Fertility rites is at least b tier imo. The growth is solid but is really good when paired with hanging gardens or another growth bonus. The free builder is huge early and can help get eurekas and more production early which is really good.
Thanks for the input, I probably undervalue food and growth. A Builder can be huge, but unless you need it right this instant, I'd just produce one for a couple turns. By this point, you should even be able to produce at a discount with Ilkum. So I guess the optimal use case is if you need a Builder immediately to be able to build Pyramids, Temple of Artemis, Great Bath, or Hanging Gardens. I think that's too small of a niche, especially since Monument to the Gods can usually do most of the same for you. But good news: the first game I picked Fertility Rites for is going online next week.
The growth doesn’t actually matter all that much throughout the game if you’re already playing optimally. It’s kinda a win more type thing and it’s not very good early game as a free 3 charge builder is probably the least useful ability to have. When it’s finally caught up to what the other pantheons can provide you, it’s already too late and people are going for the win cons. Fertility rites is the biggest beginner trap. In deity ai it’s alright to take but In multiplayer it’s a death sentence when people are getting +6 holy sites, early faith surpluses, healing on your holy sites, extra early game production and food, early culture bonus for a quick political philosophy, or extra production towards districts wonders and units, or even the full heal on a barbarian camp can provide more in the early game. One last point, people often say that fertility rites paired with hanging gardens is good but there is two problems, one is that those two things function alone just as well as when paired together as they are not multiplicative, and the other is that usually in multiplayer someone who has a different pantheon is gonna rush hanging gardens. I would try the other pantheons if I were you, because just defaulting to some of these noob friendly pantheons might be the reason you are struggling. The pantheon is one of the most important things in civ
I think you’re undervaluing the general purpose pantheons, Fertility Rites and City Patron Goddess. Fertility Rites has a nice balance of immediate rewards with the builder who really comes in handy for the eurekas in the early game when you don’t want to divert production or gold to a builder ( ilkum is only +30% while colonization and Agoge is +50%), and the bonus growth allows to accelerate your cities especially for getting the first few pops a few turns earlier, it’s a good wide bonus. Also, obvious synergy with Yongle. Otherwise, city patron goddess is good when you have a unique district you want in every city, like Korea, though it is less useful if it’s a half-cost district. Not a personal favorite, but it does help. Because you would realize if you played on maps with less features and resources : the other pantheons offer very little gains if you don’t have a very peculiar start or are a religious civ. And depending on how deep you are in the tech tree when you get your pantheon, God of Craftsmen can be a huge gamble.
Thanks for the input and this is why I mention I tend to cook the maps a bit. I can see your case for Fertility Rites - I usually just bite the bullet and build or buy Builders. I don't understand your point about City Patron though, since all unique districts are half-cost, so if anything it's good on civs who don't have a unique district but do get some kind of adjacency or construction bonus towards districts like Spain, Australia, the Netherlands. I just want my pantheons to do more for me than build one district faster.
@@Zondagskind.Gamingcity patron is really good combined with chopping rainforest. Esp good in civs like germany, rome, and vietnam. The name of the game is starting districts and not finishing them until the last moment. Germany can build 2 specialty districts from the start AND has to build aqueduct, so having your chops be worth more is really good in setting things up.
River Goddess is the best IMHO. Because you'll be looking to work with rivers anyway whenever you can, for source of water, and that if you can't settle at river, then at least you can settle within reach of a river so you can build your holy site. Extra Amenities is great, extra housing is great too. This makes it worth building holy site even without adjacency bonus. Unless I don't have rivers to work with, River Goddess is must pick for me.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming : i'm fairly new to the game, and i had very bad experience with lack of amenities, so to me, amenity is always priority. :D but perhaps over time i'll learn to appreciate commercial hub more.
@@gendoruwo6322 Amenities are good now, but you can only get one district in a city until it goes to pop-4. It's better to get good yields in that are then penalised for lack of amenities, than to have high amenities boost 0-adjacency districts. So unless the river-adjacent tiles actually have HS adjacency to give, I wouldn't go for River Goddess.
@@gendoruwo6322 Im a civ vet, and just wanna say, the "amenities" slump is very real when you're learning the ropes, don't let it discourage you! For older games like Civ 5 it was a different "resource" called hapiness, and boy you had to live throught it to believe how punishing it was, the revolt were worse if you ignored it too hard, but you had no effective way of getting happiness outside of luxuries and a few city center buildings, unlike the miriad of mechanics civ 6 gives you like districts, policies and religion
Holup Lady of the Reeds as C tier?? This pantheon wins entire games if you spawn near marsh, floodplain, or oasis and you're bound to have some of these in wetland. With it, you're free to work those weird science and culture tiles since your 3 food 2 production monster tiles carry city growth. IMO has to be A tier.
