Rate the Pantheons

So far I've mostly used Stone Circles and Desert Folklore. Both are pretty situational pantheons but somehow I nearly always had use for them.

Last game my 2nd city was a prime candidate for Petra: Nearly all workable terrain west of the city was desert hills. So anticipating I would expand there quickly, I picked Desert Folklore and shortly after the city was founded I put a holy site right in middle of the desert, giving me +6 faith on that site. A few turns later I managed to pick up Hildegard von Bingen and used her on that holy site, giving me +6 science there as well.

Granted: This was pretty much a perfect scenario for a situational pantheon - but I find that a lot of those situational ones are actually quite easy to take advantage of in almost all my games. Deserts aren't that hard to find and stone is one of the most common resources in the game.

S.
 
God of the Forge worked superbly in my Aztec game, Eagle Warriors are quite expensive to build early on.

THIS! I've used this "God of the Forge" with the Aztecs too on Marathon/Emperor (with AI+ and smoother difficulty mod). Eagle warriors are great; +combat bonus with luxuries, free maintenance and builder stealing perk. EW and archers carried me all the way through to the industrial era. Though there is quite a lot of micro-management building districts up with stolen builders. It's a shame you cannot add to the tile once you've chosen the district site - you need to switch production back and forth every turn.

I probably wouldn't use God of the Forge for non-aztec playthroughs though, I'd choose "Divine Spark" or "Religious settlements". I tried "Oral tradition" once with a non-roman civ cos of 4 local resources which that gave a nice early boost to culture.
 
since religion is so weak i usually just get the +1 culture from pastures and stop there, even if i want to found a religion its usually the best one.
Second pick is dependent on the terrain but either the production from marshes since they are naturally high in yield, or i pick up the +culture from certain luxes, but i found this one very situational since most of the luxes are not worth working.
 
Divine Spark is easily my favorite. I actually like it more for the Great Scientist and Great Artist points. The Great Prophet are good in the short run to get a religion but the Scientist and Artist points add up over the course of a long game.

My second favorite is probably Lady of the Reeds and Marshes. It is extra production that you don't need to to do much with. Oasis, Flood Plains, and Marshes are decent tiles to work in the beginning so adding a hammer is nice. Even stronger if you have resources on Marshes or Flood Plains (like Sugar, Wheat, or Truffles). The other + production pantheons are much weaker. God of the Sea was overpowered in Civ V but is on the weak side in Civ VI. It just takes too much set up to get all those fishing boats ready. Plus, I mainly play Pangaea which limits the number of good coastal cities. God of Craftsman is limited because you'll typically only have 1-2 strategic resource mines for a given city.

Although Goddess of the Harvest is very strong, I don't usually use it much because I don't chop much. Though Rise and Fall's Magnus does make chopping a much stronger strategy.

+ Food pantheons (Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of Festivals) are good too. I've also always had a soft spot for Fertility Rites, even though it (and Hanging Gardens) are much maligned.

Earth Goddess (which was introduced in a later expansion/DLC) is quite good too. LOTS of extra faith production in tiles. Ridiculously good for civs with an appeal bonus.
 
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Thread, rise from your grave!

I think the observations here would now be different than in 2016...
 
It's still not a good time to score, because there's no balance at all in current version. With or without Goddess of Harvest is completely different world, it's likely that 10 other pantheons combined are not as strong as this one. So is God of Forge if you are a warmonger. Advanced MP games even had to ban both. Don't know when Firaxis will realize how bad its numerical balance is.

+ Food pantheons (Goddess of the Hunt and Goddess of Festivals) are good too. I've also always had a soft spot for Fertility Rites, even though it (and Hanging Gardens) are much maligned.
Because the purpose of the game is different, there are still some people who play for win. The game's numerical design leads to food being the most inefficient resource, and if playing for win, choosing these pantheons (or wonders) is really a waste of your opportunity.
 
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Thread, rise from your grave!

I think the observations here would now be different than in 2016...

