Suggestions for new and balanced pantheons!

[danaphanous]

NO one can argue that right now pantheons are a little unbalanced. You have desert folklore which gives you tons of faith immediately with no change in your strategy at all and then you have religious settlement which is virtually useless imo.

Being a huge religion fan I think religion needs new balancing in the pantheon section which makes some of the underwhelming ones more useful and adds more mid-tier options as well.

Here are my thoughts/ideas but I have no idea how to mod. This is an open discussion forum so please let me know what you think and if you have a suggestion for a new and balanced pantheon!

First I'll start by listing what I think are the most useless panethons for me that I rarely use: faith healers, God of war, Goddess of protection, monument to the Gods, religious settlements.

My reasoning and knowledge of situational usefulness and the way I'd revise them so they are useful:

Spoiler :

Monument to the Gods
May seem nice however the nerf that makes it only work for classical and ancient wonders is what makes it worthless to me. I don't have time to wonder-spam during that phase as I'm aggressively building infrastructure. I play immortal/deity and might try for only one wonder during that period as I start behind on science. So it saves maybe 1 turn and is a waste for the most part on my level of play. Unless you are playing very low very few players work more than 3 ancient/classical wonders as it is generally a bad idea giving up that much time. So it only saves a few turns for most players thus is not picked much. Situational Usefulness: in combination with marble/egypt/tradition this could be quite interesting giving you a total of 60% bonus toward wonders. You could build twice as much. This would be a novelty game for me though and keep in mind you still get 45% bonus without the belief and it only works through classical. Only works on low level of play. I think this belief needs rebalancing. Either make the benefit better, at least 30% for the short time frame so you can get 1 extra wonder, or make the effect last longer such as through medieval when humans are feasibly thinking about building wonders more.

Faith Healers, God of war, and Goddess of protection
Are absolutely terrible. Every single war one is terrible. You can't convince me otherwise. Reason being they ONLY WORK NEXT TO CITIES WITH YOUR RELIGION! You aren't at battle that close to your cities enough for the God of War faith to matter much. Usually wars come too far down the line when they do you just aren't fighting defensively on your own turf for that long. Exception might be raging barbs early game for some extra faith but I find baiting raging barbs to converge near my cities backfires when they run to pillage things rather than fighting me. Same with faith healers. I could see using it to fortify defenses near border cities if I was constantly at war and just never attack healing +60 hp a turn. But the AI is usually smart enough to bomb/bombard so you'll probably die and the benefit is lost if you attack. Another novelty I could try with these would be God of War + Holy Warriors. Defensive wars your troops earn faith to buy more troops. These ablities are slightly better if you can get a good enough faith base to buy prophets to go ahead of your armies and convert the empires you invade but this has never worked out great for me on conquest games. As nice as this sounds AI flips their cities back pretty quick and it means you are giving up a lot of your faith after picking a belief that also gives little faith. I don't usually have the high faith base if I picked this pantheon as I get a poor religion. The goddess of protection is poor too. Only your city fire (a once a turn thing) and in my experience battles are rarely coming down to a small percentage on your city fire. If they are you are doing something wrong. My suggestions for rebalancing: add a promotion like the pictish warrior where kills convert to faith. Give it to troops built from cities with the pantheon for God of War. For faith healers they could get the FOY promottion instead if built in the city with the pantheon. Then the ability is useful everywhere not just sitting near your own cities and you can take it offensively or defensively without converting ahead of your armies. Goddess of protection should be a way higher attack percentage, at least 50% or more to be even marginally useful the way my wars go. I'd prefer 100%.

religious settlements -
faster border growth is OK I guess but feels so lackluster to me. Esp. given that extra culture does the same thing and benefits in other ways like speeding through tenets faster. Even +1 potential culture per city is far, far better than this pick and speeds up the border way more and I usually cash-buy border tiles if I'm dissatisfied with the speed. I would never choose it over even a small culture pick. It really should provide a bigger growth bonus such as 30% or more--at least then it is on par with tradition's bonus.

that's my suggestions for fixing those five that everyone hates.