_Lady of the Reeds_ is both situational and overpowered. But it doesn't make sense for it to be ranked lower (C) than the _God of Craftsmen_ (A) which is also situational, powerful but not as overpowered, but also has its fair share of restrictions? For me, LotR > GoC for four main reasons: 1, Marshes and Desert Floodplains are visible at the start of the game. You know exactly how much you will gain with it. Meanwhile, Strategic Resources require several technologies to be unlocked. Picking GoC is a gamble. 2, You do not require to improve the Marshes to enjoy from it: no initial delay from having a Builder to work, or being susceptible to be Pillaged by invaders or disasters. This has a snowball effect, as +2 is way more significant the early it comes into effect. Meanwhile, you need to *improve* the Strategic Resource to make use of GoC. We can compare with Age of Steam Victoria: her strength comes more from having instant free yields on a tile, than the affected tile being the Strategic Resources. 3, It increases the number of useful tiles to work, making better use of new Population. It also increase drastically the number of good spot to settle for explosive starts, as more 4+ yields tiles would be available. Those equals to Lumber Mills or Mine with Apprenticeship without using a Builder charge. 4, Marshes can be further enhanced with the *Etemenanki* wonder, making a worthless tiles into the best unimproved tiles in the game (3 Food, 3 Production, 2 Science). Which can be built or conquered. The only drawback of LotR is RNG: it isn't reliable. But that is exactly the same with every Pantheon about tile improvement, like Plantation / Quarry / Camp (apart from Bananas / Stone / Deer, linked to the 4 Lux per continent mechanic) or Fishing Boats (coastal play). Only Pastures are a little more consistent (early tech, quite common). Goddess of the Festival might have a wider use, but isn't as good in the early game (where it matters). It requires more Techs to unlock, and first yields Gold (when you really want Food or Production in the early game). That is why I rank God of the Open Sky better: the Culture come earlier on a tile you would want to work, and will better get you to Political Philosophy in the Ancient Era (bunch of Era score to secure a Golden Classical Era). For Marsh and Desert Floodplains, you neither need a Technology to unlock the potentiel, nor have to use Builder to enjoy from it. The bonus is instant. That is why it is a *powerful* pantheon: you enjoy more from something available unconditionally at turn 20, than something that would really come into effect around turn 80 with extra effort.
city patron goddess is good in games where you don't really know what you are going to do or in games with bad spawns because it can help you catch up through districts
Your tier lists are great!. I really enjoy them and it would be great if you can make one for the luxury resources, especially with monolopy and corparations mode.
I'm a City Patron Goddess believer. There are a few civs in the game where, each of their cities' individual power spike comes from their first district. Think Germany with the Hansa, Mali with the Suguba, Phoenecia with the Cothon, etc. In those cases getting the first district out faster is really important. It also has great synergy with the Aztecs, as they only need 4 builder charges to construct their first district instead of 5.
Funny, I'd actually consider it more pickable for civs that *do* want a copy of a certain district in every city but *don't* have a half-cost district, like Scotland or the Khmer.
In any game where I find a lot of rivers in my initial area, I usually pick River Goddess. When I have it from the beginning, I find that it isn't too hard to locate holy sites next to rivers. I do end up sacrificing some holy adjacency bonuses in the process, but in my experience the happier people and therefore increased yields on everything makes up for it (including increased yields of faith, which partially offsets the holy site adjacency bonus losses). The main one I haven't used but thought that I should take another look at in light of this video is Divine Spark. I haven't been getting as many great people in recent games, and perhaps in the next few I should focus on that a bit more, and Divine Spark would be helpful for that.
lol City Patron godesss F tier? Just because there's usually a better one doesn't make a pantheon F tier. Especially as some pantheons might be gone. +25% on first district is very useful for games without religion where you plan to go broad, i.e. build many cities, and the 1-2 good alternatives are gone (e.g. free settler).
In my experience, there's always been a better one, and if there's always a better one, that's worse than the "rare moment to shine" of E tier. Maybe the bonus is just so invisible that I'm sleeping on a bunch of production, but it doesn't feel great for me to only have a pantheon in the turns that you're building a first district. And in the end, there has to be something in F tier.
