Pantheons - Second Edition

[Gidoza]

I fixed God King in the latest patch - it should only apply to owned city follower pops now.

G

Thanks, this definitely makes more sense! I posted my post before I read the changes - oops!

Just wanted to mention that when comparing these two, it's important to note that Ancestor Worship scales with population, and God-King scales with followers. As far as my experience goes, you're pretty much never going to consistently have 100% followers of one religion in your cities, unless maybe you're so far ahead that you can squash all other religions, or unless you start on an island I guess. The actual percentage will vary heavily but I would hazard an average of around 70%, so it's more like 2.8 yields for every six population vs 1.5. God-King also doesn't have any counterpart to the +1 faith/culture for Councils that Ancestor Worship gets, so that's another flat +2 in Ancestor Worship's favor.

Even with those things kept in mind, God-King is probably a little bit stronger but I think they're reasonably close and different enough, Ancestor Worship lets you get a religion faster which is valuable since you can grab better beliefs and start getting your missionaries out faster so they'll run into less competition so I would say it has a reasonable niche, if anything maybe a very small buff like another +1 on the Council yields.

Interesting, this hasn't been my experience at all with religions - I'll have to see how the new Pressure system Delta works out, but basically my consistent experience in every game I've played is that I scarcely ever see any player with multiple religions in their cities. Now true, you don't necessarily have 100% religious people of your own religion in all your cities, but even so, 2.8 VS 1.5 (which I think is a very generous comparison) is definitely still a massive gap. I don't think that closing the gap with 1 Faith for 3 Population is unfair, especially since we're ONLY talking about Faith here, and not other yields like Gold/Culture/Science, which have many more direct and powerful applications. All those other yields from God-King are also all packed into your Capital (I'm inclined to say we should change this, too), which means it's easy to pack various buildings in the Capital as well to give multipliers to those bonuses; Ancestor Worship has no such benefits. 1 for 3 on Ancestor Worship is an easy easy easy fair game, if not still too weak, but I certainly won't aim to be going stronger.

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

As I found out, God of craftsmen is also always a stillbirth.

It has so many things working against it:

- The improving tech is second row, meaning you start late
- you need a unrelated tech to see stone in the first place
- stone is rare. You can get extremely lucky and have 4 quarries in capitol radius, but even then the next cities will have jack.
- you only get the non-resource bonus if you run a specialist. However, if you do run this pantheon you are already working very food poor tiles, so you won't be able to afford the specialist

It looks like this pantheon shares all negatives of the springtime one, but without even the one in 100 chance to be super powerfull if everything goes right (because there are maps with tone of plantation tiles, but never maps with tons of quarry tiles).

I suggest upping the faith to +2. Every once in while a quarry-heavy cap might get a shot at founding so. You still won't be excited about this pantheon, but beggars can't be choosers.

Also it sounds reasonable to give a bonus to the stoneworks, instead to a specialist you cannot run anyway.

 

[Gidoza]

As I found out, God of craftsmen is also always a stillbirth.

It has so many things working against it:

- The improving tech is second row, meaning you start late
- you need a unrelated tech to see stone in the first place
- stone is rare. You can get extremely lucky and have 4 quarries in capitol radius, but even then the next cities will have jack.
- you only get the non-resource bonus if you run a specialist. However, if you do run this pantheon you are already working very food poor tiles, so you won't be able to afford the specialist

It looks like this pantheon shares all negatives of the springtime one, but without even the one in 100 chance to be super powerfull if everything goes right (because there are maps with tone of plantation tiles, but never maps with tons of quarry tiles).

I suggest upping the faith to +2. Every once in while a quarry-heavy cap might get a shot at founding so. You still won't be excited about this pantheon, but beggars can't be choosers.

Also it sounds reasonable to give a bonus to the stoneworks, instead to a specialist you cannot run anyway.

Points taken. Anyways - will develop a new list (not necessarily balanced) just so we can get a new viewpoint on things and have more direct discussion on the matter.

 

[Gidoza]

Okay, here are some thoughts. The whole list is posted first, with footnotes marked at the end.


Ancestor Worship
+1 Faith for every 3 Citizens in a city; +2 Culture from Libraries. (1)

Earth Mother
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Mines on improved resources; +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Forges. (2)

God of Commerce
+1 Faith for every 20 Gold produced by owned cities; +1 Faith and +1 Gold in every city, and +2 Gold in Cities with a City Connection. (3)

God of Craftsmen
+1 Faith and +1 Gold from Quarries; +1 Faith and +3 Food from Stone Works, +2 Production in cities with a Specialist, and +1 Faith from Temples. (4)

God of All Creation
+1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +3 Happiness in the Capital; +1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 additional Happiness for each Era reached (including the first). (5)

God of the Expanse
+25% faster border growth, +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Monuments, and gain 30 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Gamespeed. (6)

God of the Open Sky
+1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Pastures. (7)

God of the Sea
+1 Faith and +1 Production from Fishing Boats and Atolls; +3 Food in coastal Cities, and +3 Faith from the National Monument. (8)

God of the Stars and Sky
+1 Faith from all Tundra tiles; +2 Food, +1 Production, and +1 Culture from Tundra tiles with improved resources. (9)

God of War
Gain Faith if you win a battle (Amount either unchanged or reduced up to 5% - and could the percentile be displayed in the description?). +5 Culture from the Heroic Epic. (10)

God-King
+1 Culture, +1 Gold, and +1 Science for every 6 Followers in a city; +25 Culture, +25 Gold, and +25 Science each time your borders expand - bonus scales with Era. (11)

Goddess of Beauty
+2 Faith, +2 Culture, and +2 Gold from World Wonders. +15% Production of Pre-Renaissance Wonders. (12)

