Rate the Beliefs - part I: Pantheon beliefs

[kaspergm]

This was something I did back in Civ5, and it was pretty valuable for me to get insight in people's thoughts about various beliefs to use for modding and just for general interest. So it goes like this: Rate each belief, starting in this thread with the Pantheon beliefs, on a scale from 0 to 5 by copying list from this post and applying number before each belief:

3 - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles

Give votes between 0 and 5, where 1 is worst and 5 is best, like this:
5 = Excellent
4 = Very good
3 = Good
2 = Decent
1 = Poor
0 = Bad or Very Bad

When voting, please take into account both the potential strength of the belief, but also how situational it is. By this I mean, if a belief is potentially very strong, but requires a set of very specific and rare) circumstances to line up for it to work, try to balance these two factors in your vote. I know that there will always be an element of subjectivity also, and that's perfectly fine.

The Pantheon beliefs are:
_ - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles.
_ - Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.
_ - Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders.
_ - Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains.
_ - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures.
_ - Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles.
_ - River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River.
_ - Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts.
_ - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats.
_ - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps.
_ - Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher.
_ - Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources.
_ - God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources.
_ - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Food from Wine, Incense, Cocoa, Tobacco, Coffee, and Tea Plantations.
_ - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Banana, Citrus, Cotton, Dyes, Silk, Spices, and Sugar Plantations.
_ - God of the Forge: +25% Production toward Ancient and Classical military units.
_ - Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared.
_ - God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles.
_ - Religious Settlements: Border expansion rate is 15% faster.
_ - Goddess of the Harvest: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield's quantity.
_ - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries.
_ - God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own.

 

[Ferocitus]

Wasn't there an almost exact poll on Pantheons a few months ago?
Searching...
Gopher has returned...

Ok, it wasn't a poll, but there were many opinions expressed in this thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rate-the-pantheons.604999/#post-14562983

 

[comatosedragon]

I think Divine Spark is the best pantheon, all the time. I have never seen the AI take it either (immortal).

 

[Ferocitus]

I think Divine Spark is the best pantheon, all the time. I have never seen the AI take it either (immortal).

I have seen AI's take DS very often. Most often, many of the faith-based
Pantheons are the last ones to be taken.

 

[stinkubus]

The best pantheons are God of the Forge, God of the Open Sky, and Goddess of Festivals. God of the Sea or Lady of the Reeds and Marshes can be amazing on the right maps. All others are garbage.

 

[Chibisuke]

Not sure how you can say Divine Spark is garbage. It generally allows you to snag the first few Great Scientists, and possibly great writers on high difficulty settings. That can be a huge boost to the beginning of the game.

 

[gfeier]

The best pantheons are God of the Forge, God of the Open Sky, and Goddess of Festivals. God of the Sea or Lady of the Reeds and Marshes can be amazing on the right maps. All others are garbage.

I wouldn't call Stone Circles garbage. The extra early faith can come in very handy.

 

[stinkubus]

The only early GS worth anything is Hypatia. The others just give marginally useful boosts that you can get through other means. The one that can act as a medic is kind of useful for dom games, but I won't skip encampments or commerical hubs to get him. Divine Spark also provides no benefit until you complete a district where as God of the Forge kicks in immediately and God of the Open Sky only requires you to make a builder. Goddess of Festivals takes more effort, but I only take it when I find big patches of the needed resources.

I also never make any effort at religion beyond founding a pantheon, so faith generation is of limited utility.I'd rather harvest stone than get two faith from the quarry. Even if I am suzerain of Valetta I can get plenty of faith from conquered Holy Sites which won't be placed in spots beneficial to my pantheon.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

Quite a few of these I haven't actually used, so I'll have to estimate the benefit.

2 - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles.
2 - Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.
These two, and Desert Folklore, are situationally okay. Fairly rare to get more than about 9 faith out of it. But isn't there a card that doubles the output?

2 - Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders.
I don't tend to build early wonders. There's other far more pressing stuff that needs to be constructed in the early game
3 - Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains.
Floodplains is the only one you're going to use long term. Oases are rare. Marshes tend to get cleared before they're worked. Still production is a huge shortage on desert starts. So this ranges between situational and absolutely compulsory.
4 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures.
This is excellent. You'll have at least 4 pastures even in the early game. I'm pretty sure you'll get tourism out of them after Flight as well.
2 - Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles.
1 - River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River.
Amenities aren't the cap on growth. It's housing.
5 - Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts.
Good god this is absurdly useful. Doubles or gives a 50% bonus to scientists well into the renaissance. Almost mandatory for getting a religion early on (can save you one or two rounds of prayers)

