The new Pantheons(fall patch).

[S.O.T MAHak]

What do people think of the new pantheons?

Isn't the "Sun God" pantheon better compared to "Goddess of the Hunt".

With Sun God you get +1 food from two bonus resources, wheat and bananas, and one lux. resource, citrus, + you get the bonus just from the resource not the improvement like in Goddess of the Hunt, which mean you don't have to chop the jungle to get a bonus on your bananas.

In Goddess of the hunt you get +1 food from one bonus resource, deer, and three lux. resource, truffles, furs and ivory, and you have to improve the tile to get the bonus.

Secondly, isn't the "God King" pantheon a bit underpowered? I couldn't picture me choosing it, other then if the pantheons left wouldn't provide me with any bonuses at all or if Im playing a OCC game.

The last one, "Mother Earth" seems balanced.

Note: I haven't had time to play the new patch yet(but soon!) as I am on vacation.

 

[Matthew.]

Tundra starts are typically heavy with a lot of deer and fox, in which case Sun God isn't doing much to help you.

I've picked up God King quite a bit so far. Although typically only because I stumble upon a pantheon but don't expect to actually form a religion. In which case, it is often one of the better choices. I'd expect I'd not pick it as often if I actually intend to keep my pantheon for the entire game.

 

[comatosedragon]

Mother Earth is far from balanced, IMHO. Salt is already the best starting Luxury, and adding free faith just makes it that much better. Also, almost every empire will have a few sources of iron, so there is another boon. I think they should make it +2 faith (like stone circles), but only apply it to copper and iron.

 

[Atinuviel]

Yeah, a tundra, forest-heavy start could easily net you 5+ deers in the vicinity. I've had a game where I had a total of 8 camps within 3 tiles of my capital, with 6 of them being Deers and 2 of them Furs. That's a whopping +8 food.

I don't think I've seen more than 3 Wheats or Bananas ever workable immediately in a city.

 

[Kintara]

There was a city site I never got around to settling in a game a couple weeks ago that I dubbed "Bananarama" because it had about half a dozen bananas. So it happens. I guess Wheat does tend to clump less, as I can't immediately remember a case where I had five Wheat.

Edit: I think I had that much Wheat with one of my Petra cities once in GnK.

 

[bonafide11]

I picked "God King" in my current game. I knew I wasn't going to have a major religion since I started near the Celts and they were going to spread their religion much more aggressively than me, but the +1 of everything provided a nice early boost to my civ. It's not for civs intending on playing the religion game long term, but it's a nice advantage early on without having to do anything.

 

[TheHarshax]

I picked "God King" in my current game. I knew I wasn't going to have a major religion since I started near the Celts and they were going to spread their religion much more aggressively than me, but the +1 of everything provided a nice early boost to my civ. It's not for civs intending on playing the religion game long term, but it's a nice advantage early on without having to do anything.

I tried this with Venice after discovering a religious city state early and getting an instant pantheon. It worked really well for exactly this reason. An early boost across the board. I actually managed to found a religion when I popped a piety goody hut.

 

[eldiablonoche]

Earth Mother will be ridiculous. Better salt starts? I'm not the type to re-roll my starts but I will have to try that because I want to see the potential of a Boudica salt run... In a non-cooked game it'll be a great pantheon too; you're going to want to plant new cities on iron anyway (salt too, realistically) so this improves a common strategy. That is awesome.

I like the God-King pantheon because of the likelihood of missing out on your 1st choice, resource driven pantheon by AIs at higher difficulties. And it's good early, makes a better tall pantheon than wide (obv OCC being where it is "best"), has a wide range of bonuses, man it's actually a really great consolation prize if it comes down to it.

 

[joncnunn]

These are all highly starting terrain specific.

It appears the underlaying purpose was to ensure that whenever the legendary start advanced option was clicked there would be least one great terrain specific pantheon for all 8 starts (normal size map).

Yes, Salt appeared to already be the best luxury to get lots of.

 

[Quineloe]

I'm with the others, God King is a typical non-religion pantheon. You'll be hard pressed to get more value out of the tile improvement pantheons than the God King mix, which is at full strength right of the bat. I'd only consider +15% wonder pantheon over it if I wanted to get Petra and Colossus and at least two more.

 

[kingofsealand]

the extra food will go much farther than the paltry hammers you will pick up from the 15% wonder production pantheon. I had a desert flood plains start with morocco recently which put no less than 6 tiles of wheat within workable range of my capital. Honestly if id had god king in that game I would have had such happiness issues from excess growth that it would've been a disadvantage.

 

[joncnunn]

I had a desert flood plains start with morocco recently which put no less than 6 tiles of wheat within workable range of my capital. Honestly if id had god king in that game I would have had such happiness issues from excess growth that it would've been a disadvantage.

While Sun God is great for such a start is still less extra food than a single food cargo ship.
Considering all the other food from Wheat even without the pantheon though, maybe run 2 or 3 hammer cargo ships to the capital instead of the usual two or three food cargo ships to the capital as it appears that hammers will be more of a problem?

God King appears there as another consultation prize if all your intended pantheons were already taken. Perhaps for those either playing with more major Civs than normal for a given map size and/or on Huge maps?

 

[El Caballerion]

Can you guys make a bulleted list of what the new pantheons are? I don't know from memory.

 

[Browd]

From the Beta Patch notes:

3 New Pantheons
Earth Mother: +1 Faith from Copper, Iron, and Salt.
God-King: +1 Culture, Faith, Gold, Production, and Science from the Palace
Sun God: +1 Food from Bananas, Citrus, and Wheat

 

[EEE_BOY]

Personally there is nothing wrong to have a few op pantheons, which encourage to get faith output early or encourage exploration early. Like religion, the sooner the better rewards.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, Pantheons are deliberately not even so as to encourage you to get them first.

I find faith pantheons, while perhaps a nice boost, end up being the first to become obsolete. Because of that, faith from salt is the best possible option if you're going to get some bonus from salt (and I think they want a pantheon for each luxury, if not each resource).

 

[joncnunn]

I find faith pantheons, while perhaps a nice boost, end up being the first to become obsolete.

I would disagree about faith being obsolete.

Just complete both Tradition & Rationalism so you can buy a few of both Great Enginners & Great Scientists instead of only completing one of those trees (which would result in an incredible amount of faith needed to buy the 5th of the same type)

 

[Louis XXIV]

Yeah, buying great persons helps (although I often end up with a few unwanted great prophets before I have that option) and I'll agree that even two or three additional great persons is a huge boost (but it is pretty much two or three max). But I just think you can get lots of faith elsewhere instead.

That being said, my experience comes from pantheons that give faith for things like Tundra, that could use a food/production/gold boost. Salt is naturally good enough that it doesn't need those things, so faith is a nice boost instead.

 

[Phoenix1595]

I enjoyed trying all three. Earth Mother was far and away the best in terms of my typical religious/cultural builder strategy, but Sun God and God-King were fun too.

I agree with earlier posters re: God-King-- it's fantastic in the early game because it gives you a clear bump in culture, science, production, etc., but I noticed that, despite being the first to found a religion that dominated my continent, I struggled to earn faith as efficiently as I would using a geo-specific pantheon. I do notice that the AI tends to grab GK early on a consistent basis, so I assume it has its advantages.

 

[joncnunn]

I do notice that the AI tends to grab GK early on a consistent basis, so I assume it has its advantages.

I wouldn't assume it's good just because the AI is in love with it.
The AI in G&K and BNW pre-Beta patch at least) has a love affair with the one boosting ranged unit combat which is one of the weakest pantheons.