I also hope they add more pantheons. For instance, there are no gold ones and gold is really nice early game. That could be a nice new addition for games where the best picks are gone. Extra money means speedier CS relations, cash-bought buildings or units and is quite helpful early game. They really should have a second option for science too.

Ideas for more pantheons:

offerings - +1 gold on each luxury tile. The Rich or luxury industries donate to the religious institutions, quite realistic for ancient times and a major source of their income

household gods - +2 gold from marble, ivory, silver, and gold. Practiced by many ancient cultures you would make a figure representing your dead ancestors and pray to them for blessing. These were requested by craftsmen (silversmiths, goldsmiths, etc) and a great source of income for these merchants and a way to make money off these materials by selling to the general public. (Unwealthy usually used clay or stone figurines)

missionary merchants - either religious pressure increases along the route by 50% or each trade route nets +2 faith. The merchants spread the good word as they sell in foreign countries! The pressure one is very nice as it allows you to spread and get your religion started in non-capital cities without sacrificing faith on a missionary or two. This can work very well if you have a very faith-poor game so it doesn't take half the game for your religion to naturally spread to your own cities. My growth typically outpaces the pressure before Grand temple so it'd just be a strategic new use to early trade routes that avoids the need for wasting faith on missionaries if you just want to establish your religion locally. The other option is just a new way to get faith if your empire is faith poor that doesn't depend on terrain.

animism - +1 science from tiles with animals (deer, cow, bison, sheep, horses, beaver, elephants) animism was a primitive worship and reverence of nature. They would study animals in the wild and attribute their behaviors as "signs" of the gods or the animals themselves as gods. It'd be a fun strategic way of garnering early science and be another nice mid-tier pick that doesn't require road-spamming early.

Sacrifice: +25 faith for deleting captured civilian units in your territory.

Sacred Enclaves: +1 food +2 faith from Oases, +1 food +2 culture from Atolls.

Glorious Death: When an owned unit dies, receive it's combat strength as faith. Friendly units adjacent to the dying unit receive +10% combat strength until the end of the turn. Think the ancient Norse- their culture said that to die in battle was the only way to enter Valhalla, and their companions are reinvigorated by it. (This would add a new, and much more useful pick for war)

God of War (revised): units produced by cities following the panethon obtain a special promotion that gives the pictish warrior's ability to gain faith. This is far more useful than needing to be within a few tiles of your own cities and makes the pick more versatile.

Faith Healers (revised): units produced by cities following the pantheon obtain a special promotion that gives the Fountain of Youth healing promotion (or something similar). Like God of war needing to be near the city is what makes these beliefs very hard to utilize and it also makes less sense as you don't lose your beliefs by taking a short hike.

Religious Settlements (revised): Border expansion rate increase should be 30% putting it on par with tradition bonus. 15% is bad--worse then getting even an extra 1 culture per city not to mention it also doesn't actually give any extra culture. As is this pantheon is trash compared to every cultural pick.

Monument to the Gods (revised): Benefit lasts through medieval era or is 30% bonus not 15%. As it is this pantheon is useless on any competitive level of play (ok on multiplayer). The AI tech lead means it won't get you any extra wonders usually. But medieval era usually the player is catching up and it might mean an extra wonder.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions.

 

[dunkleosteus]

For offereings, I'd say it'd be more balanced as like +1 faith for each unique luxury you control.
For animism, I'd say +1 faith on animal tiles (certainly not science, you said yourself that they interpreted the actions of animals as the will of the gods. As we know that these gods don't actually exist and therefore have no knowledge to pass on, no scientific knowledge can be gleaned from this. You could perhaps say something for animal sciences, but I'm pretty sure herdsman spend enough time staring at cows and sheep to figure some of that out anyway.)

Sacrifice: +25 faith for deleting captured civilian units in your territory.

