Rate the Pantheons

[Kmart_Elvis]

Playing Russia, I founded my capital on tundra and worked a sheep hill tile from turn 1, so I found it ironic that when I could pick a pantheon on turn 13, I popped a hut that gave me a relic. So, now I have a choice of Earth Goddess or Harvest Goddess (among others). What to pick?

I like Dance of the Aurora for Russia. You can get some very nice adjacency bonuses out of it, and it's a very consistent, even source of faith. Works better than Earth Goddess for them.

Harvest is really powerful if done right, just a bit more tricky and more micromanaging if you want to take full advantage of it.

Though when playing as Indonesia I go Earth Goddess since you can faith buy Jongs, plus all that faith is powerful if you get Monumentality. I don't get earth Goddess when not playing as Indonesia, so I don't get to pick it normally. (unless I get an early relic)

I always use Earth Goddess for them when I go for religious victory. Plus they're one of the quickest civs to get a pantheon so you can take advantage of that.

God of the Sea is another great option. You'll be building fishing boats galore anyways, so it's great to give your new cities a production boost. That's my go-to for them when not aiming for a religious victory.

 

[Bitterman]

LOL That wouldn't shock me.

I feel like we need a manual that can be distributed to all civ players, especially the new ones, with every entry following the format: "When the UI says X, it really means Y."

I just checked, it's +2 faith, not +1.

 

[Spudsie74]

WOW! What a mixed bag....definitely lots of different styles among the Fanatics. Seems to divide between the sheep & the goats (those who favor religion, and those who don't). I am a bit surprised that there is such diversity, and that a "Gotta have it," Pantheon (for the sheep) is often regarded a useless (by the goats). I WAS gonna say, "How can you not love "Goddess of the Harvest," but, after reading all 4 pages of posts, I think its just a matter of style. Speaks well for the replay value of Civ 6.

 

[Victoria]

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

I did a thread on this a while back.
Every AI civ starts with a default list it will choose the top one from in preference however once they have a couple of cities down they assess their landascape and may choose something suitable like sacred path or Oral tradition. The top of the default list is

1. Earth
2. Harvest
3. Forge

@Boyan_Sun to me has the right views if you chop for a living ... but chopping is not an exploit, it really is part of the standard game and every nation has chopped in the past.

Earth goddess is nowhere near as good as harvest which really is broken in the game.

 

[PendragonWRB]

In general Divine Spark is my default as not having a Religion ruins the game for me. They have dialed back the AIs on going for a Religion, and that combined with my new love for the Shuffle map, God of the Sea is my new favorite as land ends up pretty thin playing on my normal small map. I also have been going with Abundant resources which helps make it a bit more powerful.

 

[UWHabs]

I did a thread on this a while back.
Every AI civ starts with a default list it will choose the top one from in preference however once they have a couple of cities down they assess their landascape and may choose something suitable like sacred path or Oral tradition. The top of the default list is

1. Earth
2. Harvest
3. Forge

@Boyan_Sun to me has the right views if you chop for a living ... but chopping is not an exploit, it really is part of the standard game and every nation has chopped in the past.

Earth goddess is nowhere near as good as harvest which really is broken in the game.

Earth Goddess is a great passive bonus, but Harvest is so good that personally, I treat it as an exploit and will often avoid it if there's another pantheon that "fits" better (ie. I started on coast and want God of the Sea, or tundra and can get Dance of the Aurora, etc...). I'll still take it sometimes because it's so broken that it's fun sometimes, but especially when you get to mid-game chopping copper or crabs for insane faith bonuses, yeah, it's broken.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Earth Goddess is a great passive bonus, but Harvest is so good that personally, I treat it as an exploit and will often avoid it if there's another pantheon that "fits" better (ie. I started on coast and want God of the Sea, or tundra and can get Dance of the Aurora, etc...). I'll still take it sometimes because it's so broken that it's fun sometimes, but especially when you get to mid-game chopping copper or crabs for insane faith bonuses, yeah, it's broken.

Something I didn't track is whether the AI civ with Harvest consistently did above average. Probably not, as the AI likely wouldn't have increased its chopping with this pantheon, and the extra faith was likely spent on Great Admirals. Makes me regret, however, not having checked this and recorded it when I did my test games.

 

[Aramanesh]

I always go for the Religious Settlements !!!
because i never have many cities , the norm is 5 cities for me . so i find this pantheon helpful to reach to the full potential of my cities growth .

 

[Archon_Wing]

@Boyan_Sun to me has the right views if you chop for a living ... but chopping is not an exploit, it really is part of the standard game and every nation has chopped in the past.

I agree that everyone has chopped, but it's pretty unusual to chop to make a house and then throw the scraps in to make the pyramids.

Chopping has been very valuable in the past 2 games, but here it's simply overbearing at the expense of everything else. Abusing overflow is not even a new thing either, but it's so mindless in this one and almost feels mandatory because other ways of building are so lackluster.

If only we had buildings that actually introduced production (meaningfully)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I agree that everyone has chopped, but it's pretty unusual to chop to make a house and then throw the scraps in to make the pyramids.

Chopping has been very valuable in the past 2 games, but here it's simply overbearing at the expense of everything else. Abusing overflow is not even a new thing either, but it's so mindless in this one and almost feels mandatory because other ways of building are so lackluster.

If only we had buildings that actually introduced production (meaningfully)

And even though I like the new "builder" model, the immediate results make chopping just feel different, too.