How to found religion as progress with no good faith pantheons/UA/UB/NW?

[besset]

If you are playing a progress civ with no faith UB/UA or NW and you get something like plantation luxuries but you really want a religion, what pantheons do you choose? I find it hard to found consistently with plantation pantheon. If you take something like expanse pantheon and spam shrine first in every city, can you consistently found that way? Are there any good pantheons for progress that you can consistently found with in this situation?

Lets say you are playing a flexible civ like china or germany and you can safely settle 8-10 cities, would it be better to forego all that land and go stonehenge and beauty pantheon if you realize early you wont be able to found? Or do you rather go progress in this case, build monument first in every city and pick a short term yield pantheon and accept you won't be able to found?

 

[tu_79]

China is a bad example. You can completely avoid the monument and rush shrines.

As for Germany, if you get a difficult plantation on forest (too long to connect), then forget about festivals. The renewal pantheon is not bad, giving you good bonuses without chopping anything for a while, so you save on workers. The plantation pantheon is risky. You must beeline trade for the markets (this is where you are going to gain faith), which means delaying advanced melee units. Will you be OK with just warriors and archers?

If your plantation is on jungle then you can consider more options, such as festival and Goddess of Commerce (plantations usually produce gold).

If only your capital and second city are in the forested territory, then you have to do with a more generic pantheon, like Goddess of fertility. But if it feels too hard to found in your game (religious neighbors), then forget about founding and focus on your army and early aggression. Take a high culture pantheon like God of all creation, or any high yield low faith pantheon, conquer a holy city, spread its religion and you will be the new head of the conquered religion.

 

[Minh Le]

If you are playing a progress civ with no faith UB/UA or NW and you get something like plantation luxuries but you really want a religion, what pantheons do you choose? I find it hard to found consistently with plantation pantheon. If you take something like expanse pantheon and spam shrine first in every city, can you consistently found that way? Are there any good pantheons for progress that you can consistently found with in this situation?

Lets say you are playing a flexible civ like china or germany and you can safely settle 8-10 cities, would it be better to forego all that land and go stonehenge and beauty pantheon if you realize early you wont be able to found? Or do you rather go progress in this case, build monument first in every city and pick a short term yield pantheon and accept you won't be able to found?

Founding a religion with a progress civ which has no religious advantage is difficult. Rushing shrine is a must and there are some pantheons which can help:
God of Commerce

• Pros: Very good with civs have immediate city connection (Carthage, Songhai, Iroquois). Easy to found with.
• Cons: Not very good with other civs. Roads take time to build.

God of Expanse

• Pros: Strong early and easy to found with, especially with civs who have border expand bonus or bonus culture for border growth (China, Mongolia, Ethiopia...)
• Cons: Weak late game (no era scaling anymore).

God of the Sun

• Pros: Faith comes from an early and good building, the gold and extra food from wheat are nice too. Require rushing shrine and granary to found.
• Cons: Not very good for founding and weak early culture.

Goddess of Fertility

• Pros: An extra 1 faith from shrine is actually very useful. Well is also a very good building to rush. Works wonder with a start with heavy production land but lack food.
• Cons: Not very good for founding, requires rushing shrine/well if possible.

Goddess of Love

• Pros: Very good with early growth civs (China, Spain,...). Easy to found with with 5+ cities.
• Cons: Other yields are bad (too low), just the faith is good.

Goddess of Nature

• Pros: Very strong with mountain/nature wonder nearby. You can effectively have +3 or 4 free faith in 3 first cities with a good mountian chain. Food and gold are also very good too. Easy to found with.
• Cons: Requires mountains/nature wonders to work.

Goddess of Protection

• Pros: Good source of Faith and culture early, and the ability to heal faster works both defensively and offensively.
• Cons: Walls and Barracks are not priority in the early game and expensive to build. Works better with Authority and warmongering than peaceful Progress.

Goddess of Purity

• Pros: Lakes are very good tile to work early game, and free faith from unimproved terrain is good. With enough lakes nearby, it is relatively easy to found with this pantheon.
• Cons: Terrain dependance.

Goddess of Renewal

• Pros: Good for Forested Plantation resources start and heavily forested land since you cant improve those lux for quite some time and they normally have strong raw yield. Relatively easy to found with.
• Cons: Bonus goes away once you improve your lux.

Goddess of Springtime

• Pros: Similar to Sun and Fertility but with market instead. One good thing about it is Trapping is on the way and you will have a lot of gold to purchase archers to deal with barbs and defend yourself.
• Cons: Market is expensive to build so its not a very strong pantheon to found with. Weak early culture.

