Let's test some Pantheons!

Gidoza

Emperor
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Jul 26, 2013
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So as we've all seen, there's been some Pantheon changes in this last version of Dec. 10th and some discussion going around them to make sure that every Pantheon has at least some kind of place in the game.

I'm hoping the community can try to play an intentional part to test out some of these changes. The two key elements we're looking for with regard to the Pantheons (it doesn't need to be exact) are the following.

1. General balance.

2. Ability to generate a Religion.


For everyone's convenience, I am listing all the current Pantheon effects in this post. I have marked the ones we really want a look at with asterisks.

* = Was changed significantly and needs testing on the new values.

** = Wasn't a huge change, but still concerns us at some level in terms of its effectiveness.



Ancestor Worship**
+1 Faith for every 3 Citizens in a city, and +3 Culture in Capital.

One With Nature (Now Goddess of Nature)**
+1 Faith and Culture for every 2 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City, and Natural Wonders gain +3 Faith and +2 Culture.

Dance of the Aurora (now God of the Stars and Sky)
+2 Faith, +1 Production and +1 Culture from Tundra tiles with improved resources.

Desert Folklore (Now Spirit of the Desert)
+2 Faith, +1 Food and +1 Gold from Desert tiles with improved resources.

Earth Mother
+2 Faith from Mines on improved resources, and +2 Production from Monuments.

Faith Healers (Now Goddess of Healing)**
+15 HP healed per turn in friendly territory. +2 Faith and +1 Gold from Wells, +3 Faith and +1 Culture from Watermills.

Goddess of Fertility*
+2 Food and +2 Faith from Shrines, and 15% faster Growth Rate.

Messenger of the Gods**
+3 Faith and +2 Science in Cities with a City Connection.

God of Craftsmen (Now God of Wealth)**
+1 Faith for every +10 Gold per turn, and +2 Production and Faith in Cities with a Specialist.

God of the Open Sky
+1 Faith for every 2 featureless Plains tiles near a City, +1 Culture from Pastures.

God of the Sea
+2 Faith from Fishing Boats and Atolls. +2 Food in coastal Cities.

God of War*
+2 Science from Barracks, and gain Faith if you win a battle.

God-King
+1 Culture, Faith, Gold, and Science for every 6 Followers.

God of Festivals**
+3 Faith and +2 Culture for every unique Luxury Resource you control.

Goddess of Love*
Gain 12 Faith and 5 Golden Age Points every time a Citizen is born. Bonus scales with Era and Game Speed.

Goddess of Protection**
+40% increase in city Ranged Combat Strength. +3 Faith and +1 Culture from Walls.

Goddess of the Hunt
+2 Faith and +1 Food from Camps.

Liturgy (Now Goddess of Wisdom)**
+1 Faith for every 10 Science per turn. +1 Science and +1 Faith in every City.

Monuments to the Gods (Now Goddess of Beauty)*
+4 Faith and +1 Culture from World Wonders. +15% Production of Pre-Renaissance Wonders.

Oral Tradition (Now Goddess of Springtime)
+2 Faith from Plantations, and +2 Culture from Markets.

Tears of the Gods (Now God of Creation)**
+3 Faith and +1 Happiness in Capital, and +1 Happiness for every known Civilization with a Pantheon.

Goddess of Purity
+2 Faith from Oases, Lakes, and Marshes. +1 Happiness from Cities on rivers.

Religious Settlements (Now God of the Expanse)*
+20% faster border growth, and gain 25 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Era and Gamespeed.

Sacred Path (Now Goddess of Renewal)**
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 3 Jungle or 3 Forest tiles within 3 tiles of a City. +2 Faith from Herbalists.

Stone Circles (Now God of Craftsmen)
+3 Faith from Quarries, and +2 Production from Stone Works.

Sun God
+2 Culture from Granaries and +3 Faith from Farms on improved resources.