@@Zondagskind.Gamingid say it shines much later than you would like a pantheon to, its benefit is in the expansion phase which is 1-2 eras later than getting the pantheon, which can make it a comeback plan if the start is horrible so i can see situations for it, though rationally its not higher than E tier
@rangerflakes Yep, that's how I feel about it as well. I'd rather get the yields immediately from e.g. Goddess of the Hunt or Festivals, even if they add up to be lower overall.
Ran to the comments to defend my beloved fertility rites. It’s legitimately my default when none of the A tiers are available. I put it right next to divine spark at B tier
God of the forge should be higher for how you can play it aslong as you get agoge along with Ibrahim that’s a 95% increase on military units even without the unique governor is a huge increase but understandable is the best for Suleman
I'd argue that God of the Open Sky is actually better than Goddess of Festivals. First you have the research path. Beelining irrigation is something you d never do. It's a path that leads to pretty much nothing, and pretty much any other route is just straight up more useful. Sure, you can improve your plantations and get the amenities + 2 gold, but you miss out on key techs. Besides plantation resources just aren't that good. Sure, you have a couple good ones, which i even rate rather high, but most of them are just bad and even the good ones are terrain dependant. On top of that it's an improvement that never gets production, with quite a few just being food neutral tiles (at best) with 2 gold. Meanwhile a sheep or horse tile will give you 2 food, 3 production or 3 food and 2 production. Bottomline is pastures is a key tech, and will almost always be one of your first, if not the first for pretty much every game (which also means you can actually gain the benefit from your pantheon the moment you get it aka when it actually matters), you get a eureka (and a strategic resource in case of horses) for improving them, and plantations are generally bad, food and gold does not hold up against production, especially early game.
The issue is those good Sheep tiles could also be removed in favour of a mine. That's how, even if you don't like Plantations, you'll end up with a lot more tiles eligible for Plantations than Pastures by the midgame.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming For me, and where we obviously differ in opinion, these pantheons really only shine in the early game, civics, policies and wonders. Getting a bit of culture the moment you unlock your pantheon is huge, having a bit of extra culture midgame and beyond is pretty mediocre, especially when you have to work the actual tiles. Don't get me wrong i don't value either of them very high, and there are definitely ones that give a stronger early game bonus or have a more lasting effect.
I would rate city patron goddess in high C or low B. When going wide, being able to establish your civ's specialty district faster (Korea's Seowon, Germany's Hansa, Mali's Suguba, Russia's Lavra, etc) is very powerful. Additionally, I would rate fertility rites as an easy A, or maybe even in S tier. Honestly, the growth to me is even more valuable than the builder, and I take it in almost every game, sometimes (very rarely) even over religious settlements if the builder is important enough. While the tempo gain from religious settlements is good, that 10% growth, especially combined with Hanging Gardens (which can be rushed using the builder) is game-winningly strong. Personally I would give God of Healing a C or low B tier. Not only is it unbelievably good on defense (a fortified unit on a hill next to a holy site with god of healing is nearly impossible to kill unless the unit is significantly stronger), if there are a lot of religious civs in your game, god of healing can be extremely powerful (this becomes especially good with the Arabian Mamluk). It comes online much faster than Moksha's Laying on of Hands ability, allowing you to maintain momentum during war, and is much more consistent than Macedon's To World's End healing or Terracotta Army's free promotion.
Important thing to note, extra production on tiles you are already working in the ancient and classical eras will drastically snowball your game by about 1.5-3x your infrastructure. Culture, Faith, Food and other bonuses should be treated as a secondary benefit. Any faith adjaceny paired with work ethic is great if you’re able to actually get work ethic and if you don’t it’s kinda a bust. However, feed the world or choral music or really any of the other ones are really good with most of the production based beliefs. Finally, any belief under the right circumstances can be broken, but only some beliefs are good under any circumstances and get even better than the other beliefs when they have the right circumstances
Only thing I'd disagree with is Culture being a secondary benefit. There's a reason that Monuments are usually the first thing you produce, but otherwise, you're totally right!
