The pantheon. That nice little lightning bolt above your cities that you earn when you get 25 faith. Anyone can earn one even if all the religions have been taken, and they're just a nice little buff for your cities. What else could you ask from them?

But do you ever feel your not getting the most out of your pantheon? do you feel you could have done better choosing something else? Well, fear not I'm here to guide you about how to choose your pantheon! Remember this is just my opinion and don't take too seriously what some random stranger says on the internet about pixelated civ 5.

Before we get into the tier list, I just want to say you should choose a pantheon that will benefit you immediately as soon as you choose it. Yes, there are pantheons that will make a pretty big difference later on in the game, but ultimately the pantheon is one of the least important beliefs in your religion. The pantheon is yet another step in the game that will help you snowball your economy and your religion early on and develop into a powerful country.

Without further ordure, lets get into it:

S tier:

Monument to the gods

-This pantheon is truly excellent because it applies to all wonders in the game. This will shave you so much time off of wonders that are crucial to build for beating deity bots. Despite this, its affects become more and more small the later in to the game you get, and there are plenty of times where building a wonder is not the right play. This pantheon is S tier because it also affects national wonders as well.

Desert Folklore

-This one is pretty self evident. The best thing a pantheon can do is help you earn that 200 faith required for a great prophet, and no other belief does this as well as this one does. If you build Petra in the city as well, you will be getting some insane yields. The reason why this one is S tier is because it applies to all desert tiles. Desert spawns are also just inherently better than tundra ones because of Petra and things like oasis's.

A Tier:

Dance of the Aurora:

-I'm probably gonna get some hate in the comments for not putting this one is S tier. The forests really do make a huge difference in your tile yields, because there is basically nothing to eat in the tundra and that 1 food 3 production from that lumber mill is a lot more appealing than a 4 production mine. Also, if you spawn in a tundra biome you probably also spawned next to snow which is the worst kind of terrain, even though you get 1 food from a tundra tile as a base yield and you get nothing from a desert one, you can build farms on desert tiles and fresh water is much more common in deserts due to oasis's.

God of the Open Sky:

This pantheon is generally the best culture pantheon. Resources that can be improved by a pasture are actually quite common. You can build one on sheep, cattle or horses. Leading in culture early on makes such a huge difference, since policies are so cheap at the start. This pantheon is your best option when you have 4 or more resources in the vicinity of your cities that a pasture can be built upon. If you choose this with less, you're still going to benefit a lot but you could have done better with something else.

Messenger to the Gods:

-This pantheon is really interesting because trade routes are really just this thing that exist. the game never explains them, and I don't really understand them too well myself, they are just sort of this passive income that you start to get mid game. However, there are things you can do to increase your trade routes and this pantheon will make you a ton of science off of them. Despite this, it is completely worthless in the early game and doesn't help you get a religion. Definitely a pantheon you should pick for a science victory.

Sacred Path:

-This pantheon is just another culture making pantheon depending on the resources you spawn next to. The reason I rate open sky higher than this is because you can't build improvements on jungle tiles until guilds, so unless you want to work a lot of 2 food 1 culture tiles this one isn't going to be as useful as you'd like it until the mid game. Then again, jungles are also incredible resources for making science later on, but the lack of as instant a buff weighs it down a bit.

Oral Tradition:

-Just another culture pantheon. This one is really incredible though because there are so many different resources improved by plantations. Despite this, it does have some competition from goddess of festivals and sometimes you don't always want to cut down your jungles to build plantations.

B Tier:

Faith Healers:

-If you're gonna play a warmongering civ like Germany or the Ottomans, you might as well admit it with this belief. This is by far the best warmongering belief you can choose, don't pay any attention to what the AI picks(cough cough god of war). Healing is something that is really handy but often forgotten about, and this belief allows most of your army to heal in 2 turns after taking a city. Just remember to bring inquisitors along on your conquest along with your other logistical supports.

Goddess of the Hunt:

-This pantheon can be really great for tundra spawns and just generally if you have a lot of camps. The reason this isn't A tier is because faith and culture are generally much more important in the ancient era than a 1 food, although in tundra spawns this can go a long way.

Fertility rites:

-Do you have absolutely nothing going for you? No meaningful quantities of any resource, nothing? well this is the pantheon for you, the most generic buff you could possibly imagine. You can increase it to 25% with swords into plowshares and up to 45% with a golden age. And then you can increase that to 70% with a WLTKD. 70% extra food really does make a difference, but this one doesn't actually benefit you all that much in the early game. Because your yields are so small, its going to be rare to come anywhere close to making 1 food with this. But hey, if you don't have any camps this thing doesn't have competition.

