Going for Gold: Pantheons

[Gidoza]

I don't think its very clear. Just capping at X faith is what I vote for. I think a cap of 30 is enough. 30 +1 per city is still a lot (barring enormous empires, few pantheons will reach that amount of faith by the end game).

Also I really don't want to see it return to 2 because I enjoy actually picking other pantheons once in a while.

Well a normal Pantheon based on an improvement makes either two or three per city. I don't particularly care for a hard cap like 30 because the ever-increasing faith yield of Wisdom in the late game is one of the main reasons to pick it (like Commerce or Ancestors). I guess the question to be asked is whether its early-game advantages render it needless to have the late-game advantage for the Pantheon. That is - God of Sun has the same static bonus either early on or later, but this one improves with time - one would therefore suppose that if it is so much stronger later on, then it's early-game impact is weaker. I think God of War is the best and most balanced example of this, as it gives crazy faith and in increasing numbers at all stages of the game, but otherwise no extra yields at all.

 

[Gidoza]

I don't think its very clear. Just capping at X faith is what I vote for. I think a cap of 30 is enough. 30 +1 per city is still a lot (barring enormous empires, few pantheons will reach that amount of faith by the end game).

Also I really don't want to see it return to 2 because I enjoy actually picking other pantheons once in a while.

Well a normal Pantheon based on an improvement makes either two or three per city. I don't particularly care for a hard cap like 30 because the ever-increasing faith yield of Wisdom in the late game is one of the main reasons to pick it (like Commerce or Ancestors). I guess the question to be asked is whether its early-game advantages render it needless to have the late-game advantage for the Pantheon. That is - God of Sun has the same static bonus either early on or later, but this one improves with time - one would therefore suppose that if it is so much stronger later on, then it's early-game impact is weaker. I think God of War is the best and most balanced example of this, as it gives crazy faith and in increasing numbers at all stages of the game, but otherwise no extra yields at all.

 

[CrazyG]

Well a normal Pantheon based on an improvement makes either two or three per city. I don't particularly care for a hard cap like 30 because the ever-increasing faith yield of Wisdom in the late game is one of the main reasons to pick it (like Commerce or Ancestors). I guess the question to be asked is whether its early-game advantages render it needless to have the late-game advantage for the Pantheon. That is - God of Sun has the same static bonus either early on or later, but this one improves with time - one would therefore suppose that if it is so much stronger later on, then it's early-game impact is weaker. I think God of War is the best and most balanced example of this, as it gives crazy faith and in increasing numbers at all stages of the game, but otherwise no extra yields at all.

Keep in mind this would be 30 + 1 per city.

Once you hit the cap, a 5 city empire earns 7 per city on average (amazing).
15 city empire, it gives you 45 . Average of 3 per city is really above average.
You earn more than 2 per city unless your empire is bigger than 30 cities.

Its a good source of faith with very good early game.

 

[ElliotS]

I would prefer a cap to inverse scaling, but I think my formula is better. It's less artificial than either of those methods. Maybe say that it starts at 1 per 10 and requires even more for each . The Civopedia entry could have full info.

 

[chicorbeef]

I would prefer a cap to inverse scaling, but I think my formula is better. It's less artificial than either of those methods. Maybe say that it starts at 1 per 10 and requires even more for each . The Civopedia entry could have full info.

A cap accomplishes the same thing. We can easily change a cap to whatever number we like, this would be harder to tweak and tamper with for an ideal value. Even if it is artificial, whatever arbitrary average value that this formula achieves is hardly different. There are plenty of caps in-game (Founder beliefs, Enhancer beliefs, Academics policy, etc.)

 

[Stalker0]

I don't particularly care for a hard cap like 30 because the ever-increasing faith yield of Wisdom in the late game is one of the main reasons to pick it (like Commerce or Ancestors).

Honestly I've always found its early bonuses and its extremely easy founding to be its main allures, even if its late game scaling was blunted I still would think its good.

And I'm going to reiterate my push for a cap over the other methods. I think we are really over complicating things with the other methods, a cap is so simple, so easy to adjust, and very easy to explain in a tooltip.

 

[Gidoza]

I'm inclined to think that God of the Expanse could use a buff for sure now. Even with +20% border expand, it's a tile every 9 turns to match the usual Faith output of the usual kind of Pantheon, and the side-bonus is a mere 6 Production. Even a single tile under any other Pantheon type will give more Production yield total than that - it's not like tile expansion goes wildly out of control as the game goes along (as opposed to the increase of science for Wisdom). I'd like to see something more like the old 20 Faith that it used to have, with 10 food and 10 production for a border expansion.

