[Tuning] Pantheons - Round 2!

[Txurce]

I really don't understand the rationale behind this change. Even when festivals gave just 1 faith, I considered it so powerful, that I made the decision to never take it. Now the yields are on an absurd level. I have seen the argument that festivals doesn't scale well, which is far from the truth. Just take a look at these pictures that show, how quickly you can get this pantheon to work...

As you can see, there is no way you can get anything close to similar yields with any other pantheon in a long time. There are 21 luxuries in the world so I would indeed get even more yields from Festivals later on in the game. With an admiral I could even go beyond the 21 luxuries. On a large or a huge map other pantheons might reach somewhat similar yields at some point of the game but on standard sized map there is at the moment only 1 pantheon you should ever consider taking.

I guess it's worth mentioning that Indonesia in particular appreciates this pantheon.

Interesting. But would you say the same thing playing Tradition with four or so cities?

 

[Forsti]

Interesting. But would you say the same thing playing Tradition with four or so cities?

I've got three cities there and 10 luxuries. The only luxuries I have improved myself are 3 salt tiles but they are anything but hard to get by trading or city state allies. If I didn't consider Festivals far too OP to ever be used, I'd pick it more or less always, not depending on my first policy tree or planned number of cities. There might be some very rare situation in which another pantheon works marginally better but I can't come up with a proper example of such.

 

[Galbias]

Speaking of Festivals, how do the "global" pantheons like it and All Creation work when you spread them to another civ? Do they only work if the religion is in the capital, so you can't get the benefits of both?

I really don't understand the rationale behind this change. Even when festivals gave just 1 faith, I considered it so powerful, that I made the decision to never take it. Now the yields are on an absurd level. I have seen the argument that festivals doesn't scale well, which is far from the truth. Just take a look at these pictures that show, how quickly you can get this pantheon to work:

Spoiler pics :

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So it's turn 77 (standard speed) and I'm getting 20 faith, 20 culture and 20 gpt to my capital. This is a lot more than you can get with some pantheons at the end of the game. I only have 3 cities and I haven't yet improved 1 salt at Getz and 1 sugar and 1 piece of spices from Salzburg. Let's look how hard it is to get similar yields with other pantheons that give similar yields:

• Ancestor worship: You need more than 60 citizens to get 20 faith and 10 councils to get 20 culture. You wouldn't still get the gold
• Earth mother: If you worked 20 mines with improved resources, you'd get 20 faith and 20 gold. For each monument you'd get 2 production, which is a yield that Festivals doesn't produce but you don't get extra culture.
• God of commerce: With 7 city connections you'd get 21 faith and 14 gold. For every 30 gold you produce, you get 1 faith. At this point of the game, you wouldn't get more than 1 faith from the scaler and you'd still be missing the culture.
• God of craftsmen: With 7 cities with specialist, you'd get 21 faith. If you had 20 quarries or stone works, you'd get 20 gold and production. You can't get culture.
• God of the open sky: Working 20 pastures gives you 20 gold and 20 faith. You'd also need to work more than 40 grassland or plains tiles without hills or features to get 20 culture.
• Goddess of nature: If you manage to work 2 natural wonders, you'd need to have at least 32 mountains within 3 tiles from your cities to get 22 faith and 20 culture. You wouldn't get gold though.
• Goddess of protection: You need 19 walls or barracks to get 20 faith and culture. You don't get gold but your units heal +10 hp in your territory.
• Goddess of springtime: You need 10 markets to get 20 faith and you must work 20 plantations to get 20 gold and culture
• Goddess of the hunt: You need to work 20 camps to get 20 faith, culture and food. You won't get gold but the food will compensate.

As you can see, there is no way you can get anything close to similar yields with any other pantheon in a long time. There are 21 luxuries in the world so I would indeed get even more yields from Festivals later on in the game. With an admiral I could even go beyond the 21 luxuries. On a large or a huge map other pantheons might reach somewhat similar yields at some point of the game but on standard sized map there is at the moment only 1 pantheon you should ever consider taking.

I guess it's worth mentioning that Indonesia in particular appreciates this pantheon.

Not that it invalidates your point but that is quite a lot of luxuries to have on turn 77. It could probably use a small nerf, maybe 1.5 yields per luxury or Culture/Gold reduced by 1?

Hmm, I think I need to test it to get a better feel. Might want to play my next game as Indonesia.

 

[Txurce]

I've got three cities there and 10 luxuries. The only luxuries I have improved myself are 3 salt tiles but they are anything but hard to get by trading or city state allies. If I didn't consider Festivals far too OP to ever be used, I'd pick it more or less always, not depending on my first policy tree or planned number of cities. There might be some very rare situation in which another pantheon works marginally better but I can't come up with a proper example of such.