So by all means - please try out the modded Pantheons if you play a start that seems to demand them. Try them out. And for people that are really test-oriented - save the game at the start, and play the game through several times with different Pantheons, just to see what happens. Obviously, some Pantheons will be geared towards some starts better than others, and sometimes it's self-evident what to pick - but hopefully we have more choices now.

Eagerly awaiting the feedback! :)
 
I'm gonna write down some of my play-test experiences in this post, and just edit it regularly.


Game #1

Civ: Spain
Difficulty: Immortal
Pantheon: Goddess of Love
Result: Turn 81 and all Religions are taken (Standard speed and standard size). I've managed to get to 283 Faith. I'd say that my city growth was either average or a tad slow. Enemy Pantheons were all Improvement standard-style. What I can't figure out is how Stockholm managed to get a Religion (he has God of the Desert - with one improved tile, no Faith wonders anywhere, and no CS Allies or potential Friends that could offer Faith - it's a mystery to me where he got his 400 Faith from).


Game #2

What's amusing about this game is that since I forgot to delete LUA, I didn't restart the above round. So I deleted LUA, started a new game, and randomed...Spain again. O_o Sadly, I then realized that this test is a bit of a hoax, since the Faith I received from killing a City-State basically filled half the Faith I needed for a Religion.

Nevertheless, the Pantheon I picked was Goddess of Fertility. I'd say it's pretty solid just where it is.


Game #3

Polynesia - in a spot where I can't use Moai, and no Natural Wonders to take advantage of. Used Sacred Path (Goddess of Renewal) with a single city with 16 Jungle tiles (expansion had 4 Forest tiles), and a single Herbalist in the Capital - no other Faith sources, and my racial specials added nothing, so all-natural. Got the last Religion on turn 80 of the game. Given that this Pantheon can only go downhill from this point on as Jungles potentially get removed, feels decently balanced.


Game #4

Playing as Askia and took God of the Expanse. I went Authority and rushed the Garrison Social Policy as quickly as possible by attacking everything in sight, and then Garrisoning my three cities with Monuments.

Total Faith after 76 turns: 164. At this point, it's taking 15+ turns for further border expansions. I give up. This Pantheon is crap. Needs more.


Game #5

Civ: Portugal
Difficulty: Immortal
Pantheon: Ancestor Worship
Result: In this instance, I hit two Faith CS for 8 Faith each when exploring, and another later on for 2 more Faith, which gave me a little boost to get the Pantheon up. The Faith per turn was nice, but you can feel the sluggishness of it. All Religion slots were taken by turn 80 - mine would have been ready by turn 90 at the earliest. And these are for three cities with pretty good pop (2 Maritime CS helping me out, one city with several Floodplains, and the other wish 2 Atolls, 2 Fish, Capital was a Herbalist monster).

In any case, while the Culture boost in the Capital is nice straightaway, it becomes underwhelming very fast. As for the Faith generation - my single third expansion that I took my time to get would have easily been able to outproduce my entire Ancestor Worship Empire in Faith all by itself by picking God of the Sea instead (there was one more Fish yet untaken, and a Pearls I could take advantage of, plus two more Fish for the other cities). I'll test this a bit more, but my gut feeling is that this Pantheon is not merely weak, but still a severe failure even with the buff it received.


Game #6

Using Goddess of Love again, this time as Denmark (trying to avoid too many external Faith factors, here). Capital had 3 Crab and 2 Fish, plus a bunch of Marsh; secondary city had a Crab, 5 Flood Plains, and a Flood Plains Wheat; 3rd city had 3 Fish and 2 Crab. I admit that my Pantheon started quite late because my Capital's initial production was so horrible - nevertheless, even with lots of Flood Plains + stolen workers, and a Global Monopoly on Crab (rushed the Work Boats with the new fancy low cost) - total Faith was not even 200 by turn 90, all religions taken. :/ I'll repeat, I was behind - nevertheless, still feels pretty underwhelming.
 
