Trying out new Pantheons, need input!

[Arachnofiend]

Stone Circles has a poor reputation? I always thought of it as one of the stronger pantheons. Probably the best thing for a Grassland start if your civ doesn't have a good way of producing faith on its own. It helps that the Mausoleum is a low priority wonder for the AI so you can take your sweet time making those quarries into the best tile this side of Petra/Hill/River.

 

[kaspergm]

Stone Circles has a poor reputation? I always thought of it as one of the stronger pantheons. Probably the best thing for a Grassland start if your civ doesn't have a good way of producing faith on its own. It helps that the Mausoleum is a low priority wonder for the AI so you can take your sweet time making those quarries into the best tile this side of Petra/Hill/River.

Well it did get some bad rep up earlier in the thread, that was what I was referring to.

Recently, I had this epic start where I was Dutch, started on coast but with three Stones + 1 Marble at my capital site, so I rushed some faith and grabbed Stone Circles and then figured I didn't need to super rush Mausoleum - because like you say, AI never builds Mausoleum - so I got Pyramids first, and then went for Mausoleum, and then I was 2 turns left, Nebby finished it - and he didn't even have a single Stone or Marble around Babylon!

That almost made me rage-quit the game, but instead I ended up DoW'ing him out of sheer frustration - it suddenly made the "you build wonders that they covet" diplomatic modifier very real! Too bad I couldn't move the Mausoleum once I had it, though. Admittedly, I did have to wait almost a hundred turns and finish off the Mayans first, as Nebby was on a peninsula of his own only connected by a tiny long thread of land covered in hills and jungle, plus he build Great Wall, making it impossible to advance over land, but it was well worth the wait once I got my Sea Beggers and Frigates rolling in on him! That was one of the few times I've seen Nebby go wide and make a science runaway, but he sure did in that game.

 

[joncnunn]

Stone Circles has a poor reputation? I always thought of it as one of the stronger pantheons.

It's because of how rare it is to see every 2+ of those resources in the starting area.
It's much more common to have a Desert Faith start.
And if you have legendary resources on, even a start suitable for Religious Idols seems more common.

Edit: In fact, it seems that my most recent start was the first in which Stone Circle was semi-feasible. (2 of those resources were in the obvious place for the second city).
But the same city site was also within range of both Deep Sea Ridge tiles for One With Nature which trumps Stone Circles. (8 faith instead of 4)

 

[Browd]

The other rap on stone circles is that it doesn't apply to unimproved tiles, while Desert Folklore, Goddess of Festivals, Religious Idols, Sacred Path, Dance of Aurora, etc. all apply to unimproved tiles. Makes a big difference in how quickly the faith or culture starts to roll. Since quarries require masonry, you may or may not get there quickly, depending on how quickly you are teching to Construction for Comp Bows.