Sorry, but I don't understand Festivals' definition of "controlled." Do you get credit for every salt you have, or just 1 per city? And do they have to be improved?

 

[infidel88]

You're giving an example to fit your thesis. You have four allied CS (including 2 mercantile), all of which have different luxuries, which is rare and fairly peaceful neighbors. But it's not like this will happen with that pantheon every time.

Plus - you run those numbers at your current turn with perfect start against some pantheons which are crap and some, which scale better over time. Let's say turn 150. You can easily make good tundra/desert start and put even your great start into oblivion, which clearly doesn't mean Spirit of the Desert or god of stars and sky are OP.

Within 'normal' start you get access to 5 early luxuries and it's definately not OP. 1/2/2 was utter crap in goddess of festivals.

 

[infidel88]

Sorry, but I don't understand Festivals' definition of "controlled." Do you get credit for every salt you have, or just 1 per city? And do they have to be improved?

You get 2/2/2 in capital per each type of controlled luxury. Irrelevant if you get them by trade or from allied CS or you get them yourself.

 

[ElliotS]

God-King seems terrible. Not only does it never seem to benefit you right away (even on a good pop game I'm at 4 citizens when I get a pantheon.) and is also near-impossible to spawn a religion with, but it doesn't even outscale other pantheons under most conditions!

I've tested it (with tradition byzantium, so I could definitely found) and done the math for other scenarios and it's just bad. There's rarely a point in any game where it's better than another decently applicable pantheon.

The bigger problem is that the AI gets WAY more pop than you, so if they get your God-King religion they're guaranteed to use it better than you.

I'd like to see it give bonuses to the founders capital on ALL cities it's in, to make it actually good later after you spread your religion. As it is it never provides substansially more bonuses than normal pantheons, and is the pretty much the worst early game.

You might need to make it per every 8 followers, but I think it would be a really interesting mechanic if it was the only pantheon to actually benefit from being spread. (It would also be a fun combo with spreader enhancers if you could get faith without a pantheon.)

 

[Txurce]

You get 2/2/2 in capital per each type of controlled luxury. Irrelevant if you get them by trade or from allied CS or you get them yourself.

So then it's particularly to the benefit of the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Greece/Germany/Siam?

 

[Galbias]

God-King seems terrible. Not only does it never seem to benefit you right away (even on a good pop game I'm at 4 citizens when I get a pantheon.) and is also near-impossible to spawn a religion with, but it doesn't even outscale other pantheons under most conditions!

I've tested it (with tradition byzantium, so I could definitely found) and done the math for other scenarios and it's just bad. There's rarely a point in any game where it's better than another decently applicable pantheon.

The bigger problem is that the AI gets WAY more pop than you, so if they get your God-King religion they're guaranteed to use it better than you.

I'd like to see it give bonuses to the founders capital on ALL cities it's in, to make it actually good later after you spread your religion. As it is it never provides substansially more bonuses than normal pantheons, and is the pretty much the worst early game.

You might need to make it per every 8 followers, but I think it would be a really interesting mechanic if it was the only pantheon to actually benefit from being spread. (It would also be a fun combo with spreader enhancers if you could get faith without a pantheon.)

I used it when I played India and it didn't seem to make much difference to me. I guess that's kind of the point, it's a "little bit of everything" Pantheon, which makes it very difficult to see the effects as Pantheons are generally pretty weak in the grand scale of things, meant to give you a boost in some area early game and get you on your way to starting a religion. As it currently is, I think it's both too unfocused and too much of a late bloomer, and would be better off reworked than buffed, like +1 to all yields in each city or something so it's actually noticeable if it's going to be very general. I think getting yields from spreading would be a bit too outside the scope of what Pantheons are supposed to do.

And yeah, it's terrible for founding, and it's weaker than it might look at first since it's based on followers rather than population and you're almost never going to have 100% of your population as followers of a single religion.

So then it's particularly to the benefit of the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Greece/Germany/Siam?

Yeah, Brazil too.

 

[ElliotS]

I used it when I played India and it didn't seem to make much difference to me. I guess that's kind of the point, it's a "little bit of everything" Pantheon, which makes it very difficult to see the effects as Pantheons are generally pretty weak in the grand scale of things, meant to give you a boost in some area early game and get you on your way to starting a religion. As it currently is, I think it's both too unfocused and too much of a late bloomer, and would be better off reworked than buffed, like +1 to all yields in each city or something so it's actually noticeable if it's going to be very general. I think getting yields from spreading would be a bit too outside the scope of what Pantheons are supposed to do.