@@Zondagskind.Gaming culture doesn’t matter early game after you get 10 ish And then it doesn’t matter again at like 50+ and so on Production is king culture only gives you new cards that aren’t gonna help you as much as producing units faster
I forgot to say during the steam - earth goddess is what I opt for whenever I don’t have any better options (I never get religious settlements) because you will inevitably get some breathtaking tiles and any extra faith is welcome…
I used City Patron Goddess once as English Eleanor as I was the only one on my continent so in order to flip everyone I built Royal Navy Dockyards to max loyalty pressure! I won a Diplomacy Game by accident
@@Zondagskind.Gaming Cocoa and wine always spawns on flat tiles with no features for me, it only gives food and gold(and ome yield for the resource), tobacco too sometimes. Agree with spices and dyes tho, they are good resources
Ah man just figured I would stop by and say. Plantation tiles not being worth working?! You mean the naturally strongest tiles in the Game? Seems about right
I'm personally not a fan of religious settlements, and I honestly dont get why people rate it as the undisputed best pantheon in the game. There are several problems with this pantheon that are important to consider (for single player) The first is the obvious one - on Deity the AI tends to nearly always pick this pantheon first, making it extremely hard to get this pantheon unless you play a civ that frontloads faith early (Russia, Indonesia, Mali). And if you do get to pick a pantheon first, you often want to (especially if playing something like Russia and Mali) pick an adjacency pantheon for your holy sites instead, simply because of how strong (and close to overpowered) work ethic is. The other and less obvious caveat against this pantheon, is how it tends to mess up your opener and how the settler is not truly "free" when you start to break things down. Personally I tend to play a very aggressive opener on deity where I open with a Slinger/warrior into double settler. The problem with getting the pick of religious settlements here is that since I tend to be building a settler at this point anyway, the "free" settler spawns and drives up the cost of my settler that is already in production. While this is still overall beneficial, it can mess up my opener and force me to spend even more time finishing the remaining settler, at a point in time where I might (and often do) need to get military units quickly to have the AI stay peaceful (or because I am planning a rush myself). Especially if I am rushing, delaying military units is a big no-no, since the timing is usually so tight that just delaying a rush by 5 turns is often the point where your rush can fail (or be vastly less successful) due to the AI getting better tech units and/or walls. I could of course abort the settler in production now that I got one for "free", but all this achieved for me is wasting production in a half-produced settler, and thus the settler is no longer actually free (I just got one a few turns earlier than I normally would, which is of course good, but nothing truly special when you consider the opportunity cost of missing out on another pantheon). For these reasons I never really tend to pick this pantheon because A) Its usually taken anyway, and B) The settler is not actually that free when you break it down, and can seriously mess up my early game to the point that I have to consider really carefully whether or not the settler is actually worth it.
That first caveat could knock down basically the entire A-tier as well and varies wildly based on map size, so I disregarded AI preferences for this list. Having one city more than you would have had is just amazing tempo, and like I said, even in games where it isn't the single best, it would be the second best, whereas any other pantheons has its moments where it's unpickable.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming not exactly, because adjacency pantheons tend to get picked later than religious settlements in a majority of cases. So you are in most cases almost forced to get the first pick of pantheon to secure religious settlements, and those who can consistently do so (Russia and Mali especially) have no good I'm incentive to pick it. Whereas adjacency pantheons are hard but its not unreasonable to get one in many cases. If it is available it's fair game to take it, but I often find myself skipping it even then because of how it messes up my timing (it's often more a "half settler" rather than an actually free one), and because adjacency pantheons (and even lady of the reeds) are so strong and enticing options. The one that is consistently good regardless of what you play is (even if a bit underwhelming) Divine Spark. Heck I'll even admit that I picked divine spark over religious settlements in some niche situations before, because of how my opener would work better with DS than RS (aggressive crusade timing push in the ancient/classical era transition phase).
Fertility rites is at least b tier imo. The growth is solid but is really good when paired with hanging gardens or another growth bonus. The free builder is huge early and can help get eurekas and more production early which is really good.
Thanks for the input, I probably undervalue food and growth. A Builder can be huge, but unless you need it right this instant, I'd just produce one for a couple turns. By this point, you should even be able to produce at a discount with Ilkum. So I guess the optimal use case is if you need a Builder immediately to be able to build Pyramids, Temple of Artemis, Great Bath, or Hanging Gardens. I think that's too small of a niche, especially since Monument to the Gods can usually do most of the same for you. But good news: the first game I picked Fertility Rites for is going online next week.
Free unit a free unit for me
The growth doesn’t actually matter all that much throughout the game if you’re already playing optimally. It’s kinda a win more type thing and it’s not very good early game as a free 3 charge builder is probably the least useful ability to have. When it’s finally caught up to what the other pantheons can provide you, it’s already too late and people are going for the win cons. Fertility rites is the biggest beginner trap. In deity ai it’s alright to take but In multiplayer it’s a death sentence when people are getting +6 holy sites, early faith surpluses, healing on your holy sites, extra early game production and food, early culture bonus for a quick political philosophy, or extra production towards districts wonders and units, or even the full heal on a barbarian camp can provide more in the early game.
