Hey all!

We got quite a lot of feedback about Religion in Humankind during the Stadia OpenDev. We outlined our plans to address this feedback in our recent Lucy Announcement Blog, but many of these changes are already in this OpenDev for you to try out!

So please, let us know what you think of Religion now!

The Religion tenets felt a lot better this time around, however I did find myself grabbing the ones that scaled with population over territory right now. That's partially due to how easy it is to grow food for more population though, and if I did the direct math I might pick differently.

I felt it strange that with 8 players there weer only 2 religions that formed. On Serious difficulty I was quickly able to spread my religion across my whole continent, and near the end of the game it was spreading to the eastern continent as well. I never felt threatened by the opposing religion and my neighbors didn't try to stop the spread of mine at all either.

There were many times in the game I played that I forgot about Religion entirely, despite being the leader of one. Occasionally I'd remember, click the Religion overview button and find i'd managed to spread my religion to everyone on my continent. That's cool I guess. But I have no understanding of how it spread, my neighbours didnt seem to mind either.

I feel like a notification to say when a city now has your religion as its majority would help a bit to remind me that its spreading.

Same I didn't feel like I was involved at all in spreading my religion, it was cool flavour and nice to be able to pick some perks occasionally but I had no agency over making it spread faster.

I don't understand religion, produce this extra number so you can get extra numbers. It's all very passive and there was no competition so I don't really understand it. I feel in its state it's just tacked onto the rest of the game and has no place.

I'd like to echo both Vigo and boat. Religion feels very bare-bones as of now, and there's no sense of identity or evolution to it. I simply don't care to build for religion, because there doesn't seem to be any point besides selecting tenets that aid your existing strategy. The evolution of your religion has no bearing on your circumstances or surroundings. Were my people inspired by the stars? Do they revere a war god? Do they see the sea as a fickle granter of both life and death? It's just some arbitrary thing that pops up once I have enough people. Boring!

I think that Civ6 plays it smart with their Pantheon system. You are incentivized to have at least a little faith in order to receive a bonus based on how you wish to define your religion. But it's the sense of identity that makes it intriguing to me. If I have a lot of horses around me, I can pick God of the Open Sky for the bonus culture, or God of War for bonuses to using those horses for war. It's interesting, and most importantly there's a strategic decision to be made that will affect how your culture evolves!

I do think it's cool how religious tensions can lead to war, keep that in! What you need to focus on is making religions feel unique, and making them something that the player has to work for, at least a little. If I ignore faith, I expect to have my people converted by someone who does. You also should consider how focusing on religion can help the player win. How do you make it more worthwhile for a player to build a holy site instead of, say a maker's quarter?

I hope this feedback helps and is taken to heart.

+1 to Vigo and Boat. The faith/religion mechanic doesn't feel that different from stability / civics. It's a different set of numbers that seems to run in parallel to the stability/civics mechanic, and is thus kinda repetitive and redundant. Even if religion were better balanced, I'd still be unexcited. My vote would be to remove religion from the base game, develop it further, and then re-introduce it in an expansion, once the idea is developed to the point of feeling more unique and interesting.

Mausklickmoerder wrote:

So this is harsh, but there is nothing about this religion system that I like. The tenets are entirely generic and feel a lot more mechanical than the civics. There is no interaction between civics and tenets. Its very difficult to read the mapmode; lots of text and numbers, but I don't really know what's going on (similar to the culture mapmpode). There is also nothing you can do in that mapmode, apparently. Religous crisis CB unlock automatically and have no relation to tenets. And worst of all - You can't build your holy site a couple of turns after you unlock it - seriously?

I'd really like to see the religious civics merge into the tenets and make them something more complex than a simple income bonus, and also affect your country's ideological parameters (as well as those of other countries!). Also, holy wars should be locked behind a tenet/civic.

• Separation of civics and tenets

• Religious grievances

Religion-based territorial grievance is not a holy war you think. It doesn't include forced replacement of state religion. There is another religious grievance locked behind the civic choice called "Religious Hostility" and you can it to anyone with a state religion other than yours. It can be used to make a demand and it will force the opponent to convert to your state religion if accepted.

The Spread is confusing and boring. 

3 reasons:
- it is not seen on the normal map mode.

- you don't get any stars

- spreading is boring, because you only have 1 metric: Just push out as much as possible. You cannot concentrate your efforts or have any other form of interplay. 

Tying your holy sites to an cap, supplemented by wonders is good, however. 

Yea the tenets are kind of boring bonuses right now. It's just choosing whether you want more science, money, influence or stability. I would like some more interesting bonuses. 

And at the current state, if you do not choose influence, you are doing it wrong (because influence is kind of important). So choosing a traditional civic and going all holy war is surprisingly effective to squash other civs.

If only there was something you could do to stop it.

I feel right now, Religion has biggest untapped potential of revealed features in Humankind. I was bit dissapointed by simplicity of Religion in Stadia OpenDev and felt Devs did a good job between the builds that improved the Religion to an extent.