And yeah, it's terrible for founding, and it's weaker than it might look at first since it's based on followers rather than population and you're almost never going to have 100% of your population as followers of a single religion.

I mean contextually it only makes sense to benefit the capital as a belief. Maybe giving it up to 10% CS at 1 per 6 followers could also work if spreading is too out there. That or simply have it start by giving you 2 of each. (Probably the more balanced but less fun version.) I think if it was +1 f/s/c/g in capital per 6, 2 f/s/c/g in capital. It would be more in-line with other pantheons output wise, though it would still be weak because the AIs would use it better than you.

The other method you could go would be static 4-5 f/s/c/g in capital, as a pantheon with no scaling whatsoever, just good for until someone else gives you a real religion.

My sense of cool and fun wants it to benefit the founder's capital regardless of who's city the followers are in though, (with some number nerfs) but I can see why some people would feel it would be too out there.

 

[Forsti]

You're giving an example to fit your thesis. You have four allied CS (including 2 mercantile), all of which have different luxuries, which is rare and fairly peaceful neighbors. But it's not like this will happen with that pantheon every time.

I admit, I was surprised I got festivals working that quickly. I didn't expect to have that many luxuries that fast. But I made the decision I'd post here about festivals when I started the game, not because I got those crazy yields.

In order to provide you with a more common and reliable sample of how the pantheon works, I can play a few starts with random civs, always choose Festivals and post the number of luxuries I control on turns, say, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100. I'll play all the games as I'd usually play with festivals and I'll report this all as soon as I have played 10 games like these (unless it turns out to take too much time).

Plus - you run those numbers at your current turn with perfect start against some pantheons which are crap and some, which scale better over time. Let's say turn 150. You can easily make good tundra/desert start and put even your great start into oblivion, which clearly doesn't mean Spirit of the Desert or god of stars and sky are OP.

I chose the pantheons I compared Festivals to because they provide culture and/or gold and therefore they are easy to compare to Festivals. Now that I think of it, I could have included Spirit of the Desert in the comparison (which is a pantheon I actually consider OP, although not even nearly to the extent of festivals). Of the pantheons I used in the comparison, I can't imagine any other outscaling festivals in a reasonable time except commerce (which doesn't provide culture).

 

[infidel88]

In order to provide you with a more common and reliable sample of how the pantheon works, I can play a few starts with random civs, always choose Festivals and post the number of luxuries I control on turns, say, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100. I'll play all the games as I'd usually play with festivals and I'll report this all as soon as I have played 10 games like these (unless it turns out to take too much time).

From experiece I can say by turn 50 you'll get 3-4 luxuries. Of course if you have that pantheon you'll try to maximize it, but let's face - for any other you're not going to go for making ally of mercantale CS or trading resources, as you're usually better off trading it for GPT (this is a matter of personal preference though).

I chose the pantheons I compared Festivals to because they provide culture and/or gold and therefore they are easy to compare to Festivals. Now that I think of it, I could have included Spirit of the Desert in the comparison (which is a pantheon I actually consider OP, although not even nearly to the extent of festivals). Of the pantheons I used in the comparison, I can't imagine any other outscaling festivals in a reasonable time except commerce (which doesn't provide culture).

I can agree here pantheons are far from being equal. There are plenty of useless one:
- Beauty got nerfed so badly I don't even look at it (you get the same yields from whole pantheon as from ONE improved resource with god of sky and star!! it' ridiculous);
- craftsmen is bad, as before you get specialist slots in other cities, religions may be decided already;
- god of sea requires tech and then hammers investment - not worth it unless you're Polynesia;
- fertility is simply useless - max you'll get is 2faith/2food in city - must worst possible output out of all panteons;
- protection - I would add 1g so upkeep of walls/barracks would be easier;
- purity would be better if not for lakes issues with tiles grabbing by cities and fact that marshes are getting chopped over time;
- renewal is a bit like above, sometimes you have to chop your yields generator to get luxury or resource;
- hunt is ok, but compare it to god of stars and sky - you'll get similar number of tiles to work with that pantheon and half of yields. Kinda silly;

When I start I only consider:
- god of star and sky - but it's not OP, you're crippled with tundra, it kinda balances it;
- spirit of the desert - 6/2/2 on improved flood plains wheat is too good, you can basically grow like mad with it;
- god of commerce - wonderful synergy with wide progress;
- god of war - early warmongering;
- ancestor/all creation - if above fails;

Ill check festivals next time maybe, but it seems to fit mostly tradition tall empire. Sim-city type of game, which I hate.

