Rate the Beliefs - part I: Pantheon beliefs

[Lily_Lancer]

I Still don't understand how you get so many workers to spare. Gare to enlighten me and I may be sold.

I typically build 80~100 workers in a game. A chop yields 200 hammers while a charge only cost about 50 hammers(Assume worker cost is 400 hammers, with +30% policy they actually cost ~310H, and have 6 charges, so a charge equals to about 50 hammers).


Together with a few captured workers, I have 500~600 charges and most of these charges end up chopping or harvesting. I think since in captured cities there're already improvements, you don't need that much charges for improvement, so improvement cost less than 100 charges, the other 400~500 charges go to chopping and harvesting.

 

[Rosty K]

1. Divine Spark
2. The rest

 

[antimony]

Of all the faith-giving pantheons, harvest probably scales the best during the game. Faith is usually something that is saved and spent in bursts, for example when you unlock theocracy or national parks.

I would still pick Divine Spark over Harvest if I would only use the faith to recruit great people. The conversion ratio is 10 faith : 1 great person point (though only 8.5 faith with theocracy). So early game, a chop may give you 4-5 GPP, and late game it would yield 20 GPP, which is one turn of divine spark with 20 campuses or theatre squares.

Culture and production pantheons are harder to compare, since even though their yields don't scale as well, they provide an early edge than can easily snowball.

 

[kb27787]

Quick question... Does the harvest pantheon work with +% production cards? If so policy cards like limes can theoretically be absolutely broken... Even with "just" +50% agoge in building an early army... You can try to buy the first GG and go on to win easily. In which case god of the forge is completely outmatched as a GG certainly is worth way more than the pathetic 25% that you get.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Of all the faith-giving pantheons, harvest probably scales the best during the game. Faith is usually something that is saved and spent in bursts, for example when you unlock theocracy or national parks.

I would still pick Divine Spark over Harvest if I would only use the faith to recruit great people. The conversion ratio is 10 faith : 1 great person point (though only 8.5 faith with theocracy). So early game, a chop may give you 4-5 GPP, and late game it would yield 20 GPP, which is one turn of divine spark with 20 campuses or theatre squares.

Culture and production pantheons are harder to compare, since even though their yields don't scale as well, they provide an early edge than can easily snowball.

Certainly Goddess of Harvest worth more. 500 Faith/turn= 70 GPP/turn , assuming you have Oracle, which is easily captured. You need 70 Campuses to catch up. Even for me, I can't find a way to build that much campuses before victory. Spark actually worth about 10 GPP/turn, considering your campuses are built in the middle game instead of initially having them at T0. A game only have ~150 turns, but there're 400~500 resources to harvest/chop.

So even just for SV(where spark makes the most use) goddess of harvest is 7 times stronger than Divine Spark. You really have to learn sth. about simple math calculation.

By the way, I think for SV, God of Forge and God of Open Sky is better than Spark, but you can have a million reasons to doubt that and I cannot compare all these values at least in a way that you can understand. But for Goddess of Harvest you'd better give up your million reasons.

 

[empresskiova]

Game speed makes a big difference what patheons are good. Percentage boosts mean so much more than flat bonuses on Marathon Speed... 15% extra wonder production helps when the Colleseum takes 200 turns to build.

Dance of the Aurora synergizes with Russia, and I imagine that Nubia appreciates Desert Folklore. Nothing quite like pumping out an apostle every turn. With the 30% less faith religion attached.

 

[Amrunril]

Certainly Goddess of Harvest worth more. 500 Faith/turn= 70 GPP/turn , assuming you have Oracle, which is easily captured. You need 70 Campuses to catch up. Even for me, I can't find a way to build that much campuses before victory. Spark actually worth about 10 GPP/turn, considering your campuses are built in the middle game instead of initially having them at T0. A game only have ~150 turns, but there're 400~500 resources to harvest/chop.

So even just for SV(where spark makes the most use) goddess of harvest is 7 times stronger than Divine Spark. You really have to learn sth. about simple math calculation.

By the way, I think for SV, God of Forge and God of Open Sky is better than Spark, but you can have a million reasons to doubt that and I cannot compare all these values at least in a way that you can understand. But for Goddess of Harvest you'd better give up your million reasons.