Goddess of the Harvest still trumps the others if playing for a fast victory, but I've become partial to the Culture boosting pantheons as a second choice. A couple of extra Culture in the early game helps speed you through the Civics tree, and getting to Political Philosophy as quick as possible still seems to me like the first key priority. Extra production (God of the Forge, Lady of the etcs) helps get your army ready earlier, which helps if playing aggressive, but for peaceful play I like the extra culture if you have a few pastures or a few of the correct plantations. The downside is you need to devote a Builder to improving those tiles, but the return on that investment is fairly quick for the luxury plantations (sell the luxury), and kicks in eventually for the pastures/food plantations.
 
Once you realize that Faith is virtual revenue with some constraints on spending it, Goddess of the Harvest is the clear winner. God of the Forge is pretty preposterous with any of the civs with an Ancient or Classical UU or a +% production modifier like Nubia or Norway. The others are all second rate or worse.
 
Goddess of the Harvest is as strong as ever. It's true that it took a hit because now you have to build the GMC to faith buy units but now you can buy civilian units in a golden/heroic age. It feels like Jesuit Education is easier to get too. God of the Forge is still huge. Goddess of the Open Sky is my go-to though. It's always available and I'd work the pasture anyway. Earth Goddess can generate a lot of faith, and both Mapuche and Persia have UIs that synergize with it. The others are either situational or dubious.
 
Admittedly biased, God of the Sea coupled with Auckland is my favorite. Divine Spark with Stockholm and Pingala is also a blast. If I can’t get either of these my default is usually Religious Settlements.

Earth Goddess feels like the absolute strongest in faith generation (a loophole-free paradigm) if you can get to it. I rarely do feature removal, but especially without overflow I’m not sure that Goddess of the Harvest is really that much stronger than Stone Circles, Desert Folklore, or Dance of the Aurora at faith generation. Then again, I’ve never taken it because I’m against feature removal if I can help it. I’m much more likely to plant trees than to cut them down. Sacred Path would seem like it’s equivalent to the others, but it’s hard to leave Jungles in place from even just a district planting point of view.

Has anyone tried Lady of the Reeds and Marshes in an ideal situation? Maybe with Petra? In the right flood valley, it seems like you could get up to +6 production in the early game.
 
Off the top of my head:

Tier 0 (No brainer)
Goddess of the Harvest

Tier 1 (Good)
God of the Forge
Earth Goddess

Tier 2 (Decent)
Goddess of the Open Sky
Divine Spark
God of War

Tier 3 (ok)
Oral Tradition
God of the Sea
City Patron Goddess
Dance of the Aurora

Tier 4 (Meh)
Lady of the Reed and Marshes
Sacred Path
Religious Settlements
Desert Folklore

Rest is trash. It either requires a Holy Site (so sorta redundant calling it crap) or is inconsequential.
 
Off the top of my head:

Tier 0 (No brainer)
Goddess of the Harvest

Tier 1 (Good)
God of the Forge
Earth Goddess

Tier 2 (Decent)
Goddess of the Open Sky
Divine Spark
God of War
Oral Tradition

Tier 3 (ok)
God of the Sea
Dance of the Aurora
City Patron Goddess
Lady of the Reed and Marshes

Tier 4 (Meh)
Sacred Path
Religous Settlements
Desert Folklore

Rest are terrible.

That's a reasonable assessment, to my mind. What's interesting is the order that the AI chooses it's pantheons, which seems to go something like the following (I'm starting to assemble data to back this up, but for the moment this is based on general perceptions plus a a small sample set of actual confirmations):

1st: almost always Earth Goddess
2nd (and sometimes also 3rd): Sacred Path/Desert Folklore/Dance of the Aurora (hopefully dependent on the actual terrain near the AI), but usually only one (sometimes two) of these get chosen before the AI moves on
3rd/4th (sometimes 4th/5th): Goddess of the Harvest or God of the Forge (with the other going next)
after that: not enough observations to speculate

So in other words, the AI does a pretty good job with selecting Pantheons except for it's love of grabbing one of the terrain-based Faith pantheons for the second (and sometimes also the third) pantheon taken.
 
