Trying out new Pantheons, need input!

[Seabastian Civ]

Sure, desert folklore is awesome when you're in the desert, and you're gonna pick it 99% of the time if you can. But after that there's a pretty big drop off to the next best set. I've been trying to branch out as to which ones I pick and how I try to use them. Here are a few I've tried, are there any combos you particularly liked? I'd love to branch out more but I'm not sure how to best use a few of the beliefs.


Faith Healers - one of my favorite 2nd tier faiths. Love it for defense and once you get it out to some city states, it can REALLY help you heal up wounded units that are far from home. Plus, makes air forces unstoppable!

Goddess of Protection - I didn't really like this one. Except for blasting some barbs early, I didn't get to use it too much. Even on Immortal, my units do 90% of the fighting, not my cities.

Goddess of Love - decent if you're going tall, and surprisingly good in MP, where happiness issues from war can really sneak up on you.

 

[sufficiency]

Goddess of Protection is really bad.

If you are going to spread your religion, spreading it to your neighbour will make it harder for you to bully them.

Faith Healer is OK but very situational.

Goddess of Love is fine, I think, but why not use the +1 happiness from river cities? It's about the same anyway.

 

[joncnunn]

Goddess of Protection: So bad that the AI picks it by default. 'nuff said.

Actually the best default choice (when none of the terrain suits the more powerful ones) isn't listed above. It's Fertility Rites. (Personally I've playing on Legendary starts; which assures one of the terrain ones will be better. This is nice because it adds variety to my pantheons; in one map I might want God of the Sea, another Goddess of the Hunt, and still another Oral Traditions)

On Goddess of Love: Much more suitable for a late Pantheon start than if you build a Shrine early. It takes time to get cities up to pop 6. And tall empires don't need the happiness bonuses that early anyway.

 

[whoward69]

Carthage + Messenger of the Gods

Free Harbours = Free Trade Routes = Free Science

 

[Optional]

Goddess of Protection I will consider if I'm expanding in the direction of the AI. Never for blasting barbs, all they do is now and then pillaging a tile, they don't threaten my cities like the AI does.
If I see city sites that offer good defense - hill placement would be a minimum - I'm still not interested in Goddess of Protection, also not when there's a nearby City State that I can ally, but otherwise it becomes interesting. Without it expanding can become a precarious undertaking. Denying this pantheon to the AI is also part of the reason for taking it.

Spreading religion to the AI? Rather not. To City States, but otherwise I'm not keen and I avoid beliefs that help spread my religion.

Sacred Waters can be very good, as happiness is hard to get in the early game. Need rivers for this one, of course.

But I think the ones that I end up picking most often are God of the Sea (a hammer for sea resources), Stone Circles (faith for quarries), God of the Open Sky (culture for pastures) and Religious Idols (faith and culture for incense and wine).

Messenger of the Gods is in itself okay for Carthage, but because of the abundance of sea resources on average maps I find it hard to pass on God of the Sea, and when Messenger of the Gods is a candidate for Carthage God of the Sea will be as well (if it's still free of course).

 

[joncnunn]

Sacred Waters can be very good, as happiness is hard to get in the early game. Need rivers for this one, of course.

But I think the ones that I end up picking most often are God of the Sea (a hammer for sea resources), Stone Circles (faith for quarries), God of the Open Sky (culture for pastures) and Religious Idols (faith and culture for incense and wine).

Messenger of the Gods is in itself okay for Carthage, but because of the abundance of sea resources on average maps I find it hard to pass on God of the Sea, and when Messenger of the Gods is a candidate for Carthage God of the Sea will be as well (if it's still free of course).

Sacred Waters: The problem is that unless all your cities are on rivers, it's worse than CB that grants one happiness for every city, even without one.

God of the Sea: Yup, with sea resources I'll pick them. But this is map dependent even on water maps; it's actually more common for there to NOT be sea resource tile near the capital (or at most one) than for there to be 3+ near there.

Stone Queries: I've yet to have a start where there was sufficient stone and/or marble for that.

Religious Idols: That's NOT incense & wine; that is instead Gold & Silver.
It's instead a follower belief that has an building extra bonus for those tiles. (And like the other religious buildings, very popular with the AI, you'd need to be first to the religion to get it.)

 

[tetley]

I'm rapidly beginning to believe that Goddess of Protection is what's just killing me when I attack cities pre-Artillery. I'm getting cities that just have a killer bombard for no obvious reason--not a particularly high pop, not outstripping me on tech, no visible walls. And yet I get pummelled. I should check that and see if I need to send in a prophet as part of my strike force.

 

[Browd]

Religious Idols: That's NOT incense & wine; that is instead Gold & Silver. It's instead a follower belief that has an building extra bonus for those tiles. (And like the other religious buildings, very popular with the AI, you'd need to be first to the religion to get it.)

Confused. Religious Idols is +1 faith and culture from gold and silver, but it is a pantheon belief, not a follower belief, with no building. Are you thinking about Monasteries, with boost for incense and wine?

 

[Browd]

I'm rapidly beginning to believe that Goddess of Protection is what's just killing me when I attack cities pre-Artillery. I'm getting cities that just have a killer bombard for no obvious reason--not a particularly high pop, not outstripping me on tech, no visible walls. And yet I get pummelled. I should check that and see if I need to send in a prophet as part of my strike force.

Or maybe Oligarchy? Check to see if your target has gone Tradition.

 

[tetley]

Wow, this could be like, significant. If you can pick your wars, you want the easy picks. I never thought to scout their SP and their pantheon for this purpose before.