Divine Drama: +1 culture from shrines, +2 faith from amphitheaters, +1 faith for each great work of writing. (The ancient Greeks wrote many plays and dramas about the gods, and many of these came to define the gods themselves)

Sacred Enclaves: +1 food +2 faith from Oases, +1 food +2 culture from Atolls.

Glorious Death: When an owned unit dies, receive it's combat strength as faith. Friendly units adjacent to the dying unit receive +10% combat strength until the end of the turn. (Think the ancient Norse- their culture said that to die in battle was the only way to enter Valhalla, and their companions are reinvigorated by it.)

God of War(new): when melee attacking an enemy unit, receive a % of faith equal to damage done times its combat strength (example, attacking a horseman (12 combat) and dealing 30 damage results in 30% of 12 faith = 3.6 faith).

If you want to get fancy, you can have pantheons that are only available under certain conditions, for example

Great Flood Myth: city must be on a flood plain, +1 food for farms adjacent to rivers before Civil Service.

Home of the Gods: Must have a non-natural-wonder mountain within two tiles of the city. This mountain becomes a natural wonder, Mount Olympus: +5 faith +2 science.

 

[danaphanous]

For "offerings" - Well as a tile yield there is currently no way to tell the game to only give the faith to the first tile in particular. I figured there were enough faith pantheons and focused on suggestions that added new yields. This is why offerings is +1 gold as there are no panethons that affect gold but there are for every other tile yield. Early gold can be very useful and it can be a nice mid-tier choice if nothign else is working giving a short-term benefit even if you don't get a religion. If it went to faith you could probably tack the benefit on by counting the lux list, but that would include imported luxes which might be OP. Most of the others target a smaller subset of luxes or resources but give more faith like stone circles, tears of the Gods, one with nature and ONLY when you work the tiles so I was trying to match that format since the coding already exists. Easier to mod that way.

The idea for animism was to add a 2nd pantheon involving science. I think your logic makes sense and faith would make a good pantheon as well but I was trying to think of a balanced way to have a 2nd science pick as most of the other yields have 2 options and the city connection is bad/slow to develop in many situations.

I love sacrifice lol, gives another use to captured units like missionaries/workers though usually you keep the workers. Divine drama is cool but overlaps with the existing ancestor worship pantheon (+1 culture to shrines), did you mean it as a replacement? Sacred enclaves is interesting and another great option on desert/island maps so there isn't just 1-2 good picks. Glorious death is an amazing idea. Very fitting and a fun way to use military and strong early game production to convert to faith. I like it. I had another idea for God of war on the OP above. My idea was to make the pantheon apply a promotion to units the city produces that work like the pictish warrior (yielding faith upon killing a unit). This is far more useful as it works away from the city. I don't know why they limited it to within 4 tiles of your religion cities anyway as it makes it far less useful.

I like your idea for new special pantheons, however Great Flood Myth is far too powerful in my opinion. Many cities start with 12+ riverbank tiles so the advantage to science and growth would far exceed any other belief in pantheon, follower, founder, etc. I know you get the same effect with civil service so it goes away but I still think it's too powerful. Home of the Gods is fun. How/which city would it pick if you have multiple mountain cities?

Added some of yours to the OP! I may add more if you can address my clarification/questions about the last 2.

 

[Ikael]

Wow, glad to see that I am not the only that

I am currently working in a mod in order to add 10 brand new pantheons, and balance the old ones.

Who knows, perhaps I will rebalance the piety tree too for good measure! Anyways, here are my proposals in order to make every early resource balanced and pantheon choice a more interesting decision:


Sacred foods: +1 food and faith to cocoa and spices => Because plantations suck so, so much

Mummification rituals: +1 culture and gold to incense and cotton => An interesting alternative to the "see incense, go to festivals" decision. Will combo great with monasteries

Aurean proportions: +2 production to quarries => Giving a much needed bost to an often neglected improvement, great for having circumstantial production bonuses

Ceremonial robes: +2 culture to silk and dyes in cities bigger than 4 => A boost for 2 of the least powerful resources (silk and dyes)

Song of the tides: +1 food and culture to workboats and atolls => an alternative able to compete with the goddess of the sea, and a great combo with Japan's UA too!