You keep quoting the 500 faith per turn number. You might get there eventually, but there's no way you'll get anywhere close to that in the early game, when harvest yields are significantly lower and you don't have nearly as much land to harvest from (the early game, of course, in when bonus yields matter the most, due to snowballing potential). And, at least on standard size maps, the only way you're going to have 400 or 500 resources to chop is if you've conquered a fairly substantial amount of the world, possibly enough that you've more or less won the game and are just deciding when and how to formalize it. This is definitely a strong pantheon, contrary to what I thought before this thread, but you're also definitely stretching the numbers.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

You keep quoting the 500 faith per turn number. .

I have explained for this number. Also, I always conquer the whole map on standard games, no matter which victory condition I take and 500/turn is just a conservative approximation.

Conquest is so easy in C6, after you eliminated the first opponent, further conquests even don't cost anything! so why not?

My point is that Goddess of Harvest is not only the best, but at least 5~10 times stronger than any other pathenons. Maybe only for me, but if I can have 5 other pathenons simutaneously or this harvest pathenon, I'll certainly choose this one.

 

[Spudsie74]

Depends on the map, civ, & a host of other choices (like targeted victory type). That said, if I am going for a Religion, Divine Spark is great! My other go-to pantheon is God of the open sky, if I can get it. Failing that, the choice is situational. Unless I am having a total war revolving around religion, I avoid pantheons that give faith. I also tend to choose based on the beliefs I am shooting for.

 

[rlw33]

This is an immensely interesting thread. Worth stickying?

 

[KayAU]

I have explained for this number. Also, I always conquer the whole map on standard games, no matter which victory condition I take and 500/turn is just a conservative approximation.

Conquest is so easy in C6, after you eliminated the first opponent, further conquests even don't cost anything! so why not?

My point is that Goddess of Harvest is not only the best, but at least 5~10 times stronger than any other pathenons. Maybe only for me, but if I can have 5 other pathenons simutaneously or this harvest pathenon, I'll certainly choose this one.

If I were going for maximum efficiency, I would probably conquer the map as well. The AI is so poor at military conflict, it is the easiest way of winning. I read somewhere that conquest was "civ easy mode" because of this, and that is certainly true for Civ 6.

However, I personally don't enjoy going for conquest, as I just hate managing a large number of cities I don't care about. I prefer managing a smaller number of cities with greater care, and building up peacefully. So that's the "why not" for me. What you describe is not a playstyle I enjoy.

Which brings us back to the point which has been made a few times: the value of these pantheons depend on several things, including the type of map you are on, the game speed, who you are playing against (in particular AI or human players), and your own playstyle.

 

[dkrussian]

3 - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles.
3 - Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles.
3 - Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders.
5 - Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains. (great for anything)
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures.
3 - Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles.
5 - River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River. (great for anything)
5 - Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts. (good for GP races)
4 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats.
1 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps. (housing and amenities are always the problem, not growth or food)
1 - Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher. (housing and amenities are always the problem, not growth or food)
2 - Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources.
3 - God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources.
1 - 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. (best for early game conquest)
3 - Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared.
1 - God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles.
1 - 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.
3 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries.
2 - 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.

Cogs are good, food, faith, culture are worthless (have other, better sources). I happen to like river goddess because a personal pet peeve of mine is to get my cities as large as possible, and the limiter to that is amenities (I seem to disagree with everyone on this board, but every single game I've ever played, amenities have been an issue long before housing for me - farms and neighborhoods are neigh infinite, amenities are limited).

 

[Amrunril]

I have explained for this number. Also, I always conquer the whole map on standard games, no matter which victory condition I take and 500/turn is just a conservative approximation.

Conquest is so easy in C6, after you eliminated the first opponent, further conquests even don't cost anything! so why not?

My point is that Goddess of Harvest is not only the best, but at least 5~10 times stronger than any other pathenons. Maybe only for me, but if I can have 5 other pathenons simutaneously or this harvest pathenon, I'll certainly choose this one.

