Pantheons are one of the most important steps toward founding a religion in Civilization 7, and they are extremely helpful for advancing your civ during early gameplay. Beginning in the Antiquity Age, you’ll first have to research Mysticism before founding one of these stat-boosting pantheons. But, if you’re a first-time player (or even a veteran), you might be wondering which pantheon is best.
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This tier list has you covered. For this tier list, we’ll be deep-diving into every religious pantheon you can get in Civilization 7, taking into account stat bonuses, overall gameplay strategies, and more. Here is every pantheon in Civilization 7 broken down by tier.
Almost every pantheon effect happens on the altar tile or in a settlement with an altar, barring unit-specific effects. Make sure you construct altars in your settlements where possible.
S-Tier Pantheons
Monument To The Gods
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+10 percent production toward Wonders |
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For players pursuing a cultural victory, Monument to the Gods should be your top priority. In the Antiquity Age, your legacy path encourages you to build as many Wonders as you can.
Monument To The Gods gives you a +10 percent production rate on constructing any wonders in cities with an altar. This means that you can quickly synergize your civ in the Antiquity Age to be a wonder-producing machine, which is key to advancing your civ during this primary age.
Oral Tradition
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+10 percent production toward training settlers |
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Gaining settlers is hard early on in Civilization 7. Oftentimes, producing a settler can take a lot of turns that you just don’t have at your disposal. That’s why the Oral Tradition pantheon can prove supremely helpful early on in your run.
If you choose this pantheon, just be careful and keep an eye on your settlement cap. Typically, you can only start with three settlements early on in your run, so you’ll want to make sure you don’t accidentally overproduce settlers.
God Of The Sun
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Culture, Food, Gold, Happiness, Production, and Science on the altar |
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This next pantheon is very simple but super effective, particularly during the Antiquity Age when you first select your pantheon. Gaining a boost on all of your core yields is straightforward but can stack if you play your cards right.
After selecting this pantheon, you’ll want to focus on making sure that as many of your settlements as possible contain an altar to get the most out of it. Otherwise, its boons will go to waste.
God Of The Forge
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+10 production toward constructing buildings |
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This last of the S-tier pantheons is also relatively straightforward but helpful overall. Because you’ll have a bonus to production toward buildings in all of your cities, you’ll be able to overbuild later on in the game much quicker.
Overbuilding can be really helpful in later eras, as you’ll want to get rid of old, useless buildings that don’t have the same yields they once did. With this pantheon, you’ll be overbuilding a lot faster.
A-Tier Pantheons
Fertility Rites
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+10 percent growth rate |
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Fertility Rites is a simple but underrated pantheon selection, particularly for someone new to the game. If you’re not quite sure what your strategy should be when selecting a pantheon, Fertility Rites is a really solid, uncomplicated option.
Providing you with an increase to your city’s growth (if they have an altar), this pantheon will allow you to overbuild and expand your cities at a breakneck pace. This effect is less impactful in later eras, but by that point, it won’t matter as much.
God Of The Forest
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Gold on Camps and Woodcutters |
The God of the Forest Pantheon is great for anyone who’s trying to get rich quickly, especially if you already have a ton of Camps and Woodcutters at your disposal. If you don’t but want to increase your treasury, this is a great overall pantheon.
The only downside to it is, of course, the fact that you might not always have a good spot for Camps or Woodcutters, depending on your overall strategy for your city’s expansion. As long as you can commit to constructing these improvements, though, this pantheon is a great option.
God Of Healing
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+5 healing for units in rural tiles |
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This next pantheon is largely contextual, but if you’re planning on going for a Military Victory or even a Domination one, this is a great option. Providing extra healing for units, if they’re on a rural tile, may seem small, but it can make a big difference in long battle campaigns.
The one caveat to this pantheon is that, as the game goes on, there tend to be fewer and fewer rural tiles available in the game. This one is great early on, especially against bloodthirsty civs, but later in your campaign, you may find it more ineffectual.
City Patron Goddess
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+3 Influence |
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If you’re pursuing a Diplomacy Victory, this next pantheon is essential as you’ll gain extra influence for every altar you construct. If you maximize your efforts and make sure that every settlement in your civ has an altar, you’ll be swimming in influence.
