Early tribal hut relique or faith can make it happen. But you gotta be lucky. Russia does work, too, but you'll want dance of the aurora (with work ethic), so I never get it there there either. Gotta have good RNG and find the right hut. Only real chance.
I've never considered God of War until I found out that it doesn't specify YOUR holy sites. It's any holy sites, so if you know you're going up against other civs that focus on holy sites, you'll constantly get bonus faith just naturally fighting. Still doesn't make it a must-have, but it's much better than what I originally thought it requiring only your holy sites.
He vastly overlooks the use case scenarios. In a zombie game, a game that you farm a barb camp, a persistent religious war game (think Byzantium), and a pure faith economy voidsinger game... this can be a very good pantheon.
God of War is a must if you are going for a domination game because it sinergyses well with the Grandmaster's Chapel. I've tried it as Rome and Hungary before and it's amazing. Might try it as well with Basil or Gorgo.
@@des12zero I dont do many religion/domination victories but I wonder how much of a challenge it would be to utilize that combo as Kongo against religious AIs.
Yup, I realized this fairly recently after picking it on a whim. It's not game-changing, but it's a good way to pick up some extra faith. I had a game with Valetta in it when I was using this while warmongering, and despite not focusing much on faith that game, this definitely subsidized some walls, monuments and encampment buildings.
I'm not saying it's good, but I think God of healing is more for a religious victory than domination. I've had religious games where I've had to send debaters back four or five times after fighting ai apostles.
I was gonna say it's a decent pick for online culture. As other players will try to gang up on you if you start winning, this can come in handy. Also...you REALLY should just send out a couple gurus. Most games you only need 4. Also don't use yo ur missionary's, keep them around to get in the way of the enemy And give your apostles more CS
Personally, it's my must have with vampires. You can set up a holy site next to your capital or castles and get them back out on the field in two or three turns.
My favorite pantheon is Fertility Rites. I like to combine it with Hanging Gardens for a 25% (I think) growth rate increase in my cities. Separate neither one is amazing but together that’s a pretty big increase
It’s a pretty big beginner trap to stack growth like that, but if it works in your deity games more power to you. I’m competitive it’s way too slow and forces you into a passive play style early game when you can’t afford to be passive.
Desert Folklore paired with the religious ability that gives production bonuses equal to faith adjacency is pretty amazing with Mansa Musa. For him specifically I would take this combo over most of the others He almost always spawns near desert and gets food and faith bonuses when adjacent to desert tiles. Since his settlements are usually right on the edge of the desert, you can easily place your holy sites in the middle of the desert and completely or almost completely surround them with desert tiles. The game I won with him, I was getting +6 adjacency bonuses from my first 2 holy sites; I paired this with the double holy adjacency card and so my first 2 holy sites had +12 faith and +12 production pretty early in the game. His production is pretty crappy so that really helped a lot. By using this strategy he can become a well rounded civ with good food, faith and production bonuses along with all that gold he earns. as you spread out it becomes less effective but really you only need it for your first few settlements to get a huge faith advantage early on
Tundra, Desert and Rainforest are all situatinaly amazing with Work Ethic. AI also doesn't take it often and you can boost it with the Scripture policy card even more. If you have enough of any of the three terrain types it is amazing. Canada, Nubia, Brasil and Russia (especially Russia) all benefit highly from those pantheons.
Desert Folklore is great, I usually take it if I get a desert-heavy spawn regardless of which civ I play with, simply because you get such a heavy kickstart from Work Ethic, as well as the faith allowing heavy abuse of Monumentality. This pantheon is fantastic. Noone is saying you settle directly on the desert, you usually settle at the edge of it and plop down a supercharged holy site to snowball your expansion. This guy has no clue.
Reeds and Marshes, like God of the Sea, also gives production to tiles that lack production; I usually find that I have way more Marsh and Flood Plain tiles than Ocean tiles in my empire until late in the game, and the pantheon is especially useful when paired with the Wonder that gives science to those same tiles.
Lady of the reeds and marshes can be situationally great, in that it gives an immediate production boost to tiles that are high yield (food) but only of that type (again, food). I am quite fond of this pantheon, because the immediate boost can allows for some good snowballing. Usually marsh tiles are pretty bad, but if you have 3-4 of these you instantly turn them into 3 food 2 production tiles around turn 30, which is very good to have. God of the sea however is extremely overrated. Fishing boats are not worth working early, and actually require both a builder and the pre-requisite tech (and ideally also a Lighthouse) before they become worth it to work. And this also only works for sea tiles with a resource, not on every sea tile. Considering that your typical city only has 2-3 workable sea resource tiles, this becomes very weak!
Could you please do a video on policy cards? Maybe a tier list or a discussion of what cards are best for different victory types. Thanks for great content!
Will have to give Earth, Hunt, and Festivals a try sometime. My first choice is River Goddess or Aurora, then I fall back on City Patron or Divine Spark. In the absence of those picks, my go-to pantheon is God of Restart.
Dance of the Aurora, desert folklore, and sacred path are all good on any civ if you spawn in their terrain. Sacred path is maybe a little lower than the other 2. All 3 are super strong with work ethic even if you later chop rainforests in mid game. Dance and Folklore are easy As, Sacred Path maybe a B-. These all get doubled by cards and don’t require you to work specific tiles and generate way more faith than earth goddess in most games.
I like how you can build districts on Tundra or Desert and still keep the adjacency bonus, whereas you can't do that with Rainforest. Because districts add to the adjacency bonus as well, that makes it a fantastic strategy to put a government plaza and a few Holy Sites (and maybe some theater squares or campuses to fill in the gaps) out in the middle of a desert or tundra area. The yields of tiles don't matter anymore when you're placing districts on them, so deserts (and tundra) are a perfect place to put districts - especially theater squares which have tons of surrounding tiles that are perfect locations for wonders and entertainment complexes. I would much rather put a Holy Site, Campus, or Theater Square on a Desert or Tundra tile than on a Plains or Grassland tile because the Plains or Grasslands have better yields (and their neighboring tiles usually have better yields, too).
Divine sparks helps you secure a religion on diety and it has greater impact in after you build library but not yet able to build uni coz it almost double your great people points
I always pick desert folklore and then go for work ethic belief when I found my religion so that I can found cities in the desert. With the double holy site adjacency you get a 14-20 faith 14-20 production tile. Then you can use that production to build all the desert wonders!
@@samuelhakansson6680 The +1 adjacency bonuses are the most op. The problem with the desert folklore is that you don't want your cities to be in range of desert tiles early game. There are some civs you want to settle early desert but its still pretty much a dead tile. Still the ratings should be Dance S tier and desert should be A or B at the lowliest. But the main problem with Pantheons is there is NO consistency with them.
@@rascototalwar8618 they are op indeed, which is why this tier list is garbage. Desert is fine as long as you settle on the edge of it to get some food tiles, but still able to get a +4 or better HS. If I start on desert, I'll 9/10 times go desert folklore into work ethic, regardless of who I start as. It's just that good.
god of healing can be good with vampires, you can use them util they "die" and have a castle on side of a holy site, then 3 turns later he is ready to go to front line again, you can be very agressive if your current target is close to you, like 5-6 turns to your vampire be back with roads (counting the 3 to heal)
Says he understands fertility rites then doesn’t mention that it’s best use involves getting early inspirations so it’s like a controllable spike of science or culture
Scotland works incredibly well with River Goddess. It actually gives you the means to go for the bottom half of the civic tree (and beeline for those golf courses in reformed church). I take that, grab Zen Meditation and Stupas, and I get happy cities without ever having to build an entertainment complex.
City Patron Goddess can be exploited by not finishing any of the districts you place down... and moving on to building a different district which will also have +25% production (but generally this is only a good strat if you're chopping out districts) - IRRC it also applies to aqueducts and dams which can be finished without losing the +25% prod bonus. It's most useful when comboed with Victoria or Dido when spamming out half cost harbors with free inquiry golden age.
I think some Pantheons are linked to the first Religion Beliefs you want to pick. Some combos are pretty good but if you don't take these combos, Pantheons can be really bad
If u ever played with Brazil using Sacred Path and Work Ethic and Scripture u can easily have +12,+14,+16 holy sites and having huge production early on its a really op strategy
Dance of Aurora and Desert Folk Lore are the best if you go for religion and have tiles that support those. Getting those +6-9 adjacency bonuses provide +12-18 production per city. Combine that with Hercules, and it your city starts with that in same the turn you settle. These are literally S+ tier pantheons that win you the game from the get go.
