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.