Including difficulty in play-test reports would likely be ideal.
 
In my current game (immortal) India took faith healers as their starting pantheon. Turns out, they did not found.

Same game I had a very late god of the sea, but very many sea resources and just managed to grab one.
 
I've been using Goddess of Festivals with pretty good results lately. With 2 luxuries (which is not too hard to get) it's good. Any more and it's great.
 
Religious Settlements (Now God of the Expanse)*
+20% faster border growth, and gain 25 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Era and Gamespeed.

Tried this out, and it felt a bit powerful with tradition, no idea if that's a good test however.
 
Played an Ancestor Worship game, Carthage, Tradition, took 2nd religion behind Celts (who are kind of guaranteed first religion ATM). Game speed makes a big difference: if you test on Quick, then random events like goodie huts make a much bigger difference and tiny mistakes hurt you a lot. The faster the game, the higher the difficulty. Did two more starts, one China, one Indonesia, took first and last religion respectively.

Tried this out, and it felt a bit powerful with tradition, no idea if that's a good test however.

I'm gonna go with 'no.' Tradition borders are MASSIVE right now. So simple to gobble up so many tiles.
 
Okay, so after a few more test runs (didn't have time to post them all), I'm noticing some commonalities amongst some Pantheons that are worth mentioning, and I have a couple questions from Gazebo coming from this.

Goddess of Wisdom/Goddess of Wealth: I find that both need a buff, but not a huge one - I'm thinking 1 Faith for 8 of the resource. It might need more - my point is that I'm generally unsuccessful getting a religion with these even with Civs that specialize in either money or science.

QUESTION: I wonder, would it be possible to give Faith according to EVERY 10 money/science accumulated, instead of accumulation per turn? Obviously the numbers would need to be re-touched, but th en other factors in the game that give little bonuses would factor in to the calculation (e.g. Specialists from Tradition offer stuff per turn, but Progress has nothing to offer).


Faith Healers/Goddess of Protection: The Faith generation for these Pantheons is extremely artificial. Whereas for Sacred Path, the natural point of the Pantheon generated Faith, and we tacked on the Herbalist because it seemed to need a little buff (and it works PERFECTLY), instead for these two Pantheons, the Faith generation relies on two buildings you wouldn't tech straight towards under any normal circumstances, and even if you did, it would be for some other reason (that is, if you want Quarries from Construction that desperately, pick Stone Circles instead).

That being said, I'm thinking that Goddess of Protection would make more sense if it's bonus came from a Garrison instead of Walls. For Faith Healers - I don't know what. But the Faith generation of a Pantheon needs to come naturally out of its function, or else there is no justification for its existence.

Ancestor Worship: 1 for 3 is still weak. I think my initial hunch of 2 for 5 is where it's at, preferably global pop and not city pop.


God of the Open Sky: The problem I run into with this Pantheon is that I often have tons of animals on Grassland, but no Plains at all. This isn't enough to justify taking this Pantheon. But with only a 2-tile radius for the Faith generation, I don't know why Grasslands couldn't be included?


Religious Settlements: Despite tripling its Faith output, this still sucks brutally, unless playing with Tradition, where it only sucks instead. Maybe it could grant some culture as well (either naturally or through a building) so that expansion cities are capable of utilizing this Faith border expansion bonus? As for the value, 50% would be more interesting...


Monument to the Gods: It could use 2 culture, but otherwise its excellent. It declines in power with time, so I expect it to have some punch early on.


Goddess of Love: It needs a bit more, but I'd say that we're almost there.


God of War: Gazebo, what was the conversion rate before we changed it? In any case, it's decent, but not good - I'm thinking buff to 150%.


One With Nature: Maybe +4 Faith from Natural Wonders? Then seems fine.
 
Ancestor Worship: 1 for 3 is still weak. I think my initial hunch of 2 for 5 is where it's at, preferably global pop and not city pop.
I completely disagree with this, I'm finding 1 for 3 bordering on too good. Getting way too close to the Byzantine unique of 1 for 2 for my tastes.