This means you can start endeavors with other civs easily and even reduce war weariness when need be. Influence is an underrated resource in Civ 7, and it is not to be overlooked.
God Of War
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+15 Production toward Military Units |
If you’re pursuing a Military Victory, this pantheon is extremely helpful. With a simple but effective buff to military unit production, you can combine this pantheon with other buffs to military production to synergize your army all over your civilization.
Commanders also take a lot of time to produce, especially early on in the game. Commanders are important for conquest and war, so having this pantheon under your belt can help immensely in this regard.
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B-Tier Pantheons
God Of Wisdom
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Science on Quarters |
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The God of Wisdom pantheon is certainly not bad. Any buff to science is great since it can help you get through your tech tree faster. However, this one gets knocked down a peg simply because it only works on quarters.
Quarters prove tricky as there are some extra steps you’ll need to take before you see extra science in your civ. However, if you already have some quarters underway or are willing to play more of a long game, you’ll find this one working in your favor.
Goddess Of The Harvest
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Food on Farms, Pastures, and Plantations |
This pantheon has an easy-to-understand effect. You don’t want your settlements to starve. Having the Goddess of the Harvest as your pantheon will help prevent starvation and other lethal outcomes.
However, starvation is a lot rarer in Civ 7 than in some previous installments, particularly at lower difficulty levels. If you’re playing a more difficult campaign, this pantheon can prove useful, though.
God Of The Sea
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 production on Fishing Boats |
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The God of the Sea pantheon is great if you’re playing on an archipelago-style map with lots of water. However, if you don’t have access to bodies of water and therefore have little access to the Fishing Boat improvement, you won’t find much use for this pantheon.
So many other pantheons provide bonuses on multiple improvements, but God of the Sea only works on Fishing Boats, making it a little hyper-specific. However, in the right hands, there’s certainly nothing wrong with this pantheon as a choice.
Stone Circles
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Production on Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries |
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If you have a lot of towns that you’d like to focus on mining, this pantheon is great, as it’ll increase production in your already production-focused settlement. While this one is by no means bad, it’s once again contingent on how many Clay Pits, Mines, and Quarries you have.
As opposed to improvements like farms, you’ll often see fewer spots in certain settlements where you can put Mines, Clay Pits, or Quarries. However, if you look at your civ’s map and see that there are plenty of options at your disposal, then Stone Circles can be extremely impactful.
C-Tier Pantheons
Earth Goddess
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Happiness for adjacency to Mountains and Natural Wonders |
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Happiness is definitely an important resource and yield in Civilization 7. The problem is that this pantheon isn’t all that helpful for increasing it unless you have a lot of Wonders in your civ or plan to construct a lot.
Yes, having your altar next to mountains can also grant you this boon, but you’ll rarely be able to get more than a +1 to your Happiness with the mountain adjacency bonus. Unless you’re specifically going for a Wonder-rich civ, avoid this pantheon.
Sacred Waters
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Happiness for adjacency to Coasts, Lakes, and Rivers |
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Similar to the Earth Goddess pantheon, Sacred Waters has an issue in terms of adjacency, though it is slightly better in some ways. You’ll gain happiness if your altar is adjacent to coasts, lakes, and rivers, which can help keep production high in your settlement.
The issue with this pantheon is that it has the potential to be amazing or be virtually useless. If your settlements are primarily landlocked and don’t have navigable rivers near them, you won’t see any bonuses from this pantheon. Given that you only choose one pantheon, this can prove extremely detrimental.
Goddess Of Festivals
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Key Effect |
Helpful For |
|---|---|
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+1 Culture on Quarters in settlements with an altar |
The Goddess of Festivals pantheon is relatively simple. And, while it’s by no means a horrible thing to have extra culture, this pantheon is so contextual that it’s not really that worth it.
First, you’ll need a quarter in your settlement to get this going. It’s hard in the Antiquity Age to create quarters, depending on which civ you’re playing as. Quarters need two civ-specific buildings constructed on the same tile, so it’ll be some time before you see any buffs from this pantheon.
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