If you're going for a religious victory or plan to use faith a lot for buying then Sacred Path/Desert Folklore/Dance of the Aurora are excellent if you have plenty of that terrain. Of the 3 Desert Folklore is the worst since desert is the worst terrain, but if you have a lot of desert at least faith can help make up for your lousy production. Pedro and Peter can produce ridiculous amounts of faith if they have enough of their favoured terrain. Peter particularly I'll build tundra fishing villages. A couple of fish, some lumbermills and a lavra work well.

On island/archipelago maps God of the Sea is pretty decent especially for Gitarja and Harald.

Ofc they don't compare to Earth Goddess or Goddess of the Harvest which are pretty much always useful.

The worst must be the wonders one. The AI is just too competitive for wonders early on and 15% won't make enough difference.
 
If you're going for a religious victory or plan to use faith a lot for buying then Sacred Path/Desert Folklore/Dance of the Aurora are excellent if you have plenty of that terrain. Of the 3 Desert Folklore is the worst since desert is the worst terrain, but if you have a lot of desert at least faith can help make up for your lousy production. Pedro and Peter can produce ridiculous amounts of faith if they have enough of their favoured terrain. Peter particularly I'll build tundra fishing villages. A couple of fish, some lumbermills and a lavra work well.

On island/archipelago maps God of the Sea is pretty decent especially for Gitarja and Harald.

Ofc they don't compare to Earth Goddess or Goddess of the Harvest which are pretty much always useful.

The worst must be the wonders one. The AI is just too competitive for wonders early on and 15% won't make enough difference.

LOL because Desert Folklore was insanely overpowered in Civ V when every single desert tile got +1 faith. Which made it awesome for your Petra city, and even for floodplains and oases.

The reason I don't like Sacred Path / Desert Folkore / Dance of the Aurora is that it is dependent on your cities having lots of Holy Sites. Same thing with River Goddess, God of Healing, and God of War. I prefer pantheons that will benefit most of my cities, even ones without Holy Sites.

Those are better choices for Civs that want to build lots of holy sites (like Russia or Khmer). And for terrain-specific civs (Russia with Dance of the Aurora or Brazil with Sacred Path).
 
I think a lot of civs want to build Holy Sites: Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Norway, Poland, in addition to Russia and Khmer. Spain is going to need some to keep their religion strong.
 
I rarely do feature removal, but especially without overflow I’m not sure that Goddess of the Harvest is really that much stronger than Stone Circles, Desert Folklore, or Dance of the Aurora at faith generation. Then again, I’ve never taken it because I’m against feature removal if I can help it. I’m much more likely to plant trees than to cut them down.

Then you are quite literally playing a different game entirely then most of the people in this thread. Without doing the math I wouldn't be surprised at all if chopping accounted for close to 25-35% of my total production over the course of a game. With magnus and wall overflow I can probably get more faith in two or three chops with God of the Harvest then I could with stone circles over an entire game.
 
I think a lot of civs want to build Holy Sites: Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Norway, Poland, in addition to Russia and Khmer. Spain is going to need some to keep their religion strong.

This really.
If you're going for a religious victory or buying a lot with faith you'll need lots of it.
Harvest or Earth Goddess are best if you can get them, but I usually play with 12+ civs. I rarely do.
If I'm ignoring religion I'll take Divine Spark, God of the Forge,God of the Sea or God of the Open Skies depending on my civ and the map. They'll provide a nice little bonus but (apart from God of the Sea sometimes) aren't that important.
 
Then you are quite literally playing a different game entirely then most of the people in this thread. Without doing the math I wouldn't be surprised at all if chopping accounted for close to 25-35% of my total production over the course of a game. With magnus and wall overflow I can probably get more faith in two or three chops with God of the Harvest then I could with stone circles over an entire game.

I won’t condemn the people who use chop overflow; I just personally find that path too easy and generally disingenuous to the policy cards in play. I certainly believe that with the appropriate modifiers, GoH could be used for substantial faith production, but without overflow, and when you include production for builders, it seems like a really inefficient means to an end. I could get 75 production and 75 faith from one chop in the early game, or get stone circles and a quarry that will give me at least 200 production and 400 faith for the rest of the game. More even, if you count the boosts to quarries from the tech tree. There’s also a certain non-linearity to when the yields come. Yields at the beginning and very end of a game are worth far more than those in the middle.
 
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