Overall, Religion suffers from giving too much invisible power while feeling like it is not even there, feeling unipactful. Biggest part comes from the fact, that it is on itself rather abstract - both in real life and in Humankind. What feels good and flavourful are Tenets and Holy Sites.

Holy Sites are easiest way to interact with Religion, as they are visible on the world map. My only problem with them is that they don't feel really that much impactful or distinct from the artistical perspective. They are mostly really small and average looking considering they are most sacred places. Greater variety of their design (and simply bigger structures) with some visual flair that would pinpoint them as important features on the map would be great. Right now, things like Strategics have this sparkly flair that marks them, so something similar (like crowds of people with various accesories - lampions, ribbons and flags etc.) would be a way to make them like a true Places of Interest and Pillgrimage.

Another small thing I feel could be changed for better is the "Obelisk" of Polytheism Holy Site - right now, it looks nothing like advertised in the picture and having quite good knowledge of many Earthly religions, I have never seen any structure similar to that - which is weird choice, as simple Obelisk has really distinct and easily recognizable shapes - it might be to avoid confusion with Great Obelisk of Aksumites?

Most importantly, I had to ask one of the VIPs how to change the "Holy Site" to one of other Religions (i.e. Buddhism, Islam), as that feature is almost invisible. That brings me to another point - UI of the Religion.

Compared to other features like Civics and Technology Tree, UI of Religion screen is rather simple and kinda breaks the immersion - here I see most of the space for improving the Religious experience. Giving Religion Tenet screen distinct layout and colours could work, as well as some flavourful art for each of the Tenets. As mentioned above, chosing new Holy Sites could be highlighted to make it more noticeable.

Real-life Religions as of right now are purely aesthetic choice for the Religion - I understand, that Religious differentiation is meant to be made by Tenets, so it could be easier if all possible Holy Sites were displayed at once above or bellow the Tenets and player would be given choice to "Choose a new Tenet and as a bonus, you can build this awesome unique Holy Site, if you want!".

Speaking of Tenets, I really like the flavour of most of them, but I agree there could be more variety to them - both to the flavour and mechanics they bring (we need "Do not eat meat" Tenet!).

Mechanicaly, Tenets are the source of the invisible power I mentioned at the beginning. Their effects seem to be quite on the strong side, but for most of the time, they go unnoticed. As with other features, my choices of Tenets were done mostly for their flavour and role-play effects, so I did not optimize them, but there is sleeping tiger in there, ready to be exploited.

Lastly, as with most of the Religion, Religious map offers very little besides showing which territories follow which Religion. Most of the process of Faith generation and spreading goes behind the curtain, which is to an extent part of the elusiveness of the Religious subject as a whole (it helps it is not outright connected to Era Stars, as it feels easier to accept I, as a player, don't have direct control over it) - I like that there is room for obscurity and mystery, but I still feel there could be more ways for players to interact with the Religion - both through access to mechanics that would interact with it and by having Religion more intertwined with the rest of gameplay (by the events and something akin Cultural Osmosis).

Phew, another load of impressions off my back. Cheers!

I echo the above comments.

Compare religion in this game to Civilization and you see a stark difference.  In Civ, religion doesn't just give buffs, but adds unique infrastructure, unique units, ways to exploit resources, and a victor condition.  You have none of that here.

For a game that is so culture-forward, religion needs to be incorporated more as that is how history unfolded.  Religion shaped politics, warfare, and how governments are run.  I would love to see that incorporated into Humankind.

Some of Tenets were very powerful, such as +1 Culture or Money per religious followers on Holy Site, while other like +10 Science or Culture per Territory dominated by the Religion were (as Lucy said often in Diplomacy Screen) very... uninteresting. I think tenets need some balancing works.

In terms of Irreligion civic, the incentive for picking either Secularism or State Atheism felt too weak. Especially State Atheism! All of great bonuses of Religion are to be lost and no apparent bonus is present for that. (Except for the ability to easily remove foreign religion). I think there should be some bonuses to Irreligion Civic choices, since (in real life) religions often stand in the way of political/social/scientific/technological progress. Here are the things that come to my mind:

1) better outputs on Cities/Outposts (percentage modifiers): Science, Production, Money, or Stability?

2) +1/+2/+3 per Worker on Cities/Outposts: Science, Production, Money or Food?

3) instant/constant boost for War Score, when in War (maybe in later era?)

4) faster Civic point generation? Or Some later-era Civics should be unavailable for pious Civilizations?

It's more interesting than it was, but, it doesn't exactly take on a life of it's own. 