God of the Open Sky: The problem I run into with this Pantheon is that I often have tons of animals on Grassland, but no Plains at all. This isn't enough to justify taking this Pantheon. But with only a 2-tile radius for the Faith generation, I don't know why Grasslands couldn't be included?
Because grassland is good? The reason why the culture from plains was added in first place was because plains are terrible :D.

That being said I'll return to my original point, that the old God of the Open Sky made way more sense, you could pick it for pasture-heavy grassland and then expand into the plains. It was way less snowbally as well.


Religious Settlements: Despite tripling its Faith output, this still sucks brutally, unless playing with Tradition, where it only sucks instead. Maybe it could grant some culture as well (either naturally or through a building) so that expansion cities are capable of utilizing this Faith border expansion bonus? As for the value, 50% would be more interesting...
Honestly, I'm not seeing this. When I've tried this out with tradition I've landed the first religion every game, the one time I tried it with Progress I got the last religion. I think this Belief clashes way too much with how tradition is currently structured and that's a serious problem.


Monument to the Gods: It could use 2 culture, but otherwise its excellent. It declines in power with time, so I expect it to have some punch early on.
I still think 3 faith 2 culture would have been a better fit, the 4 faith per turn seems excessive.


Goddess of Love: It needs a bit more, but I'd say that we're almost there.
I guess I'll try this one out while waiting for the next version, but I'm fairly certain it is powerful enough, if not too powerful.


One With Nature: Maybe +4 Faith from Natural Wonders? Then seems fine.
Really don't think this one needs a buff.
I still don't think jamming mountain-settling and natural wonders together in the same belief is a good idea however, I would love to see them separated.
 
I completely disagree with this, I'm finding 1 for 3 bordering on too good. Getting way too close to the Byzantine unique of 1 for 2 for my tastes.

Really? I've struggled to get a Religion with this one with the very best of pop Civs.


Because grassland is good? The reason why the culture from plains was added in first place was because plains are terrible :D.

That being said I'll return to my original point, that the old God of the Open Sky made way more sense, you could pick it for pasture-heavy grassland and then expand into the plains. It was way less snowbally as well.

Yeah, when you put it that way, I agree with you.

Honestly, I'm not seeing this. When I've tried this out with tradition I've landed the first religion every game, the one time I tried it with Progress I got the last religion. I think this Belief clashes way too much with how tradition is currently structured and that's a serious problem.

I haven't managed to get above 200 Faith with this when rushing every point of Culture I can, when not using Tradition. I've noticed the difference tho in how insanely fast Tradition's expansion is compared to the others.



I still think 3 faith 2 culture would have been a better fit, the 4 faith per turn seems excessive.

I'm not in disagreement with 3/2, however I don't see 4/2 as excessive.


Really don't think this one needs a buff.
I still don't think jamming mountain-settling and natural wonders together in the same belief is a good idea however, I would love to see them separated.

Yeah that's sort of what's motivating my change - I just don't bother to assume that there will be any Mountains near a Natural Wonder. NW are rare enough that the Pantheon bonus for having them should be able to hold it's own, so I think that even 4/2 is low.

In any case, yeah - the Mountain thing seems weak to me. If I'm going to get a passive return on tiles I can't even use or that waste my expansion space, it had better be stronger than it is now...

What if we made the Natural Wonder Pantheon its own thing, and merged the Mountains with Faith Healers?
 
I haven't managed to get above 200 Faith with this when rushing every point of Culture I can, when not using Tradition. I've noticed the difference tho in how insanely fast Tradition's expansion is compared to the others.
I'll admit that progress game had a pretty good start. Enough space to expand and enough decent tiles to produce buildings fairly quickly.