Animal spirits: +1 faith and culture to horses, elephants and buffalo => providing a nice option for

Nectar of the gods: +2 faith to sugar => A simple way of boosting yet anothe ignored resource

Weavers of destiny: +1 production to cotton and dyes in cities bigger than 4 => For all those early jungle starts that yearns for production

Sacred scriptures: +1 science to shrines, temples and +2 to monasteries => A science pantheon with tall, long term planning in mind

Lake fairies: +2 food to marshes and +3 to oasis => Working currently in order to make it give +2 food to lakes as well. It is harder to mod than I expected!

As for the re-balancing of old pantheons:

Dance of the Aurora: +1 faith and food to forest-free tundra tiles. I mean, come on guys, who ever picks this one? It could also genuinely help out civilizations with a harsh tundra start

Desert folklore: +2 faith to desert tiles with resources or oasis in them. It would force you to give more attention to city placement, and picking it won't be such a forego conclussion with desert starts

 

[inthesomeday]

Pantheon choices between useful yields and founding a religion are meant to be a player choice; there are a few that just end up worthless though, religious settlements and God of war chief among them. More importantly however is the fact that several resources have no pantheon available: most plantation resources are clumped into oral tradition. Ideally new pantheons would involve the abolition of a few of the big overarching ones like oral tradition or goddess of the hunt in favor of more forced specialization. IE, cocoa, spices, and sugar might have a food, culture, or faith pantheon-- perhaps, "Ceremonial feast" or something like this-- and each pasture resource and camp resource would also have more specific pantheon choices. Desert folklore is ridiculously overpowered, and it should be replaced with separate pantheons for oases and desert resources. Balance is definitely needed and should be resource based rather than based on special abilities.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Goddess of Protection (revised): Cities following the Pantheon should gain at least a 50% combat bonus or this becomes fairly useless given how infrequently defensive home wars actually come and cities only bombard once.

No No No No No!!!!

Goddess of Protection is an AI pantheon, not a player pantheon, and there's good reason why the human player never picks it but, if you scroll through ALL your games, you'll notice that it is picked every single time.

The AI can (and does) pick it because they already have all those deity boosts and can get away with picking a pantheon that gives them no infrastructure bonus.

When warring, some people may not be paying attention to non-war related details, like what religion the city your attacking has, and what the tenets of that religion are. Those of us who do pay attention to this know that the Civ who took Goddess of Protection is the second worst target to choose (worst, or course being the Great Waller.) If a ranged unit is in the city, and they went tradition (oligarchy) and they have Goddess of Protection, they can one-shot units from an era ahead of their current standing. This pantheon is one of the most annoying elements of the game that you still want in the game, It's exactly like the Great Wall; annoying as hell, but you don't want to remove it from the game. However, proposing to increase the strength of this pantheon is like making the Great Wall only allow you to move every other turn. No reason to buff it.

 

[danaphanous]

Fair point, I have never invaded the founder of this pantheon and did not know it already made great protection. Still though, it's only one bombard per turn, are sure it's that bad? On a high-level of difficulty conquest map you should expect to lose a few units to well-garrisoned AI--that's just reality. You're certain the +30% makes it that much harder when you have artillery and planes to bring them down? I wouldn't see it being a problem unless you are running pre-industrial warfare in which case losing a unit a turn is kind of annoying since you can't support a large army yet.

 

[dunkleosteus]

For another science pantheon, something that might be way out there-
Search for Wisdom: receive an [unspecified] amount of science each time you discover a new civ, city state or natural wonder.
Polytheism recieve +1 faith for each belief of every unique foreign faith present in any your cities that follow this pantheon. +1 faith in each city. (At first only gives +1 faith in each city, but benefits from having foreign faiths in your cities.) Maybe makes it more difficult for foreign faith to replace your own because people instead integrate it.


