 6. And I still barely made it to religion, as the very last civ to do so, on a large map on 6. Considering that one of these natural wonders is a primary faith wonder, this feels a bit weak in terms of faith production. The Culture is strong, so maybe knock a point off the culture, and add an extra point of faith to natural wonders. Or since natural wonders are very rarely going to be near the capital, add a faith production to something in the capital, like the Palace to start the Pantheon ticking while moving out the settlers.

I know Babylon isn't really a faith civ, but I rushed faith production as strongly as possible, bar Stonehenge. My very first settler, produced as soon as I hit 4 population settled Uluru, and the Great Barrier Reef city followed fairly soon after.

What difficulty and settings were you playing on? I think Nature can be pretty strong in the kind of situation you are talking about. I'm a bit surprised.
 
I just tried the Pantheon that gives culture and faith to Natural wonders as Babylon. Didn't have any mountains in range, but I quickly settled Uluru and then both tiles of the Great Barrier reef. So three natural wonder tiles, one of which already had faith attached. And I rushed built the shrine in every city and most were invested, right after the monument. And I was second to a Pantheon because of a lucky ruin as well. On 6. And I still barely made it to religion, as the very last civ to do so, on a large map on 6. Considering that one of these natural wonders is a primary faith wonder, this feels a bit weak in terms of faith production. The Culture is strong, so maybe knock a point off the culture, and add an extra point of faith to natural wonders. Or since natural wonders are very rarely going to be near the capital, add a faith production to something in the capital, like the Palace to start the Pantheon ticking while moving out the settlers.

I know Babylon isn't really a faith civ, but I rushed faith production as strongly as possible, bar Stonehenge. My very first settler, produced as soon as I hit 4 population settled Uluru, and the Great Barrier Reef city followed fairly soon after.

That Pantheon is more ideal when you have mountains in range. I find that one natural wonder and a bunch of mountains can get me a religion pretty quickly with this Pantheon. While it seems great to have a bunch of natural wonders, it took you three cities to get those three natural wonders. If you had many Mountains near your capital, you would get the faith much sooner and that makes a difference compared to the time it took you to get those Settlers and work all three natural wonders.

EDIT: Honestly, the main source of faith should be mountains. Natural wonders are just the icing if you're lucky.
 
Do you remember if the other civs were faith-based?

Random civs. The civs I met were Celts (who founded third last), Denmark (who founded second last and wonder whored) and Germany (who didn't found).

That Pantheon is more ideal when you have mountains in range. I find that one natural wonder and a bunch of mountains can get me a religion pretty quickly with this Pantheon. While it seems great to have a bunch of natural wonders, it took you three cities to get those three natural wonders. If you had many Mountains near your capital, you would get the faith much sooner and that makes a difference compared to the time it took you to get those Settlers and work all three natural wonders.

EDIT: Honestly, the main source of faith should be mountains. Natural wonders are just the icing if you're lucky.

That is my issue. The natural Pantheon, with a faith natural wonder, should not be barely scraping over the line with religion. Maybe the pantheon should be split, so there is a mountain Pantheon and a natural wonder Pantheon.

I've already not taken the natural wonder pantheon in prior games where I had nearby natural wonders, where I didn't have faith natural wonders nearby because of the faith generation issues, and there weren't mountains to take advantage. Rightly, since judging from this game I likely wouldn't have gotten a religion in that game.

Natural wonders are inherently something you get from non-capital secondary cities, bar save scumming settler moving. That needs to be taken into account with faith generation, and mountains, an entirely different aspect end up being the decider. That is bad randomness.
 
That is my issue. The natural Pantheon, with a faith natural wonder, should not be barely scraping over the line with religion. Maybe the pantheon should be split, so there is a mountain Pantheon and a natural wonder Pantheon.

I've already not taken the natural wonder pantheon in prior games, where I didn't have faith natural wonders nearby because, and there weren't mountains to take advantage. Rightly, since judging from this game I likely wouldn't have gotten a religion in that game.