One thing I like to do is to play Russia, go with fertility rites and *rush* Hanging Gardens. If it works out, I’m now a civ with an exceptional border expansion rate and a 25% city growth rate. It feels incredibly Russian I gotta say.
Hello!! I started playing CIV 6 last week, I've never played a CIV game or anything similar before, and it was really overwhelming at first - I lost my first 2 games on the lowest setting against the AI, lol. Whoops. But your videos have been so helpful, and a pleasure to watch, so thanks!
Fertility rites as Babylon is 2-3 early game techs. Irrigation, wheel, iron working, horseback riding, celestial navigation or masonry. It can make rushing things very easy. Deity includes.
Ye not only that but the +10% growth is REALLY good with palgum. You will be working 2 food 4 production mines. That's RIDICULOUS. The growth bonus will help you work mines while growing at a decent pace
I used Sacred Path in a recent Pedro game on Emperor. Had some Holy Sites getting 22 Faith and Production per tern because of it. Had a standard 6 due to Pedro's ability (5 adjacent rainforest) and then used this pantheon which got it to 11 faith and then the +100% holy site adjacency card which got it to 22 per turn. I had atleast 4 holy sites that were basically just as good and got a faith victory by turn 162.
Yeah, Sacred Path is definitely not F tier. In almost all Brazil games I would take it above every other pantheon, including Religious Settlements. It can work for other civs, too, but it's more situational. Pairing Work Ethic with Holy Sites is just too powerful. I'd move it up to B or A overall.
@@josephdeneui8181 no, only a handful of civs actually like keeping rainforest. Only kupe and Brazil get good benefit, and Vietnam and to a much lesser extent kongo get small benefits. Again like he said, you are foregoing chops, chops are super important. Not only that but they get in the way of ur district and farm placement.
@@luisgutierrez8047Oh, chopping the rainforest is definitely good (in Civ 6), so you're right there are downsides to this pantheon. It's a commitment to make it work, but if your spawn has lots of rainforests it's worth considering for pretty much every civ except poor Holy Site-less Kongo. Look at it this way: If you start off your cities with a Holy Site getting plus 4-5 adjacency (a reasonable scenario if you take this pantheon) that one district with Work Ethic is now boosting your production by 8-10 with the Scripture policy card (unlocked early on at Theology). This is probably around a 50-100% increase in early production, which will pay itself back and then some. Extra faith is also super helpful for religion (duh), for domination (buying units with Grandmaster's Chapel), for culture (rockbands and naturalists), and even for science to help you buy great people. If you're playing with Secret Societies going Voidsingers adds even more synergy. All that said, this is still very much a situational pantheon. It can be game-changingly good in certain spawns, but in most you should probably take something else. If you can't get a religion it's not as amazing and if you can't get good adjacencies, same deal. Hope this helps clarify my thoughts. All the best.
@@luisgutierrez8047 Chops are very overrated. Chops are what you 100% need if you do not have a way of snowballing, but high adjacency holy sites ARE the snowball. They allow for a massive early production spike (which lessens the chop value immensely), and it allows for faith buying settlers if you secure monumentality. At that point, you can start putting later lumber mills on the jungle tiles, and it'll be a super productive hub. Chopping everything without second thought is NOT the way to do things. Please note that im not saying that chops are bad, but too many people just regurgiate that "you always chop", which just isnt true. You chop in order to snowball, but when you already have a snowball that requires you to not chop, you don't. Feel free to chop every other jungle tile, but do not mess up a +4 or better HS just because you want to chop that jungle out of principle.
I always try to figure out location and civ specific play style when it comes to pantheon choice, but I do agree there are some that I never pick. If you look Civ specific certain pantheons are far better than others for instance open sky with Australia can be quite good, or luxury resource one with Aztec since they get a combat bonus for improved luxury resources, or river if you start next to a river with a civ that wants to play tall, sea with a heavy coastoal civ plus Liang for fishery's can be huge for early game production, and so forth.
Great video as usual VB (and Onvars!). I think you really underestimated Divine Spark as it is something that is reliable regardless of your map, it's a solid B (it was A until they nerfed it by making you need the Library and the Amphitheater). Desert Folklore and Work Ethic are overpowered IF you find a desert natural wonder before you choose your pantheon especially one of the 3 or 4 tile ones where your Holy Sites can get adjacency from 2 of the tiles. Finally God of the Forge is awesome for Civs with really early units like Aztecs, Gaul or Sumeria.
Sacred Path: The AI loves it. Let it be gone. City Patron: Your first district will be built in 20% less time. I think it should be much better to make it a good choice.
God of Forge like you said in the right game very powerful. I am playing as Harold against very agressive early game AI civs. Two declared early war of course despite sending gifts. I was pumping out 2 Viking longships, 3 turn Archers with right policy card. I destroyed all the Barbarian camps and even took a city on the coast from the AI. This made a big difference early game I plan these units is the game goes along. They declared war about four turns before I was able to get the pantheon
I think you're overvaluing earth goddess in the current patch. Before Conservation you can get probably 10 faith max out of this pantheon unless you are placing districts with a very hard appeal approach. In comparison to your stone circle analysis, you are also sacrificing forest chops to do so in many cases. Late faith is still valuable for a lot of reasons, but a lot of times I'd rather have 20 faith early game from a pantheon for an early monumentality push and also so I don't have to spam holy site prayers to get a prophet. In comparison, Earth Goddess can still push you over the top, but unless you are playing a country like Inca (with the mountains) or really pushing for appeal, it's a very late game pantheon. That has value, but missing out on the early game benefits feels really bad to me.
This is a good point. It's hard to find the tipping-point so to speak. But it can snowball so quickly, even if you aren't trying to focus on appeal if you get a monumentality golden age. But you are right and it is something that kind of gets brushed aside when discussing the power of that pantheon. Like pro civ gamers always like to say: "production now is always better than production later" ... same can be said about faith ... or literally any other resource/yield in the game
God of Healing isn't quite as bad as you think it is. It works for enemy holy sites as well, making it somewhat useful for domination games depending on how the AI places its holy site. Also, if you capture a city with a holy site, you can use that as a base for damaged units, keeping them close to the action in an ongoing campaign.
Never taken: Sacred Path Monument to the Gods God of the Forge Initiation Rites God of Healing God of War City Patron Goddess I have taken stone circles and religious idols before, but only when playing Gaul. Gaul gives you reason to keep your quarries around, even stone quarries, because of the adjacency given to oppidums. I took Fire Goddess in my last game because I spawned next to Kilimanjaro, so I had 6 guaranteed volcanic soil tiles. It can also be good on primordial maps.
I've spawned with something like 16 marshes to my north and tundra to my South as Canada. The early marshes mean my cities go North (I'm also taking available space from the A.I. and hitting wonders or good plains/grasslands luxuries, then using later stage farming & mining in the North for Canada in Tundra & snow. I like the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes if 3 tiles are within my capital's 2-tile range & if I'm going to be settling at least near 3 BARE minimum to 5 marsh tiles in my first few cities - particularly if they're near plains. The production alongside growth early in a city... into developing them on all fronts. I didn't know this for the longest time, but the Rice when farmed doesn't remove Marsh tiles I think same as plantation on sugar shouldn't... so with early floods sometimes you can have a 6 + food & 2 production tile right after settling. And when you have 3+ of these in 1 city... Just buy a granary & grow!
Potato did a video with god of healing matched with the religious belief for healing (I believe, it was one or the other) combined with a big cavalry game as Poland, and it actually worked really well
I picked God of Healing in a game where religions got messy and I captured a russian city DEEP between Greece, Macedon, Spain, and Russia. Let's just say the healing helped a good bit in tanking Russia's combat units and EVERYBODY'S APOSTLES ganging up on my newly acquired city trying to convert it. Later on I plopped Moksha down with Laying Hands and converted every other city in my immediate vicinity purely out of their apostles dying and giving me free spreads their defeat.
Think you way under value those agency bonus ones for holy sites. Run double adjacency, plus the religion perk that gives production equal to faith. New city, Herc down a holy site, and have a missionary, instant good production city. Then because you also have so much faith you can buy back herc, and buy builders and settlers or military, so many ways to spend faith. It just snowballs.