Goddess of the Hunt

• Pros: Of all the pantheon which give faith from improved resource, Hunt is the coolest. Because the tech to unlock the improvement is a very good tech (I almost always research trapping as my second tech when playing Progress). You can have plenty of camp around (luxuries, deers, bisons...), and the yield is very strong too.
• Cons: you really need to get your workers out assap to improve all the camp for the faith. I normally build 3 workers in my capital right after my 1st settler.

Goddess of Wisdom

• Pros: Strong early faith without having to rely on terrain. +1 faith in every cities is actually very strong. Comparing to other pantheon which give faith on building or improvement, until you connect those you have alread accumalte 20 or 30 faith from Wisdom. Requires settling quickly a good amount of cities in order to found (7 or 8 cities minimum). Science and GAP is very nice and works well with progress too.
• Cons: Requires a lot of cities so it can be hard to achieve with the AIs settling all the land. More cities and Science means more unhappiness, it will be difficult to manage happiness.

Spirit of the Desert

• Pros: You have Incense on floodplain start with sheeps on desert hills AND Irons around... well, you will have the best start possible.
• Cons: Terrain dependance.

But if you have India, Ethiopia, Spain, The Celt and Arabia in your game, well you can forget about founding a religion.

 

[besset]

Founding a religion with a progress civ which has no religious advantage is difficult. Rushing shrine is a must and there are some pantheons which can help:
God of Commerce

• Pros: Very good with civs have immediate city connection (Carthage, Songhai, Iroquois). Easy to found with.
• Cons: Not very good with other civs. Roads take time to build.

God of Expanse

• Pros: Strong early and easy to found with, especially with civs who have border expand bonus or bonus culture for border growth (China, Mongolia, Ethiopia...)
• Cons: Weak late game (no era scaling anymore).

God of the Sun

• Pros: Faith comes from an early and good building, the gold and extra food from wheat are nice too. Require rushing shrine and granary to found.
• Cons: Not very good for founding and weak early culture.

Goddess of Fertility

• Pros: An extra 1 faith from shrine is actually very useful. Well is also a very good building to rush. Works wonder with a start with heavy production land but lack food.
• Cons: Not very good for founding, requires rushing shrine/well if possible.

Goddess of Love

• Pros: Very good with early growth civs (China, Spain,...). Easy to found with with 5+ cities.
• Cons: Other yields are bad (too low), just the faith is good.

Goddess of Nature

• Pros: Very strong with mountain/nature wonder nearby. You can effectively have +3 or 4 free faith in 3 first cities with a good mountian chain. Food and gold are also very good too. Easy to found with.
• Cons: Requires mountains/nature wonders to work.

Goddess of Protection

• Pros: Good source of Faith and culture early, and the ability to heal faster works both defensively and offensively.
• Cons: Walls and Barracks are not priority in the early game and expensive to build. Works better with Authority and warmongering than peaceful Progress.

Goddess of Purity

• Pros: Lakes are very good tile to work early game, and free faith from unimproved terrain is good. With enough lakes nearby, it is relatively easy to found with this pantheon.
• Cons: Terrain dependance.

Goddess of Renewal

• Pros: Good for Forested Plantation resources start and heavily forested land since you cant improve those lux for quite some time and they normally have strong raw yield. Relatively easy to found with.
• Cons: Bonus goes away once you improve your lux.

Goddess of Springtime

• Pros: Similar to Sun and Fertility but with market instead. One good thing about it is Trapping is on the way and you will have a lot of gold to purchase archers to deal with barbs and defend yourself.
• Cons: Market is expensive to build so its not a very strong pantheon to found with. Weak early culture.

Goddess of the Hunt

• Pros: Of all the pantheon which give faith from improved resource, Hunt is the coolest. Because the tech to unlock the improvement is a very good tech (I almost always research trapping as my second tech when playing Progress). You can have plenty of camp around (luxuries, deers, bisons...), and the yield is very strong too.
• Cons: you really need to get your workers out assap to improve all the camp for the faith. I normally build 3 workers in my capital right after my 1st settler.

Goddess of Wisdom

• Pros: Strong early faith without having to rely on terrain. +1 faith in every cities is actually very strong. Comparing to other pantheon which give faith on building or improvement, until you connect those you have alread accumalte 20 or 30 faith from Wisdom. Requires settling quickly a good amount of cities in order to found (7 or 8 cities minimum). Science and GAP is very nice and works well with progress too.
• Cons: Requires a lot of cities so it can be hard to achieve with the AIs settling all the land. More cities and Science means more unhappiness, it will be difficult to manage happiness.

Spirit of the Desert

• Pros: You have Incense on floodplain start with sheeps on desert hills AND Irons around... well, you will have the best start possible.
• Cons: Terrain dependance.

But if you have India, Ethiopia, Spain, The Celt and Arabia in your game, well you can forget about founding a religion.

Thank you for this post, this is very very helpful!