One last point, people often say that fertility rites paired with hanging gardens is good but there is two problems, one is that those two things function alone just as well as when paired together as they are not multiplicative, and the other is that usually in multiplayer someone who has a different pantheon is gonna rush hanging gardens. I would try the other pantheons if I were you, because just defaulting to some of these noob friendly pantheons might be the reason you are struggling. The pantheon is one of the most important things in civ
Early science is so builder dependent though. And growth across your wide empire is nice.
@@adityavarshney6690 how is early science builder dependent
I think you’re undervaluing the general purpose pantheons, Fertility Rites and City Patron Goddess. Fertility Rites has a nice balance of immediate rewards with the builder who really comes in handy for the eurekas in the early game when you don’t want to divert production or gold to a builder ( ilkum is only +30% while colonization and Agoge is +50%), and the bonus growth allows to accelerate your cities especially for getting the first few pops a few turns earlier, it’s a good wide bonus. Also, obvious synergy with Yongle.
Otherwise, city patron goddess is good when you have a unique district you want in every city, like Korea, though it is less useful if it’s a half-cost district. Not a personal favorite, but it does help.
Because you would realize if you played on maps with less features and resources : the other pantheons offer very little gains if you don’t have a very peculiar start or are a religious civ. And depending on how deep you are in the tech tree when you get your pantheon, God of Craftsmen can be a huge gamble.
Thanks for the input and this is why I mention I tend to cook the maps a bit. I can see your case for Fertility Rites - I usually just bite the bullet and build or buy Builders. I don't understand your point about City Patron though, since all unique districts are half-cost, so if anything it's good on civs who don't have a unique district but do get some kind of adjacency or construction bonus towards districts like Spain, Australia, the Netherlands. I just want my pantheons to do more for me than build one district faster.
@@Zondagskind.Gamingcity patron is really good combined with chopping rainforest. Esp good in civs like germany, rome, and vietnam. The name of the game is starting districts and not finishing them until the last moment. Germany can build 2 specialty districts from the start AND has to build aqueduct, so having your chops be worth more is really good in setting things up.
River Goddess is the best IMHO.
Because you'll be looking to work with rivers anyway whenever you can, for source of water, and that if you can't settle at river, then at least you can settle within reach of a river so you can build your holy site. Extra Amenities is great, extra housing is great too. This makes it worth building holy site even without adjacency bonus.
Unless I don't have rivers to work with, River Goddess is must pick for me.
I wouldn't recommend building +0 Holy Sites in most games. In my opinion, a +2 Commercial Hub would still be a better use of that district slot.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming : i'm fairly new to the game, and i had very bad experience with lack of amenities, so to me, amenity is always priority. :D
but perhaps over time i'll learn to appreciate commercial hub more.
@@gendoruwo6322 Amenities are good now, but you can only get one district in a city until it goes to pop-4. It's better to get good yields in that are then penalised for lack of amenities, than to have high amenities boost 0-adjacency districts. So unless the river-adjacent tiles actually have HS adjacency to give, I wouldn't go for River Goddess.
@@gendoruwo6322 Im a civ vet, and just wanna say, the "amenities" slump is very real when you're learning the ropes, don't let it discourage you! For older games like Civ 5 it was a different "resource" called hapiness, and boy you had to live throught it to believe how punishing it was, the revolt were worse if you ignored it too hard, but you had no effective way of getting happiness outside of luxuries and a few city center buildings, unlike the miriad of mechanics civ 6 gives you like districts, policies and religion
@@Zondagskind.Gamingyou should’ve made a situational tier for some of these cos a 2amenity 2 housing +3 holy site is kinda crazy
Holup Lady of the Reeds as C tier?? This pantheon wins entire games if you spawn near marsh, floodplain, or oasis and you're bound to have some of these in wetland. With it, you're free to work those weird science and culture tiles since your 3 food 2 production monster tiles carry city growth. IMO has to be A tier.
Yeah, so it's overpowered on one map type, just like God of the Sea. It's just too situational for me to go higher.
_Lady of the Reeds_ is both situational and overpowered. But it doesn't make sense for it to be ranked lower (C) than the _God of Craftsmen_ (A) which is also situational, powerful but not as overpowered, but also has its fair share of restrictions? For me, LotR > GoC for four main reasons:
1, Marshes and Desert Floodplains are visible at the start of the game. You know exactly how much you will gain with it. Meanwhile, Strategic Resources require several technologies to be unlocked. Picking GoC is a gamble.
