I could use a bit of input here. I started up a game as Portugal and need to choose my pantheon, but I can't really decide which one to go for (see screenshot of my start below). I have not had any faith input other than God King, so by the time I got to a pantheon, Sacred Path (which would have been my desired pick given the start) was taken (Religious Settlements obviously is also gone). Normally I will default to Divine Spark in situations like this, but I predict that I'm going to be running low on faith. Some possible candidates that are available: Desert Folklore (but apart from the small patch of desert north and northeast of Lisbon there is not desert around. Stone Circles (I have a couple of stones south of Lisbon and a couple of gymsum north of Viseu, but not many quarries in sight otherwise). God Of The Sea (I reckon I'll have many coastal cities, but neither of my current cities have many sea resources in workable range). God Of The Open Sky (there are a couple of horses and cows around my cities, but only three, so seems a poor choice). Goddess Of The Hunt (there are many camp resources in the tundra to the north including some honey, but not around my current cities, so will only benefit from this much later). Goddess Of Festivals (there is some incense around Viseu and north of Lisbon, but on otherwise poor tiles). So I'm a bit at a loss wrt. which one to pick. Anybody see any obvious candidates among these or others? (The Tundra faith pantheon is also taken ftr.) Spoiler :
You look like you have good early culture from the wonder so I wouldn’t bother with a culture pantheon. I tend to harvest stone instead of quarrying, plus that’s ultimately a pretty modest amount of faith from that pantheon. I’d probably go God of the Sea since you’ll presumably have lots of coastal cities or Goddess of the Hunt if you know you’ll be expanding up there.
Probably Open Sky. Anything else is going to take too long for you to take advantage of and it will be like not having a pantheon at all. In general,. you want to focus what's immediately in your current cities. Viseu is not a good settle (it's not growing-- should have settled directly on the incense) but you can get access to the cow which will get it going. Stone Circles is possible but you don't seem to have any way of really taking advantage of a small amount of faith yet. I don't really like the sea boats pantheon unless handed a ton of seafood early on or Auckland; pre harbor is not that great. Otherwise Divine Spark.
God of the sea cause coastal cities to open sky for extra culture. Depend on what you value/think will be your shortcoming
Fertility Rites, Open Sky or Divine Spark, probably in that order of preference. 3 culture is still quite significant but you're already at political philosophy so it matters a lot less now. Free builder will help a decent amount as you have a good amount of chops to push settlers. Divine Spark is generically useful although it has close to no early benefits for you so it's my least favorite.
Keep in mind that with Portugal you often actually want to found a religion, because the Religious Communities (+2 gold for each international trade route for the Holy Site and each building in it, so it add up to 12 gold with Portugal's bonus) is rather handy. So I'd go Divine Spark in this situation to catch up in the Great Prophet race.
I'm unconvinced by Religious communities being good enough with Portugal to warrant early Holy Site investment. I think any early investment in religion that isn't focused on Work Ethic or Monumentality, or with cheaper Holy Sites, is largely not worth it. Portugal is much better off working with Free Inquiry Golden Ages for science into Reform the Coinage Golden Ages. I would prefer rushing Harbor tech and building harbors as my first district and Campuses as my second. I think Holy Sites, even with Religious Communities, will provide too late a benefit to be worth it. This land is so poor that I'd be considering rushing someone with Frigates already. So science is critical to unlock Niter and Frigate tech. Of course, if you have Heroes and Legends on, rushing Sinbad is pretty much the best way to play imo. Early Sinbad with coastal civs is an autowin. He buys you 5 settlers.
I would choose desert folklore. Looks like you can at least 2 great holy sites, especially the one above the natural wonder. If you can get work ethic and choose to run scripture, it should be more than worthwhile.