Goddess of Fertility
+1 Food and +1 Faith from Shrines, Wells, Water Mills, and Aqueducts. 15% faster Growth Rate. (13)

Goddess of Festivals
+1 Faith, +1 Culture and +1 Gold for every unique Luxury Resource you control; +1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold for Caravansaries. (14)

Goddess of Love
10% of Food is carried over whenever a Citizen is born; Gain 25 Faith and 15 Golden Age Points every time a Citizen is born. Bonus scales with Era and Gamespeed. (15)

Goddess of Nature
Natural Wonders gain +2 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 Science; +1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 4 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City. (16)

Goddess of Protection
+50% damage from Cities and +10 HP (or +15) healed per turn in friendly territory; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Palace, Councils, Walls, and Barracks. (17)

Goddess of Purity
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Oases, Lakes, and Marshes; +1 Happiness from Cities on rivers, and +2 Faith from Baths. (18)

Goddess of Renewal
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every Jungle or Forest tile worked without a resource; +1 Science and +1 Faith from Herbalists. (19)

Goddess of Springtime
Thought 1: Merger with Goddess of Festivals - the Luxury Resources provide the Faith, and the Plantations provide other bonuses.

Thought 2: +2 Faith from Markets; +2 Culture and +1 Gold from Plantations. (20)

Goddess of the Hunt
+1 Faith, +1 Food, and +1 Culture from Camps. +3 Faith and +3 Gold from Circus Maximus. (21)

Goddess of Wisdom
+1 Faith for every 10 Science per turn. +1 Science and +1 Faith in every City. (22)

Spirit of the Desert
+1 Faith from all Desert tiles except Oases; +1 Food, +1 Production, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Desert tiles with Improved resources. (23)

God of the Sun
+1 Food and +1 Culture from Granaries; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Farms on Wheat. (24)




(1) - As the main bonus is Faith and pretty much only Faith, we're making that stronger; but we don't want the early-game too strong, so Councils are scrapped and replaced with a Culture bonus on Libraries, which come later.

(2) - The extra Food enables the Mines to be worked and is quite strong; you'll be getting plenty of Production from them, so the Gold has been moved to the Forge, which you'll now want very much.

(3) - Instant +2 Faith for the Capital was too strong, but now the benefit is smaller but instantaneous for all cities. What is lacking in Faith from the City Connections directly will be made up by the additional Gold being produced when the City Connections are made.

(4) - Getting the Stone Works up should give you enough Food to get that Specialist a-working, and craftsmen tend to make good pottery, which is why the Food is hanging around. Craftsmen make beautiful Temples.

(5) - Has a strong start without being crazy, and isn't dependent on the map size or number of players.

(6) - Encouragement to build a Monument, which will support the ability that otherwise seems lacking. Faith bonus increased, but remember that it DOES NOT scale with Era.

(7) - The Plains/Grassland bonus is too weird and impossible to balance. The alternative I offer is strong, but has its limits in the long run. At the worst, just flame me and suggest something else.

(8) - The National Monument adds a small "scaling" effect so that this can keep up a little better with Pantheons that have growing Faith over time.

(9) - Solves the Food issue, maintains Production and Culture, and enables Faith to be gathered from additional sources with time.

(10) - +50% city damage is unneeded here as this Pantheon is plenty powerful, but could use some alternative yields - but not right away. Hence the Heroic Epic provides a unique but singular bonus.

(11) - It could just stay at what it was previously, but as this Pantheon is otherwise so odd and depends on other-Faith support anyways, it would be fun to make it a non-Faith Pantheon with super yields.

(12) - +3 Faith is too strong for a starter, and the Pantheon otherwise lacked meaningful yields. Gold could be dropped to only 1, though.

(13) - Added Water Mills so that River cities aren't left out of the loop, and Aqueducts provide a little "scaler" to keep up with other Pantheons that create more Faith as time goes on.

(14) - Keeping it good early-on, but with a building that keeps it strong later on and seems appropriate for the theme.

(15) - I admit - this is a guesstimate of usefulness.

(16) - Natural Wonder bonus offered too much Faith (one point replaced with a Science), and Mountains were insane.

(17) - Damage from cities moved from God of War, which didn't need it. Councils offers early Faith that can be meaningful, since Barracks are a bit far off, and Walls aren't exactly the most useful buildings in the world at turn 40, and these are all buildings you need to build somehow. In the long run, it can keep up with other Pantheons for the most part in Faith and Culture, though.

(18) - The extra Faith on Baths will help this Pantheon to keep up in Faith as the game goes on - otherwise, a solid Pantheon.

(19) - Don't know if this is too strong or not, but Moi Magnus' suggestion seems pretty cool to me.

(20) - Too many tech issues with this Pantheon to leave it as it is originally; needs modification somehow.

(21) - Offers a scaler for a National Wonder that helps it keep up later in the game.

(22) - No changes.

(23) - Offering less of the best yields than the Tundra one as Tundra needs more help, and all Desert tiles except Oases helps to control the Faith yields, as Deserts tend to have better resources than Tundra generally.

(24) - Shuffled some of the yields around so that a strong Wheat start doesn't become insanely powerful.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Ancestor Worship
+1 Faith for every 3 Citizens in a city; +2 Culture from Libraries. (1)

Okay. I don't think the change was very needed, just +1Gold to the Council would make it scale better.

Earth Mother
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Mines on improved resources; +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Forges. (2)

Why? It's better in the long run I suppose, but why? All the pantheon needed to be competitive was something like +1Faith or Culture in the Monument.

