I want to start this post by saing that i really enjoyed playing this open beta (in particular I LOVED the battle system), and I can't wait to see the final product.

But the reason for early access is to improve, so I want to point out 3 aspects of the game that disappointed me during what was still a very enjoyable playtrough.

Note: So far I've finished 2 games at difficulty level Empire (5/7), winning both at 5200 and 6300 fame with the second few hundreds fame points below

1. Navy

The sea has been completely ignored by AI. Never ever met an enemy ship. I've built a couple of ships for exploration and that's it. No battles. The "new world" was all mine to take. It cannot be justified with the difficulty level that i chose, which was quite high. To me this is a very big issue and needs to be fixed by August because a strategy game without ships is unacceptable

2. Technologies

Or should I say technology cost. The pace of the game was correct: in both games I've played I managed to reach all eras including the 6th around turn 190, wich was what the developers had in mind for this opendev. Also the AI kept the pace, and everybody was more or less in the same era trough all the game. The problem was that technologically speaking all empires were far behind. I've barely managed to research a era V tech by the very end of the game, while the AI never did. Now, you might say that I'm not a good player (and you'd be right), but what about the AI? A level 5 out of 7 AI should be able to keep its tech matched with its era progress. In another very famous 4x game I play at difficulty 6/8 (more or less comparable to 5/7) and the AI manage to keep its tech updated to the current era, sometimes it even gets ahead. But in humankind not even the AI is able to reserch enough numbers of techs. In my opinion they cost too much. The techs of the first column cost 35 science each, the ones in the second column 100, more than double. It's hard to double your science in such a short time. In this opendev I'd say that the tech cost is calibrated for a 4/500 turns game, while the era progress (if you include the missing VI era) for 250/300 turns.

3. Religion

I've spent millennia building obelisks and stone fields. What about (insert your favourite monotheism here)? I don't know if i missed something, but also AI's religions were all either shamanism or polytheism. 

Some other smaller things could be improved as well, but this 3 things that I've mantioned could potentially RUIN the game if not fixed in time. So far Amplitude made a marvelous job, don't drop the ball now

Firstly, I agree with points 1 and 2 wholeheartedly. Apparently point 1 is well known by the devs and naval AI will be in the final release, as hoped. For the 3rd point, whenever you go to select a new tenet for your religion, you can also change the name of it, as well as picking from a few presets with a few random events each, also coming with new arts for the holy sites.

1. I didn't even touch naval combat in my first go around. Planning to for round 2 as it'll be fun to roleplay exploiting the new world and taking it all for me, but sad that it might be easier than expected from what you say about naval AI.
2. I think the majority seems in agreement that science and are progress are totally out of whack. In my game it did seem two AIs were ahead of me in research progress, but even then they were not close to keeping pace.
3. If you focus multiple cities on a holy site project, they don't take too long, but considering having to balance building units and city improvements constantly I wouldn't mind if holy sites took a bit less time. Leave the real big projects to Wonders. As for naming religions, it would be nice to see more variety. Although, MorshuHimself, you've blown my mind about renaming and new arts during tenet selection! Where do you do this? totally didn't notice it.

Thanks for the Religion tip. Religion mechanic was very good, i liked the tenet idea and also how religion affects relations with other empires. It was just a problem with aesthetics. Now thanks to you I know which button I have to click, but also the AI should evolve their religion style, since everytime they still have polytheism in industrial era