 

[Vintage Port]

Or maybe Oligarchy? Check to see if your target has gone Tradition.

Maybe even both? I have a current save where China isn't all that strong but keeps one-shotting all my units. I know for sure China went Trad but the city bombard did seem strong for how early in the game it was. I bet they also went Goddess of Protection.

I have a question. If I get a pantheon say, Fertility Rites, have up 4 cities (Trad opening) and all have the pantheon but never found a religion will I keep Fertility Rites all game, even if an AI spreads their religion to me?

 

[Zezima]

Maybe even both? I have a current save where China isn't all that strong but keeps one-shotting all my units. I know for sure China went Trad but the city bombard did seem strong for how early in the game it was. I bet they also went Goddess of Protection.

I have a question. If I get a pantheon say, Fertility Rites, have up 4 cities (Trad opening) and all have the pantheon but never found a religion will I keep Fertility Rites all game, even if an AI spreads their religion to me?

This is definitely a problem I run into in the early game. I find that when a neighbor I tend to eliminate takes Goddess of Protection there is a good chance my units (particularly catapults) can be one-shotted. I actually never considered Oligarchy being on top of that, though I think it is likely since I usually have this problem with Tradition-favoring civs (Siam, Arabia, etc.).

Can you imagine stacking the Great Wall on top of that?

 

[Seabastian Civ]

Maybe even both? I have a current save where China isn't all that strong but keeps one-shotting all my units. I know for sure China went Trad but the city bombard did seem strong for how early in the game it was. I bet they also went Goddess of Protection.

I have a question. If I get a pantheon say, Fertility Rites, have up 4 cities (Trad opening) and all have the pantheon but never found a religion will I keep Fertility Rites all game, even if an AI spreads their religion to me?

Im pretty confident that pantheons are lost when a religion converts a city. Im basing this on experiences where ive been pissed my city converted to a heathen faith only to find that im now generating faith on desert tiles. Cha-ching!

I've taken stone circles and been very happy with it. It is more valuable early, when you're racing to found a religion. I've never liked the +culture ones. Can anyone change my mind?

 

[tetley]

When a city takes on a religion, it takes on the pantheon of that religion. And if your religion does not have Goddess of Protection pantheon (which it probably doesn't), then converting the city out of it before you take it makes a lot of sense--let alone if you took the Just War belief.

What's far more significant, though, I think is scouting for this stuff in their cities first before waiting to get hit. That'll really raise your game. You'll better be able to organize the right force to take it (including sending in the priests).

 

[Gucumatz]

Sacred Path can be pretty good if you start near jungles. Since jungle tiles will have bananas, citrus, etc. that you can't improve for a while but are pretty powerful for the very initial game, adding in another culture per turn helps improve the borders quicker to access more resources and get policies quicker.

Its a fairly useful pantheon that adds up over time. Most of the cultural pantheons I can't say the same of. Goddess of Festivals and Religious Idols are great pantheons too. +1 faith + 1 culture for unimproved tiles can help you get a religion quick. Plus the Goddess of Festivals has the nice feature of being fairly limited to only wine and incense tiles so if your religion spreads later on to other civs it won't really help them much if you plan on growing tall. Monasteries are often overlooked when it comes to follower beliefs, but they can make wine/incense starts even stronger. Monasteries are the cheapest faith purchasable item in game and provide a pretty good flat +2 faith + 2 culture. But every wine/incense you have is improved by another +3 culture on the tile. Having a city with 1 wine resource? = 3 faith and 6 culture. Have a city with 3 of the same resource? = 3 faith and 12 culture. It can be fairly strong for a cultural game

 

[tetley]

What I like about Goddess of Festivals/Religious Idols is that if you get a Wine or Gold start, then that means probably ONLY you got a Wine/Gold start. You don't have to rush to get your pantheon. This is in contrast to something like god of the sea on Tiny Islands map, where you had better rush to faith ASAP.

 

[joncnunn]

Confused. Religious Idols is +1 faith and culture from gold and silver, but it is a pantheon belief, not a follower belief, with no building. Are you thinking about Monasteries, with boost for incense and wine?

Poster I was responding to said Religious Idols pantheon granted bonus to Incense & Wine.
My response was that Religous Idols Idols grants bonus to gold and silver and that the incense & wine is from a religious building.

 

[Vintage Port]

Poster I was responding to said Religious Idols pantheon granted bonus to Incense & Wine.
My response was that Religous Idols Idols grants bonus to gold and silver and that the incense & wine is from a religious building.

I think the confusion is some people are thinking of this pantheon:

Goddess of Festivals: +1 Culture and +1 Faith for each Wine and Incense

While others are talking about:

Monasteries: Use Faith to purchase Monasteries (+2 Faith, +2 Culture, more with Wine or Incense)

 

[JanghanHong]

Sacred Waters: The problem is that unless all your cities are on rivers, it's worse than CB that grants one happiness for every city, even without one.

The problem with Goddess of Love is that it only kicks in after your pantheon has 6 followers. On average, the city has to have 8 citizens for it have that. With Sacred Waters, it kicks in immediately.

With other happiness bonuses like +1 with trade route or +1 with garrison. New cities will only produce 1 unhappiness if you settle on the river, setting it to work on some hill, you can expand extremely quickly along a river system to stake your claim before growing population on them.

 

[Seabastian Civ]

How good is fertility rights, really? I mean, +10% seems nice, but does it offer more value than say, messenger of the gods?