I almost always choose rainforest's, if I start in rainforest's. Combined with the +1 production Faith advancement, you can get +4 - +10 (With a card, i've gotten +20) faith and production holy sites. It's broken if you can get a +5 or +6 holy site in the ancient era. Especially when you add that you can buy troops with faith later.
yeah, but it makes your next builder be more expensive. That saves a few turns instead of just building it, but isn't worth much later on. Strictly mathematical it just doesn't seem to be worth it. At the time you get your pantheon you'll take 2, 3, 4 turns to crank out a builder in between. The growth is fine, but not really worth it in 99,9% of the games.
@@waschkarte3989 agreed, I just find myself half the time focusing on a few extra Military Units to protect myself from the DIETY CIVs that seem to almost always attack me in the beginning of the game. I get COMPLETELY though what he says about picking the other pantheons that give production; my only problem with THAT though, is like he said, Most of the good ones are GONE by the time I get to it; unless I rush it of course.
If you are going to do this, get Liang first so that the builder is 33% better. Save Pingala for when you are big enough that the 15% actually matters.
@vanbradley so probably not the best place to message you, but idea man gotta give an idea. I would loveeeee to see a video on landscape/positioning and start bias's. I feel like this topic gets brushed over but has actually so much to unpack. Because it goes "tundra - grass plains - desert - woods - rainforest - woods - desert - plains - tundra" Etc. You can figure out your location very easily and depending on your neighbours, you can figure out who might be where on your map. Eg. If you spawn in Forrest's and find Mansa Musa. You know that it's usually more beneficial for you to go the other way to find better land. If your on plains and find Russia etc. Even things like "synthia/Mongolia" because they have horse bias, it's more likely they'll spawn on the outer ring in the plains. Brazil has a high chance at being central so it's not uncommon to have 4 neighbours etc. Ive been looking for alot more info on this topic but it's hard to find, so I would loveeeee to see it covered! Start bias
Religious Settlements. Every time. Any game. Works in any situation and doubles your cities (population, territory and production) on the map since you will probably have only your starting city when getting your pantheon. Allows you to pick a great second city early in the game.
On the right map, Dance of the Aurora can be beyond insane with Norway. In a pop 1 city, you could technically have a holy site in the tundra surrounded by trees, thus giving it a +15 adjacency once you build all of your religious buildings. With all the religious buildings, scripture, work ethic, voidsingers, and Hildegard your city can have a minimum of 42 faith, 30 production, 38.4 science, 8.4 culture, and 8.4 gold per turn... all without working a single tile.
Divine spark is usually what I take. Great people really pay off imo. Any adjacency bonuses are nice if you know what you're doing. If you're first, which is hard sometimes, Id prefer religious settlement. An extra city early is a huge bonus. .
Once I spawned near a gigantious desert as china and picked desert folklore. One of the most fun games I ever played in all honesty. I build plenty of wonders including petra and suetz channel
God of War says within 8 tiles of a holy site, but doesn't specify YOUR holy site... Does this trigger of enemy city holy sites because then... you are usually going to be within 8 tiles of one.
There are essentially 3 tiers: Religious settlements, Pantheons that give you passive faith, production or culture (ie Earth Goddess, Open Sky ), and all the other BS.
GOTOS in most Australia games (they have a spawn bias to all pastures) and Aurora/Folklore + Work Ethic/Scripture give you 14/20 PRODUCTION holy sites (also Sacred Path with Brazil); while these are quite situational, in those situations they're literally game breaking.
For me, particularly on Deity, Divine Spark is 100% the default, but only if there is no situational pantheon that is particularly tailored to a civ to prefer. No point in even discussing Religious Settlements, because it's almost always gone. The benefit of Divine Spark is that is one of the keys to securing a Religion before they're all gone, which is incredibly valuable in so many different ways.
I love Earth Goddess, going Religion, and then racing down the Tech tree to get "Steel" so I can begin making "Eiffel Tower". Spam out cities in the meantime or go to war with my neighbors... and pretty soon once the tower is active, my cities are generating an incredible amount of faith. Also, you can still do this and *not* take a religion and use those faith points to buy military units through upgrading your Government Plaza into "Grand Master's Chapel"... Or just do both and become a massive menace to society 😈
The "+25% production towards [insert]" are not terrible pantheons if you don't plan on religion, so it helps in early game to setup cities or build military unit to deal with barbs. I would occasionally pick them, usually with science or domination civ\game. All +1 per terrain are not bad if you combine it with +hammers per adjacency bonus follower belief, because if you later on use double adj. from holy site civic card, you can usually get like 10+ production bonus. In particular this is very easy to pull with Russia and +1 faith per tundra pantheon, very easy to get like +10 production from temple later on. God of War is good, you get faith if you kill unit within X tiles of ANY holy site, it doesn't have to be yours. It's actually good on Tamar of all people. What you want to do is pick this, Crusade (belief) and build government building that let's you buy military unit with faith, and just go for full on domination. I mentioned Tamar (Georgia) because she can generate lot of faith due to her unique ability, but other religious civs are also good at this, like Khmer and Arabia.
Sacred path + Work Ethic is underrated. You can get a fair amount of early production with it and then you playing someone like Kupe or Brazil thats just additional value. However, every patheon is game and map depended. Have fun with God of the Sea on a high lands map or Dances of the Aurora on a small continents map. Also none of the pantheons makes or brakes them game in general, some just synergize just really well with certain civs. But seriously Initiation Rites above Sacred path? Thats the only part of this tier list that really suprised me. Well a side from Earth Goddess in S-Tier. On a site note: City Patron Goddess doesnt apply just to your low production citys, but rather to all citys that dont have a specialty district. So by the time you get this pantheons, that usually includes your captial aswell. Also the boost doesnt goes away, then you have a city with like 2 - 4 pop and work half decent production tiles like grasland mines or lumber mills your city will have enough production to mark City Patron Goddes viable.
God of the sea is pretty trash, and the poster really overvalues it. It's a lousy +1 production that kicks in way too late to ever make a difference. It requires: A. The tech to actually sail out and plop down a fishing boat. B. Builders to actually plop down said fishing boat. C. A lighthouse to make the tiles worth working, and D. Enough fishing resources. A typical coastal city has 2-3 of these (4 if lucky), and often requires buying the tiles as well. God of the sea starts becoming decent by the medieval/renaissance era, and by that time you really should have gotten more out of your pantheon. Not worth it unless you play archipelago with almost no land tiles.
About god of the forge (13:05 ish) I just come off a game playing macedon, spawned near japan and had him on the ropes pretty fast, used this pantheon to decent success there, I can deffinitely see the use case, but yeah, quite niche.
Outside of Khmer I always love River Goddess on Spain because I want the science from the Mission more than the adjacency on the holy site itself. As for City Patron Goddess it can go far for Rome who likes an early war as well as a lot of settlers. After claiming land for yourself you can rapidly expand and with a free builder from ancestral hall and monument from Trajan all a city has left to build at 1 pop besides a unit or district is a granary, which can wait for something that has that city contribute to your victory much earlier.
River godess is also good on India. India wants to spam holysites anyways and will grow HUGE cities thanks to being happy and having feed the world. And has stepwell so didn't mind if his holy sites aren't the best. River goddess will help with housing and to keep all your cities extatic.
Even though I hate religion with a passion in this game they need to have a unit that you can only have one of at a time that would act as a mobile holy site and that would make most of the pantheons actually pickable
As someone who mostly plays the tundra civs (Russia and canada) For dance of the aurora let me just say this for its defense. Dance of the aurora + work ethic from religion.
God of War applies to every holy site in the game, not just your own. For me is a must in every domination game because it's amazing with Grandmaster's Chapel.
I agree with most of your tier list except I think you undervalue sacred path. It's decent in niche situation. It can work for Brazil rather well. Keeping your jungles can get you great adjacency bonuses especially for your Theater Squares. They also give positive appeal for Brazil. Faith is important for a culture based game. I can understand a D tier ranking since it's good in only a couple situations but F I don't get.