 

[ElliotS]

From experiece I can say by turn 50 you'll get 3-4 luxuries. Of course if you have that pantheon you'll try to maximize it, but let's face - for any other you're not going to go for making ally of mercantale CS or trading resources, as you're usually better off trading it for GPT (this is a matter of personal preference though).



I can agree here pantheons are far from being equal. There are plenty of useless one:
- Beauty got nerfed so badly I don't even look at it (you get the same yields from whole pantheon as from ONE improved resource with god of sky and star!! it' ridiculous);
- craftsmen is bad, as before you get specialist slots in other cities, religions may be decided already;
- god of sea requires tech and then hammers investment - not worth it unless you're Polynesia;
- fertility is simply useless - max you'll get is 2faith/2food in city - must worst possible output out of all panteons;
- protection - I would add 1g so upkeep of walls/barracks would be easier;
- purity would be better if not for lakes issues with tiles grabbing by cities and fact that marshes are getting chopped over time;
- renewal is a bit like above, sometimes you have to chop your yields generator to get luxury or resource;
- hunt is ok, but compare it to god of stars and sky - you'll get similar number of tiles to work with that pantheon and half of yields. Kinda silly;

When I start I only consider:
- god of star and sky - but it's not OP, you're crippled with tundra, it kinda balances it;
- spirit of the desert - 6/2/2 on improved flood plains wheat is too good, you can basically grow like mad with it;
- god of commerce - wonderful synergy with wide progress;
- god of war - early warmongering;
- ancestor/all creation - if above fails;

Ill check festivals next time maybe, but it seems to fit mostly tradition tall empire. Sim-city type of game, which I hate.

Festivals is def. strong, noto P imo tho. It's actually good as wide too, because you can grab multiple resources. If you've got 2 lux by your capital and another 2 lux for your 1st and/or 2nd cities that's a lot of faith and culture. This game as Rome I chose it over the science pantheon because of that, and it works well.

I find it's best with mining type luxuries because they come online so early. Some starts might have a lot of luxuries but require you to chop jungles and built plantations so you're not getting them in a reasonable amount of time.

Speaking of the science pantheon needs to give 2 science per city imo. 1 just doesn't feel like it does anything.

I think you're overrating commerce a bit. The 2 gold per city connection doesn't even offset the cost of the road that early, even if the faith is great. Also there's no culture.

This is coming from someone who plays exclusively on 7 or 8, so YMMV on lower difficulties.

 

[Galbias]

Thinking about Goddess of Beauty again, I wonder if +3 Culture or so from Palace in addition to the current benefits might be reasonable? I (and other people) have mentioned that Culture is a better driver for Wonders than production, but now that I realize that there's already a belief that reduces policy costs, a small Culture boost before you get any Wonders seems like a good way to get you started. It fits thematically too, a Palace should probably be beautiful.

Speaking of the science pantheon needs to give 2 science per city imo. 1 just doesn't feel like it does anything.

The Science is small, but it's mostly a Faith pantheon and it's really strong in that department, +2 Faith per city with no requirements is great and pretty good scaling late game as well.

- fertility is simply useless - max you'll get is 2faith/2food in city - must worst possible output out of all panteons;

The 15% growth is one of the main reasons I'd consider it. Never used it myself but it doesn't seem awful, just not particularly amazing.

 

[CrazyG]

Fertility provides 15% food growth, which is the largest benefit. Its faith cap is low but the faith is on 2 early buildings so you can found with it fairly easily. Maybe an extra faith or culture point could sneak in though.
I think Hunt is fine, it competes with stars and sky, but I've seen situations where hunt is better, sometimes you are right on the edge of snow but there just isn't much tundra, also ivory.
I think the reason Renewal isn't great is because Hunt will do a furs or truffle start better, and God of All does forest/jungle plantations better. The happiness from God of All really helps cover the gap before those luxuries go online.The almost exception are Maya or Brazil, because they can build their UIs in jungle, but even then you don't necessarily want those adjacent jungles. Plus you get this really awkward situation where improving your luxuries lowers your yields.

I would support changing the science pantheon to provide 2 science but 1 faith per city, right now it has great early game faith just for building the city, you don't even have to build anything, and great faith scaling, so just a great overall pantheon. I've had situations where I considered Fertility but Wisdom is just so hard to pass on, any time you don't need pantheon culture you should strongly consider it.
I really hate to say this because I love picking this pantheon, but I think God of All might be a touch too strong. Culture is just such a good yield, I've noticed a big correlation between leading on social policies and winning. I'm pretty sure that events correlate to global happiness, and avoiding those local corruption events early game is really valuable. Provided you aren't passing 10 happiness, its +8% to all yields, which is pretty damn good scaling and you don't have to worry about happiness early game at all (and I'm pretty sure that bad happiness causes those bad events, instead good happiness causes a spiral of good events)

 

[ElliotS]

The Science is small, but it's mostly a Faith pantheon and it's really strong in that department, +2 Faith per city with no requirements is great and pretty good scaling late game as well.