God of Commerce
+1 Faith for every 20 Gold produced by owned cities; +1 Faith and +1 Gold in every city, and +2 Gold in Cities with a City Connection. (3)

A nerf? While it wasn't a weak pantheon, I don't think it really needed a nerf (1 faith>1 gold most of the time)

God of Craftsmen
+1 Faith and +1 Gold from Quarries; +1 Faith and +3 Food from Stone Works, +2 Production in cities with a Specialist, and +1 Faith from Temples. (4)

The pantheon might be meh now but... Why Temples? I get they're "crafted" and "built" and all but still.

God of All Creation
+1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +3 Happiness in the Capital; +1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 additional Happiness for each Era reached (including the first). (5)

Cool idea and I'm liking it, but too weak. I'd give it +2Gold on start with another +2 for every era.

God of the Open Sky
+1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Pastures.

Better than the current one I suppose. It could get something like +X in the stable to make it scale better but some hill sheep spawns make me unsure if that's really needed.

God of the Sea
+1 Faith and +1 Production from Fishing Boats and Atolls; +3 Food in coastal Cities, and +3 Faith from the National Monument. (8)

God of the Stars and Sky
+1 Faith from all Tundra tiles; +2 Food, +1 Production, and +1 Culture from Tundra tiles with improved resources. (9)

Did you just seriously buff the strongest pantheon in the game?

+2F+2C+2P per resource is beyond broken in current version to the point I always nerf it myself in the Pantheon xml because it makes the game completely unchallenging on any sort of Tundra start. Seriously. Play one communitas map with a Tundra start, you'll get 4 tundra resources in the range of your capital and 3-4 cities with the same amount.

That's 8 Culture, 8 Production and 8 faith... Just in your capital. It is very likely to become even more once you get Iron discovered. And you get that as soon as you research Hunting and build Camps most of the time, and will get even more because Tundras are usually big and you will settle 2-3 more cities at least.

God-King
+1 Culture, +1 Gold, and +1 Science for every 6 Followers in a city; +25 Culture, +25 Gold, and +25 Science each time your borders expand - bonus scales with Era. (11)

Why fix what isn't broken? The bonus could break the pantheon too.

Goddess of Nature
Natural Wonders gain +2 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 Science; +1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 4 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City.

Overnerfed, nobody will take it ever, especially not when your Goddess of Protection/Renewal exists which will usually give you way more than this one can even with the best of starts in the luckiest of cities.

Goddess of Protection
+50% damage from Cities and +10 HP (or +15) healed per turn in friendly territory; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Palace, Councils, Walls, and Barracks. (17)

That's +3Faith +3Culture per city (4 both in capital) AND healing AND city damage? That's by far the best pantheon in the game. It might scale better even than God-King (at least until Renaissance). Too good. It's better in every city with little investment than resource-related pantheons are with good starts, and has two effects.

Why change this pantheon when regular Goddess of Protection is already awesome? Seriously, try it before stuffing not only a free +1F+1C (it's on a must-have 1st tech tier building so it's free) but also another effect on it. If you play Authority, there's nothing else like that. Scales awesomely with 2F2C (almost as good as God-King) but also supports you if you're attacked or once you conquer a city. I could see it get a tiny buff I suppose but another +1F+1C is not that.

Goddess of Purity
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Oases, Lakes, and Marshes; +1 Happiness from Cities on rivers, and +2 Faith from Baths. (18)

Fitting, is a buff that helps scale it. Nice.

Goddess of Renewal
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every Jungle or Forest tile worked without a resource; +1 Science and +1 Faith from Herbalists. (19)

Scales too well. It is far too good. Even God-King or God of Protection would be no match to this one with a decently forested start.

Spirit of the Desert
+1 Faith from all Desert tiles except Oases; +1 Food, +1 Production, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Desert tiles with Improved resources. (23)

I don't get why should Desert be getting weaker boni than Tundra when Tundra usually has far, far more resources, is much bigger and usually requires less effort to upgrade than Desert.

On Desert you need to research all sorts of techs to upgrade the stuff on it, while half of the time all you need to work all you have on Tundra is Trapping with some rare Mining/Stone Works required to get even more.

The pantheon should remain as it is now with maybe a +1Production/Food/whatever per city settled on/near desert while only Stars and Sky should get a nerf - not only is Tundra better than Desert by +1F, 2 Culture is far better than 2 Gold and 2 Production is far better than 2 Food, especially on Tundra where Food is really not a problem because of how frequent Deer on Forest are.

God of the Sun
+1 Food and +1 Culture from Granaries; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Farms on Wheat. (24)

Awful pantheon, why would I take it when Goddess of Protection exists? I'd get way more Faith + Culture from that on average, probably even on Wheat cities because I'd need 2 wheat to get even (with 1 less Faith, 1 more Food), 3 if it's capital. I'd also miss out on two cool effects and the assurance that I will get the bonuses in every city, not two-three. I don't know why you nerfed this pantheon so hard - while +2C on Wheat farms could be overpowered on some starts, it wasn't THAT bad. Just replacing that one C with some lesser yield, like Production/Gold/Food would be okay.

The rest are okay from what I've seen

 

[Gazebo]

I'm not saying that the current Pantheons are perfect, but we're on iteration 5 of pantheons, and you're telling me that they ALL need to be changed? I just don't believe it. One or two, maybe, but all of them?

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I'm not saying that the current Pantheons are perfect, but we're on iteration 5 of pantheons, and you're telling me that they ALL need to be changed? I just don't believe it. One or two, maybe, but all of them?

G

In my opinion the most grave balance problem is God of Stars and Sky, the rest is more or less okay. 8C8P8F in your capital on tundra start? Every time. And the same on 3 or more cities depending on what Communitas wants. That's like 3 pre-nerf gods of creation (that also give Production at cost of no Happiness) put into one pantheon.