I agree, he undervalues the adjacency pantheons by a LOT, and also overvalues chops. Sacred path is extremely strong if you intend to abuse work ethic, in that you get very strong holy sites (both for the raw production, and the faith for Monumentality snowballing), but its on the most productive land. This makes a +4 HS on jungle imo a lot better than +6 HS on desert, because the Jungle is actually workable. And there's not much need of chopping when you get these high powered holy sites out and faith buy settlers, at which point you can put lumber mills down on the jungle tiles. Fantastic pantheon, and easy an A tier pantheon (sometimes S) if you intend to use Work Ethic. Which you totally should, if you get a jungle heavy spawn with plenty of +4 HS (or better) spots.
I mean, he did and he didn't. He made his position on random Faith granting pantheons known when discussing things like God of War and Stone Circles. I think Divine Spark's a little better than he gave it; it certainly can do more to founding your religion than the other pantheons which can be a tricky thing on Deity. It's a solid B tier for me that can synergize well with certain other things in the game (Pingala promotion, Scotland, Bologna, Oracle).
God of the open sky used to be my no-brainer pick ..... before I became addicted to harvesting most resources Also, I'm sad that my pantheons are largely different (rise and fall) than the final version's pantheons ............ Except for the fact that I still have access to Goddess of the Harvest!!!! Oh and non-nerfed earth goddess too! And because my pantheons are different, I can't say anything else really about your tier list
Bro... Currently, Dance of the Aurora and Desert Folklore combined with Holy Site adjacency grants production is the STRONGEST strategy in the game. Specially if youre Khmer. How are you not aware of that??
You can control the city patron a little too by nearly but not totally completing your first district and then working on other infrastructure and even other districts (if your pop supports). Obviously there are downsides that you don't have your district built and the benefits from that, but sometimes the timing and the added +25% for longer is a good trade for staying 1-turn from completing your district for a little while. But yeah, the settler pantheon is head and shoulders above all the others.
God of healing is completely busted. Try it out. Everyone builds holy sites as one of their first districts, five units early game healing in enemy territory and pillaging so that they can never get back on their feet is ground breaking for alot of people and on standard comp gameplay 1v1v1v1 mirror map standard, you can easily jump an era ahead of everyone else. It’s crazy what you can do with god of healing and then even when people have defenses up and 30 healing is negligible, it still can double as a defensive in any of your cities with a holy site. Yeah if you can get a ranged on a hill with 30 healing a turn you literally cannot be attacked by anyone. God of healing is useful in 99% of games, is good on both offense and defense and can cripple an opponent if used correctly.
Like Bradley said, you can use the stone for a high production boost on early wonders which do more for you long term than a stone quarry. The only time I ever consider keeping stone is if it's stone on grasslands hills (but even then you can replace it with a mine) or as Gaul or Germany.
You are on the right track here. Far too many people chop without thinking about the "why" behind it. You chop if you need to set up a snowball, but if you dont (or you already snowball), keep em. It's idiotic to chop out one or two settlers and ruin those +4 holy sites from Sacred Path, when that holy site would give you +8 production once you slot in the adjacency card, and also allow you to faith buy settlers. Chop when you have to, not always.
I disagree with a lot of what was said. I guess everyone has their play style, and will find uses for pantheons that Van gives a bad rap. For example, Dance of the Aurora, Desert Folklore and Sacred path are all very similar and they're not only useful for Russia or Brazil. Everyone will spawn near tundra/desert/rainforest at sometime. If no/few mountains are near, these pantheons can be supreme in getting magnificent modifiers for holy sites, even +6 or +7. And so on with other pantheons, most are good but very situational. For example, I once spawned near three deer on hill woods. There were also other camps nearby. With Goddess of the Hunt these tiles gave me a solid advantage in the early game. Stone Circles- despised because Van by default destroys them, but for those of us not in the habit, if 6 or 7 quarries are in your vicinity (remember quarries are not only on stone but also on gypsum, marble, etc.) it can give you a good faith push early. Stone-hill tiles are quite powerful early game and if you have a couple within your capital can really get you going. Earth goddess OTOH- might be really cool near the end of the game when you made everything breathtaking, but most of the game it will do nothing.
I think that pantheons need to be evaluated in two lists - pantheons where you are going for a religion in your game, and pantheons where you aren't going for a religion. For example river goddess is practically useless when you are not going for a religion but is valuable in most religious games. At least half the pantheons go to F tier when you are not going for a religion. For religious games, some pantheons are mandatory for certain civilizations and not for all the others - pointless to rank these. As for the rest, if you have no bonuses directed to a religion, that +1 great prophet point as soon as you've built your holy site is hard to ignore.
In my opinion, monument to the gods isn’t even that amazing in lower difficulties. River goddess is just better. Amenities give you more production towards builders which makes it easier to chop out wonders. I think probably the only two Civs who do like taking monument to the gods are ambiorix and qin shi huang, since you either get faster IZ or because you can feed builders into wonders. I’m probably wrong and can’t speak for everyone’s experience but amenities seem to give me more consistent results in my emperor and immortal games
I agree, but I think it's also dependent upon working it, AND the Civ you're playing. If your CIV has extremely powerful Ancient and Classical units, then this one becomes a much better pick (Alexander, Gilgamesh, Montezuma are the first three that come to mind that want this pantheon)... then go to war and beat up your neighbors lol
In general, I think I would rank every Pantheon one grade lower than yours. Even the F's would move to F-. Most of your C's are good only in special circumstances so in my opinion should be D's. One exception, Religious Settlements. A free settler early in the game, damn that is almost priceless.
@@alex2005z domination does appreciate extra culture. It's their biggest weakness are they can usually get enough science through pillaging but not a lot of culture
@@luisgutierrez8047 those cards help but they are only win harder cards most of the time. The only challenge with a domination victory is getting the snowball running, so you want something that helps early to win the first war. From then on nothing matters
God of War is for any Holy Site, not just your own. If you're surrounded by civs with religions, it's not terrible. Still not among the best patheons though
Because the AI almost always gets religious settlements before you do and often Divine Spark too. Fertility Rites is a solid fallback option if your preferred pantheon isn't there.
To this day I’ve never seen “religious settlements” in-game
you pretty much have to find a religion producing natural wonder to get it. easily the best one though.
Play Russia and settle in the tundra. Or, per Casey, keep restarting until you spawn next to Crater Lake or Fountain of Youth. :/
Last time I got one I had an early relic from tribal village
The AI really prioritizes it on Deity.
Early tribal hut relique or faith can make it happen. But you gotta be lucky. Russia does work, too, but you'll want dance of the aurora (with work ethic), so I never get it there there either. Gotta have good RNG and find the right hut. Only real chance.
I've never considered God of War until I found out that it doesn't specify YOUR holy sites. It's any holy sites, so if you know you're going up against other civs that focus on holy sites, you'll constantly get bonus faith just naturally fighting. Still doesn't make it a must-have, but it's much better than what I originally thought it requiring only your holy sites.
He vastly overlooks the use case scenarios. In a zombie game, a game that you farm a barb camp, a persistent religious war game (think Byzantium), and a pure faith economy voidsinger game... this can be a very good pantheon.
God of War is a must if you are going for a domination game because it sinergyses well with the Grandmaster's Chapel. I've tried it as Rome and Hungary before and it's amazing. Might try it as well with Basil or Gorgo.
@@des12zero I dont do many religion/domination victories but I wonder how much of a challenge it would be to utilize that combo as Kongo against religious AIs.
Yup, I realized this fairly recently after picking it on a whim. It's not game-changing, but it's a good way to pick up some extra faith. I had a game with Valetta in it when I was using this while warmongering, and despite not focusing much on faith that game, this definitely subsidized some walls, monuments and encampment buildings.
I apologize for the ugly table. I am not a graphic designer.
Actually it's readable and that's the most important, really like the C---- edit :D
There's a tier list creator, where all you gotta do is import the pictures or just put the pictures onto the list.
I'm not saying it's good, but I think God of healing is more for a religious victory than domination. I've had religious games where I've had to send debaters back four or five times after fighting ai apostles.
I was gonna say it's a decent pick for online culture. As other players will try to gang up on you if you start winning, this can come in handy.
Also...you REALLY should just send out a couple gurus. Most games you only need 4. Also don't use yo ur missionary's, keep them around to get in the way of the enemy And give your apostles more CS
Personally, it's my must have with vampires. You can set up a holy site next to your capital or castles and get them back out on the field in two or three turns.
