God of Commerce:
This Pantheon can pay off big dividends but it's quite risky as well. There's a lot of work required to make this work due to its nature. First, you get 2
Faith, 2
Gold, and 2
Great Merchant Points in your capital after you settled your second city. Until that second city, you won't be getting any of the benefits. Therefore, this emphasizes getting a Settler out much sooner. Therefore, Pottery is a priority for this Pantheon.
Secondly, you get 2
Faith and 2
Gold for each City Connection you have. This requires you to get Workers and The Wheel for Roads. Depending on how far your cities are, you might need multiple Workers to get those Cities connected and any delay will slow down your
Faith generation by a lot. With the number of Roads you need sometimes, the extra
Gold might just pay for their maintenance. Then, you get the same benefits as above with TR to and from the city. Caravans are unlocked through Trade and require more
Production to build.
You are trying to fit into your queue at least one Settler, at least one Worker, and one Caravan while still needing to not neglect other things like units and buildings. Overall, it's a lot to do and difficult to master the timing down. There are certain civilizations like Carthage that can do very well with this Pantheon but it's a far more high risk for most games.
God of Craftsman:
This Pantheon has the potential to be a Strong Faith Pantheon but it has a few issues. These issues could be seen by the fact that this Pantheon went through a couple of changes before it became its current form. By adopting this Pantheon, you get +1
Culture, +1
Science, and +2
Faith from your Palace. That means that you get a pretty big boost from the very start without needing to do anything as the Palace comes with your Capital. This alone is a pretty big boost and, with a Shrine in your capital, you are producing 4
Faith fairly early in the game. The extra 2
Faith won't get you a religion but it's a decent headstart all things considered.
Then, there's the +1
Faith and
Production from Quarries and Stone Works. This is where the issue of the Pantheon lies. To unlock both Quarries and Stone Works, you need Construction and that's a tech in the second column. You need two technologies to access Construction. Therefore, you need many turns to unlock it. Then, you have to build Stone Works and Quarries. Regarding Stone Works, you have many other items competing for the queue like military units, Workers, and/or buildings. Besides, Stone Works cannot be built unless you improved a resource with Quarry so that's further delayed. Quarries need Workers and it takes a while to improve those resources. Compared to other resources, you will likely get Quarries much slower due to later tech and the same amount of time to improve them. The 2
from the Palace seemed strong but, when you take into account the delay for your other sources of
Faith, it makes this Pantheon feasible at times. This is also why this Pantheon is Medium Faith as opposed to Strong Faith.
God of the Open Sky:
This Pantheon is map dependent in that it's Medium Faith for some maps and Strong Faith for others. It's quite dependent on what sort of terrain you have around you and how many Pasture resources are around your first couple of Cities. With the recent changes (8/16), this is certainly learning towards Strong Faith. What makes this Pantheon so strong? First, it provides +1
Faith and 3
Gold from Pastures. Pastures are unlocked with a single technology researched and it is used to improve Horses, Cattle and Sheep, three resources that can be fairly abundant most games. The extra income you gain from these Pastures can then be used to buy another Worker to speed up the process further or aid in military unit purchases or building investments.
Secondly, this Pantheon gives +1
Culture and +1
Faith for every 2 Plains and/or Grassland tiles worked that lack any features or Hills. You can have resources on those tiles but they cannot have Hill, Forests, Jungles, or Marshes. Essentially, you can work two Pastures on tiles that fit the description above to gain even more
Faith along with
Culture that's very powerful this early on in the game. It's not exactly difficult to fulfill these requirements and a single technology can usually give you a solid idea of whether or not to pursue this Pantheon.
God of the Stars and Sky:
This Pantheon can easily drop down to Weak Faith with Other Benefits but I decided to put it here as the recent map script changes might boost it somewhat. This Pantheon gives +1
Faith, +1
Culture, and +1
Gold from Tundra tiles with resources. Tundra is the weakest start in most cases due to its low
Food and at times low
Production tiles. The resources you can encounter on Tundra tiles are some luxuries like Fur and other basic resources like Stone and Deer. Certain Strategics like Iron can also spawn. Overall, the benefits of this Pantheon can only be achieved after a couple of different techs which can delay how much
Faith you can gain. While it is nice that you don't have to improve those resources, it's sadly not one of the strongest, especially when one other Pantheon has more potential than this one with recent map changes.
God of the Sun:
This Pantheon has been buffed fairly recently and is at a good spot. It's not one of the strongest but it's a decent choice for those going wide. The Pantheon first gives +3
Faith and +2
Gold to Granaries. A Granary is a decent building for the capital in the early game and possibly your second or third city if those are settled to build Settlers from them. With a Shrine and a Granary in your City, it will produce +5
Faith from buildings alone. That is quite powerful when you look at what you're getting. The extra
Gold is rather nice as well since it can help you purchase whatever you need. In addition to buffing the Granary, the Pantheon also gives +3
Food to Farms on Wheat. For starting locations with lots of Wheat, this is a lot of
Food.