 

[ElliotS]

I'm inclined to think that God of the Expanse could use a buff for sure now. Even with +20% border expand, it's a tile every 9 turns to match the usual Faith output of the usual kind of Pantheon, and the side-bonus is a mere 6 Production. Even a single tile under any other Pantheon type will give more Production yield total than that - it's not like tile expansion goes wildly out of control as the game goes along (as opposed to the increase of science for Wisdom). I'd like to see something more like the old 20 Faith that it used to have, with 10 food and 10 production for a border expansion.

Yeah it was one of my favorites, now sadly garbage. That's a bit of an over-buff suggestion, but I do think it needs something.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think God of the Expanse sucks as well, but I also never take God of All Creation which is in my opinion an even worse pantheon. Bad Faith and bad yields. If I can get a resource pantheon, upgrade two resources and be pretty much better off than I will be after every civ on the map gets a pantheon while still keeping a real chance at founding, it just feels wrong. Goddess of Beauty is a better idea for a non-founder, you get a permanent manufactory/wonder and a great work of art that don't disappear once your pantheon goes away.

 

[Owlbebach]

I think God of the Expanse sucks as well, but I also never take God of All Creation which is in my opinion an even worse pantheon. Bad Faith and bad yields. If I can get a resource pantheon, upgrade two resources and be pretty much better off than I will be after every civ on the map gets a pantheon while still keeping a real chance at founding, it just feels wrong. Goddess of Beauty is a better idea for a non-founder, you get a permanent manufactory/wonder and a great work of art that don't disappear once your pantheon goes away.

I do take GoAC frequently when i do not try to found. I think it is a very good pantheon for this case. For example it is the best pantheon for Venice.

 

[EriktheRead]

I play on King, usually with 16 civs on huge tectonic maps with legendary resources. If i want to found first, and I am not playing a faith civ, I always have to go for GoW, or one of the terrain w/o improvements (purity, deserts) and hope for a great start. If I simply want to found, improvement based pantheons become viable with a decent start, esp camps as you can roll a start with 4 or 5 deer, 3 or 4 fur/truffles/ivory and 1 fur/truffles/ivory in your capital. I've found that religions usually all go between turn 80 and 100 in my games, with a few exceptions. Faith civs make a number of other strategies viable.

Thing is, I rig the game against me by having so much land, so much competition, and so many resources. Some civs go absolutely nuts with these settings and makes it hard to found.

Based on my experience, I would recommend a few changes: Give GoW 2x faith instead of 3x, find some way to combine the mine and quarry pantheons, and give expanse 2 faith on pastures instead of 1. The pantheon that gives yields on pantheons also needs a lot of work, its completely useless.

 

[CrazyG]

I do take GoAC frequently when i do not try to found. I think it is a very good pantheon for this case. For example it is the best pantheon for Venice.

I can buy it being a pretty good pantheon for an aggressive civ who plans to take a holy city. +4 science and +4 production would speed up the early game substantially.

 

[Gidoza]

I play on King, usually with 16 civs on huge tectonic maps with legendary resources. If i want to found first, and I am not playing a faith civ, I always have to go for GoW, or one of the terrain w/o improvements (purity, deserts) and hope for a great start. If I simply want to found, improvement based pantheons become viable with a decent start, esp camps as you can roll a start with 4 or 5 deer, 3 or 4 fur/truffles/ivory and 1 fur/truffles/ivory in your capital. I've found that religions usually all go between turn 80 and 100 in my games, with a few exceptions. Faith civs make a number of other strategies viable.

Thing is, I rig the game against me by having so much land, so much competition, and so many resources. Some civs go absolutely nuts with these settings and makes it hard to found.

Based on my experience, I would recommend a few changes: Give GoW 2x faith instead of 3x, find some way to combine the mine and quarry pantheons, and give expanse 2 faith on pastures instead of 1. The pantheon that gives yields on pantheons also needs a lot of work, its completely useless.

I'd disagree about God of War Faith - giving Faith is literally the only thing it does - it makes for a solid Faith generator throughout the game, but provides no gold, no food, no production, nothing - so you're reliant on your standard military power to carry you through the game. If it needs a nerf of any kind, it should be the removal of the +50% city damage (that can go to God of Protection, which makes far more sense).

I'm inclined to think that God of the Expanse could use a buff for sure now. Even with +20% border expand, it's a tile every 9 turns to match the usual Faith output of the usual kind of Pantheon, and the side-bonus is a mere 6 Production. Even a single tile under any other Pantheon type will give more Production yield total than that - it's not like tile expansion goes wildly out of control as the game goes along (as opposed to the increase of science for Wisdom). I'd like to see something more like the old 20 Faith that it used to have, with 10 food and 10 production for a border expansion.