2, You do not require to improve the Marshes to enjoy from it: no initial delay from having a Builder to work, or being susceptible to be Pillaged by invaders or disasters. This has a snowball effect, as +2 is way more significant the early it comes into effect. Meanwhile, you need to *improve* the Strategic Resource to make use of GoC. We can compare with Age of Steam Victoria: her strength comes more from having instant free yields on a tile, than the affected tile being the Strategic Resources.
3, It increases the number of useful tiles to work, making better use of new Population. It also increase drastically the number of good spot to settle for explosive starts, as more 4+ yields tiles would be available. Those equals to Lumber Mills or Mine with Apprenticeship without using a Builder charge.
4, Marshes can be further enhanced with the *Etemenanki* wonder, making a worthless tiles into the best unimproved tiles in the game (3 Food, 3 Production, 2 Science). Which can be built or conquered.
The only drawback of LotR is RNG: it isn't reliable. But that is exactly the same with every Pantheon about tile improvement, like Plantation / Quarry / Camp (apart from Bananas / Stone / Deer, linked to the 4 Lux per continent mechanic) or Fishing Boats (coastal play). Only Pastures are a little more consistent (early tech, quite common). Goddess of the Festival might have a wider use, but isn't as good in the early game (where it matters). It requires more Techs to unlock, and first yields Gold (when you really want Food or Production in the early game). That is why I rank God of the Open Sky better: the Culture come earlier on a tile you would want to work, and will better get you to Political Philosophy in the Ancient Era (bunch of Era score to secure a Golden Classical Era).
For Marsh and Desert Floodplains, you neither need a Technology to unlock the potentiel, nor have to use Builder to enjoy from it. The bonus is instant. That is why it is a *powerful* pantheon: you enjoy more from something available unconditionally at turn 20, than something that would really come into effect around turn 80 with extra effort.
city patron goddess is good in games where you don't really know what you are going to do or in games with bad spawns because it can help you catch up through districts
Possibly making a pantheon themed video soon. Jotting down notes from here.
Also, THE most symmetrical tier list ever so satisfying!
Haha, thanks! I do like my tier lists centred. Looking forward to your video!
Your tier lists are great!. I really enjoy them and it would be great if you can make one for the luxury resources, especially with monolopy and corparations mode.
Ooh, that's a really good idea. 😯
God of Healing + the holy waters belief is insane. If you can convert a single city, your apostle death squad will be basically unkillable.
I'm a City Patron Goddess believer. There are a few civs in the game where, each of their cities' individual power spike comes from their first district. Think Germany with the Hansa, Mali with the Suguba, Phoenecia with the Cothon, etc. In those cases getting the first district out faster is really important. It also has great synergy with the Aztecs, as they only need 4 builder charges to construct their first district instead of 5.
Funny, I'd actually consider it more pickable for civs that *do* want a copy of a certain district in every city but *don't* have a half-cost district, like Scotland or the Khmer.
In any game where I find a lot of rivers in my initial area, I usually pick River Goddess. When I have it from the beginning, I find that it isn't too hard to locate holy sites next to rivers. I do end up sacrificing some holy adjacency bonuses in the process, but in my experience the happier people and therefore increased yields on everything makes up for it (including increased yields of faith, which partially offsets the holy site adjacency bonus losses).
The main one I haven't used but thought that I should take another look at in light of this video is Divine Spark. I haven't been getting as many great people in recent games, and perhaps in the next few I should focus on that a bit more, and Divine Spark would be helpful for that.
lol City Patron godesss F tier?
Just because there's usually a better one doesn't make a pantheon F tier. Especially as some pantheons might be gone.
+25% on first district is very useful for games without religion where you plan to go broad, i.e. build many cities, and the 1-2 good alternatives are gone (e.g. free settler).
In my experience, there's always been a better one, and if there's always a better one, that's worse than the "rare moment to shine" of E tier. Maybe the bonus is just so invisible that I'm sleeping on a bunch of production, but it doesn't feel great for me to only have a pantheon in the turns that you're building a first district.
And in the end, there has to be something in F tier.
@@Zondagskind.Gamingid say it shines much later than you would like a pantheon to, its benefit is in the expansion phase which is 1-2 eras later than getting the pantheon, which can make it a comeback plan if the start is horrible so i can see situations for it, though rationally its not higher than E tier
@rangerflakes Yep, that's how I feel about it as well. I'd rather get the yields immediately from e.g. Goddess of the Hunt or Festivals, even if they add up to be lower overall.