Speaking of that, imagine this: when the last religion is founded and if you haven't founded a religion, your pantheon becomes "culturally entrenched" in your people, and you retain it even when a foreign religion populates your cities. i can tell you there was a game as Japan that I went God of the Sea in which I couldnt generate enough faith to snag a religion and i was so sad to lose all that production. Would've been nice to be able to keep it. Makes sense though, doesnt it? Christmas trees and Christmas itself started out as Celtic and pagan solstice festivals, right? Often, a culture layers a religion on top of their existing beliefs rather than completely reforming.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Solstice Festival: city must be settled on or adjacent to tundra or snow. +1 culture from shrines and stonehenge (if you can snag it). After discovering calendar, +10% faith and growth in cities during 'we love the king' day.

Servants of the Gods: shrines provide +1 production, may purchase workers with faith.

God of the Forge: +2 faith from forges, +2 culture from improved copper and iron.

Waters of Life: +1 faith from lakes, marshes, oases. +1 culture for cities on rivers.

Goddess of Agriculture: +1 faith for every 3 farms near a city.

God of Knowledge: +1 culture from libraries. After philosophy, +1 science from great works of writing. After Theology, +1 science from temples.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Goddess of the hunt should be +1 faith and food from camps, to balance with a new pantheon that gives +1 food from camps and +1 production from pastures, based on the idea of using every part of the animal

 

[ShakaKhan]

Fair point, I have never invaded the founder of this pantheon and did not know it already made great protection. Still though, it's only one bombard per turn, are sure it's that bad? On a high-level of difficulty conquest map you should expect to lose a few units to well-garrisoned AI--that's just reality. You're certain the +30% makes it that much harder when you have artillery and planes to bring them down? I wouldn't see it being a problem unless you are running pre-industrial warfare in which case losing a unit a turn is kind of annoying since you can't support a large army yet.

It's fine and quite effective for AI defense against a human opponent as is. Also ask yourself this, if you had a luscious, weaving floodplain start, or a 6 or 7 camp capital, would you pick goddess of protection over the terrain appropriate bonus if it was +50%? or +100%? or +1,000%? probably not. How much you increase it doesn't matter because the player is never going to pick this pantheon unless it was for the sole purpose of novelty. This is a pantheon that assists the AI, who lacks the crucial ability of free thought that the player has, to stifle the player a bit. As it is, it is quite effective at that. I remember times when I was pursuing peaceful, space victories, emphasizing research techs, and a neighboring AI DoWed me, and I decided to teach them a lesson. Because of my goals, I had infantry when he was using rifles, two upgrades behind me. And yet, with Goddess of Protection, the Oligarchy bonus, and having a ranged land and naval unit is his capital, he was killing full strength infantry in one turn.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Mountain Spirits: Cities adjacent to mountains generate +2 faith.
Ritual Purification: +1 happiness and food for cities on rivers. -1 happiness for cities not on rivers. +1 culture from salt and gardens. (Ritual purification is present in a number of different faiths, and may include washing oneself in a river or koshering meat.)
Traditional Foods: +1 food from spices, sugar. +1 bonus happiness from access to salt or pepper (locally or through trade). (kinda weird sounding name, but I think the meaning gets across.)
Self Reliance: Land trade routes only consume one movement to cross rivers. Civilians have a 33% chance to retreat when melee attacked. (Sort of a weird idea, isn't it? But I think it makes sense. Trade route distance is based on the number of turns it would take to walk between the cities, so forests, hills, marshes and rivers cut down the range. For landlocked civs, rough terrain can mean no trade unless you chop forests and build roads. This can help that. The civilian upgrade may prove more useful though, as workers and settlers get a chance to avoid being captured by barbarians.)

