[GS] Pantheons other than Religious Settlements

[Tech Osen]

My issue with Religious Settlements is that it's (mostly) a one time thing. I prefer pantheons that stay relevant the entire game.
Playing on Emperor a single early settler or not would rarely make or break a game.

 

[bengalryan9]

My issue with Religious Settlements is that it's (mostly) a one time thing. I prefer pantheons that stay relevant the entire game.
Playing on Emperor a single early settler or not would rarely make or break a game.

I agree in that I also prefer pantheons that give a longer lasting effect, but that said... that free settler can be a godsend on deity if you can get it.

 

[kryat]

Though I almost always choose others first, I’ll give a shoutout to God of Healing. It’s a useful “break glass in emergency” type of belief that can help you manage an unexpected early invasion on higher difficulties. It’s also useful later in the game to reduce military downtime during invasions.

 

[Leucarum]

My issue with Religious Settlements is that it's (mostly) a one time thing. I prefer pantheons that stay relevant the entire game.
Playing on Emperor a single early settler or not would rarely make or break a game.

I agree in that I also prefer pantheons that give a longer lasting effect, but that said... that free settler can be a godsend on deity if you can get it.

For sure it's nowhere near as fun as a lot of the other pantheons. I'm always slightly relieved when I don't get the option of being tempted by it.

 

[Scaramanga]

My issue with Religious Settlements is that it's (mostly) a one time thing. I prefer pantheons that stay relevant the entire game.
Playing on Emperor a single early settler or not would rarely make or break a game.

That individual city is relevant for the entire game, unless it's conquered. Name it "Gift of the Gods" or something.

 

[The googles do nothing]

The change should have been that original bonus for Religious Settlements improved rather then adding a whole new bonus. If you could pick the next tile to be expanded to in cities it would be a good pantheon but not a default.

Pantheons are a good illustration of how collecting data from a game could be used to make it better. IMHO they should roughly equal chosen. I don't know if they will earn people trust back to do that.

 

[Jay247]

as a inca player earth godess pantheon is my go-to pantheon, if you can snag this and eifel tower wonder you can get obscene amounts of faith with ease, its just a pity that ai always chooses this 1st so if you dont get lucky with faith relics or faith goody huts you'll miss out on it. if this is gone i go river godess to help my huge inca cities

 

[enKage]

It is really hard to vote, because it really depends on map and civ. But among those I really like are:
- any bonus production: strategic resources, camps and so on
- if I go for faith pantheons, only quarries and fire goddess make it worth IMO
- very underrated, but pleasent pantheon in case non of above suits, is bonus production to first district.
I also rarely go for bonus settler. Vs AI it really doesn't help even on deity, maybe in MP. I prefer bonus production to ancient units over it, so I can have 2-3 bonus cities with district present and no settler cost increase instead of 1 early city

 

[Ivan Hunger]

Depends on the terrain and the civ.

I tend to favor pantheons that give faith over ones that don't since I enjoy playing the religious game.

My most common choice is probably Initiation Rites, just because I have a bad habit of ignoring barbarians, so a little extra motivation for clearing out the camps is welcome.

 

[tedhebert]

I must admit I'm totally surprised by Earth Goddess's high popularity !!! In my mind, this one is SO map related that I've never bothered with it... Is it really SO good ?

 

[blackcatatonic]

I love Divine Spark but I probably overuse it - it's a bit of a lazy choice but it's nice to fall back on as extra GPPs are never a bad thing, especially as I usually play culturally and like to grab a religion.

I got Earth Goddess once and used it to great effect. Religious Settlements is equivalent to a lucky Spain start from Civ V: obviously amazing if you get it but you need luck to be on your side.

 

[Tabarnak]

Really depends. I usually take the pantheon that will affect the most ressources around. Lot of fishes? +1 prod for them. Lot of cattles? +1 cult for them, etc. And if i play religion i will focus for it.

If i want to kill someone fast i will take god of forge.

 

[UWHabs]

I must admit I'm totally surprised by Earth Goddess's high popularity !!! In my mind, this one is SO map related that I've never bothered with it... Is it really SO good ?