Yeah it was one of my favorites, now sadly garbage. That's a bit of an over-buff suggestion, but I do think it needs something.

Thing is ElliotS I did a game review post a couple years back and proved how insanely overpowered God of the Expanse was with its original stats (I believe it was 25 Faith, scaling with Era). It was easy to generate tens of thousands of Faith if set up right, and it was stupid. The result was a nerfed God of the Expanse and I have no idea where anyone pulled up these new numbers from. I'm quite confident that the original 25 Faith (NOT scaling) with 10 food and production would not be the least bit overpowered.

 

[EriktheRead]

I'd disagree about God of War Faith - giving Faith is literally the only thing it does - it makes for a solid Faith generator throughout the game, but provides no gold, no food, no production, nothing - so you're reliant on your standard military power to carry you through the game.

Well you are not wrong. Its just that its the best faith pantheon by far from the standpoint of "consistently founds first, and its not close" (for a human player).

 

[Gidoza]

Well you are not wrong. Its just that its the best faith pantheon by far from the standpoint of "consistently founds first, and its not close" (for a human player).

This is true.

 

[CrabHelmet]

I have two main comments. First is that of God of Sun seems too good to me. Even without the floodplains bit, it lets you build straight into Granaries when heading for a Religion, bypassing Shrine, and allowing you to avoid slowing the growth of your cities in the process. That alone would make it good, except not only does it avoid delaying growth, for me it is one of the best beliefs to get a religion aside from something like God of War -> super-aggro. It's not start dependent, it attaches +2 Faith to a building that is generally very good anyway, and it alleviates early game gold-problems. To add insult to injury, the flood plains Science bonus often means I don't even both picking the Desert belief - that early science lets me aggro more consistently without delaying key techs, and I'm almost never by a Desert start without floodplains.

Second is that God of War is waaaay too good at generating Faith. It's completely useless if you don't intend to play the Religious game, and if you do, it's quite close to be the obvious best choice if you want to rush a Religion regardless of circumstance. I feel like it needs a simultaneous buff/nerf - less Faith, and then some kind of advantage for the player like -10% production cost for Melee units or something.

 

[Gidoza]

I have two main comments. First is that of God of Sun seems too good to me. Even without the floodplains bit, it lets you build straight into Granaries when heading for a Religion, bypassing Shrine, and allowing you to avoid slowing the growth of your cities in the process. That alone would make it good, except not only does it avoid delaying growth, for me it is one of the best beliefs to get a religion aside from something like God of War -> super-aggro. It's not start dependent, it attaches +2 Faith to a building that is generally very good anyway, and it alleviates early game gold-problems. To add insult to injury, the flood plains Science bonus often means I don't even both picking the Desert belief - that early science lets me aggro more consistently without delaying key techs, and I'm almost never by a Desert start without floodplains.

Second is that God of War is waaaay too good at generating Faith. It's completely useless if you don't intend to play the Religious game, and if you do, it's quite close to be the obvious best choice almost regardless of circumstance.

I think it's generally okay, but as soon as you compare it to God of Fertility, you realize that God of Fertility really needs a buff to keep up.

 

[CrazyG]

I'd agree with a god of war nerf, or removing some faith in exchange for an actually useful secondary effect. Its hard to justify picking something like Beauty + Tradition when War + Authority gets a religion on turn 60.

 

[ElliotS]

My recommended changes would be:
God of Expanse: +2 per city for border expanse only. I honestly think it's fine as the game drags on but the start is just too slow now.
God of Fertility: +1 in cities with 5 or more . I feel like +1 on buildings would be more balanced, but too much toe-stepping with God of Sun.
God of War: down to 2x, 10% reduced cost for land military units. - I do think this belief falls under the same ruling as previous God of Expanse. Tons of faith, nothing else. Let's remove some of the faith and give it something else. Promotes a better ecosystem. If we want to get really fancy remove the ill-fitting +50% city and give it -10% unit maintenance. I don't know about giving it to God of Protection. Fitting yes, but I think that one is balanced. (And if underperfoming it's faith and not misc benefits.)
God of All Creation: No changes. This one has a niche and does it well. Use it to take out your neighbor and steal his religion. If G has time making it still scale to the cap on small and tiny maps would be nice.

 

[Mad Madigan]

I agree with ElliotS on this. God of the Expanse is currently too niche, and even when used in an ideal scenario isn't that ideal. Even as Russia I would usually rather take other Pantheons. God of War is too niche as well, with an odd misc. effect that doesn't really provide much a benefit. Taking away the boosted city attack damage and giving it something that boosts unit cost or maintenance would make better sense.