There are also two other factors to it.
This belief scales really well, border-expansion doesn't exactly slow down later on with all the extra culture.
This belief is a lot stronger for civs with early border-advantages, like Ethiopia and Mongolia for example. Also has strong synergy with tradition and piety.

Yeah that's sort of what's motivating my change - I just don't bother to assume that there will be any Mountains near a Natural Wonder. NW are rare enough that the Pantheon bonus for having them should be able to hold it's own, so I think that even 4/2 is low.
If you're missing out on half of the belief you can't expect it to hold its own.

In any case, yeah - the Mountain thing seems weak to me. If I'm going to get a passive return on tiles I can't even use or that waste my expansion space, it had better be stronger than it is now...
I don't really agree with this. Space needs to be soaked up, usually fitting as many cities as possible into an area is better than spreading them out because of how specialists and buildings work. You get some later returns from settling near mountains as well, with the observatory and possibly machu picchu.

What if we made the Natural Wonder Pantheon its own thing, and merged the Mountains with Faith Healers?
Why do you want to bundle things up with faith healers? Mountains have nothing to do with healing.
Split them up and add a building to each of them, done. If another pantheon needs to go for this to work then remove the border expansion one (going to be a mess to balance) or faith healers (honestly I can't imagine anyone liking it).
 
I'll admit that progress game had a pretty good start. Enough space to expand and enough decent tiles to produce buildings fairly quickly.

There are also two other factors to it.
This belief scales really well, border-expansion doesn't exactly slow down later on with all the extra culture.
This belief is a lot stronger for civs with early border-advantages, like Ethiopia and Mongolia for example. Also has strong synergy with tradition and piety.

True enough about the scaling, which is why it's unique and cool. Let me test it more.


If you're missing out on half of the belief you can't expect it to hold its own.

That's why we make it stronger when we've removed the other half of the belief?

I don't really agree with this. Space needs to be soaked up, usually fitting as many cities as possible into an area is better than spreading them out because of how specialists and buildings work. You get some later returns from settling near mountains as well, with the observatory and possibly machu picchu.

Point taken. I follow on the specialists, but what do you mean by the buildings, other than the fact that they provide specialists?

Anyways, even if space efficiency is where it's at, you still need to work your space, and this usually involves the overlap of workable space. To be dependent on tiles that do nothing creates a different dynamic, because any other settling you could do will force you away from the Mountains sooner or later.


Why do you want to bundle things up with faith healers? Mountains have nothing to do with healing.
Split them up and add a building to each of them, done. If another pantheon needs to go for this to work then remove the border expansion one (going to be a mess to balance) or faith healers (honestly I can't imagine anyone liking it).

The extra healing from Faith Healers is a cool ability that's worth keeping, but a randomly-picked building will never enable the Pantheon to amount to anything. Who cares if Mountains have nothing to do with healing? If the Mountains provide the Faith, and the healing provides a cool ability as a bonus, then that's a winner as far as I'm concerned.
 
We could always stick the faith healer element on God of War and scrap the Pantheon. It isn't terribly exciting, however you spin it

Wow yeah, this would actually be perfect. I wouldn't mind testing the effectiveness of that. It's actually one of the problems I run into when trying to make use of God of War - I can't kill stuff fast enough because of the need for healing. I had also thought of giving Medic promotion instead, for weaker but more blanket effect.

In any case - yeah! Tack that on to what's already there.
 
That's why we make it stronger when we've removed the other half of the belief?
I was referring to your sentence "NW are rare enough that the Pantheon bonus for having them should be able to hold it's own, so I think that even 4/2 is low."

Point taken. I follow on the specialists, but what do you mean by the buildings, other than the fact that they provide specialists?
Buildings provide yields. Cities are probably not going to grow as big when packed together, but you're going to have more pop overall.

Anyways, even if space efficiency is where it's at, you still need to work your space, and this usually involves the overlap of workable space. To be dependent on tiles that do nothing creates a different dynamic, because any other settling you could do will force you away from the Mountains sooner or later.
Sure, but the pantheon is strong enough that you only really need a few cities near the mountains. Strategic settling will also allow you to fit the same mountains into 3 tile range of multiple cities.