So, why isn't this one of the strongest Pantheons? First, you want that Granary as soon as possible so you are competing with the Shrine and Monument. You can even consider the idea of getting a Granary over a Shrine as it produces more
Faith but then you aren't using the Pantheon as effectively. As for Monument, the fact that you are delaying it can slow down your overall
Culture. Fewer Policies than your neighbors can often be a disadvantage you don't want to deal with. This is where improvements are superior in that, with a Worker, you can get them without impacting your build order within your City. Of course, this is very good for civilizations like Mongolia whose UB happens to replace the Granary.
Goddess of Festivals:
This Pantheon has the potential to be Strong Faith but I decided to put it here as its main strength is its other yields. First, you get +1
Faith in your capital to get the ball rolling. This is a pretty recent buff that can help you remain somewhat competitive until you can start improving your luxuries. For each unique luxury you own or import, you gain +3
Gold, +1
Culture, and +1
Faith. This Pantheon requires you to quickly get Workers and the technologies needed to improve your nearby luxuries. Then, you should have the
Gold income to purchase luxuries from your neighbors to further benefit from this. Overall, it's rather nice to get an early boost to your
Gold while also getting
Culture for your policies and
Faith for a religion. I didn't place it this Strong Faith because some stars are aligning needed like neighbors to trade with and luxuries that don't require too much technology to unlock. Even then, the
Faith is reasonable but not something you would boast about.
Goddess of Protection:
This Pantheon requires a lot of commitment and the yields, while decent, can vary from game to game. First, the Pantheon gives +2
Faith and +1
Culture to Palace, Walls, and Barracks. The 2
Faith to the Palace upon adopting this Pantheon is quite a boost, though many other Pantheons are also getting
Faith from Palace as well so it's not as good as before. The extra
Culture can also make a pretty big difference considering the limited sources of
Culture early on. The issue with this Pantheon is Walls and Barracks, buildings both unlocked at the second column of techs. To unlock both, you need a total of 5 techs along with the turns needed to build these in your Cities. Overall, it's a lot of investment that might pay off if you plan on going to war shortly afterward.
Then, you also have the +10 HP healed per turn in friendly territory. This can help get your units back into fighting shape quickly but, with your production tied up with Barracks and Walls, you won't see this much in action in the early game. Overall, this is an alright Pantheon. It's not amazing anymore as it hasn't gotten some love as other Pantheons but it can still be a decent option, especially for civilizations like Japan. Given how long it takes to get this Pantheon setup, I might even consider this a Weak Faith for some games.
Goddess of Purity:
This Pantheon requires Lakes and Marshes which, depending on the map, can be rare or fairly common. Therefore, you can get different mileages from picking this Pantheon. First, it makes both Lakes and Marshes provide 4
Food, 1, and 1
Faith. A tile like this is pretty solid early on and is up there in terms of great tiles. The extra growth lets you get more
Citizens to work more of those tiles. Overall, it's an easy Pantheon to use. There's also a bonus of +1
Happiness for settling next to a river where there could be more Lakes and Marshes nearby. The issue lies in how many Lakes and Marshes you can have access to as they might not be concentrated making it tougher to make this work. To make this Pantheon pay for itself, it's vital to do a lot of scouting to ensure that not only your Capital has access to these tiles but your other Cities will be able to make use of it.
Goddess of the Home:
This Pantheon requires you to have plenty of
Production to get the most out of it. First, you would want plenty of Shrines up as Shrines gain +1
Food and
Faith. This might seem like much but, considering that Shrines are higher priorities when you are pursuing a religion, the 3
Faith will make a difference compared to 2
Faith. The Pantheon then gives 8
Food and
Faith when a building is constructed, scaling with the era. The scaling likely won't be playing a big role in the religion race. However, the 8
Faith is quite powerful if you have the
Production to get these in a reasonable amount of time. This makes buildings like Well and improvements like Mines that much more important as those
Production boost matter a lot. Finally, you have the +25%
Growth that acts as a double-edged sword. While it can help you get
Citizens to gain more
Production, it can also hurt your
Happiness resulting in fewer expansions.
Spirit of the Desert:
This Pantheon can easily become Weak Faith depending on the situation. Recent map changes might result in Horses spawning on Desert so that's a buff to this Pantheon. However, the starting location of the Capital matters greatly in this situation given how vital it is to expand. This Pantheon requires you to work as many resources on Desert tiles as possible due to the +1
Faith,
Production, and
Gold from Desert tiles with resources. Given that most Desert tiles are severely lacking in
Food except for Flood Plains, expansion isn't the easiest when building Settlers can be a struggle at times. If there are a couple of Oasis, then this Pantheon can make up for the
Food deficit but this is still largely dependent on your Capital. The strength of this Pantheon is the fact that the resources don't have to be improved so you can gain the benefits very quickly. Certain policies like those in Progress that give
Food through City Connections can work quite well for this Pantheon.