Religious settlements:

-Border growth can actually be kind of important, and it can be awfully expensive to have to buy tiles that you desperately need to improve or you don't want your opponent to annex first. But then again, its only a 15% buff, so it won't make too huge a contribution.

God of the Sea:

-This pantheon is either really great, or it won't do anything for you. Don't pick this on a pangea map. Getting 1 production from a tile improvement is actually really good and will help you out so much. Despite this, even if you do spawn next to a coast you might not have any resources to improve with this, and even if you do, you have to spare production or money to buying work boats which can only improve a tile once. And then you need an entirely new one to replace it if a galley comes along. Despite this, this pantheon is also really good late game as well, so it's very situational.

Ancestor Worship:

-This one is okay, just okay though. Pick this if you're playing the Mayans every single time. unless you're doing a lot of settling, or you don't have any resources around you whatsoever, this will not make you as much culture as something else could. No, really, always pick this one playing as the Mayans.

C tier:

God of Craftsmen:

-If this pantheon just was 1 production this would be B tier. This one actually will be pretty useful if you are going to settle a lot of cities, and this one can often double your base production for a city. Despite this, the needing 3 population really, really sucks. By the time you get 3 population, you probably could have built a building that gave you extra production or have gotten a worker over there to make some tile improvements and that 1 production will be marginally useful.

Goddess of Love:

-This one really isn't that great, it will take you forever to get 6 population and this pantheon isn't helping you at all until then. And even when you do get 6 population, how much is 1 happiness in that 1 city going to make a difference? The reason this is C tier is because it's somewhat helpful mid game if you settled a lot of cities.

Stone Circles:

If you spawned in a grassland, this could be your best faith making pantheon. Despite this, in games with limited space you'll often build great improvements on stone tiles because the production bonus from a quarry itself is so small. Very niche.

Religious Idols:

-This pantheon can give you a really great start if you have a lot of gold or silver around you, but it's benefits don't really go beyond that. Silver and gold are uncommon luxuries to find in any given generated seed, and it is highly unlikely that they will be found all across the map. Very situational, a little to Niche to be good.

One With Nature:

-This one can get you a really good early GP. If the natural wonder you spawned next to doesn't give you faith yields, or even if it does, this will make you quite a bit of faith towards earning that Great Prophet. In spite of this, only a couple natural wonders generate in any given seed, so it basically becomes worthless after the early game.

D Tier:

Goddess of Protection:

-Yes, you can get the strongest possible city defense using this pantheon if you also build the Kremlin in it. But if somebody is posing the risk of destroying one of your cities, you can just build some walls and some armies to lift the siege. The 30% is not going to make the difference in saving a city, its going to inflict almost no additional damage early in the game. If this pantheon buffed your city health as well by 30%, then it would actually be pretty viable, but currently it sucks. Also just the fact that it's a warmongering belief that doesn't give you a bonus when on the offensive makes it kind of worthless in a domination game.

Goddess of Festivals:

-This one is basically Religious idols but with competition. You also have to keep in mind that there are a lot of resources that can be improved by plantations that generate across maps, and you may be losing out on some culture if you pick this one instead. This is really nice though if you settled on top of an incense or wine because it increases the base tile yield and not the improvement.

River Goddess:

This one kinda sucks because not all of your cities are going to be on rivers, and 1 happiness won't make a huge difference at this point in the game. If you want happiness for river cities, just get peace gardens instead and don't waste your pantheon.

F Tier:

God of War:

-This pantheon is such a trap. The AI picks this as it's first choice every time for pantheons if it beats you to one. You'll look at holy warriors, and you will think, "Hey, this is actually an okay warmongering belief." But you will be lying to yourself, for this one is garbage. If you want to go warmonger, you will get so much more out of Faith healers than this load of manure. You can only actually gain faith from it if you're playing on the defensive, and if you're not attacking why didn't you pick goddess of protection or maybe not a warmongering belief? Even if you do kill enemy units within 4 tiles of you city, you're going to earn 4 faith from each unit you kill. Just need to kill 25 more and I'll have enough to buy a unit using holy warriors. This would be D tier if you could buy units using holy warriors past the industrial era, when you would actually make any serious amount of faith from this, but you can't. This pantheon is not niche, it's just straight up bad. There is no scenario in which this is the best pantheon to pick.

If you have any criticisms of my ratings, be sure to tell me so I can better adjust my opinions on these.