My favorite pantheon is Fertility Rites. I like to combine it with Hanging Gardens for a 25% (I think) growth rate increase in my cities. Separate neither one is amazing but together that’s a pretty big increase
Same!! Plus Magnus and the world Congress that increases growth rate
It’s a pretty big beginner trap to stack growth like that, but if it works in your deity games more power to you. I’m competitive it’s way too slow and forces you into a passive play style early game when you can’t afford to be passive.
Desert Folklore paired with the religious ability that gives production bonuses equal to faith adjacency is pretty amazing with Mansa Musa. For him specifically I would take this combo over most of the others
He almost always spawns near desert and gets food and faith bonuses when adjacent to desert tiles. Since his settlements are usually right on the edge of the desert, you can easily place your holy sites in the middle of the desert and completely or almost completely surround them with desert tiles.
The game I won with him, I was getting +6 adjacency bonuses from my first 2 holy sites; I paired this with the double holy adjacency card and so my first 2 holy sites had +12 faith and +12 production pretty early in the game. His production is pretty crappy so that really helped a lot. By using this strategy he can become a well rounded civ with good food, faith and production bonuses along with all that gold he earns. as you spread out it becomes less effective but really you only need it for your first few settlements to get a huge faith advantage early on
Tundra, Desert and Rainforest are all situatinaly amazing with Work Ethic. AI also doesn't take it often and you can boost it with the Scripture policy card even more. If you have enough of any of the three terrain types it is amazing. Canada, Nubia, Brasil and Russia (especially Russia) all benefit highly from those pantheons.
Desert Folklore is great, I usually take it if I get a desert-heavy spawn regardless of which civ I play with, simply because you get such a heavy kickstart from Work Ethic, as well as the faith allowing heavy abuse of Monumentality. This pantheon is fantastic. Noone is saying you settle directly on the desert, you usually settle at the edge of it and plop down a supercharged holy site to snowball your expansion. This guy has no clue.
Reeds and Marshes, like God of the Sea, also gives production to tiles that lack production; I usually find that I have way more Marsh and Flood Plain tiles than Ocean tiles in my empire until late in the game, and the pantheon is especially useful when paired with the Wonder that gives science to those same tiles.
Lady of the reeds and marshes can be situationally great, in that it gives an immediate production boost to tiles that are high yield (food) but only of that type (again, food). I am quite fond of this pantheon, because the immediate boost can allows for some good snowballing. Usually marsh tiles are pretty bad, but if you have 3-4 of these you instantly turn them into 3 food 2 production tiles around turn 30, which is very good to have. God of the sea however is extremely overrated. Fishing boats are not worth working early, and actually require both a builder and the pre-requisite tech (and ideally also a Lighthouse) before they become worth it to work. And this also only works for sea tiles with a resource, not on every sea tile. Considering that your typical city only has 2-3 workable sea resource tiles, this becomes very weak!
OK guys, next time he has a "challenge me" game, he has to pick one of these "I'd never choose this" pantheons. :)
I feel like that alone wouldn’t really be much of a challenge for him.. maybe combine the worst Civ with the worst beliefs with the worst pantheon 😂😂
YES
You're mad lad!
Could you please do a video on policy cards? Maybe a tier list or a discussion of what cards are best for different victory types.
Thanks for great content!
Will have to give Earth, Hunt, and Festivals a try sometime. My first choice is River Goddess or Aurora, then I fall back on City Patron or Divine Spark. In the absence of those picks, my go-to pantheon is God of Restart.
for the sake of your editor’s sanity put some of these in D tier haha
pretty sure he forgot he had a d tier while making this
Dance of the Aurora, desert folklore, and sacred path are all good on any civ if you spawn in their terrain. Sacred path is maybe a little lower than the other 2. All 3 are super strong with work ethic even if you later chop rainforests in mid game. Dance and Folklore are easy As, Sacred Path maybe a B-.
These all get doubled by cards and don’t require you to work specific tiles and generate way more faith than earth goddess in most games.
I like how you can build districts on Tundra or Desert and still keep the adjacency bonus, whereas you can't do that with Rainforest. Because districts add to the adjacency bonus as well, that makes it a fantastic strategy to put a government plaza and a few Holy Sites (and maybe some theater squares or campuses to fill in the gaps) out in the middle of a desert or tundra area.
The yields of tiles don't matter anymore when you're placing districts on them, so deserts (and tundra) are a perfect place to put districts - especially theater squares which have tons of surrounding tiles that are perfect locations for wonders and entertainment complexes.
I would much rather put a Holy Site, Campus, or Theater Square on a Desert or Tundra tile than on a Plains or Grassland tile because the Plains or Grasslands have better yields (and their neighboring tiles usually have better yields, too).
Divine sparks helps you secure a religion on diety and it has greater impact in after you build library but not yet able to build uni coz it almost double your great people points
I always pick desert folklore and then go for work ethic belief when I found my religion so that I can found cities in the desert. With the double holy site adjacency you get a 14-20 faith 14-20 production tile. Then you can use that production to build all the desert wonders!
Desert Folklore is great, this guy has no clue.
@@samuelhakansson6680 The +1 adjacency bonuses are the most op. The problem with the desert folklore is that you don't want your cities to be in range of desert tiles early game. There are some civs you want to settle early desert but its still pretty much a dead tile.
Still the ratings should be Dance S tier and desert should be A or B at the lowliest.
But the main problem with Pantheons is there is NO consistency with them.
@@rascototalwar8618 they are op indeed, which is why this tier list is garbage. Desert is fine as long as you settle on the edge of it to get some food tiles, but still able to get a +4 or better HS. If I start on desert, I'll 9/10 times go desert folklore into work ethic, regardless of who I start as. It's just that good.
*slaps pantheon tier list*
VB: You can fit so many C's in this baby
god of healing can be good with vampires, you can use them util they "die" and have a castle on side of a holy site, then 3 turns later he is ready to go to front line again, you can be very agressive if your current target is close to you, like 5-6 turns to your vampire be back with roads (counting the 3 to heal)
Ooh, that's clever, nice.
Says he understands fertility rites then doesn’t mention that it’s best use involves getting early inspirations so it’s like a controllable spike of science or culture
Scotland works incredibly well with River Goddess. It actually gives you the means to go for the bottom half of the civic tree (and beeline for those golf courses in reformed church). I take that, grab Zen Meditation and Stupas, and I get happy cities without ever having to build an entertainment complex.
City Patron Goddess can be exploited by not finishing any of the districts you place down... and moving on to building a different district which will also have +25% production (but generally this is only a good strat if you're chopping out districts) - IRRC it also applies to aqueducts and dams which can be finished without losing the +25% prod bonus. It's most useful when comboed with Victoria or Dido when spamming out half cost harbors with free inquiry golden age.
I think some Pantheons are linked to the first Religion Beliefs you want to pick. Some combos are pretty good but if you don't take these combos, Pantheons can be really bad
If u ever played with Brazil using Sacred Path and Work Ethic and Scripture u can easily have +12,+14,+16 holy sites and having huge production early on its a really op strategy
VB: It’s hot
Me cutting up a tree while listening to the video in the 100 F heat
Dance of Aurora and Desert Folk Lore are the best if you go for religion and have tiles that support those.
Getting those +6-9 adjacency bonuses provide +12-18 production per city. Combine that with Hercules, and it your city starts with that in same the turn you settle.
These are literally S+ tier pantheons that win you the game from the get go.
One thing I like to do is to play Russia, go with fertility rites and *rush* Hanging Gardens. If it works out, I’m now a civ with an exceptional border expansion rate and a 25% city growth rate. It feels incredibly Russian I gotta say.
Hello!! I started playing CIV 6 last week, I've never played a CIV game or anything similar before, and it was really overwhelming at first - I lost my first 2 games on the lowest setting against the AI, lol. Whoops. But your videos have been so helpful, and a pleasure to watch, so thanks!
Keep playing. And finish games, even if you lose. It takes time to learn, but its a really fun game. Good luck.
Fertility rites as Babylon is 2-3 early game techs. Irrigation, wheel, iron working, horseback riding, celestial navigation or masonry. It can make rushing things very easy. Deity includes.