I have made a post about this before...
But I will just put it like this.
Religion, are on a technicality level (with stats and such) good...
HOWEVER, it is on a flavor level extremely poor. 
Let us create our own religion, add events perhaps context or stories behind choices? Events.
In the Lucy Open-dev was it more or less just a case of "okay, choose your Religion, now add stats to it"
Maybe osmething a bit "choose your own adventure" could be added? Where choices have concequences for future events?
Perhaps you could create a Pantheon? Maybe it would be possible of gaining multiple districts with multiple temples? I am not 100% sure what exactly could be done and fit the flavor, but being able to create a distinct religion would be neat :)

Amplitude is very good at quest tree's. It seems doable. 

NightlyRaver wrote:
For a game that is so culture-forward, religion needs to be incorporated more as that is how history unfolded.  Religion shaped politics, warfare, and how governments are run.  I would love to see that incorporated into Humankind.

Definitely this for better or [more often] worse, religion has shaped most all of human development.

PrinceCosmo wrote:

I think that Civ6 plays it smart with their Pantheon system. You are incentivized to have at least a little faith in order to receive a bonus based on how you wish to define your religion. But it's the sense of identity that makes it intriguing to me. If I have a lot of horses around me, I can pick God of the Open Sky for the bonus culture, or God of War for bonuses to using those horses for war. It's interesting, and most importantly there's a strategic decision to be made that will affect how your culture evolves!

I don't see how Civ is any better. You still are picking it based on strategic advantages either way, except instead of choosing one god, you choose multiple tenets. I love that Religion spreads passively, because in Civ 6 its an absolute pain to micro missionaries and apostles. Religious Victory in Civ 6 is just worse domination, because you don't actually get control of the city, and you units don't upgrade at all.

Religion was quite a deception. One choice, then wait to gain population to choose a FIMS. And again, and again but then it doesn't matter as I already have enough of all. At least the forth tenet is a little different.

The atheism civic was quite a surprise!

As it is the selling point of the game, I think religion would benefit from the "make your own civilization" appoach, with more unique tenets with specific effect instead of generic FIMS, and the ability to have new types of religions beside the first choice of polytheism/shamanism (maybe I have not unlocked the right civics for that).

Also some active actions beside the procession (which comes from a civic linked to religion) would be nice.

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

• Religious grievances

Religion-based territorial grievance is not a holy war you think. It doesn't include forced replacement of state religion. There is another religious grievance locked behind the civic choice called "Religious Hostility" and you can it to anyone with a state religion other than yours. It can be used to make a demand and it will force the opponent to convert to your state religion if accepted

Locking these things behind opaque civics is not a good thing if we have know way of knowing that they exist or how to unlock new ones. I had so many points, but had no idea how they opened up. I had to read the forums here to even understand that there are actual triggers, not just random events. 

Don't know if there just isn't enough information, or maybe I missed it, but I had a difficult time trying to play a religion/influence heavy game. despite bathing the continent in my influence and religion, I only gained a couple grievances that couldn't amount to any action. I had two influence grievances, one where they automatically flipped the territory to me, and the other that gave me a single unmet demand. I only generated a single religious territory grievance near the end of the game against an ally on the opposite continent. If I cant direct my religious influence and it seems to not give me any extra abilities diplomatically, It really just reduced it to "build holy site, hope for followers, get bonus"

jared743 wrote:

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

• Religious grievances

Religion-based territorial grievance is not a holy war you think. It doesn't include forced replacement of state religion. There is another religious grievance locked behind the civic choice called "Religious Hostility" and you can it to anyone with a state religion other than yours. It can be used to make a demand and it will force the opponent to convert to your state religion if accepted

Locking these things behind opaque civics is not a good thing if we have know way of knowing that they exist or how to unlock new ones. I had so many points, but had no idea how they opened up. I had to read the forums here to even understand that there are actual triggers, not just random events. 

Don't know if there just isn't enough information, or maybe I missed it, but I had a difficult time trying to play a religion/influence heavy game. despite bathing the continent in my influence and religion, I only gained a couple grievances that couldn't amount to any action. I had two influence grievances, one where they automatically flipped the territory to me, and the other that gave me a single unmet demand. I only generated a single religious territory grievance near the end of the game against an ally on the opposite continent. If I cant direct my religious influence and it seems to not give me any extra abilities diplomatically, It really just reduced it to "build holy site, hope for followers, get bonus"

I totally agree with the transparency issues in terms of revelation of Civics. Maybe at the time of launch, it would be solved by implementation of Humankind-in-game-Wiki. One could simply search "Civics" and see all the available Civics in the game and prerequisites for each of them.

As for certain functions/mechanisms being locked by specific Civics, I don't think it causes a huge problem. Historically, numerous ideas and actions were invented as the society changed. Let me explain using Nationalism. Nationalism was only devised in modern days, thanks to the developments of technological/scientific breakthroughs. Telecommunications, compulsory educations for youth and mass media(such as newspaper, radio, etc) made cohesive common sense possible, which greatly affect the formation of a nation as a sense.Therefore, it is natural for Humankind to make certain political actions locked behind a Civic related to Nationalism, simply because before that there was no such thing.