As a Civ 6 fan who listens to Guilty Gear music, I personally pick Divine Spark: "THE ROAR OF THE SPPPPAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRKKKKKKK!!!!!"
Ran to the comments to defend my beloved fertility rites. It’s legitimately my default when none of the A tiers are available. I put it right next to divine spark at B tier
I'll admit that I've had more games lately where I at least considered it, but there's usually still one that I like better.
God of the forge should be higher for how you can play it aslong as you get agoge along with Ibrahim that’s a 95% increase on military units even without the unique governor is a huge increase but understandable is the best for Suleman
I'd argue that God of the Open Sky is actually better than Goddess of Festivals. First you have the research path. Beelining irrigation is something you d never do. It's a path that leads to pretty much nothing, and pretty much any other route is just straight up more useful. Sure, you can improve your plantations and get the amenities + 2 gold, but you miss out on key techs. Besides plantation resources just aren't that good. Sure, you have a couple good ones, which i even rate rather high, but most of them are just bad and even the good ones are terrain dependant. On top of that it's an improvement that never gets production, with quite a few just being food neutral tiles (at best) with 2 gold. Meanwhile a sheep or horse tile will give you 2 food, 3 production or 3 food and 2 production. Bottomline is pastures is a key tech, and will almost always be one of your first, if not the first for pretty much every game (which also means you can actually gain the benefit from your pantheon the moment you get it aka when it actually matters), you get a eureka (and a strategic resource in case of horses) for improving them, and plantations are generally bad, food and gold does not hold up against production, especially early game.
The issue is those good Sheep tiles could also be removed in favour of a mine. That's how, even if you don't like Plantations, you'll end up with a lot more tiles eligible for Plantations than Pastures by the midgame.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming For me, and where we obviously differ in opinion, these pantheons really only shine in the early game, civics, policies and wonders. Getting a bit of culture the moment you unlock your pantheon is huge, having a bit of extra culture midgame and beyond is pretty mediocre, especially when you have to work the actual tiles. Don't get me wrong i don't value either of them very high, and there are definitely ones that give a stronger early game bonus or have a more lasting effect.
I love your opinions/editing skills/
Thank you so much!
I would rate city patron goddess in high C or low B. When going wide, being able to establish your civ's specialty district faster (Korea's Seowon, Germany's Hansa, Mali's Suguba, Russia's Lavra, etc) is very powerful.
Additionally, I would rate fertility rites as an easy A, or maybe even in S tier. Honestly, the growth to me is even more valuable than the builder, and I take it in almost every game, sometimes (very rarely) even over religious settlements if the builder is important enough. While the tempo gain from religious settlements is good, that 10% growth, especially combined with Hanging Gardens (which can be rushed using the builder) is game-winningly strong.
Personally I would give God of Healing a C or low B tier. Not only is it unbelievably good on defense (a fortified unit on a hill next to a holy site with god of healing is nearly impossible to kill unless the unit is significantly stronger), if there are a lot of religious civs in your game, god of healing can be extremely powerful (this becomes especially good with the Arabian Mamluk). It comes online much faster than Moksha's Laying on of Hands ability, allowing you to maintain momentum during war, and is much more consistent than Macedon's To World's End healing or Terracotta Army's free promotion.
Important thing to note, extra production on tiles you are already working in the ancient and classical eras will drastically snowball your game by about 1.5-3x your infrastructure.
Culture, Faith, Food and other bonuses should be treated as a secondary benefit.
Any faith adjaceny paired with work ethic is great if you’re able to actually get work ethic and if you don’t it’s kinda a bust.
However, feed the world or choral music or really any of the other ones are really good with most of the production based beliefs.
Finally, any belief under the right circumstances can be broken, but only some beliefs are good under any circumstances and get even better than the other beliefs when they have the right circumstances
Only thing I'd disagree with is Culture being a secondary benefit. There's a reason that Monuments are usually the first thing you produce, but otherwise, you're totally right!
@@Zondagskind.Gaming culture doesn’t matter early game after you get 10 ish
And then it doesn’t matter again at like 50+ and so on
Production is king culture only gives you new cards that aren’t gonna help you as much as producing units faster
great video man
Thanks a million!
I followed and liked right away because of the great effort you put in!! I hope your channel grows
Thanks, indeed it is growing day by day. 😄
Lovely editing and fun video!
Thanks!
I forgot to say during the steam - earth goddess is what I opt for whenever I don’t have any better options (I never get religious settlements) because you will inevitably get some breathtaking tiles and any extra faith is welcome…
Very fair, even in a mine-heavy game, you won't destroy all appeal.