 

[Gidoza]

I'm not saying that the current Pantheons are perfect, but we're on iteration 5 of pantheons, and you're telling me that they ALL need to be changed? I just don't believe it. One or two, maybe, but all of them?

Most of my changes merely include a tiny addition for scaling purposes, mainly on the Resource Pantheons so they keep up during the rest of the game. I know it may seem a bit wild to tweak them all, but I'm not doing this without reason. Please realize that I also get lots done by trial-and-error and I actually want to SEE results to assess them. Please trust me.

Originally Posted by Gidoza

Ancestor Worship
+1 Faith for every 3 Citizens in a city; +2 Culture from Libraries. (1)

Okay. I don't think the change was very needed, just +1 Gold to the Council would make it scale better.

I'd rather say that this is one of the Pantheons that was most in need of help - +1 Gold won't be enough; whereas most other Pantheons are generating various yields from buildings or for each resource, this Pantheon's real strength is Faith in the long-term, and pretty much only Faith. If it doesn't do that well, then there's not much point to it. This Pantheon is *supposed* to be a Faith powerhouse, and I'd dare say that even non-Faith yields might not even be necessary or could aim to be avoided for the sake of exaggerating its strength.

Earth Mother
+1 Faith and +1 Food from Mines on improved resources; +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Forges. (2)

Why? It's better in the long run I suppose, but why? All the pantheon needed to be competitive was something like +1Faith or Culture in the Monument.

Please head back throughout the thread to see the discussion on this - the weakness with Earth Mother is the fact that lack of Food prevents the Pantheon from actually being used much of the time. By replacing the Gold on Mines with Food (making the Pantheon absolutely usable), you have a rather big buff, which would make the Monument too powerful for the early stages - hence the use of the Forge, which comes later and won't exaggerate early-game power.

God of Commerce
+1 Faith for every 20 Gold produced by owned cities; +1 Faith and +1 Gold in every city, and +2 Gold in Cities with a City Connection. (3)

A nerf? While it wasn't a weak pantheon, I don't think it really needed a nerf (1 faith>1 gold most of the time)

Absolutely a nerf, because +2 Faith in the main city was too strong, and with a single other City Connection would guarantee a Religion much better than most other Pantheons. Being overpowered is not okay. It also had an overwhelming bias towards Carthage/Iroquois/Songhai. By removing Faith from City Connections and giving it in smaller value to all cities, it will meaningfully keep up with generating a Religion, while on the other hand, the Gold will subsidize additional Faith.

God of Craftsmen
+1 Faith and +1 Gold from Quarries; +1 Faith and +3 Food from Stone Works, +2 Production in cities with a Specialist, and +1 Faith from Temples. (4)

The pantheon might be meh now but... Why Temples? I get they're "crafted" and "built" and all but still.

The undoing of "meh" is by giving Food to the Stone Works, which will provide enough food to work all the Quarries admirably without being put behind in Faith. The Temple bonus is there because Stone resources are more rare generally and there is no guarantee of a Stone Works being able to be constructed in every city, putting God of Craftsmen behind - thus the Temple backs up the Pantheon where it lacks.

God of All Creation
+1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +3 Happiness in the Capital; +1 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 additional Happiness for each Era reached (including the first). (5)

Cool idea and I'm liking it, but too weak. I'd give it +2 Gold on start with another +2 for every era.

I'm inclined to agree with you.

God of the Open Sky
+1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Pastures.

Better than the current one I suppose. It could get something like +X in the stable to make it scale better but some hill sheep spawns make me unsure if that's really needed.

I was going to do that, but Gazebo said no bonuses on buildings past Classical Era, so I've limited myself to buildings in Ancient/Classical very strictly. Given how animals tend to spawn, I think this is good enough, anyways.

God of the Stars and Sky
+1 Faith from all Tundra tiles; +2 Food, +1 Production, and +1 Culture from Tundra tiles with improved resources. (9)

Did you just seriously buff the strongest pantheon in the game?

+2F+2C+2P per resource is beyond broken in current version to the point I always nerf it myself in the Pantheon xml because it makes the game completely unchallenging on any sort of Tundra start. Seriously. Play one communitas map with a Tundra start, you'll get 4 tundra resources in the range of your capital and 3-4 cities with the same amount.

That's 8 Culture, 8 Production and 8 faith... Just in your capital. It is very likely to become even more once you get Iron discovered. And you get that as soon as you research Hunting and build Camps most of the time, and will get even more because Tundras are usually big and you will settle 2-3 more cities at least.

I've played with this Pantheon on Tundra and I agree it's broken - I didn't exactly perceive what I was doing as a buff. The drop from 2 Culture to 1 is a *big* difference. The drop from 2 Faith to 1 on the resource tiles is also a big difference - because non-resource Tundra tiles are pretty awful, so even though you could get 1 Faith from them, it might not be worth working them anyways. Thus there's a much lower Culture threshold, a general nerf in Faith except for the long-term. I don't get how this constitutes a buff.

God-King
+1 Culture, +1 Gold, and +1 Science for every 6 Followers in a city; +25 Culture, +25 Gold, and +25 Science each time your borders expand - bonus scales with Era. (11)

Why fix what isn't broken? The bonus could break the pantheon too.

You're probably right - I was suggesting this as a fun idea for something different more than a balance change (the other ones are all legit balance suggestions). We can stick with the present one.

Goddess of Protection
+50% damage from Cities and +10 HP (or +15) healed per turn in friendly territory; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Palace, Councils, Walls, and Barracks. (17)

That's +3Faith +3Culture per city (4 both in capital) AND healing AND city damage? That's by far the best pantheon in the game. It might scale better even than God-King (at least until Renaissance). Too good. It's better in every city with little investment than resource-related pantheons are with good starts, and has two effects.