I would support changing the science pantheon to provide 2 science but 1 faith per city, right now it has great early game faith just for building the city, you don't even have to build anything, and great faith scaling, so just a great overall pantheon.

I think the Science pantheon is in a pretty good place right now, and nerfing the faith isn't needed at all. I just think that for a pantheon about science the actual science gain is so minimal. Maybe add an extra science to an early building, like +1 science to councils.

I'd rather see it not change than get 2s/1f (which would be a huge nerf) and straight 2s might be a little strong, so adding 1s to council or something else early would make it feel perfect to me.

 

[CrazyG]

I think the Science pantheon is in a pretty good place right now, and nerfing the faith isn't needed at all. I just think that for a pantheon about science the actual science gain is so minimal. Maybe add an extra science to an early building, like +1 science to councils.

I'd rather see it not change than get 2s/1f (which would be a huge nerf) and straight 2s might be a little strong, so adding 1s to council or something else early would make it feel perfect to me.

I find founding a religion is too easy with Wisdom. Unless you absolutely need your pantheon as a culture source there's basically no downside to picking it, its a very strong faith generator at every stage of the game, without having to do anything with workers or buildings. I could see it +1 science and +1 faith form councils, but lowering the founding to just 1/1. If it gets changed I know I will hate myself for advocating this, but getting that instant +2 faith for just settling a city makes things too easy. Even when not emphasizing science at all its a really strong pantheon

 

[Txurce]

I find founding a religion is too easy with Wisdom. Unless you absolutely need your pantheon as a culture source there's basically no downside to picking it, its a very strong faith generator at every stage of the game, without having to do anything with workers or buildings. I could see it +1 science and +1 faith form councils, but lowering the founding to just 1/1. If it gets changed I know I will hate myself for advocating this, but getting that instant +2 faith for just settling a city makes things too easy. Even when not emphasizing science at all its a really strong pantheon

It's pretty easy to get a religion already, and one pantheon has to be the one that makes it easiest. Wisdom doesn't jump out as so much better as to be OP.

On a side note, I'm starting to notice that there is wide disagreement as to what the no-brainer first picks generally should be. It's certainly educational since my default has been God of All Creation. I wouldn't worry so much about what's too powerful (since there is no consensus) and instead focus on what's too weak, and therefore depriving us of choice (and fun). God King is one example. It should be a highly effective niche choice, like Spirit of the Desert or Goddess of Nature or God of the Stars and Sky.

 

[tu_79]

It's pretty easy to get a religion already, and one pantheon has to be the one that makes it easiest. Wisdom doesn't jump out as so much better as to be OP.

On a side note, I'm starting to notice that there is wide disagreement as to what the no-brainer first picks generally should be. It's certainly educational since my default has been God of All Creation. I wouldn't worry so much about what's too powerful (since there is no consensus) and instead focus on what's too weak, and therefore depriving us of choice (and fun). God King is one example. It should be a highly effective niche choice, like Spirit of the Desert or Goddess of Nature or God of the Stars and Sky.

God King sounds like something geared to a powerful capital. A pharaon. Seems like it wants to be useful for a tall empire. I'd say, gain yields in capital based on empire happiness (or something that doesn't scale with number of cities). Every 10 happiness you get +1 to all yields in capital, starting with 0 happiness (so at 10 happiness you get +2 to all yields). Well, not necessarily those figures.

 

[ElliotS]

God King sounds like something geared to a powerful capital. A pharaon. Seems like it wants to be useful for a tall empire. I'd say, gain yields in capital based on empire happiness (or something that doesn't scale with number of cities). Every 10 happiness you get +1 to all yields in capital, starting with 0 happiness (so at 10 happiness you get +2 to all yields). Well, not necessarily those figures.

Actually God-King seems more like centralization of power. What if it gave "+2 s/c/g/f in holy city per city following, -1 to those yields in every non-capital city." Aka sending tribute.

That means you get net 1 of those yields in your capital, and 2 if spread to AI cities. (Which is also thematic and interesting, because you don't want your citizens to worship your rival nation's king as their god.)

I've always thought God-King is the most interesting as a concept, considering we all play immortal god-kings.