Ye not only that but the +10% growth is REALLY good with palgum. You will be working 2 food 4 production mines. That's RIDICULOUS. The growth bonus will help you work mines while growing at a decent pace
I used Sacred Path in a recent Pedro game on Emperor. Had some Holy Sites getting 22 Faith and Production per tern because of it. Had a standard 6 due to Pedro's ability (5 adjacent rainforest) and then used this pantheon which got it to 11 faith and then the +100% holy site adjacency card which got it to 22 per turn. I had atleast 4 holy sites that were basically just as good and got a faith victory by turn 162.
obviously had work ethic as well for the production
Yeah, Sacred Path is definitely not F tier. In almost all Brazil games I would take it above every other pantheon, including Religious Settlements. It can work for other civs, too, but it's more situational. Pairing Work Ethic with Holy Sites is just too powerful. I'd move it up to B or A overall.
@@josephdeneui8181 no, only a handful of civs actually like keeping rainforest. Only kupe and Brazil get good benefit, and Vietnam and to a much lesser extent kongo get small benefits.
Again like he said, you are foregoing chops, chops are super important. Not only that but they get in the way of ur district and farm placement.
@@luisgutierrez8047Oh, chopping the rainforest is definitely good (in Civ 6), so you're right there are downsides to this pantheon. It's a commitment to make it work, but if your spawn has lots of rainforests it's worth considering for pretty much every civ except poor Holy Site-less Kongo. Look at it this way: If you start off your cities with a Holy Site getting plus 4-5 adjacency (a reasonable scenario if you take this pantheon) that one district with Work Ethic is now boosting your production by 8-10 with the Scripture policy card (unlocked early on at Theology). This is probably around a 50-100% increase in early production, which will pay itself back and then some. Extra faith is also super helpful for religion (duh), for domination (buying units with Grandmaster's Chapel), for culture (rockbands and naturalists), and even for science to help you buy great people. If you're playing with Secret Societies going Voidsingers adds even more synergy.
All that said, this is still very much a situational pantheon. It can be game-changingly good in certain spawns, but in most you should probably take something else. If you can't get a religion it's not as amazing and if you can't get good adjacencies, same deal. Hope this helps clarify my thoughts. All the best.
@@luisgutierrez8047 Chops are very overrated. Chops are what you 100% need if you do not have a way of snowballing, but high adjacency holy sites ARE the snowball. They allow for a massive early production spike (which lessens the chop value immensely), and it allows for faith buying settlers if you secure monumentality. At that point, you can start putting later lumber mills on the jungle tiles, and it'll be a super productive hub. Chopping everything without second thought is NOT the way to do things. Please note that im not saying that chops are bad, but too many people just regurgiate that "you always chop", which just isnt true. You chop in order to snowball, but when you already have a snowball that requires you to not chop, you don't. Feel free to chop every other jungle tile, but do not mess up a +4 or better HS just because you want to chop that jungle out of principle.
I always try to figure out location and civ specific play style when it comes to pantheon choice, but I do agree there are some that I never pick. If you look Civ specific certain pantheons are far better than others for instance open sky with Australia can be quite good, or luxury resource one with Aztec since they get a combat bonus for improved luxury resources, or river if you start next to a river with a civ that wants to play tall, sea with a heavy coastoal civ plus Liang for fishery's can be huge for early game production, and so forth.
Great video as usual VB (and Onvars!). I think you really underestimated Divine Spark as it is something that is reliable regardless of your map, it's a solid B (it was A until they nerfed it by making you need the Library and the Amphitheater). Desert Folklore and Work Ethic are overpowered IF you find a desert natural wonder before you choose your pantheon especially one of the 3 or 4 tile ones where your Holy Sites can get adjacency from 2 of the tiles. Finally God of the Forge is awesome for Civs with really early units like Aztecs, Gaul or Sumeria.
sacred path with brazil does give +2 holy site adjacency, broken with work ethic.
Sacred Path: The AI loves it. Let it be gone.
City Patron: Your first district will be built in 20% less time. I think it should be much better to make it a good choice.
God of Forge like you said in the right game very powerful. I am playing as Harold against very agressive early game AI civs. Two declared early war of course despite sending gifts. I was pumping out 2 Viking longships, 3 turn Archers with right policy card. I destroyed all the Barbarian camps and even took a city on the coast from the AI. This made a big difference early game I plan these units is the game goes along. They declared war about four turns before I was able to get the pantheon
I think you're overvaluing earth goddess in the current patch. Before Conservation you can get probably 10 faith max out of this pantheon unless you are placing districts with a very hard appeal approach. In comparison to your stone circle analysis, you are also sacrificing forest chops to do so in many cases. Late faith is still valuable for a lot of reasons, but a lot of times I'd rather have 20 faith early game from a pantheon for an early monumentality push and also so I don't have to spam holy site prayers to get a prophet.
In comparison, Earth Goddess can still push you over the top, but unless you are playing a country like Inca (with the mountains) or really pushing for appeal, it's a very late game pantheon. That has value, but missing out on the early game benefits feels really bad to me.
This is a good point. It's hard to find the tipping-point so to speak. But it can snowball so quickly, even if you aren't trying to focus on appeal if you get a monumentality golden age.
But you are right and it is something that kind of gets brushed aside when discussing the power of that pantheon.
Like pro civ gamers always like to say: "production now is always better than production later" ... same can be said about faith ... or literally any other resource/yield in the game
Ye, only that it's not JUST inca that benefits from it early game. Murica, Maori, egypt, Vietnam and Ethiopia have decent viability.
God of Healing isn't quite as bad as you think it is. It works for enemy holy sites as well, making it somewhat useful for domination games depending on how the AI places its holy site. Also, if you capture a city with a holy site, you can use that as a base for damaged units, keeping them close to the action in an ongoing campaign.
Never taken:
Sacred Path
Monument to the Gods
God of the Forge
Initiation Rites
God of Healing
God of War
City Patron Goddess
I have taken stone circles and religious idols before, but only when playing Gaul. Gaul gives you reason to keep your quarries around, even stone quarries, because of the adjacency given to oppidums.
I took Fire Goddess in my last game because I spawned next to Kilimanjaro, so I had 6 guaranteed volcanic soil tiles. It can also be good on primordial maps.
I like divine spark with Jesuit education. The AI never grabs either one so if you're behind, that's a good combo.
I've spawned with something like 16 marshes to my north and tundra to my South as Canada. The early marshes mean my cities go North (I'm also taking available space from the A.I. and hitting wonders or good plains/grasslands luxuries, then using later stage farming & mining in the North for Canada in Tundra & snow.
I like the Lady of the Reeds and Marshes if 3 tiles are within my capital's 2-tile range & if I'm going to be settling at least near 3 BARE minimum to 5 marsh tiles in my first few cities - particularly if they're near plains. The production alongside growth early in a city... into developing them on all fronts. I didn't know this for the longest time, but the Rice when farmed doesn't remove Marsh tiles I think same as plantation on sugar shouldn't... so with early floods sometimes you can have a 6 + food & 2 production tile right after settling. And when you have 3+ of these in 1 city... Just buy a granary & grow!
At the start of the video: curious to see where Stone Circles is standing
We’re you surprised??
@@motherrussia55 nah, but poor Carl
God of Craftsmen's problem, worth mentioning, is that you often have to chose before you see any Strategic Resources, maybe Horses.
Potato did a video with god of healing matched with the religious belief for healing (I believe, it was one or the other) combined with a big cavalry game as Poland, and it actually worked really well
I picked God of Healing in a game where religions got messy and I captured a russian city DEEP between Greece, Macedon, Spain, and Russia. Let's just say the healing helped a good bit in tanking Russia's combat units and EVERYBODY'S APOSTLES ganging up on my newly acquired city trying to convert it. Later on I plopped Moksha down with Laying Hands and converted every other city in my immediate vicinity purely out of their apostles dying and giving me free spreads their defeat.
Think you way under value those agency bonus ones for holy sites. Run double adjacency, plus the religion perk that gives production equal to faith. New city, Herc down a holy site, and have a missionary, instant good production city. Then because you also have so much faith you can buy back herc, and buy builders and settlers or military, so many ways to spend faith. It just snowballs.
I almost always choose rainforest's, if I start in rainforest's. Combined with the +1 production Faith advancement, you can get +4 - +10 (With a card, i've gotten +20) faith and production holy sites. It's broken if you can get a +5 or +6 holy site in the ancient era. Especially when you add that you can buy troops with faith later.
I'm going to do a Gorgo game with Initiation Rites just for the Spartan role play.
I always try and go Fertility Rites. I find that builder in your capital can REALLY help in ancient era.