Why change this pantheon when regular Goddess of Protection is already awesome? Seriously, try it before stuffing not only a free +1F+1C (it's on a must-have 1st tech tier building so it's free) but also another effect on it. If you play Authority, there's nothing else like that. Scales awesomely with 2F2C (almost as good as God-King) but also supports you if you're attacked or once you conquer a city. I could see it get a tiny buff I suppose but another +1F+1C is not that.

You're right - +3 Culture per city is a bit much. However, +3 Faith per city is not, and is rather about par for the course. In fact, without that 3rd Faith per city, this Pantheon falls badly behind as the game goes on; furthermore, without an early building generating Faith like the Council, this Pantheon has difficulty managing a Religion at all, because Barracks aren't a super-early tech, and neither are Walls, and this is besides the fact that Walls are not usually the first thing on one's building list. The Council needs to be there, or this Pantheon will be a flop. However, we can mix up some of the yields a little. And while the city damage increase suits the framework, perhaps it is a bit high. Let's try the following instead. Yes, I have used the Pantheon, and its healing is awesome, but it lacks in other areas.

+25% damage from cities, and +10 HP healed per turn in friendly territory; +1 Faith and +1 Gold from Palace and Councils; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Barracks and Walls.

We could also potentially dump the Palace bonus altogether, or swap it for Gold/Culture instead of generating Faith at all, but I think overall what I just offered seems good. Thanks for the input.

Goddess of Nature
Natural Wonders gain +2 Faith, +2 Culture, and +1 Science; +1 Faith and +1 Culture for every 4 Mountains within 3 tiles of a City.

Overnerfed, nobody will take it ever, especially not when your Goddess of Protection/Renewal exists which will usually give you way more than this one can even with the best of starts in the luckiest of cities.

We could go with 3 Mountains, but that would definitely still be too strong - but the present version is definitely way way way too strong. There's nothing like having +16 Faith some 20 turns into the game with enormous Culture generation. In a Mountainous area, 8 Mountains isn't exactly rare, and +2 Faith/Culture is pretty decent. But yes, perhaps we could make it 1 for 3 and see how it goes.

Goddess of Renewal
+1 Faith and +1 Culture for every Jungle or Forest tile worked without a resource; +1 Science and +1 Faith from Herbalists. (19)

Scales too well. It is far too good. Even God-King or God of Protection would be no match to this one with a decently forested start.

Thanks for saying it, I agree with you here. Yet the oldest version of the Pantheon was too good, the recent version is too bad, and this is again too good. What can we do instead that would work?

Spirit of the Desert
+1 Faith from all Desert tiles except Oases; +1 Food, +1 Production, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Desert tiles with Improved resources. (23)

I don't get why should Desert be getting weaker boni than Tundra when Tundra usually has far, far more resources, is much bigger and usually requires less effort to upgrade than Desert.

On Desert you need to research all sorts of techs to upgrade the stuff on it, while half of the time all you need to work all you have on Tundra is Trapping with some rare Mining/Stone Works required to get even more.

The pantheon should remain as it is now with maybe a +1Production/Food/whatever per city settled on/near desert while only Stars and Sky should get a nerf - not only is Tundra better than Desert by +1F, 2 Culture is far better than 2 Gold and 2 Production is far better than 2 Food, especially on Tundra where Food is really not a problem because of how frequent Deer on Forest are.

Curious, as this is hardly my experience, nor where our discussion went elsewhere in the thread - I find that Desert has the better resources, plus it has Oases AND it has Flood Plains. This seems hands down superior to anything Tundra can ever offer.

God of the Sun
+1 Food and +1 Culture from Granaries; +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Farms on Wheat. (24)

Awful pantheon, why would I take it when Goddess of Protection exists? I'd get way more Faith + Culture from that on average, probably even on Wheat cities because I'd need 2 wheat to get even (with 1 less Faith, 1 more Food), 3 if it's capital. I'd also miss out on two cool effects and the assurance that I will get the bonuses in every city, not two-three. I don't know why you nerfed this pantheon so hard - while +2C on Wheat farms could be overpowered on some starts, it wasn't THAT bad. Just replacing that one C with some lesser yield, like Production/Gold/Food would be okay.

Fair enough. +2 Culture on Wheat Farms was definitely overpowered on some starts, which is why I made the change. I'll go with what you suggest - perhaps replacing one of the Culture with Gold instead would be better, though keeping some of that Culture on the Granary is useful for cities that don't have any Wheat nearby. Thus we could have Granaries offering +1 Food and +1 Culture (and maybe +1 Gold), and Farms on Wheat offering +1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold. And actually, this needs another Faith source sometime in classical, as the Faith from Wheat is not going to be super strong.



So the result is: I agree with about half of your comments, Enrico, and disagree with the other half. But I guess that's what a discussion thread is for - so hit me with more comments! Thank you!

 

[Funak]

I'm not saying that the current Pantheons are perfect, but we're on iteration 5 of pantheons, and you're telling me that they ALL need to be changed? I just don't believe it. One or two, maybe, but all of them?

There are a few that stands out:

God of Wisdom
This pantheon just kinda feel off, it is terrible for actually founding a religion and it generates crazy amounts of faith later on. I mean Commerce and Ancestor worship can't even scratch the numbers this thing puts out later on.
Maybe it is intended but I just find thing whole thing really weird.

God of All Creation
I still don't like this one, cap or not, I was kinda never playing on maps bigger than standard anyways so the cap didn't actually change this for me at all. Anyways it just feels like this pantheon just focuses on the wrong things, and I would still seriously suggest just axing it.