Yes, I saw the calculations. This isn't a context, though, where a pure mathematical mean is a useful metric. You may average 500 faith per turn, but that average is driven by astronomically high yields once you've won the game in all but name, not by coming anywhere close to that number in the early game, when that faith would do you the most good. 25-50 faith per turn in the early game and 1000+ faith per turn in the endgame would be an absolutely amazing pantheon, and it might even be achievable under the conditions you describe. Unless you're planning to save all your faith until the endgame, though, it's not equivalent to a consistent yield of 500 faith per turn.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Yes, I saw the calculations. This isn't a context, though, where a pure mathematical mean is a useful metric. You may average 500 faith per turn, but that average is driven by astronomically high yields once you've won the game in all but name, not by coming anywhere close to that number in the early game, when that faith would do you the most good. 25-50 faith per turn in the early game and 1000+ faith per turn in the endgame would be an absolutely amazing pantheon, and it might even be achievable under the conditions you describe. Unless you're planning to save all your faith until the endgame, though, it's not equivalent to a consistent yield of 500 faith per turn.

You shall keep in mind that unless you successfully got Jesuit Education, you mainly store all your faith until endgame to purchase GPs/Modern Army/Naturalist/Apostles. So endgame faith is equivalent to faith throughout the game, since you can't get much benefit from early game faith.

The same problem applies for Divine Spark. Since only the rocket Scientist are useful, other scientists are mostly nonsense, you cannot get further benefits from early purchasing them. So early GS points do not overperform late GS points.

Also, for goddess of harvest, you actually can choose when to get those extra faiths, so you can get them just in time, so the timing is of no problem.

The main issue is that its bonus is too huge so that any discount issues seems pale to challange its efficiency.

 

[kaspergm]

I have explained for this number. Also, I always conquer the whole map on standard games, no matter which victory condition I take and 500/turn is just a conservative approximation.

I have said this before, but here it comes again: I don't think you can make global conclusions for all play styles based on the outcome of how things perform in a very specific play style. It is certainly possible to conquer the world in any game, and I trust you that Goddess of Harvest is great in that playstyle. But the point is, many of us don't conquer the world in all games. And to state that "GoH is 10 times better than any other pantheon" may simply not be true in different play styles. I'm not talking about optimal game here either, I trust you can win game much faster than I win games by playing the way you do. But many of us still play different styles for whatever number of reasons. So please try to account for that in your argument, instead of just flat insisting that your strategy applies to all game styles.

 

[kaspergm]

Anyway, I'll still welcome people actually doing votes if they can be bothered. Not a lot of people have done it so far, and I respect that, but if enough people do, I'll make some statistics.

Here are my own votes.