Usually do 2 tile upgrades and one chop to get out atleast 3 settlers before turn 50.
yeah, but it makes your next builder be more expensive. That saves a few turns instead of just building it, but isn't worth much later on. Strictly mathematical it just doesn't seem to be worth it. At the time you get your pantheon you'll take 2, 3, 4 turns to crank out a builder in between. The growth is fine, but not really worth it in 99,9% of the games.
@@waschkarte3989 agreed, I just find myself half the time focusing on a few extra Military Units to protect myself from the DIETY CIVs that seem to almost always attack me in the beginning of the game.
I get COMPLETELY though what he says about picking the other pantheons that give production; my only problem with THAT though, is like he said, Most of the good ones are GONE by the time I get to it; unless I rush it of course.
If you are going to do this, get Liang first so that the builder is 33% better. Save Pingala for when you are big enough that the 15% actually matters.
@vanbradley so probably not the best place to message you, but idea man gotta give an idea.
I would loveeeee to see a video on landscape/positioning and start bias's. I feel like this topic gets brushed over but has actually so much to unpack.
Because it goes "tundra - grass plains - desert - woods - rainforest - woods - desert - plains - tundra"
Etc. You can figure out your location very easily and depending on your neighbours, you can figure out who might be where on your map.
Eg. If you spawn in Forrest's and find Mansa Musa. You know that it's usually more beneficial for you to go the other way to find better land.
If your on plains and find Russia etc.
Even things like "synthia/Mongolia" because they have horse bias, it's more likely they'll spawn on the outer ring in the plains.
Brazil has a high chance at being central so it's not uncommon to have 4 neighbours etc.
Ive been looking for alot more info on this topic but it's hard to find, so I would loveeeee to see it covered!
Start bias
Religious Settlements. Every time. Any game. Works in any situation and doubles your cities (population, territory and production) on the map since you will probably have only your starting city when getting your pantheon. Allows you to pick a great second city early in the game.
On the right map, Dance of the Aurora can be beyond insane with Norway. In a pop 1 city, you could technically have a holy site in the tundra surrounded by trees, thus giving it a +15 adjacency once you build all of your religious buildings. With all the religious buildings, scripture, work ethic, voidsingers, and Hildegard your city can have a minimum of 42 faith, 30 production, 38.4 science, 8.4 culture, and 8.4 gold per turn... all without working a single tile.
Divine spark is usually what I take. Great people really pay off imo. Any adjacency bonuses are nice if you know what you're doing.
If you're first, which is hard sometimes, Id prefer religious settlement. An extra city early is a huge bonus. .
Thank you for making this updated guide its awsome!
Once I spawned near a gigantious desert as china and picked desert folklore. One of the most fun games I ever played in all honesty. I build plenty of wonders including petra and suetz channel
God of War says within 8 tiles of a holy site, but doesn't specify YOUR holy site... Does this trigger of enemy city holy sites because then... you are usually going to be within 8 tiles of one.
There are essentially 3 tiers: Religious settlements, Pantheons that give you passive faith, production or culture (ie Earth Goddess, Open Sky
), and all the other BS.
GOTOS in most Australia games (they have a spawn bias to all pastures) and Aurora/Folklore + Work Ethic/Scripture give you 14/20 PRODUCTION holy sites (also Sacred Path with Brazil); while these are quite situational, in those situations they're literally game breaking.
About monument to the gods... if you have that on and then chop... Does your chop get +15% to wonders?
For me, particularly on Deity, Divine Spark is 100% the default, but only if there is no situational pantheon that is particularly tailored to a civ to prefer. No point in even discussing Religious Settlements, because it's almost always gone. The benefit of Divine Spark is that is one of the keys to securing a Religion before they're all gone, which is incredibly valuable in so many different ways.
I love Earth Goddess, going Religion, and then racing down the Tech tree to get "Steel" so I can begin making "Eiffel Tower". Spam out cities in the meantime or go to war with my neighbors... and pretty soon once the tower is active, my cities are generating an incredible amount of faith.
Also, you can still do this and *not* take a religion and use those faith points to buy military units through upgrading your Government Plaza into "Grand Master's Chapel"...
Or just do both and become a massive menace to society 😈
The "+25% production towards [insert]" are not terrible pantheons if you don't plan on religion, so it helps in early game to setup cities or build military unit to deal with barbs. I would occasionally pick them, usually with science or domination civ\game.
All +1 per terrain are not bad if you combine it with +hammers per adjacency bonus follower belief, because if you later on use double adj. from holy site civic card, you can usually get like 10+ production bonus. In particular this is very easy to pull with Russia and +1 faith per tundra pantheon, very easy to get like +10 production from temple later on.
God of War is good, you get faith if you kill unit within X tiles of ANY holy site, it doesn't have to be yours. It's actually good on Tamar of all people. What you want to do is pick this, Crusade (belief) and build government building that let's you buy military unit with faith, and just go for full on domination. I mentioned Tamar (Georgia) because she can generate lot of faith due to her unique ability, but other religious civs are also good at this, like Khmer and Arabia.
Sacred path + Work Ethic is underrated. You can get a fair amount of early production with it and then you playing someone like Kupe or Brazil thats just additional value.
However, every patheon is game and map depended. Have fun with God of the Sea on a high lands map or Dances of the Aurora on a small continents map. Also none of the pantheons makes or brakes them game in general, some just synergize just really well with certain civs.
But seriously Initiation Rites above Sacred path? Thats the only part of this tier list that really suprised me. Well a side from Earth Goddess in S-Tier.
On a site note: City Patron Goddess doesnt apply just to your low production citys, but rather to all citys that dont have a specialty district. So by the time you get this pantheons, that usually includes your captial aswell. Also the boost doesnt goes away, then you have a city with like 2 - 4 pop and work half decent production tiles like grasland mines or lumber mills your city will have enough production to mark City Patron Goddes viable.
Don't forget Vietnam, and to a lesser extent kongo. Districts on top of rainforest also provide lil bit of extra minor adjacency.
God of the sea is pretty trash, and the poster really overvalues it. It's a lousy +1 production that kicks in way too late to ever make a difference. It requires: A. The tech to actually sail out and plop down a fishing boat. B. Builders to actually plop down said fishing boat. C. A lighthouse to make the tiles worth working, and D. Enough fishing resources. A typical coastal city has 2-3 of these (4 if lucky), and often requires buying the tiles as well. God of the sea starts becoming decent by the medieval/renaissance era, and by that time you really should have gotten more out of your pantheon. Not worth it unless you play archipelago with almost no land tiles.
I tend to choose Earth Goddess most of the time, cuz it provides faith during the rest of the game.
About god of the forge (13:05 ish) I just come off a game playing macedon, spawned near japan and had him on the ropes pretty fast, used this pantheon to decent success there, I can deffinitely see the use case, but yeah, quite niche.
Anything but City Patron Goddess is fine. I'm not the type of early Dom rush guy, thanks
Work ethics is the best imo. Production is King!
Outside of Khmer I always love River Goddess on Spain because I want the science from the Mission more than the adjacency on the holy site itself.
As for City Patron Goddess it can go far for Rome who likes an early war as well as a lot of settlers. After claiming land for yourself you can rapidly expand and with a free builder from ancestral hall and monument from Trajan all a city has left to build at 1 pop besides a unit or district is a granary, which can wait for something that has that city contribute to your victory much earlier.
River godess is also good on India. India wants to spam holysites anyways and will grow HUGE cities thanks to being happy and having feed the world. And has stepwell so didn't mind if his holy sites aren't the best.
River goddess will help with housing and to keep all your cities extatic.
Even though I hate religion with a passion in this game they need to have a unit that you can only have one of at a time that would act as a mobile holy site and that would make most of the pantheons actually pickable
As someone who mostly plays the tundra civs (Russia and canada)
For dance of the aurora let me just say this for its defense.
Dance of the aurora + work ethic from religion.
God of War applies to every holy site in the game, not just your own. For me is a must in every domination game because it's amazing with Grandmaster's Chapel.
I agree with most of your tier list except I think you undervalue sacred path. It's decent in niche situation. It can work for Brazil rather well. Keeping your jungles can get you great adjacency bonuses especially for your Theater Squares. They also give positive appeal for Brazil. Faith is important for a culture based game. I can understand a D tier ranking since it's good in only a couple situations but F I don't get.