God of the Open Sky
The culture-part of this pantheon is just plain a bad idea, in 90% of the cases it does absolutely nothing, there must be a building or something that you can put some yields on instead. The pasture-bonus by itself isn't that bad, I mean gold isn't exactly the top yield but pastures are usually nice to work anyways so it doesn't hurt.

Ancestor Worship
This one feels way too weak early-game for how little impact it actually brings later on.

 

[Gazebo]

There are a few that stands out:

God of Wisdom
This pantheon just kinda feel off, it is terrible for actually founding a religion and it generates crazy amounts of faith later on. I mean Commerce and Ancestor worship can't even scratch the numbers this thing puts out later on.
Maybe it is intended but I just find thing whole thing really weird.

This Pantheon is a risk - it is intended to help with GP creation late-game.

God of All Creation
I still don't like this one, cap or not, I was kinda never playing on maps bigger than standard anyways so the cap didn't actually change this for me at all. Anyways it just feels like this pantheon just focuses on the wrong things, and I would still seriously suggest just axing it.

I think it is fine, though the +3 faith should probably be +2 so that it is clearly a risk versus the reward of happiness and culture.

God of the Open Sky
The culture-part of this pantheon is just plain a bad idea, in 90% of the cases it does absolutely nothing, there must be a building or something that you can put some yields on instead. The pasture-bonus by itself isn't that bad, I mean gold isn't exactly the top yield but pastures are usually nice to work anyways so it doesn't hurt.

Should probably be per 2, not per 3.

Ancestor Worship
This one feels way too weak early-game for how little impact it actually brings later on.

Reducing the ratio and increasing council bonus seems fine.

Most of my changes merely include a tiny addition for scaling purposes, mainly on the Resource Pantheons so they keep up during the rest of the game. I know it may seem a bit wild to tweak them all, but I'm not doing this without reason. Please realize that I also get lots done by trial-and-error and I actually want to SEE results to assess them. Please trust me.

I'm not really a fan of 'just implement my idea and you'll see' logic, Gidoza. It is a lot of work. I will look at your suggestions and consider them for some trouble-spot revisions, but editing every Pantheon feels like overkill.

G

 

[Gidoza]

Originally Posted by Funak View Post
Ancestor Worship
This one feels way too weak early-game for how little impact it actually brings later on.

Reducing the ratio and increasing council bonus seems fine.

If you reduce the ratio, you'll find that the Council bonus is too much and need not be increased.

I'm not really a fan of 'just implement my idea and you'll see' logic, Gidoza. It is a lot of work. I will look at your suggestions and consider them for some trouble-spot revisions, but editing every Pantheon feels like overkill.

I know it's alot of work - because while you're doing programming, I am playing game after game almost exclusively to test Pantheons, observe their Faith generation, observe their late-game power, jot down notes, and then I immediately move on to the next one. I do play games and have fun, but I'm putting all my efforts into meaningful testing, observation, math, and useful conclusions. I have papers strewn about my desk with my notes that are really making an effort to get things balanced. I suppose I could offer you every single detail of the matter, but I don't imagine you'd be wanting to look at that, because that would be even more work.

What I'm offering is not overkill: yes, I can be wrong in my observations, and people like Enrico and Funak are offering positive scrutiny that improve the results and help me build on things I have missed, but the end of it all is that it really is *not* and should not be considered an issue even if we should need to edit every single Pantheon. My observations are as sincere as they can be; they are not conjured up at random, nor influenced by personal preference, but a genuine attempt to develop a system that is at one at the same time as balanced as it can be while offering uniqueness and distinctiveness amongst the choices. The results of this are along the lines of what I am offering. If we only tweak a few Pantheons within the framework of our "box," we'll just continue to have a Pantheon set that has lots of holes and flaws and is simply not balanced. I'm not satisfied with this - and if I have to bend the rules and revise the whole system by thinking outside the box, then I will. Thankfully, I'm not introducing any new rules, but just re-arranging buildings and numbers, so the end result is neither going to be a catastrophe, nor is it going to be laboriously daunting. My judgment isn't perfect, and has flaws like anyone's, but I don't ask you to trust my judgment without a reason.

 

[Gazebo]

If you reduce the ratio, you'll find that the Council bonus is too much and need not be increased.




I know it's alot of work - because while you're doing programming, I am playing game after game almost exclusively to test Pantheons, observe their Faith generation, observe their late-game power, jot down notes, and then I immediately move on to the next one. I do play games and have fun, but I'm putting all my efforts into meaningful testing, observation, math, and useful conclusions. I have papers strewn about my desk with my notes that are really making an effort to get things balanced. I suppose I could offer you every single detail of the matter, but I don't imagine you'd be wanting to look at that, because that would be even more work.

What I'm offering is not overkill: yes, I can be wrong in my observations, and people like Enrico and Funak are offering positive scrutiny that improve the results and help me build on things I have missed, but the end of it all is that it really is *not* and should not be considered an issue even if we should need to edit every single Pantheon. My observations are as sincere as they can be; they are not conjured up at random, nor influenced by personal preference, but a genuine attempt to develop a system that is at one at the same time as balanced as it can be while offering uniqueness and distinctiveness amongst the choices. The results of this are along the lines of what I am offering. If we only tweak a few Pantheons within the framework of our "box," we'll just continue to have a Pantheon set that has lots of holes and flaws and is simply not balanced. I'm not satisfied with this - and if I have to bend the rules and revise the whole system by thinking outside the box, then I will. Thankfully, I'm not introducing any new rules, but just re-arranging buildings and numbers, so the end result is neither going to be a catastrophe, nor is it going to be laboriously daunting. My judgment isn't perfect, and has flaws like anyone's, but I don't ask you to trust my judgment without a reason.