3 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats.
Could be 4 or even 5 on island maps. 1 or maybe 2 on pangaea
3 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps.
1 - Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher.
These two are hit by the fact that growth is less important than it was in civ 5 but the camp bonus can be gigantic depending on the resources near you.
2 - Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources.
Yeah there are starts with 3 or 4 mining resources. This can be useful there.
1 - God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources.
Iron and Niter are the only strategic resources early on in the game when it matters. You'll get 2 hammers per turn out of this in the first 100 turns maybe. 3 tops. Although Firaxis said they'd buffed the occurrence of strat resources, so it may have changed post patch
3 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Food from Wine, Incense, Cocoa, Tobacco, Coffee, and Tea Plantations.
The "stinks and drinks" pantheon. Naturally situational and often not quite as good as Goddess of the Hunt. Still, +3 food in the capital can be very good.
4 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Banana, Citrus, Cotton, Dyes, Silk, Spices, and Sugar Plantations.
The "fruit, fashion and ... uh ... sugar and spice?" pantheon. Culture is fantastic and the fact that bananas are in this list means the pantheon isn't as situational as Goddess of the Festivals. Getting to political philosophy early is excellent.
5 - God of the Forge: +25% Production toward Ancient and Classical military units.
Amazing. Who doesn't build 6 archers and a few warriors/chariots on deity? Saving you far more than any other production pantheon.
1 - Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared.
Maybe Sumeria could use this. Still you're not getting more than 400 faith over the course of the game out of this, unless most of your army is wandering the arctic wastes. That's - what? - 50 turns of a good terrain pantheon like Sacred Path?
_ - God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles.
I can't rank this. Does this work with aircraft? Is the healing automatic? I strongly suspect it's crap though.
2 - Religious Settlements: Border expansion rate is 15% faster.
This is pretty good with Rome, which is when I tried it.
_ - Goddess of the Harvest: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield's quantity.
Except in the late game, I've never harvested resources. It's never seemed worth it to me. Should I try? I'd give this a 1 if noone's managed to make it work.
2 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries.
3 if you're going for a religious victory. You're not getting more than 12 faith per turn out of this (before the part of the game where victory is inevitable). That's - what? - 100 turns to buy a great person? How many great people could divine spark give you passively for that?
_ - God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own.
I've not tried this. Early game wars tend to take place when the map is less crowded and your opponents are more than 8 tiles away from your sites. I suppose on deity there are situations where you have a big wall of enemy units and you can plink away at them with your archers hidden behind a wall of melee units with the tortoise promotion. And you could then use that faith to buy missionaries and apostles and wait until the ... urgh. That strategy is not realistic.

Main problem is God of the Forge, Divine Spark and the culture ones are pretty far ahead of the others.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

It really depend on so many factors, I don't in general like to give out scores instead Im going to say what I think about different pantheon groups:

• Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles
• Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles
• Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.

These can provide amazing amount of faith. A holy district with one of these can get up to 6 extra faith. With scripture that should be up to 12 faith per holy site. All in all these can give thousends of extra faith, over 100-200 faith per turn from these is not far fetched and given that faith is a rare resource it is even better. Disadvantage is that these require bad terrain or irreplaceable terrain (rainforest) that is not always available as well that faith while powerful is a quite limited resouce in terms of flexibility. Probably the most potent pantheons in their ideal setup.

• Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Banana, Citrus, Cotton, Dyes, Silk, Spices, and Sugar Plantations
• God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures

For most civs culture is quite limited in the early game so these can if you have the resources provide major boost to how quickly you can advance early game civis but they quickly become a minor sources of culture so they won't help much later in the game.

• Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains
  
• God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats
  
• God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources

Extra production is always nice but again most of these effect tiles that are not all that productive to begin with which limit most of these to early game as later on cities that use these for production may simply be better of purchasing stuff. God of the craftsmen help cities that already are rich on production which perhaps make it somewhat more useful in the late game but somewhat less useful in the early game as you want to help your production poor cities.

• Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps.
  
• Goddess of Festivals: +1 Food from Wine, Incense, Cocoa, Tobacco, Coffee, and Tea Plantations.

Extra food is nice early game as it allow you to get away working less farms and instead work more productive tiles but these are pretty much obsolete with mechanized agriculture provide so much food.

• Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources
  
• Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries

While they provide some nice faith without the need of holy districts they don't have the potential of the onces that give faith from adjacent holy sities. Stone is generally something you want to harvest later on for that very nice production.

• Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders
  
• God of the Forge: +25% Production toward Ancient and Classical military units

Both of these have a limited timeframe so should only be chosen if you plan an early game focused on wonders or war.

• God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles
• God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own

These require you to exploit your military to be most useful. Healing may allow you to get by with less units depending on how you place your holy districts while War can give you quite some extra faith but probably not in the scale of the adjacent faith pantheons but on the other hand it is much more flexible and require less investment.

• Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared
• Goddess of the Harvest: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield's quantity

Rites provide a decent amount of faith for the early game if you can grab multiple camps but it is pretty much obsolete after that if you don't find a good way to set up new barb camps. Harvest can provide huge amount of faith in the later game and have very little requirement as harvesting is probably something you are going to do at some point. But before you harvest you get nothing from that partheon.

• River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River
  
• Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts

Depending on what plans are these can be very nice. 1 amentiy is enough for 2 pops, basically it make the holy district amenity free. Spark get stronger the more campuses and squares you build, especially nice for culture games.

• Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher
  
• Religious Settlements: Border expansion rate is 15% faster

While not really impressive, they have pretty much no requirement and useful pretty much the whole game. But these may be secondary to other pantheon choices.

Except in the late game, I've never harvested resources. It's never seemed worth it to me.

Harvest yield and district cost follow the same formula so one way to "mass produce" a district is by harvesting 3 forest or 3 production resources.

I wouldn't call Stone Circles garbage. The extra early faith can come in very handy.

True because how early you can get missonaries out can greatly effect how big your religion is going to be. It is easy to convert cities who do not follow a religion but much harder to convert religious cities.

The only early GS worth anything is Hypatia. The others just give marginally useful boosts that you can get through other means.

Yes but they can still save you on needing to build in some cases useless stuff, production saving is always nice.

 

[Phoenix1595]

Pantheon beliefs are too subjective to rate, imho. It depends on the map, civ, and play style, and I could call one belief great for one game and trash the next. Denkt had it right by cataloguing them in such a way as to help players determine the utility of each potential strategy for using faith.

 

[kaspergm]

Wasn't there an almost exact poll on Pantheons a few months ago?
Searching...
Gopher has returned...

Ok, it wasn't a poll, but there were many opinions expressed in this thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rate-the-pantheons.604999/#post-14562983

Thanx, but several of the opinions expressed in that thread focus on single beliefs or seem to be flavored by the fact that game is very new at that point. It would be nice to have a full rating I think.

 

[I_pity_the_fool]

Both of these have a limited timeframe so should only be chosen if you plan an early game focused on wonders or war.

on deity isn't everyone's early game focused on war?

 

[stinkubus]

Faith just seems like the weakest currency in the game and holy sites are the worst district. At least the entertainment district will allow me to build the Colosseum. Holy sites cost GPT, they can only get you one great person, and much of the income they generate in faith must be devoted to defending and spreading your religion lest it be eliminated from the game. If you are building them for the sake of it then I guess take something that makes them more effective, but you'll get a better return in almost every game focusing on something else.

Outside of some pathological cases (Valetta) there's nothing faith can buy, other than religious units, that gold cannot. Generating gold is easier and more powerful. I have yet to encounter a map where gold cannot be generated in sufficient quantity to get whatever I need by the time my commercial hubs and/or harbors are all online. Buffs to tile improvements in the last patch have only made generating gold easier in the early game.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

on deity isn't everyone's early game focused on war?

There are many ways to win deity and given that we all probably know how bad ai is at war Im not sure everyone is going to find war against the ai all that fun because it make the rest of the game so easy. Even then it is hard to say how much an extra 25% hammers will actually help because you don't need it to start with while stuff like Dance of the Aurora can greatly help your faith generation.

Faith just seems like the weakest currency in the game and holy sites are the worst district.

For culture victories faith allow you to create national parks and for religious victories you may want some missionaries and such. Anway both of these victory conditions have quite something to gain on holy districts.

For holy wars, remember that only holy sites can recruit religious agents so convert these and the enemy religion is dead. If you are quick you can rush the enemy religion either by military or conversion.

 

[stinkubus]

1 - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles.
0 - Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.
0 - Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders.
3 - Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains.
4 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures.
0 - Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles.
0 - River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River.
3 - Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts.
3 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats.
0 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps.
0 - Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher.
0 - Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources.
0 - God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources.
0 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Food from Wine, Incense, Cocoa, Tobacco, Coffee, and Tea Plantations.
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Banana, Citrus, Cotton, Dyes, Silk, Spices, and Sugar Plantations.
5 - God of the Forge: +25% Production toward Ancient and Classical military units.
0 - Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared.
0 - God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles.
0 - Religious Settlements: Border expansion rate is 15% faster.
2 - Goddess of the Harvest: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield's quantity.
0 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries.
0 - God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own.

 

[Turrdy]

• Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles
• Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles
• Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.