 

[danaphanous]

Wow, glad to see that I am not the only that

I am currently working in a mod in order to add 10 brand new pantheons, and balance the old ones.

Who knows, perhaps I will rebalance the piety tree too for good measure! Anyways, here are my proposals in order to make every early resource balanced and pantheon choice a more interesting decision:

Spoiler :

Sacred foods: +1 food and faith to cocoa and spices => Because plantations suck so, so much

Mummification rituals: +1 culture and gold to incense and cotton => An interesting alternative to the "see incense, go to festivals" decision. Will combo great with monasteries

Aurean proportions: +2 production to quarries => Giving a much needed bost to an often neglected improvement, great for having circumstantial production bonuses

Ceremonial robes: +2 culture to silk and dyes in cities bigger than 4 => A boost for 2 of the least powerful resources (silk and dyes)

Song of the tides: +1 food and culture to workboats and atolls => an alternative able to compete with the goddess of the sea, and a great combo with Japan's UA too!

Animal spirits: +1 faith and culture to horses, elephants and buffalo => providing a nice option for

Nectar of the gods: +2 faith to sugar => A simple way of boosting yet anothe ignored resource

Weavers of destiny: +1 production to cotton and dyes in cities bigger than 4 => For all those early jungle starts that yearns for production

Sacred scriptures: +1 science to shrines, temples and +2 to monasteries => A science pantheon with tall, long term planning in mind

Lake fairies: +2 food to marshes and +3 to oasis => Working currently in order to make it give +2 food to lakes as well. It is harder to mod than I expected!

As for the re-balancing of old pantheons:

Dance of the Aurora: +1 faith and food to forest-free tundra tiles. I mean, come on guys, who ever picks this one? It could also genuinely help out civilizations with a harsh tundra start

Desert folklore: +2 faith to desert tiles with resources or oasis in them. It would force you to give more attention to city placement, and picking it won't be such a forego conclussion with desert starts

thanks for the interest, and I'm glad someone agrees with me too!
Here's my comments on your ideas:

plantations could use a buff, I agree. Wines and incense get that with the monastary synergy. Spices has nothing so I agree with you there. Cocoa, however, is quite a good tile. For base yield it already adds +1 to food and gold and another gold after plantation. So it is either a +3 food +2 gold tile or +2 food +1 production +2 gold tile. Both are workable for me due to the extra food. Sugar is often hard to work though so you could add it in place of cocoa or just add it to the list. It is also a food additive like the other 2 so it fits. Like your ideas for the other plantations, can bananas fit in anywhere making it actually worth it to make a plantation for them?

Aurean proportions would be nice, and a contrast pick to stone circles. I like quarries and usually work them, esp. if I get stone circles but they are often in plains so the extra production would be very helpful.

Animal spirits is interesting, reminds me of my animism idea. I really want to see another early-science pantheon as it is very hard to use the city connection one without going wide so it basically offsets itself in penalties. Helps in games you were already going wide on though, and carthage is a beast with it. You science one is a nice idea, early science was often driven by religion and monastaries are a great example of that.

I wouldn't want the lake fairies to give +2 food to lakes. That is the aztec ability with floating gardens already and some lakes are very large. You'd give everyone who picked it their ability just by spreading religion and they would just be even more OP. If you do it I'd suggest reducing to +2 food from oasis (they already get 3) +1 from marshes and lakes.

I like your ideas for Dance of Aurora and Desert folklore. I often pick aurora because of tundra river starts but I admit they are weak due to the lacking base food. However, I fear doing that might make it so there is no downside to being in tundra. It makes the tile base better than plains or grassland meaning you have no pop penalty for being in bad terrain, food is extremely powerful as growth means everything. If you do that to Dance of Aurora I might suggest it be a holy city ability not across the board. Otherwise it massively advantages one person on a mostly tundra map. I like the boreal setting so I know exactly the effect it would have on my boreal games

 

[danaphanous]

I like some of those new suggestions duncleoseues! (what does you name mean?)