I used City Patron Goddess once as English Eleanor as I was the only one on my continent so in order to flip everyone I built Royal Navy Dockyards to max loyalty pressure! I won a Diplomacy Game by accident
Jumped straight to the only 2 pantheon that matter.
I humbly disagree.
Good video man!
Thanks, and I wonder where you disagreed. 😁
I really dont like plantation pantheon because plantation are not good tiles for majority of the game, unless it is silk spawned on forested hills
Tobacco, Spices, Wine, and Cocoa would like a word with you.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming Cocoa and wine always spawns on flat tiles with no features for me, it only gives food and gold(and ome yield for the resource), tobacco too sometimes. Agree with spices and dyes tho, they are good resources
@cagataytoprak1770 Cocoa has to spawn on Rainforests and gives 3 Gold, while Wine can spawn in Woods and gives 1 Food and 1 Gold.
Ah man just figured I would stop by and say. Plantation tiles not being worth working?! You mean the naturally strongest tiles in the Game?
Seems about right
I'm personally not a fan of religious settlements, and I honestly dont get why people rate it as the undisputed best pantheon in the game. There are several problems with this pantheon that are important to consider (for single player) The first is the obvious one - on Deity the AI tends to nearly always pick this pantheon first, making it extremely hard to get this pantheon unless you play a civ that frontloads faith early (Russia, Indonesia, Mali). And if you do get to pick a pantheon first, you often want to (especially if playing something like Russia and Mali) pick an adjacency pantheon for your holy sites instead, simply because of how strong (and close to overpowered) work ethic is. The other and less obvious caveat against this pantheon, is how it tends to mess up your opener and how the settler is not truly "free" when you start to break things down. Personally I tend to play a very aggressive opener on deity where I open with a Slinger/warrior into double settler. The problem with getting the pick of religious settlements here is that since I tend to be building a settler at this point anyway, the "free" settler spawns and drives up the cost of my settler that is already in production. While this is still overall beneficial, it can mess up my opener and force me to spend even more time finishing the remaining settler, at a point in time where I might (and often do) need to get military units quickly to have the AI stay peaceful (or because I am planning a rush myself). Especially if I am rushing, delaying military units is a big no-no, since the timing is usually so tight that just delaying a rush by 5 turns is often the point where your rush can fail (or be vastly less successful) due to the AI getting better tech units and/or walls. I could of course abort the settler in production now that I got one for "free", but all this achieved for me is wasting production in a half-produced settler, and thus the settler is no longer actually free (I just got one a few turns earlier than I normally would, which is of course good, but nothing truly special when you consider the opportunity cost of missing out on another pantheon).
For these reasons I never really tend to pick this pantheon because A) Its usually taken anyway, and B) The settler is not actually that free when you break it down, and can seriously mess up my early game to the point that I have to consider really carefully whether or not the settler is actually worth it.
That first caveat could knock down basically the entire A-tier as well and varies wildly based on map size, so I disregarded AI preferences for this list. Having one city more than you would have had is just amazing tempo, and like I said, even in games where it isn't the single best, it would be the second best, whereas any other pantheons has its moments where it's unpickable.
@@Zondagskind.Gaming not exactly, because adjacency pantheons tend to get picked later than religious settlements in a majority of cases. So you are in most cases almost forced to get the first pick of pantheon to secure religious settlements, and those who can consistently do so (Russia and Mali especially) have no good I'm incentive to pick it. Whereas adjacency pantheons are hard but its not unreasonable to get one in many cases. If it is available it's fair game to take it, but I often find myself skipping it even then because of how it messes up my timing (it's often more a "half settler" rather than an actually free one), and because adjacency pantheons (and even lady of the reeds) are so strong and enticing options. The one that is consistently good regardless of what you play is (even if a bit underwhelming) Divine Spark. Heck I'll even admit that I picked divine spark over religious settlements in some niche situations before, because of how my opener would work better with DS than RS (aggressive crusade timing push in the ancient/classical era transition phase).
In my opinion multiple civs should be able to pick the same pantheon. I hate to have tundra start and not get the Dance of the Aurora.
It sucks. On the other hand, those dependably okay pantheons like Divine Spark would fall off hard if you can always get a free Settler.
They took away my free settler one booooooooo
I played with the new civ expansion and they took away some of them so if it seems diffrent in ur games that why
Yeah, this tierlist of course doesn't take into account those balancing mods.