These can provide amazing amount of faith. A holy district with one of these can get up to 6 extra faith. With scripture that should be up to 12 faith per holy site. All in all these can give thousends of extra faith, over 100-200 faith per turn from these is not far fetched and given that faith is a rare resource it is even better. Disadvantage is that these require bad terrain or irreplaceable terrain (rainforest) that is not always available as well that faith while powerful is a quite limited resouce in terms of flexibility. Probably the most potent pantheons in their ideal setup.

once i took desert folklore and put a holy district inside 6 desert tiles, one with a mountain and one with a natural wonder (Kilimanjaro) i got +8 adjacency bonus, which is pretty neat.

• God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles
• God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own

These require you to exploit your military to be most useful. Healing may allow you to get by with less units depending on how you place your holy districts while War can give you quite some extra faith but probably not in the scale of the adjacent faith pantheons but on the other hand it is much more flexible and require less investment.

Do pantheon beliefs apply to all your cities, even those you conquered? i mean, if you conquer a city with a holy site, +30 healing can be very useful, and even with God of War, those 8 tiles spread with every holy site you conquer...

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Do pantheon beliefs apply to all your cities, even those you conquered? i mean, if you conquer a city with a holy site, +30 healing can be very useful, and even with God of War, those 8 tiles spread with every holy site you conquer...

I actually do not know. I would say that parthenon affect all cities you control but Im not sure.

 

[antimony]

Quite a few of these I haven't actually used, so I'll have to estimate the benefit.
_ - God of War: Bonus Faith equal to 50% of the strength of each enemy unit killed within 8 tiles of a Holy Site district you own.
I've not tried this. Early game wars tend to take place when the map is less crowded and your opponents are more than 8 tiles away from your sites. I suppose on deity there are situations where you have a big wall of enemy units and you can plink away at them with your archers hidden behind a wall of melee units with the tortoise promotion. And you could then use that faith to buy missionaries and apostles and wait until the ... urgh. That strategy is not realistic.

On higher difficulties the AI starts with a few cities and will get holy sites up rather quickly, so when you conquer one you can start getting the bonus. If it's worth it for anyone, I think it would be a Civ with other bonuses to faith generation (e.g. India) so it can build up enough faith to make Theocracy useful. It still remains highly situational, since domination players will pick God of the Forge first, and then, the map has to be such that none of the other faith/culture ones are particularly appealing.

 

[kb27787]

Faith just seems like the weakest currency in the game and holy sites are the worst district. At least the entertainment district will allow me to build the Colosseum. Holy sites cost GPT, they can only get you one great person, and much of the income they generate in faith must be devoted to defending and spreading your religion lest it be eliminated from the game. If you are building them for the sake of it then I guess take something that makes them more effective, but you'll get a better return in almost every game focusing on something else.

Outside of some pathological cases (Valetta) there's nothing faith can buy, other than religious units, that gold cannot. Generating gold is easier and more powerful. I have yet to encounter a map where gold cannot be generated in sufficient quantity to get whatever I need by the time my commercial hubs and/or harbors are all online. Buffs to tile improvements in the last patch have only made generating gold easier in the early game.

Faith is utterly useless... (and I see many people complain that the AI builds them so when they conquer the cities they receive nothing useful) ...
But that is only true until you reach theocracy. Since it's a leaf civic I'm sure a lot of people overlook it if not going RV, but it is by far the BEST government for DomV as well, much better than monarchy--(Firaxis did a very weird thing in giving a CS influence bonus to the government that's supposed to be the most military-oriented... merchant republic and theocracy are both self-synergistic... gold discount + extra trade routes, faith discount + buying military with faith... but monarchy is not).

I think most people forget you can purchase military units with faith... even later era ones... and the cost is nowhere near as high as it was in BNW. Imagine going for a deity domination run and your knights are running out of steam since you've had to sacrifice some to take key cities... but upon reaching this government system your military suddenly doubles in size in the span of a single turn or two and usually at that point the game is won. As far as purchasing military goes faith is in every way superior to gold. It certainly beats building the units with pure cogs since they can just "warp" in at the city you want them to. Useful for fighting on multiple fronts and for emergencies. You can get high-cost units such as bombards and cannons for surprisingly cheap prices with faith. I have yet to have a game where I can buy 10 knights with gold at t100 or so, but for faith that is quite possible.

Point is: building holy sites yourself is useless... but conquering them and getting faith certainly is not. Run the double faith from religious buildings for maximum effect. Never, ever, waste faith on defending your religion or spreading it. You keep your pantheon regardless of what happens to your religion (and it is applied to all cities under your control, even occupied ones), and that is basically the only thing that matters.

Btw... if going domination, pick a culture pantheon over god of the forge. Getting civics faster and getting that strategos wildcard slot in good time to get the first GG is far better than a measly +25% (esp. since you already have SPs that give a +50% increase)... the only exception would be if you somehow want to mass anti-cavalry where there is no production card for. (the only good case would be hoplites... but they still SUCK compared to horsemen)