Natural Wonders are such a hit or miss. I also don't think people are too unhappy with this Pantheon specifically. If I have Natural Wonders but no mountains, I wouldn't take this Pantheon since it takes too long to setup. Given how soon the AI can find their Pantheons, any delay in extra faith just isn't wise. There are probably other options and, if you are getting beat to the ones you want, it might be a good sign to prioritize faith first like building the Shrine first in your capital.

As for two separate Pantheons, you can mod it if you want. It's at a good spot in my opinion.
 
Natural Wonders are such a hit or miss. I also don't think people are too unhappy with this Pantheon specifically. If I have Natural Wonders but no mountains, I wouldn't take this Pantheon since it takes too long to setup. Given how soon the AI can find their Pantheons, any delay in extra faith just isn't wise. There are probably other options and, if you are getting beat to the ones you want, it might be a good sign to prioritize faith first like building the Shrine first in your capital.

As for two separate Pantheons, you can mod it if you want. It's at a good spot in my opinion.

So you acknowledge the issue which makes you avoid using it as well, but then say it is in a good spot. That doesn't make sense.

Mountains are situational and are entirely separate from natural wonders. If I wanted mountains in the game I played, I would have to settle cities away from the natural wonders. Other pantheon makes sense, and their kit works together. Like wheat and Granary. Fishing boats and coastal. Or they have faith added to something that would always be grabbed or is there, like faith to monuments, shrines or palaces. This one doesn't. Which is why it should be split.

I've already mentioned how the Natural wonders pantheon can work. Lower the culture which is strong, and up the faith, along with some faith generation for the capital to cover it until the secondaries get settled. Simple. It should have really strong faith production anyway, because of the time delay with settlement, and the lack of later game scaling.
 
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So you acknowledge the issue which makes you avoid using it as well, but then say it is in a good spot. That doesn't make sense.

Mountains are situational and are entirely separate from natural wonders. Other pantheon makes sense, and their kit works together. Like wheat and Granary. Fishing boats and coastal. Or they have faith added to something that would always be grabbed or is there, like faith to monuments, shrines or palaces. This one doesn't. Which is why it should be split.

I've already mentioned how the Natural wonders pantheon can work. Lower the culture which is strong, and up the faith, along with some faith generation for the capital to cover it until the secondaries get settled. Simple.

I said I avoid using it if I lack mountains. If I have lots of mountains, I'll pick it for sure. This is a similar situation where I don't pick Earth Mother if I have no mining luxuries. All of these Pantheons are situational in their own way. That's why I said it's a good spot in that it has its own niche.

If you want to split it, you can do so.
 
I said I avoid using it if I lack mountains. If I have lots of mountains, I'll pick it for sure. This is a similar situation where I don't pick Earth Mother if I have no mining luxuries. All of these Pantheons are situational in their own way. That's why I said it's a good spot in that it has its own niche.

If you want to split it, you can do so.

It is situational based on two conditions that don't always go together. All other situational Pantheons are based on one. Mining, plantations, desert, tundra, etc. Imagine if Mountains was paired with anything else. Deserts and mountains sometimes go together, but you wouldn't want them combined into half-strength pantheons if you only have access to one or the other.

This is a balance thread. If you don't want feedback, you might as well lock the thread.
 
Nature is a great pantheon on mountain starts, and I would never take it on a non-mountain start. Honestly the natural wonder benefit is just icing on the cake, its really all about the mountains.

I honestly would be fine if the natural wonder bonus was pushed to a pantheon that needs it. I use it when I get it with nature, but the natural wonder benefit is not what nature is about.
 
No matter what pantheon you pair natural wonders with it would probably just be icing I would think? At least pairing it with mountains makes some sense when many of the natural wonders are mountains.

Like others have said, Nature works well with mountain starts with or without natural wonders.

If one did move natural wonders to a different pantheon or create a new pantheon out of it I think you'd need to pair it with non-terrain bonuses. Something generic that is almost always applicable or doable so that the only gate to using it is setting near wonders since they are relatively niche to begin with.
 
No matter what pantheon you pair natural wonders with it would probably just be icing I would think? At least pairing it with mountains makes some sense when many of the natural wonders are mountains.