I don't doubt your reason, nor your research, however I do feel that a few surgical changes can re-balance things without having to go back to the drawing board. As I said, though, I'm definitely considering your research. It is not for nothing.

G

 

[tu_79]

See it this way: if it is too much work, the developers may feel overwhelmed and drop any will to change anything. So, instead of trying to change every pantheon, focus on the worst offenders. Preferably not more than three.

 

[Stalker0]

I don't doubt your reason, nor your research, however I do feel that a few surgical changes can re-balance things without having to go back to the drawing board. As I said, though, I'm definitely considering your research. It is not for nothing.

G

Completely agree here. Also, there is not a lot of consensus that many of the pantheons need work. Some are absolutely on the list (I put mine earlier in the thread), but I think many of them are fine. What I will do now is highlight the changes that I think look good.

Earth Mother +1 Faith and +1 Food from Mines on improved resources; +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Forges.

Overall this one is looking better, though even just the +1 faith on forges is probably good enough. The key here is that this is a transformative pantheon, mines go from meh to pretty good from this pantheon, which hugely increases their use.

God of the Expanse +25% faster border growth, +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Monuments, and gain 30 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Gamespeed.
I think the culture on monuments is a good change that synergies well here. But I would leave out the +1 faith on monuments. If you need more faith, increase the faith bonus for expanding the borders.

God of the Open Sky +1 Faith, +1 Culture, and +1 Gold from Pastures. (7)

This one looks nice.

 

[pandasnail]

Not gonna get into the nuanced stuff, but I think God of Creation is still way too good at 3 8 8 or even 2 8 8 or even 1 8 8. That's just a LOT of early game Culture and Happiness. Without Stonehenge I likely won't found, but the lead God of Creation has helped build makes it easier to take someone else's religion. Unless you get unlucky with the geography, the downside is 'probably don't get to pick first two beliefs.' Really don't feel that's enough for increased ability to expand and near guarantee to be among the Culture leaders, even with Authority.

 

[Funak]

This Pantheon is a risk - it is intended to help with GP creation late-game.

Okay, I just felt like the scaling was a bit too bonkers, but if that was actually intended I guess that's fine.

I think it is fine, though the +3 faith should probably be +2 so that it is clearly a risk versus the reward of happiness and culture.

I'm not really sure that this would change much. The pantheon to me feels broken at the core. I might be alone at that so I guess I'll just drop it.

Should probably be per 2, not per 3.

That would probably let the pantheon generate some culture, maybe that is fine actually.

Reducing the ratio and increasing council bonus seems fine.

Okay I'm slightly confused by this. To me, reducing a ratio doesn't actually change the ratio (like reducing 5/15 to 1/5).
Other than that I can see it both as reducing the fraction (from 1/4 to 1/5) or as reducing the denominator (from 1/4 to 1/3).

Earth Mother +1 Faith and +1 Food from Mines on improved resources; +1 Faith and +2 Gold from Forges.

Getting food from mines feels really odd to me, and moving the bonus back to forge compared to the monument is a huge nerf.

Overall this one is looking better, though even just the +1 faith on forges is probably good enough. The key here is that this is a transformative pantheon, mines go from meh to pretty good from this pantheon, which hugely increases their use.[/QUOTE]
Getting food from mines feels really odd to me, and moving the bonus back to forge compared to the monument is a huge nerf.

God of the Expanse +25% faster border growth, +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Monuments, and gain 30 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Gamespeed.
I think the culture on monuments is a good change that synergies well here. But I would leave out the +1 faith on monuments. If you need more faith, increase the faith bonus for expanding the borders.

God of the Expanse is already great and I definitely don't think it needs a buff(and these are pretty big buffs). I guess adding +1 culture somewhere isn't necessarily too much, but I'd avoid increasing the faith generated from border-expansions by 50% as you suggested.

 

[Gidoza]

I don't doubt your reason, nor your research, however I do feel that a few surgical changes can re-balance things without having to go back to the drawing board. As I said, though, I'm definitely considering your research. It is not for nothing.

G

I do appreciate that you're considering my work - it means alot. I hope you don't see what I'm doing as going back to the drawing board, though - this isn't a complete re-implementation of everything. Yes, I've poked at basically every single Pantheon, but my changes amount to building swaps and yield changes, plus a couple other small tweaks - nothing more. I'm not saying that our present system is hopeless, I'm saying it needs tweaks.



(from tu_79)

See it this way: if it is too much work, the developers may feel overwhelmed and drop any will to change anything. So, instead of trying to change every pantheon, focus on the worst offenders. Preferably not more than three.

Well, I suppose I don't really see it this way. First, I'm not asking for an AI change, but value changes. Secondly, "worst offenders" is a start, but that doesn't complete the task - if everything else isn't done, then we'll have three new worst offenders. I suppose my methodology is the following: work hard at it, hammer it all out - it will take some cranking and sweat, but it will be done swiftly and with good results.