The way things work, stuff tends to cluster. Like, you probably have a lot of cattle or none. Or you have lots of appeal or nothing. I tend to pick a pantheon based on what I can find in the 4-5 main city spots nearby. If you have nice appeal, you can easily have 10 or 20 tiles that would get the faith boost from Earth, especially if you happen to start near a natural wonder or a mountain range.

Of course, if you get jungle or floodplain starts, those tend to have bad appeal, so I'd stay away.

 

[bengalryan9]

I must admit I'm totally surprised by Earth Goddess's high popularity !!! In my mind, this one is SO map related that I've never bothered with it... Is it really SO good ?

If you have mountains, or coastal tiles, or an early UI that improves appeal (Egypt, Persia), it's awesome.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The real thing Religious Settlement gives you is time. At that time you are producing settlers whatsoever, and Religious settlement saves you that time.

Time (turn) is the most valuable resource in Civ6.

 

[kaspergm]

I must admit I'm totally surprised by Earth Goddess's high popularity !!! In my mind, this one is SO map related that I've never bothered with it... Is it really SO good ?

Yes, I think in fact that in terms of faith generation, it's far better than anything else. Take something like Stone Circles, which is +2 faith for each quarry: How common are quarries compared to any (workable) tile with breathtaking appeal? Not very, imo. Of course there's always the problem that you may not want to work that tile because of low yield, or that you want to place a district on it (for mountain adjacency), but still my experience is that you get loads of faith from this, particularly if you happen to have a multi-tile natural wonder.

Then there's something like Dance Of The Aurora or Desert Folklore, which obviously can give you a good faith boost for each holy site, but again, it requires a) that you actually build the holy site, and b) that you have the appropriate terrain available in a location where you actually want to build the holy site. Again, I think that Earth Goddess will both give you both more faith, and provide it faster with less investment.

 

[Stavangerchj]

The way things work, stuff tends to cluster. Like, you probably have a lot of cattle or none. Or you have lots of appeal or nothing. I tend to pick a pantheon based on what I can find in the 4-5 main city spots nearby. If you have nice appeal, you can easily have 10 or 20 tiles that would get the faith boost from Earth, especially if you happen to start near a natural wonder or a mountain range.

Of course, if you get jungle or floodplain starts, those tend to have bad appeal, so I'd stay away.

As an aside, I wish that jungle tiles would get an upgrade in appeal once Conservation is unlocked. That would be more true to life, and also give Earth Goddess a nice boost in the end game, Eiffel Tower notwithstanding.

 

[Tobizi]

I often take Religious Settlement, it's just so tempting! But I really trouble in adapting my strategies although I mostly play random civ. So Religious Settlement first choice, 2nd Divine Spark, 3rd highly map related (Earth Goddess, God of the Open Sky, God of the Sea, Goddess of Festivals), very rarely adjacency (Dance of the Aurora, Desert Folklore).

 

[ezysquire]

Earth Goddess is the best pantheon if you have the map for it with nearby natural wonders etc. I always check the map's appeal before choosing pantheon and sadly most of the time end up with Religious Settlements.

 

[The Highwayman]

Religious Settlements - The overall best pick with a few exceptions. Getting a free early settler starts the snowball earlier and helps claim precious land.
Earth Goddess - With a Civ that can easily take advantage, such as Egypt, Persia, Maori, or Inca, is often the better pick since it allows the Classical Monumentality golden age to be of tremendous value. Expanding and applying your uniques takes further advantage of the potentially massive faith output. Can be a solid choice with any Civ with perfect map conditions.
Dance of the Aurora - Russia or any civ with a tundra-heavy start for amazing faith gen.
Desert Folklore/Sacred Path - Extremely rare but worth mentioning as an option as it has the potential for decent faith gen.
God of the Open Sky/Oral Tradition - Religious Settlements was gone, the faith generating pantheons don't apply and enough of applicable resources are available to justify. Both can be solid to good.
Divine Spark - All of the good pantheons are gone or don't apply to the given map and I must default to something. Having to build the library and amphitheater lowered it's value imo. I suppose it's nice to help secure a religion for the Civs who heavily benefit from a religion but have no such way to speed up the process, such as Georgia, India, or Spain. But overall feels bad.

The rest of the pantheons range from weak to untakeable. It would be nice to have another round of pantheon balancing.