Thinking about Pantheons at the moment. What would you consider your top 3 strongest pantheons? Not necessarily ones you would take every single game, but when the time is right to take them, you just feel incredibly powerful.
For me I generally consider the following criteria:
1) Fast bonuses: These are bonuses that kick in fast, often as soon as the pantheon is selected, and doesn't require a lot of work to ramp up. Yields Now are much stronger than Yields Later.
2) Scaling Bonuses: Often a pantheon gets fast bonuses, or bonuses that tend to get better and better with time. But the combination of both together creates a really powerful play.
3) Important Yields: At the end of the day, culture is king. So pantheons that provide culture always get a look to me.
So with these criteria in mind, my top 3 (in no particularly order).
God of the Sea
When you have the right coastal start with good sea resources, this pantheon is insane. Its power lies in the fast setup. Once you start to expand, your original cities can build your work boats, meaning that the second a new city is founded, its already going to work. The production bonuses directly address the weakness with sea heavy play, turning what is normally just a food heavy location into an industrial powerhouse. further, the extra yields and the fact that many sea monopolies give extra yields on top, means that even with fast growth happiness is often under control. Founding is basically automatic if you play this pantheon correctly, and it has the added bonus of letting certain island locations that would normally be garbage turn into solid settle locations. The fact that this one gives no science or culture and still makes my top 3 just shows how good it is.
Goddess of the Hunt / God of Stars and Skies
Might be a bit of a cheat, but the reason I am including these two together is I use them for pretty much the exact same purpose. Communitas_79 loves the northern "klondike", the tundra filled with resources like deer. Playing into this terrain with one of these pantheons is a turbo boost. They give very quick faith, but also culture! Which one is better amounts to a few factors. Stars gets going a little quicker, but Hunt is no slouch as camps are easy to spam out early. Hunt is a little more flexible as you can move off of tundra, but on pure tundra Skies is probably better. Though the new +2 food from the lodge on hunt is also a question mark. Again so close its basically a tie to me, I would use either on the klondike and feel absolutely golden.
Ancestor Worship
I laugh now because I used to not take this, I didn't realize the sleeping dragon I was ignoring. This pantheon is both a culture AND science boost. It pushes councils to the front of your build order, so not only are you getting faith faster, but you are getting science faster too. It is very easy to found with it, it's extremely flexible, usable on most plays, but obviously favors wide. This pantheon has become a default for me, if nothing else is optimal, this one is always just rock solid.
Honorable Mention - Goddess of Nature
With the right mountain starts, and especially if you get a natural wonder thrown in, this pantheon is just awesome. The reason it doesn't hit the top for me, the mountains that help you early tend to be a weakness later on, so the scalability isn't as high as the others I've mentioned, not to mention the lack of science/culture yields.
Honorable Mention - Goddess of Renewal
If you really get the right situation, Renewal can be an exceptional pantheon, giving immediate yields and exceptional scaling. The reason for its drop is that Renewal tends to war within itself. The market is not a great building early, so shoving into your build order can be tricky. If you have luxs where you need to chop down trees, your compromising one yield for another. Renewal can be a little tough to found with in some cases depending on your exact forest situation. When its great, its amazing, but I find its not the "easy street" power than my top 3 provide.
For me I generally consider the following criteria:
1) Fast bonuses: These are bonuses that kick in fast, often as soon as the pantheon is selected, and doesn't require a lot of work to ramp up. Yields Now are much stronger than Yields Later.
2) Scaling Bonuses: Often a pantheon gets fast bonuses, or bonuses that tend to get better and better with time. But the combination of both together creates a really powerful play.
3) Important Yields: At the end of the day, culture is king. So pantheons that provide culture always get a look to me.
So with these criteria in mind, my top 3 (in no particularly order).
God of the Sea
When you have the right coastal start with good sea resources, this pantheon is insane. Its power lies in the fast setup. Once you start to expand, your original cities can build your work boats, meaning that the second a new city is founded, its already going to work. The production bonuses directly address the weakness with sea heavy play, turning what is normally just a food heavy location into an industrial powerhouse. further, the extra yields and the fact that many sea monopolies give extra yields on top, means that even with fast growth happiness is often under control. Founding is basically automatic if you play this pantheon correctly, and it has the added bonus of letting certain island locations that would normally be garbage turn into solid settle locations. The fact that this one gives no science or culture and still makes my top 3 just shows how good it is.
Goddess of the Hunt / God of Stars and Skies
Might be a bit of a cheat, but the reason I am including these two together is I use them for pretty much the exact same purpose. Communitas_79 loves the northern "klondike", the tundra filled with resources like deer. Playing into this terrain with one of these pantheons is a turbo boost. They give very quick faith, but also culture! Which one is better amounts to a few factors. Stars gets going a little quicker, but Hunt is no slouch as camps are easy to spam out early. Hunt is a little more flexible as you can move off of tundra, but on pure tundra Skies is probably better. Though the new +2 food from the lodge on hunt is also a question mark. Again so close its basically a tie to me, I would use either on the klondike and feel absolutely golden.
Ancestor Worship
I laugh now because I used to not take this, I didn't realize the sleeping dragon I was ignoring. This pantheon is both a culture AND science boost. It pushes councils to the front of your build order, so not only are you getting faith faster, but you are getting science faster too. It is very easy to found with it, it's extremely flexible, usable on most plays, but obviously favors wide. This pantheon has become a default for me, if nothing else is optimal, this one is always just rock solid.
Honorable Mention - Goddess of Nature
With the right mountain starts, and especially if you get a natural wonder thrown in, this pantheon is just awesome. The reason it doesn't hit the top for me, the mountains that help you early tend to be a weakness later on, so the scalability isn't as high as the others I've mentioned, not to mention the lack of science/culture yields.
Honorable Mention - Goddess of Renewal
If you really get the right situation, Renewal can be an exceptional pantheon, giving immediate yields and exceptional scaling. The reason for its drop is that Renewal tends to war within itself. The market is not a great building early, so shoving into your build order can be tricky. If you have luxs where you need to chop down trees, your compromising one yield for another. Renewal can be a little tough to found with in some cases depending on your exact forest situation. When its great, its amazing, but I find its not the "easy street" power than my top 3 provide.