For what it's worth - I appreciate how the Dromon matter was handled. There was disagreement about the matter, but I don't think anyone actually suggested that its attack skill be reduced to 10, yet that's what Gazebo did. However, the very fact that a new value was set broke the repetitive chain of the argumentation - it took all the theories and made them concrete: suddenly, people who were disagreeing (like myself and Funak) were in agreement: 10 is too weak. Now it has been buffed to 12. I'm liking it, and perhaps some will disagree, but here is the point: we have data to work with, real evidence that people with their experience can use to come to real conclusions. There's a certain ballziness to just making a change like that - it wasn't that it generated the conclusion, but it brought us closer to the value we wanted. I'm not pretending like the Pantheon project is just my own thing - I expect people like you, Funak, Enrico, and others to either back me up or criticize me based on the results. Theoretical discussions are dreary and often don't get us anywhere - they DO have a point, but they also have their limit. I'm offering a framework that is imperfect, but which I know is on the right track. At worst, we just keep the old data and revert it - I just don't see the point in assuming perfection and going through the gruelling process of conservative changes that will keep us here for years arguing about the matter. I'm not expecting instant results, but I don't think it should take 10 pages to get through this. There's been 5 Pantheon iterations so far - let's do 15 more in 2 months with 5 Pantheon changes per version for the next 10 versions, scrutinize every last thing, get the data, adjust it to perfection, and be done with it. I admit - this is my bias, this is my approach, and I won't pretend that I'm not aggressive about it, because I'm a ruthless experimenter (just read all my reports of games in the main forum - I'm concerned about the lessons, the balance observations, the bugs, and all that: one could argue that I don't even really play the game at all). If my hands are tied because I can't adjust the values on my own and see the results for myself, what do you expect me to say?

God of the Expanse +25% faster border growth, +1 Faith and +1 Culture from Monuments, and gain 30 Faith every time a city expands its borders. Bonus scales with Gamespeed.
I think the culture on monuments is a good change that synergies well here. But I would leave out the +1 faith on monuments. If you need more faith, increase the faith bonus for expanding the borders.
God of the Expanse is already great and I definitely don't think it needs a buff(and these are pretty big buffs). I guess adding +1 culture somewhere isn't necessarily too much, but I'd avoid increasing the faith generated from border-expansions by 50% as you suggested.

I follow you here. I think the Monument makes the most sense for a buff anywhere here, so perhaps we could just test it with the Monumental addition.

Originally Posted by Funak
There are a few that stands out:

God of Wisdom
This pantheon just kinda feel off, it is terrible for actually founding a religion and it generates crazy amounts of faith later on. I mean Commerce and Ancestor worship can't even scratch the numbers this thing puts out later on.
Maybe it is intended but I just find thing whole thing really weird.

This Pantheon is a risk - it is intended to help with GP creation late-game.

I'll have to challenge you on this one, Gazebo - your explanation really doesn't hold. I'm all for risk-and-reward, but taking a risk is not a justification for imbalance. Let's say instead that we had a Civ with -50% military strength until Medieval, and then after Medieval, Military strength is increased by 50%. Yeah - you risk getting slaughtered horribly in the early game, but should you survive, the reward is a pretty much guaranteed victory? And this is only if we count the risk of having neighbors: often your neighbors are far, or friendly, or you're on a well-protected island: many times, there can be no risk at all. Such is with Goddess of Wisdom as well - really, one can't say there is a risk: if I can see I won't be getting a Religion out of it, I won't bother picking it, and will get excellent yields out of something else; on the other hand, if I have my lucky streak with Uluru or some other stuff, then there's no risk, and I reap a reward that's totally disproportionate to anything I invested. This is *NOT* a good design!!!

I'm 100% with you, however, that GP creation late-game is the purpose of this Pantheon - but I would put it in the same field as Ancestor Worship, God of Commerce, and a few others. These are the Pantheons that generate heavy Faith later in the game, but their deficiency is that Improvements and Buildings aren't helping them to get other kinds of yields either early on or later. But they're all strong in Faith and that can be helped strategically by how you play the game, and all of these point to Great People generation in the end. *However*, early-on, the Faith yields of all Pantheons should be about the same as far as generating a Religion is concerned; the Pantheons that aren't Faith superpowers are just getting the Faith in the beginning, and all the others are getting both Faith and other stuff. This is the baseline where we need to strike the balance, and what we need to be aiming for. If we don't have this, the system doesn't work.

 

[tu_79]

Do it your way, but I still think you get better chances to change something if you focus a little more. I can't speak for everyone, but I can't help to read your posts and stop it in the middle, so I'm not inclined to follow up this discussion.

As Gazebo said before, surely all can't be wrong. We're playing and enjoying it after all.

 

[Gidoza]

Do it your way, but I still think you get better chances to change something if you focus a little more. I can't speak for everyone, but I can't help to read your posts and stop it in the middle, so I'm not inclined to follow up this discussion.

As Gazebo said before, surely all can't be wrong. We're playing and enjoying it after all.

I'm playing and enjoying it, too, but that doesn't mean changes aren't needed. Sure, I guess I could focus a little more - but any meaningful way I think about this would bring me to focus on three at a time until I ended up going through all of them anyways, so it'll amount to the same thing in the end. Rather than teasing you with a little information at a time, I'm going to give you the whole picture and be real with you. And no, all is not "wrong" - let me be clear: missing the mark is different from total failure. I'm trying to bring things to the best they can be. Some stuff is wrong (God of All Creation), some stuff is not wrong (Goddess of Fertility), but just because some stuff isn't wrong doesn't mean that it doesn't need adjusting and can't be brought to a greater level of perfection.

 

[Gazebo]

Based on thoughts outlined above, here's my current minimalist attempt to address some imbalances:

Pantheons:

• Ancestor Worship - reduced ratio to 3 (was 4), Council now +2 culture (was +1)
• Beauty - reduced Faith to +2 (Was +3)
• Wisdom - increased ratio to 15 (was 10), increased City bonus to +1 Science +2 Faith
• Stars and Sky - reduced Faith to 1 (was 2)
• God King - increased ratio to 8 (Was 6)
• Open Sky - shifted ratio to 1c per 2 (Was per 3)
• Craftsmen - Cities with specialists yield +3 Faith, Quarries/Stone Works yield gold/production
• Commerce - ratio now 30, connection now +3/+2 (was +2/+2)