The extra healing from Faith Healers is a cool ability that's worth keeping, but a randomly-picked building will never enable the Pantheon to amount to anything. Who cares if Mountains have nothing to do with healing? If the Mountains provide the Faith, and the healing provides a cool ability as a bonus, then that's a winner as far as I'm concerned.
Mostly because I like the mountain bonus but understand that it can't stand on its own, and I just don't value faith healers at all.


EDIT: On the topic of Goddes of Love, I tried it out once and got completely stomped, was at 399 faith when the last religion was founded :D. My start was pretty much full floodplains, which sounded awesome until I realized that I had no production at all and couldn't get any settlers out. Anyways hardly compelling evidence but Goddess of Love clashes way too much with my playstyle for me to ever try it out again.
 
I was referring to your sentence "NW are rare enough that the Pantheon bonus for having them should be able to hold it's own, so I think that even 4/2 is low."

I don't understand.


Sure, but the pantheon is strong enough that you only really need a few cities near the mountains. Strategic settling will also allow you to fit the same mountains into 3 tile range of multiple cities.

I'll have to use it more to see. Maybe this is where we can plop the Well and Windmill bonuses.


EDIT: On the topic of Goddes of Love, I tried it out once and got completely stomped, was at 399 faith when the last religion was founded :D. My start was pretty much full floodplains, which sounded awesome until I realized that I had no production at all and couldn't get any settlers out. Anyways hardly compelling evidence but Goddess of Love clashes way too much with my playstyle for me to ever try it out again.

Yup, I've had the same thing happened. Makes for good Science, but you can't do anything with it once you have it.



Incidentally - random question for Gazebo and Final - I'm curious as a fun idea of just raising the max number of religions to the number of religions there is. It's another way to ease the balance differential of weak VS strong Pantheons, long-term VS short-term. With a cap on it say - if your Capital or most of your cities already have a religion, then you cannot found a religion. This would put a clear layer between those religions that are late by 1 Faith point and the ones that are late by 30 turns. Even if the late ones do found - they'll be smushed soon enough by everybody else's head start. I've always found religion cap by map size weirdly artificial anyways.
 
Haven't been able to get much use out of Goddess of Love. I'd always rather pick a growth pantheon than pick a pantheon dependent upon my growth.

God of the Expanse is great. Remember also that it won't be very useful for anyone you spread your religion to!
 
A couple of remarks:
First a "test result": I spawned i the edge of the jungle, and my second city had every single tile except Solomons mines was either forest or jungle. I got sacred path. Not surprise, I got my religion.

On faith healers: Good riddance. I was just about to make a Github report that India tends to pick it first, with the expected result. Merging it is fine.


Goddess of Wisdom/Goddess of Wealth: I will say again, these two should, however pleasing the symmetry may be, have not the same faith per yield output. I Don´t think I had, in all my games, ever a situation where my gpt was even close to my spt. It might be possible to theoretically construct such a situation, but in reality you will always generate more science than gold, and the gap only widens as the game progresses.
 
A couple of remarks:
First a "test result": I spawned i the edge of the jungle, and my second city had every single tile except Solomons mines was either forest or jungle. I got sacred path. Not surprise, I got my religion.

On faith healers: Good riddance. I was just about to make a Github report that India tends to pick it first, with the expected result. Merging it is fine.


Goddess of Wisdom/Goddess of Wealth: I will say again, these two should, however pleasing the symmetry may be, have not the same faith per yield output. I Don´t think I had, in all my games, ever a situation where my gpt was even close to my spt. It might be possible to theoretically construct such a situation, but in reality you will always generate more science than gold, and the gap only widens as the game progresses.

Yeah, this is a problem. I feel like they would be better off merged somehow.
 
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