Search for Wisdom and polytheism would be very interesting to play with!
I'm not sure if we need multiple pantheons that target the same improvements, for now I'd be happy with just getting at least one for each of the resources/luxuries and a couple more science/gold or fun ones.

The self-reliance and mountain spirits one sounds like a great idea to me. The game already detects if you are near a mountain so shouldn't be hard to add.

 

[dunkleosteus]

I like some of those new suggestions duncleoseues! (what does you name mean?)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus

 

[Ikael]

Yay, more people commenting pantheons! Cool!

plantations could use a buff, I agree. Wines and incense get that with the monastary synergy. Spices has nothing so I agree with you there. Cocoa, however, is quite a good tile. For base yield it already adds +1 to food and gold and another gold after plantation. So it is either a +3 food +2 gold tile or +2 food +1 production +2 gold tile. Both are workable for me due to the extra food.

Hmmm, I didn't thought about it, but you're right, cocoa is one of the most powerful de facto resources, right after salt. Perhaps sugar should replace cocoa in the "sacred food" pantheon?

Sugar is often hard to work though so you could add it in place of cocoa or just add it to the list. It is also a food additive like the other 2 so it fits. Like your ideas for the other plantations, can bananas fit in anywhere making it actually worth it to make a plantation for them?

Bananas can be upgraded trought the "sun god" original pantheon, right? Still, "sacred foods" is an ample concept, perhaps it could have less yields in exchange for affecting more items (for example: +1 food to bananas, sugar, spices, cocoa perhaps?)

Aurean proportions would be nice, and a contrast pick to stone circles. I like quarries and usually work them, esp. if I get stone circles but they are often in plains so the extra production would be very helpful.

Aurean proportions is one of my favourite pantheons of my own creation it gives a much needed boost to both quarries and grassland starts ^^

Animal spirits is interesting, reminds me of my animism idea.

Ayup! My idea was to give flavour to an "american native" type of pantheon (unspoilt land / non improved resources giving bonus) with a kind of a "gamble" type of pantheon (you need additional tech in order to locate one of its empowered resources, horses)

I really want to see another early-science pantheon as it is very hard to use the city connection one without going wide so it basically offsets itself in penalties. Helps in games you were already going wide on though, and carthage is a beast with it. You science one is a nice idea, early science was often driven by religion and monastaries are a great example of that.

Yeah, you get it! "Sacred scriptures" is a "tall" alternative to the "wide" Messenger of the gods pantheon. Also, monasteries needed more love, and it is a fun gamble to see if you can truthly maximize this pantheon by snatching monasteries

I wouldn't want the lake fairies to give +2 food to lakes. That is the aztec ability with floating gardens already and some lakes are very large. You'd give everyone who picked it their ability just by spreading religion and they would just be even more OP. If you do it I'd suggest reducing to +2 food from oasis (they already get 3) +1 from marshes and lakes.

I am not sure about your suggestion, since I have rarely founded big lakes in my games and it pains me to see how such a rare and beautiful terrain present such a poor, poor yield. My idea behind this pantheon was to accomplish the following:
- Make both the Dutch and the Aztecs compete for that pantheon (hence the marsh & lake bonus)
- Make marshes more desirable for the Dutch than floodplains (since it was their historic terrain afterall, not deserts)
- Make lakes usable for civilizations other than the Aztecs (hence the +2 food to lakes)
- Make it a viable alternative for desert folklore (hence the bonus for Oasis)

I mean, Aztecs can still have impressive lake yields, and the combination of their UB with this pantheon would make their ultra-tall strategy far more viable, I think.

I like your ideas for Dance of Aurora and Desert folklore. I often pick aurora because of tundra river starts but I admit they are weak due to the lacking base food. However, I fear doing that might make it so there is no downside to being in tundra. It makes the tile base better than plains or grassland meaning you have no pop penalty for being in bad terrain, food is extremely powerful as growth means everything.