I agree, he undervalues the adjacency pantheons by a LOT, and also overvalues chops. Sacred path is extremely strong if you intend to abuse work ethic, in that you get very strong holy sites (both for the raw production, and the faith for Monumentality snowballing), but its on the most productive land. This makes a +4 HS on jungle imo a lot better than +6 HS on desert, because the Jungle is actually workable. And there's not much need of chopping when you get these high powered holy sites out and faith buy settlers, at which point you can put lumber mills down on the jungle tiles. Fantastic pantheon, and easy an A tier pantheon (sometimes S) if you intend to use Work Ethic. Which you totally should, if you get a jungle heavy spawn with plenty of +4 HS (or better) spots.
You missed that Divine Spark will give +1 Faith to all Shrines once you have already created a Prophet
I mean, he did and he didn't. He made his position on random Faith granting pantheons known when discussing things like God of War and Stone Circles. I think Divine Spark's a little better than he gave it; it certainly can do more to founding your religion than the other pantheons which can be a tricky thing on Deity. It's a solid B tier for me that can synergize well with certain other things in the game (Pingala promotion, Scotland, Bologna, Oracle).
Religious Idols with Nubia is pretty rad.
I like God of Craftsman, I like seeing that Coal hill with a star on production.
God of the open sky used to be my no-brainer pick ..... before I became addicted to harvesting most resources
Also, I'm sad that my pantheons are largely different (rise and fall) than the final version's pantheons ............ Except for the fact that I still have access to Goddess of the Harvest!!!!
Oh and non-nerfed earth goddess too!
And because my pantheons are different, I can't say anything else really about your tier list
Bro... Currently, Dance of the Aurora and Desert Folklore combined with Holy Site adjacency grants production is the STRONGEST strategy in the game. Specially if youre Khmer. How are you not aware of that??
You can control the city patron a little too by nearly but not totally completing your first district and then working on other infrastructure and even other districts (if your pop supports). Obviously there are downsides that you don't have your district built and the benefits from that, but sometimes the timing and the added +25% for longer is a good trade for staying 1-turn from completing your district for a little while. But yeah, the settler pantheon is head and shoulders above all the others.
Ye this is what I was gonna say. Tho...this strategy is best when quickly chopping. Otherwise it's not worth to delay for long...
fertility rites usefulness drops 95% if you pick it and the next turn find a builder in a hut.
I've done deserve folklore with work ethic on the Khmer... Plug-in the double adjacency card for holy sites and you get ridiculous yields
I only really pick reeds and marshes as vietnam since the marsh bonus stacks with industrial zones, so that's fair.
With what? How so?
God of healing is completely busted. Try it out. Everyone builds holy sites as one of their first districts, five units early game healing in enemy territory and pillaging so that they can never get back on their feet is ground breaking for alot of people and on standard comp gameplay 1v1v1v1 mirror map standard, you can easily jump an era ahead of everyone else. It’s crazy what you can do with god of healing and then even when people have defenses up and 30 healing is negligible, it still can double as a defensive in any of your cities with a holy site. Yeah if you can get a ranged on a hill with 30 healing a turn you literally cannot be attacked by anyone. God of healing is useful in 99% of games, is good on both offense and defense and can cripple an opponent if used correctly.
Why do people always chop stone, copper, woods, rainforest? Don't you get more long run if you leave it (and only selectively chopping)
Yes, you would get more in the very long term from keeping them, but, you get huge benefit from completing a variety of things earlier too.
Like Bradley said, you can use the stone for a high production boost on early wonders which do more for you long term than a stone quarry. The only time I ever consider keeping stone is if it's stone on grasslands hills (but even then you can replace it with a mine) or as Gaul or Germany.
You are on the right track here. Far too many people chop without thinking about the "why" behind it. You chop if you need to set up a snowball, but if you dont (or you already snowball), keep em. It's idiotic to chop out one or two settlers and ruin those +4 holy sites from Sacred Path, when that holy site would give you +8 production once you slot in the adjacency card, and also allow you to faith buy settlers. Chop when you have to, not always.
Once as Brazil I had a 12 adjancey holy site was super juicy with work ethic.
Hey how do you get divine spark because on my current save it doesn't appear
fertility rites is good because it garantees some boosts
I disagree with a lot of what was said. I guess everyone has their play style, and will find uses for pantheons that Van gives a bad rap. For example, Dance of the Aurora, Desert Folklore and Sacred path are all very similar and they're not only useful for Russia or Brazil. Everyone will spawn near tundra/desert/rainforest at sometime. If no/few mountains are near, these pantheons can be supreme in getting magnificent modifiers for holy sites, even +6 or +7. And so on with other pantheons, most are good but very situational. For example, I once spawned near three deer on hill woods. There were also other camps nearby. With Goddess of the Hunt these tiles gave me a solid advantage in the early game. Stone Circles- despised because Van by default destroys them, but for those of us not in the habit, if 6 or 7 quarries are in your vicinity (remember quarries are not only on stone but also on gypsum, marble, etc.) it can give you a good faith push early. Stone-hill tiles are quite powerful early game and if you have a couple within your capital can really get you going. Earth goddess OTOH- might be really cool near the end of the game when you made everything breathtaking, but most of the game it will do nothing.
wouldn't sacred path be useful with thailand?
I think that pantheons need to be evaluated in two lists - pantheons where you are going for a religion in your game, and pantheons where you aren't going for a religion. For example river goddess is practically useless when you are not going for a religion but is valuable in most religious games. At least half the pantheons go to F tier when you are not going for a religion.
For religious games, some pantheons are mandatory for certain civilizations and not for all the others - pointless to rank these. As for the rest, if you have no bonuses directed to a religion, that +1 great prophet point as soon as you've built your holy site is hard to ignore.
In my opinion, monument to the gods isn’t even that amazing in lower difficulties. River goddess is just better. Amenities give you more production towards builders which makes it easier to chop out wonders. I think probably the only two Civs who do like taking monument to the gods are ambiorix and qin shi huang, since you either get faster IZ or because you can feed builders into wonders. I’m probably wrong and can’t speak for everyone’s experience but amenities seem to give me more consistent results in my emperor and immortal games
Thanks!
Can I ask what the temperature is where you are? I wanna know what a Canadian considers "hot" lol
science gamers looking at divine spark at C tier :(
What is the discord link?
God of Forge is A tier.
I agree, but I think it's also dependent upon working it, AND the Civ you're playing. If your CIV has extremely powerful Ancient and Classical units, then this one becomes a much better pick (Alexander, Gilgamesh, Montezuma are the first three that come to mind that want this pantheon)... then go to war and beat up your neighbors lol
In general, I think I would rank every Pantheon one grade lower than yours. Even the F's would move to F-. Most of your C's are good only in special circumstances so in my opinion should be D's. One exception, Religious Settlements. A free settler early in the game, damn that is almost priceless.
God of War is 8 tiles of any holy site not just yours
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Desert folklore can stack
Wait... God of War, it doesn't say your holy site... Seems that would greatly increase it's use if you can use it say in a religion fight
Chop everything! We'll replant it later.
Please, just commit to a tier instead of all this wishy-washy plus/minus stuff.
Divine Spark should be B . Top class pantheon
Exactly. Synergizes with Oracle and Pingala (sp?) too
Does your expected victory condition affect your choice of pantheon?
Yes. Domination doesnt want any improvement based pantheons, and if you have to, take some production one, mainly on strategics
@@alex2005z domination does appreciate extra culture. It's their biggest weakness are they can usually get enough science through pillaging but not a lot of culture
@@luisgutierrez8047 but they also dont need culture. A domination game should be over by the time tier 2 governments are hit
@@alex2005z lol whut. Getting to pillaging card and mercenaries is pretty big.
I mean....ye I guess if you are playing average Pangaea map
@@luisgutierrez8047 those cards help but they are only win harder cards most of the time. The only challenge with a domination victory is getting the snowball running, so you want something that helps early to win the first war. From then on nothing matters
God of War is for any Holy Site, not just your own. If you're surrounded by civs with religions, it's not terrible. Still not among the best patheons though
Anyone else feel like fertility rights is a total joke compared to religious settlements? Like, literally, why is it even in the game...
Because the AI almost always gets religious settlements before you do and often Divine Spark too. Fertility Rites is a solid fallback option if your preferred pantheon isn't there.