You could move it to a pantheon that was "just a liiiiitle bit weak" to give it something. My opinion of nature won't change regardless of where the natural wonder bonus is there or not. But yeah, its one of those "I don't really care either way".

The bonus is always going to be niche enough that it will never carry the pantheon. Probably the only way to change that would be a "natural wonder focused pantheon" which gives a very large bonus to natural wonders and nothing else. Its a cool idea, but its not like we are hurting for pantheons right now :)
 
I think the other thing is that there are a number of faith-low pantheons which faith-strong civs can found with, which provide other benefits to make up for it. I think this is OK.

That said, I wouldn't be against improving the buff that Nature gives to natural wonders. Considering their rarity it wouldn't make the pantheon OP and it might make people who want to use it for natural wonder starts rather than mountain starts happier :).
 
Goddess of Nature
+1 Faith, Gold, and Food for every 2 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City (capping at the City's population).

Natural Wonders gain +3 Faith and +2 Culture.

Like with God of Beauty, 2 Faith to the Palace could work as a starting boost, until the natural wonder can be grabbed. Three natural wonder tiles, one of which has a base faith yield already feels like the higher end of optimal use of the pantheon. 1 natural wonder being nearby is already somewhat lucky, let alone two being close enough for the first and second secondary cities.

For natural wonders, there is no scaling, like many pantheons get. Natural wonders are fixed, while other pantheons grow with size of the cities or empire. Maybe a boost to the culture and faith for each new era, like the other yields of natural wonders.

One niche thing that could be added is auto claiming of the tiles, or cheaper purchases of natural wonder tiles with this pantheon. I had the gold as Babylon to purchase them, but it was big investments, and I was somewhat lucky from meeting a city-state which gave gold and clearing a barbarian camp right before needing to purchase out to the reef, which is always at least one coastal tile from land.

As for the mountain split, I'm not sure. Some people seem to be able to found off it, without natural wonders and it doesn't even require a tile being worked. I haven't used that aspect yet, and it is also somewhat situational.
 
Don't forget that most natural wonders provide faith and their yields do scale with eras

https://civ-5-cbp.fandom.com/wiki/Terrain

About half the natural wonders have no faith attached normally, and only Mt. Kailash has a higher base faith yield than Uluru in the Ancient era. Mt. Sinai need until the Medieval era to get higher faith.

And lots of natural wonders have no food attached for growth. That didn't come up with me, with Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef.

And the Ancient Era is really the critical era, with how fast other civs progress. All the religions will be snapped up in the Classical era.
 
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Like with God of Beauty, 2 Faith to the Palace could work as a starting boost, until the natural wonder can be grabbed.

Just to be sure we are on the same page. I think Nature is just fine, its actually a very strong pantheon with the right mountain starts. Its power lies in its immediate bonuses, your city starts collecting the second its founded, and multiple cities can get bonuses off of the same mountain range (this is key, when you go nature you want to settle a lot of cities in close proximity to each other, and let them just taking in the bonuses).

If you don't believe me, I sympathize. There was a long time too when I had not really seen these mountain starts people were talking about, and so I thought nature was pretty crappy. And then I finally got one of "those" mountain starts, and the power made itself known.


Nature really does not need starting faith. Now if you wanted to make a natural wonder only pantheon and took that part of nature off I wouldn't be opposed, but nature's core bonuses don't need adjustment.
 
Just to be sure we are on the same page. I think Nature is just fine, its actually a very strong pantheon with the right mountain starts. Its power lies in its immediate bonuses, your city starts collecting the second its founded, and multiple cities can get bonuses off of the same mountain range (this is key, when you go nature you want to settle a lot of cities in close proximity to each other, and let them just taking in the bonuses).

If you don't believe me, I sympathize. There was a long time too when I had not really seen these mountain starts people were talking about, and so I thought nature was pretty crappy. And then I finally got one of "those" mountain starts, and the power made itself known.


Nature really does not need starting faith. Now if you wanted to make a natural wonder only pantheon and took that part of nature off I wouldn't be opposed, but nature's core bonuses don't need adjustment.

I was talking about how a natural wonder focused pantheon would work. Which would be clear if you actually read my post.
 
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