If you do that to Dance of Aurora I might suggest it be a holy city ability not across the board. Otherwise it massively advantages one person on a mostly tundra map. I like the boreal setting so I know exactly the effect it would have on my boreal games

That's a very insightful analysis! Indeed, Tundra ought to be differenciated from other terrains, otherwise that biome would loose its characteristic flavour. A "capital only" type of bonus seems like a good idea in order to preserve its character (perhaps it could be modded as an add-on yield for palace?).

Another option could be to make it give +1 production and faith to non-forested tundra. This way it could still be a greatly powerful bonus (since early production rocks) while preserving tundra's characteristic limitations (lack of food, mainly).

The self-reliance and mountain spirits one sounds like a great idea to me. The game already detects if you are near a mountain so shouldn't be hard to add.

I had the very same idea, and yet it was impossible for me to mod generally talking, it is hard to play with the notion of "adjacent to" with this editor.

 

[danaphanous]

Another suggestion for the buff to dance of aurora: maybe riverside/lakeside tundra tiles get +1 food and not others? Then at least your riverside tiles aren't lackluster and will be the same as grassland plus faith. A nice bonus. It wouldn't be too OP making all tundra so good, but would make you have to choose good city sites. Also, realized you cannot farm tundra not next to water anyway. Your only option is trade post.

I understand why you want lake fairies to buff so much but I still think it will be too OP. No other pantheon provides nearly that kind of food. Pantheons are supposed to give a nice early-game boost, not have game-breaking impact. You are thinking of buffing the tiles up to industrial standards which doesn't take effect till after fertilizer, but you forget that recipients get that ability from ancient times and thus it will have a huge game impact.

Let me give an example:

- Oases already provide 3 food 1 gold. After your pantheon they will yield 6 food 1 gold (better than current lake victoria).
- Buffing lakes by 1 will work fine. 3 food from a lake is workable as that citizen is more than sustaining itself and is what farmed grassland is a lot of the game. It's a good early tile and something I would work considering I don't need a worker to improve it either. Lakes give 2 food currently. 4 food after pantheon doesn't sound that bad but aztecs already get 4 after floating gardens so it makes every lake tile they encounter a lake victoria. You may not have played Aztecs when they score a big lake but there are some inland lakes (not too uncommon) that are multiple tiles. It is not uncommon to get five or more in city range, more if on a big lake. A few lake tiles and the aztecs will grow twice as fast as any other civ with that 15% bonus. Trust me, lakes are really common, much more common than oases. 1 food will be plenty in my opinion.
- +2 to marshes is fine. Base yield is already so poor. (Does polder replace marsh or will it stack though? if it stacks same issue as aztecs but at least it comes later so it is a bit more balanced).
- +2 to oases is good, it will already make it 5 food but at least they are usually isolated and come with surrounding bad terrain. I basically just want it to be less then victoria because it's a natural wonder.

The issue isn't so much the idea but the amount. I think the potential food gains from this pantheon are just way more than any other pantheon, and if Aztecs or Dutch succeed in getting that pantheon with the proper terrain they will be unstoppable. Aztecs already are OP at growth if they roll near lakes. This pantheon would just make it ridiculous. No one could keep up with their pop or resulting science since it occurs early-game with just building one early building. Not even venice with food trade routes could do it if they had more than a few of these tiles. That much free food has long-lasted repercussions, esp. introduced that early in the game.

That's my opinion anyway, I love the sound of your mod though, please link me when you finish so I can try it out!

 

[dunkleosteus]

I like to think about pantheons by considering how they function. In Civ V, none of the faiths are actually real- when stone circles put +2 faith on quarries that's because the people believe in the circles. They don't actually gain anything intrinsically. Same goes for all the others. Having +2 food on lakes sounds like some great technological achievement that somehow doubles the amount of food people can pull out of lakes. And all because people think there are fairies in there.

I don't mean to be rude, but I think this sort of thinking helps me when I'm coming up with something. I want it to make sense.