3 - Dance of the Aurora: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Tundra tiles. > Good if you have a Tundra start, great if you're Russia, but even in the best circumstances, it's not fantastic.
2 - Sacred Path: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Rainforest tiles. > Pretty much same as Aurora, and great if you're Brazil, but with the added catch that normally, you'll want to chop Jungles.
1 - Monument of the Gods: +15% Production to Ancient and Classical era Wonders. > This is imo. a bad investment. The chance that it makes a significant difference is very slim.
5 - Lady of the Reeds and Marshes: +1 Production from Marsh, Oasis, and Floodplains. > I think this is one of the best pantheons. Production is king, it applies to many and quite frequent tiles, and it doesn't require any improvement.
3 - God of the Open Sky: +1 Culture from Pastures. > I probably undervalue this, but I rarely find myself with a lot of pastures, and I generally feel I miss out on faith or production when taking this.
3 - Desert Folklore: Holy Site districts get +1 Faith from adjacent Desert tiles. > Very much the same as Aurora.
2 - River Goddess: +1 Amenity to cities if they have a Holy Site district adjacent to a River. > Extra amenities are good, but it's too restrictive. Not only does it require a holy site, but it must be next to river.
5 - Divine Spark: +1 Great Person point from Holy Site (Prophet), Campus (Scientist), and Theater Square (Writer) districts. > This is a fantastic pantheon. It makes a very significant help in securing a religion (for what it's worth), and also helps with scientists.
3 - God of the Sea: +1 Production from Fishing Boats. > This is a pretty good pantheon on advanced starts, but I feel in early game, you'll generally not be working that many ocean tiles, plus it requires you to make improvements. But if you're Norway or England or get a very ocean-heavy start, it can be very good.
2 - Goddess of the Hunt: +1 Food from Camps. > Can be good on tundra starts, but still not very attractive.
2 - Fertility Rites: City growth rate is 10% higher. > Seems poor, since you're normally housing capped to a much larger extent than growth capped.
2 - Religious Idols: +1 Faith from Mines over Luxury and Bonus resources. > Can secure a decent amount of faith under the right circumstances, but still seems rather meager.
2 - God of the Craftsmen: +1 Production from Mines over Strategic resources. > This is only good on advanced starts where you can see many strategics and don't need the faith so desperately.
2 - Goddess of Festivals: +1 Food from Wine, Incense, Cocoa, Tobacco, Coffee, and Tea Plantations. > This can be good for jungle starts, but I feel normally I have a mix of the wrong "types" of plantation resources.
3 - Oral Tradition: +1 Culture from Banana, Citrus, Cotton, Dyes, Silk, Spices, and Sugar Plantations. > Better than above because culture is more valuable, but again, I often feel I have the wrong combination of resources for this to really shine.
4 - God of the Forge: +25% Production toward Ancient and Classical military units. > This pantheon can be the king if you have a civ with a powerful early UU.
1 - Initiation Rites: +50 Faith for each Barbarian Outpost cleared. > Seems inferior to other faith pantheons, but then again, I don't play with raging barbs.
1 - God of Healing: Increases Healing by +30 in your Holy Site district, or any adjacent tiles. > It might be good on higher difficulties, but it seems not worth it for me.
1 - Religious Settlements: Border expansion rate is 15% faster. > Ehm ... no?
3 - Goddess of the Harvest: Harvesting a resource or removing a feature receives Faith equal to the other yield's quantity. > I'd rate this lower because I didn't know it applies to features, but I guess with features, it can be a good alternative to Lady of Reeds and Marshes if you want faith.
3 - Stone Circles: +2 Faith from Quarries. > Can be a pretty good source of faith, even if you'll often harvest some stones by midgame.
1 - 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. > Seems too unpredictable for me. But then, I thought it needed to be your own holy site.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

So endgame faith is equivalent to faith throughout the game, since you can't get much benefit from early game faith.

Completely wrong as that depend on playstyle. If you play a religious game it is easier and cheaper to convert non religious cities than fight over religous cities. Getting a missionary rush can greatly strengthen your religion.

The main issue is that its bonus is too huge so that any discount issues seems pale to challange its efficiency.

The game is already defacto won at that point so you could make argument that harvest don't help that much because the situations you bring to the table are situations you have already won.

 

[0R4NG3]

To Lily_Lancer

I think what would help settle this or even better show players who've never experimented with the goddess of the harvest is an example Let's play (on Deity, standard, continents).
Is anyone aware of a Let's play on youtube demonstrating the usefulness of this pantheon? Can someone make one?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

I think what would help settle this or even better show players who've never experimented with the goddess of the harvest is an example Let's play (on Deity, standard, continents).
Is anyone aware of a Let's play on youtube demonstrating the usefulness of this pantheon? Can someone make one?

This one is too popular and is the 1st choice of AIs, in 99% cases you cannot get it. No wonder why people downgrade it, just because they don't had any chances to get it so they never experience this monster-like pathenon.

I myself got it only once, at that time I fly my rocket at ~T185 level (currently I'm on ~T165). But that game I flew it on T172. 13 turns ahead of my original level.

If able to have that pathenon again, I think I can get sub-150 SVs with any Civilization.

 

[Eliminator_Sr]

My top tier is:

God of the Forge (I pick this at least 50% of time) - limited duration but absolutely useful in almost all circumstances to maximize your empire early. It's especially useful for getting the most mileage out of those key unique units and now even better since archers cost a little more.

All the other pantheons fall well below this one IMO. Divine Spark is nice but mainly for SV and it's affect isn't that significant early on - I'll take it though if God of the Forge isn't available. The other ones I pick most often are God of the Open Sky or Oral Tradition for culture since that's a bit of a bottleneck early or the extra production pantheons (craftsmen is weakest there). Faith generating / Holy site pantheons just have less overall usefulness since I'm not really prioritizing faith in most games. Goddess of the Harvest does look strong but it's almost always taken by the time I get a pantheon - I don't think I've ever really been able to use it. There's really only a handful of pantheons that I would consider especially useful.